Lessons

[Melisa]

Hello all: I have a quick question. I’ve been taking beginner lessons (once a week) for about six months now. My instructor has encouraged me to ride bareback in a arena on a beginner horse which is fine, but to date I feel like I haven’t learned proper basics riding skills including proper tack fitting and/ or simple leg cues. Should I be further along by now? I appreciate your thoughts and suggestions about what to do moving forward. Thank you.

 

[carthorse]

It's hard to say whether or not you should be further along since we all learn at different speeds and also you don't say what you're actually doing.

Tack fitting is a big subject and not one I would expect a riding school to cover. There are a huge number of factors to consider with saddle fitting, and that's before you take into account horse and rider preferences. Bridle fitting is a bit less complicated but still not something a riding school would be looking to teach, and bitting can make my head spin since it's one of those areas where everything can be right on paper but the horse says a hard no and prefers something that is in theory unsuitable..

Conventional leg aids are something I would expect to be taught from the start since that's basic riding. Likewise a correct position and when the seat is more established an acceptable contact.

 

[Melisa]

Thank you. I appreciate your feedback very helpful. I’m currently walking the horse around an arena bareback. I haven’t learned to trot yet.

 

[Jessey]

@Melisa welcome to NR do you mean tack fitting as in checking if the tack is suitable for the horse (what @carthorse is describing), or do you mean how to tack up as in to put the tack on the horse in preparation for riding? If it is the latter, this is still something that most beginners aren’t taught in general riding lessons, generally you go on to do some specific stable management lessons where you learn this , basic horse care and how to groom and muck out etc.

In terms of how your riding is progressing, I’ll bet if you ride bareback a lot you have developed a lovely seat with excellent balance. I would have expected you would be working on trot by now, do you just walk around the outside of the arena or are you working on finer control using different shapes etc.?

Are you riding at an official riding school with a qualified instructor or just with an individual letting you ride their personal horse?

 

[Skib]

I too had lessons bareback. But only in my 2nd year of riding. The teacher explained that riding bareback and thus improving my balance would reduce the likelihood of my falling off. I also rode a lot with no stirrups. At the end of each lesson, like you I was left to myself on the horse with no particular instructions about how to steer or how to control the speed.

At my first RS, I was simply told to look where I wanted to go and the horse would go in that direction. I would do a lot of closing my eyes and praying. What adult beginners really need, since we are human, is a verbal explanation of what we are signalling to the horse.

More advanced riders can indeed steer the horse by just looking in the direction they want to go. But beginners benefit from a basic introduction to conventional aids using their hands and legs. Start with A B C before you attempt to appreciate literature.

I always wore a body protector when riding bareback and the horse was in a neck strap too. Eventually I learned to trot bareback and how to balance myself bareback in trot on both reins (going in both directions round the circle or round the school)

Some teachers believe students need to be able to canter bareback or even with no stirrups, but I started riding in old age and never did this. I think the idea is that if a new rider loses a stirrup when cantering, they will be able to continue riding, can control the horse, balance on it and wont fall off. I have never lost a stirrup when cantering so with me the situation didnt arise.

But this shows that every rider and every horse is different.

As for putting on and taking off the tack. I think learning how to do that is important too because one is dealing safely with the horse and doing things to it from the ground. Horses can kick and bite. It sometimes feels as if one is making no progresss, But apart from untacking the pony and putting on a rug, I did none of this till my 2nd year of riding. It was years before I put on a bridle.

My husband never learned how to tack up and untack a horse. On traditional UK yards, a groom would prepare the horse for a genteman to ride. At some point my OH was asked whether he wanted to learn how to do this himself and he said that he didnt.

 

[carthorse]

As @Jessey says you should have developed a nice seat and balance by now, but I have to say that after 6 months of weekly lessons I would want to be further along and riding in tack too. Have you discussed any of this with your RI? If they aren't interested in you doing more I'd look for a different school since I suspect in another 6 months you'll be no further along or closer to doing anything outside an arena.

 

[Doodle92]

I'm just going to mention the tacking up issues

Quite often there simply isn't time to teach the rider to tack up. I would start at 8.30 and had to have 6 ponies in, groomed and tacked up and have riders on ready for lesson at 9. If I were to teach each rider how to do that I would have maybe 1 pony done.

If I had time in the afternoon and ponies were not being used again I would show how to untack and rug up but that could change a 30sec job in to a 10 min job

Learning about tacking up etc was left for "own a pony" days or "stable management" when the weather was terrible.

 

[Skib]

That is correct. I paid extra for two stable management lessons, one on learning how to groom and one on how to tack up. I didnt forget grooming. Yards will always allow students they have trained to do lots of grooming. (It is free labour). But I did forget how to tack up.

My advice is that it isnt worth paying to learn how to do something lke tack up. unless you are actually going to do it. It also turned out that putting on a rug was a more useful skill than tacking up.

 

[newforest]

Learning to tack up would come under stable management.
Find out if your stables offer anything like this, or the local riding club, even college courses.
Its a great hands on way to go things.
You will also meet people on the courses as well.
We never stop learning around horses.

 

[Doodle92]

Thankyou for the validation