POOR QUALITY RIDING AND TUITION

Maria

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Jul 23, 1999
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A recurrent theme on the bulletin boards seems to be the poor quality tuition and riding experience that riding schools and their instructors provide for new riders (and indeed more experienced riders wishing to improve). I’m also greatly concerned about the standard of riding in the UK generally - including by those who profess to be "qualified to teach others to ride! It’s horrifying to read about the abuse to our favourite four-legged friends that results from such appalling tuition and riding.

This seems to be a problem in the UK and abroad, but for starters I wondered if we might kick off a discussion to find out the extent of the problem in the UK and on a more positive note generate some ideas about how the system might be improved.

· Do bad experiences outweigh good ones?

· Are bad experiences confined to particular types of riding school or instructors (e.g. those not approved by national bodies such as the BHS or ABRS, or relatively inexperienced instructors)?

· What do good experiences have in common?

It would seem from the bulletin boards that some people have had bad experiences with the BHS system - my personal experiences of it overall are far from positive. Perhaps Janet George, given her responsibilities for PR within the BHS, may wish to comment. (And yes Janet - I’m a fully paid up BHS member who personally would like to see major changes from within rather than abandoning the system totally but I have real doubts about whether the BHS is willing to change).

And moving on to the future:

. How can we improve the standard of riding nationally?

· What do you want from a riding school/riding instructor?

· Do we need to start with a completely new system? Or should we be seeking to influence current systems for the better? Or perhaps supporting Heather in getting the "Enlightened Equitation Teaching Foundation" off the ground?
 
Hello

I've noticed all the posts about bad instructors too.

Just on a positive note- I have the best instructor you can imagine. I have a weekly lesson with her and she is the kindest, most confidence inspiring instructor you could hope for.

When I started in April - I was a nervous wreck on a horse that wasn't really that suitable for me....now, although we're not ever going to win any medals I am never happier than when I'm riding and the nerves are barely there at all.

It's so important to get the right teacher - if I hadn't been so lucky, I'm sure I wouldn't have perservered.

Light at the end of the tunnel maybe....
 
I'd also like to hear of your experiences to build up a picture of riding tuition here in the UK. If you would prefer not to put your experiences on this message board please email me directly mike@newrider.com . I'd particularly like to hear from adult novices and how you found the whole experience of finding a school, your first lessons, the instructors etc.

Mike
 
Maria,

My feeling is that the overall quality of tuition is very varied. I've experience of 5 schools, 3 of which were BHS.

In the BHS ones, I found that the horses were generally better cared for, and they stables were better organised - however the tuition was unadventurous and often poor. The schools which had ABRS and not BHS seemed better teachers, but often treated the horses worse.

That's only a general pattern though - the key thing was the instructor: if an average instructor left then the next instructor could well be much better or much worse...no consistency at all.

There also seem to be very little interest in the teaching by the schools themselves.

I think that it will be very difficult to get schools to improve unless more funding is made available. One of my instructors was paid 90p per hour! Most decent instructors seem to leave for private eventing or SJ yards.

Finally, I do get the impression that the vast majority of people seeking lessons are either very early beginners (< 6 months) or teenagers. Perhaps this is reflected in the level of instruction?

