Book recommendations for a new rider?

New Rider Nic

New Rider Nic

Active Member
Jan 6, 2015
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Motherwell, Scotland
I’m only 4 months into learning to ride, but I’m looking for as much help and guidance as possible and I’m completely horse obsessed already :D
Can anyone recommend any good books suitable for a new rider starting out?
 
I'd second that. Also Enlightened Equitation by Heather Moffett and The Less than Perfect Rider by Lesley Bayley and Caroline Davis and anything by Mark Rashid.
 
I've never found riding technique books any use at all because I can't tell if I am doing what they suggest! But I love groundwork books, training books and horse behaviour/psychology books. So depends what you want really. If your focus is riding well I'd focus on lessons not books. If you just love all things horsey then my favourite books are anything by Mark Rashid, The Fearless Horse, and Clare Balding's My Animals and Other Family which is not a techniue book at all but is very very horsey!!
 
One problem is that we new riders lack the riding vocabulary to understand books designed for skilled riders. Enlightened Equitation itself (one book which was was beyond me) with her use of bits, redesigned saddles and sophisticated dressage training is not applicable to basic RS beginner lessons and horses where you use what you are given. I believe that Heather Moffet later wrote an e book for new riders. I have seen it mentioned recently and it could possibly be available, I would email and ask her, or you can find her via Facebook Enlightened Equitation.
If you are in the UK, I used the Pony Club handbook for easy reference. The handbooks that go with the Stage 1 British Horse Society exams would be good too. But I also got hold of a brilliant USA book by a British Riding Instructor, Michael W.Smith, Getting the Most from Riding Lessons. It was a wonderful book because he described lessons at various stages of learning and on a variety of horses each suited to the lesson content -
If you are a new RS student and handling horses on the ground and interested in the psychology of showing them what you want them to do, then I suggest Kelly Marks Perfect Manners - How you should behave so that your horse does too. I started riding b e fore it was published and used her earlier leaflets.

Dont forget that these days there are lots of vids on Youtube showing people riding and handling horses. I bought a lot of videos and went to as many demos as possible. I think my brain works by mimicking what I see other people do. There are many situations that for health and safety cant be reproduced in riding lessons. If you can find an opportunity to watch the most skilled trainers at work handling horses, seize it even if you are beginner. I rarely open any of the UK books I have but the images of trainers I watched handling ignorant, rude or recalcitrant and fearful horses are there fresh in my mind.

The American trainers Buck Brannagan and Mark Rashid are both going to be in UK this summer. Michael Peace and Richard Maxwell are other trainers I like to watch.
 
I bought a very old fashioned book from ebay when I first started having regular lessons. It's called The Occasional Horseman by George Canning. Although old fashioned a lot of it rings true and it helped me loads in the first few months of my lessons. It answered a lot of questions I seemed to forget to ask on the day / evening of my lessons. It will be out of publication now I should think but there's probably a lot still second hand available.
 
Thanks so much for all the responses. I've made a list and will have a good look.

I'm spending loads of time watching you tube videos too. So helpful.

I really struggled to 'get' diagonals until I found a video flimed from the riders perspective that explains it. it clicked instantly after that. My RI now tells her other students to watch it.
 
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The unique thing about Heather Moffett is that she tells you how to sit the trot easily, and I've never found anyone else who did that so clearly. There used to be extracts from her book in here, with pictures; I don't know if it's stll around, I couldn't find it but I only did a quick search. It's true that it's easy to misunderstand or to overdo things if you're relying on books alone; that's why I didn't include the wonderful Sylvia Loch in my list - she really is talking about subtleties. But I don't think you can go wrong with Mark Rashid - there's nothing technical in there - or Sally Swift.
 
Enlightened Equitation by Heather Moffett, brilliant book, she explains everything so well that even a numpty like me could understand it:p
 
Thanks New Rider Nic. That is how I was taught and I hate to say it how I failed.
I am interested that in the first half the commentary went dow down down before insterting any rises. That is how I eventually managed it. And still do. By thinking to myself Sit Sit Sit and eventually inserting the rises.
It works better that way round because rising from the saddle and shifting the weight to the stirrups involves a time lag. By the time you have seen the outside leg move forward, and the message passes from your eye, to your brain to the muscles in your legs, the moment to rise has already passed.
What isnt so good from a beginner point of view either is that this method of watching the front outside leg encourages the rider to look down and that can alter their balance and frequently stop the horse.
 
I think it worked for me because, as you say, it shifted my focus to when to sit rather than when to rise - which was how my RI was explaining it. I just couldn't get it that way. But it clicked after watching this, at first I did have to look down, then just glance with my eyes. But now I can usually get it by feel alone, although I still occasionally glance down if I'm changing rein a lot in a lesson
 
What helped me was thinking that if I sat when the inside leg was on the ground (inside shoulder back), then the horse would fall over. (not literally, of course!) Sitting when the inside leg was down meant we were balanced .. The other thing that helped was that my first pony was coloured, and one shoulder was white, the other brown. I learned to look surreptitiously by sort of squinting down my nose :D
 
Well, I've been riding my own pony and having lessons for 5 years now, and I still get it wrong at least 50% of the time, making my choice of diagonal statistically random!
 
The odd thing about my SIT SIT solution is that I recently mentioned it to our RI as being one of the most useful suggestions she had made to me. Saying how grateful I was, and she said she couldnt remember saying it at all! And if she had, it must have been one of the many times she needs to find some way of working round an intractable problem for a particular student in difficulties.

I acquired a great catalogue of riding advice and solutions from this particular teacher and from NR which assumed mega importance, and I always thought that one of the expert RIs who taught me would write a book on how to teach old people to ride.
But it seems that it isnt like that at all. They have already forgotten and moved on to the next student.
 
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