Karl R
 
As someone who moves around a lot, I have both taught and been taught at several schools around the UK. I have found it extremely difficult to get quality tuition at a high level (I make a 320 mile round trip twice a month for instruction), and have found myself under extraordinary pressure to teach long hours and large groups, neither of which is safe or effective. At one school in scotland, I had to give a lesson to fourteen pupils. There was barely enough room for all the horses and ponies in the school! And, this school was approved by both BHS and ABRS, despite having horses and young as 2 in lessons, visible girth galls in the summer months, and working horses for as much as six hours a day. A few suggestions:
1. Perhaps the BHS and ABRS should conduct 'surprise' inspections, rather than giving a school several days notice to get ready for an inspection, and could confidentially interview staff and clients.
2. Like other professional organisations, a more rigid and structured programme of continuing professional development could be promoted, preventing all those AI/PI's getting a qualification and then settling into one job and not seeking to learn. While a accept the principle behind the BHS 500 hours rule for PI's, 500 hours of experience just for the sake of it does not necessarily make a better teacher, and many young instructors are working long hours just to reach the 500 hour mark. And, those of us who are forced to teach part-time because we need better paying jobs have no hope of proceeding through the exam structure.
3. A system whereby students could publicly commend good instructors at whatever level, so that we can use other's good experiences to find instructors to try
4. Like the ABRS, the BHS could open its mind to more alternative teacing methods, judging exam candidates by their ability to improve horses and riders in a lesson, rather than their ability to stick to a brief. Welcoming western riding instruction into their organisations would be a good start.
5. Quality tuition is expensive. There is no benefit to paying teachers low wages and expecting long hours. Perhaps we as clients need to be prepared to pay a bit more, but there needs to be more discussion around riding schools as a business, and the costs school owners have to face.
6. As students, we can help instructors provide value for money by turning up for lessons correctly dressed and in plenty of time, making the effort to learn how to get ourselves ready and safe, and appreciating that correct leading, mounting, and safety checks are all part of a good lesson. This goes particularly to all those pony club parents who have complained to me that in an hour lesson their children only rode for 40 minutes! I'm sure they wouldn't have felt that way if I'd ignored the safety checks and a child had had an accident as a result!

I'm sure this is an important issue to all concerned, and I hope that our comments here will be heard far and wide by riding schools, the bhs, and the abrs!
 
Alright, I know I am supposed to be editing videos, but even I deserve a night off!

I emailed Janet George several weeks ago with reports from various members about the poor standard of tuition that they had received in BHS approved schools. My concern was particularly prompted after member Destin, aka Tony, wrote of his experiences as a beginner, when after only a couple of months of lessons, he was put on a large four year old who, it was admitted, had not been out of the stable in two days. He had seen the horse bucking badly with someone the previous week too. I was astonished, that any BHS approved school would put a beginner on a green four year old. It transpires that when the unfortunate youngster began to 'misbehave' (no doubt merely trying to communicate his confusion and probably pain), the qualified instructress kicked the horse several times in the belly. 'Destin' remarked that if this was how one rode horses, he would stick to motorbikes.

This was one of several incidents that I outlined in my post to Janet.

As I have never received an acknowledgement, far less a reply, I can only hope that Janet did not receive my email. If not, it says little for the PR department of the BHS. And yes, I am a fully paid up member and have been for years. I believe that we do need a national body to monitor and encourage good teaching standards, but I have said this before in print, and I will say it again, that the BHS standards fall far short of being satisfactory.

Heather
 
Heather, (if you are still taking a break from your video editing!) do you think the ABRS fare any better than the BHS in this respect? If you yourself were a new rider looking for a riding school and had the choice would you go for one that was BHS approved or ABRS approved? On the basis of the data you and Mike have gathered regarding peoples' experiences would you expect an establishment approved by either of these bodies to be any better than one that has approval from neither?

Kathy C
 
This makes depressing reading, particularly since nothing seems to have improved in the past few years. For several years in my teens/twenties (up until around nine years ago), I had regular lessons and found that the quality of tuition was usually poor. Switching from place to place (at least five riding centres) I would first learn something one way, then be told by a new instructor, that no, this was rubbish, I was terrible, I was doing it wrong etc. I never knew where I was. The attitude was usually to shout at and ridicule, rather than explain and encourage. It was often discouraging and sometimes humiliating - I stopped having lessons for years and going for lessons today still gives me a sick feeling, even though my current instructor is a close friend. I've ridden green four-year olds in lessons, jumped on a veteran pony who in retrospect, was probably in a lot of pain, and been put on allegedly reschooled 'problem horses' that had been bought cheap (and luckily had the experience to handle them, although the riding schools had no idea of this before they put me on them). At one place, the horses were all so underweight that they barely had the energy to trot. (These were all approved places, by the way).
I had hoped that the incidents I've read about on this board were isolated ones, and that generally, things were getting better. Apparently not.
 
Mike in reply to your enquiry.

My husband took up riding eighteen months ago at over 50. We are very lucky that we have access to a saddle club (approved by the BHS) but run by the army and so John took lessons with them. The Corporal of Horse who took these lessons was very patient and explained everything very clearly and well. The lessons were given on saddle club horses that are all fit, t/b x i/d. I do know that we are lucky to have access to the military system but most saddle clubs at army bases will take some civilian members. Having said that maybe we are just lucky in the one that we live near - Brunei Stables, Sandhurst, Berkshire.

We are civilians but I am secretary of the local RDA group that is run in the Academy.

If you would like any more information let me know.

Regard
Vicki
 
There has been some correspondence in this vein in the letters pages of Horse and Hound over the last couple of weeks. I have today written a letter to Horse and Hound concerning this topic, and it will be interesting to see whether it is published uncensored. I have never had a letter published yet in H and H that hadn't been watered down!

Will keep you posted.


Heather
 
This is what we need, a loud enough voice to pull these riding schools and so called instructors into the 21st century and prepare them for battle. We are the paying customer and our love of horses is why we often learn to ride.
Months ago I wrote to this forum regarding the two riding schools I had attended. One was not registered and one was. I was shouted at at the non registreded school and very rarely left the redmuck circle of the outdoor school and the second registered school took me out on two hacks on a headstrong prone to gallop at the drop of a hat six year old.
We need control before one of us is either badly or fatally injured.
I thank my lucky stars that I have a fantastic private owner teaching me now, otherwise I would have put the gear in the cupboard and never ridden again.
 
In my experience teaching of riding in this country is pretty poor. It's about time the BHS opened their eyes and woke up. Why isn't some of Heather's teaching techniques taken on board - they should be welcoming her advise and experience. I believe sooner or later someone will decide to cater to the rider's needs for once and set up a teaching environment that is sympathetic to both horse and rider and we will all be able to vote with our feet.
 
Watch this space Claire. If we can get funding, my greates wish for the millennium is to set up an 'Enlightened Equitation Teaching Foundation', one where we can pass on these simple, logical methods to others who want to learn to teach this way. I need funding so that we can set up a decent, charitable status organisation, hopefully being able to offer grants and subsidies to enable those who couldn't otherwise afford to do the course.

Any suggestions as to how to obtain funding would be very welcome. The Lottery is not a suitable option at this point. If we were some obscure group of artists wanting to wrap the Empire State Building in psychedelic loo paper, then I have no doubt that they would be rushing to give us millions, but being a worthy cause, I doubt whether the application would get further than the rubbish bin on the ground floor.

Heather
 
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Heather:
If we were some obscure group of artists wanting to wrap the Empire State Building in psychedelic loo paper, then I have no doubt that they would be rushing to give us millions, but being a worthy cause, I doubt whether the application would get further than the rubbish bin on the ground floor.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

hmmm. true enough, perhaps, but i sincerely doubt that the National Endowment for the Arts has anything to do with riding! and hell, they're not even giving money to artists these days, anyway! ;)

(ok, ok, i'll stop being a smartypants! start me on political opposition to arts education and funding, and i go insane!) ;)

[This message has been edited by cynthia (edited 20 December 1999).]

[This message has been edited by cynthia (edited 20 December 1999).]
 
In answer to (poor) teachers: I tried out another riding school here in Holland this Christmas, because it was closer to my house. I am a beginner, 34 and have had 10 lunge lessons, so I can just about trot, but have not quite managed to aid with my legs.
The first school (to which I shall be returning soon), has a very patient teacher and even though it takes me many lessons to overcome my fears, it is ok and treats the horses with respect. The second school left me with hardly any help in saddling the horse, and the teacher shouted at me that I was not cooperating enough (after I had sweated for an hour on the horse), and humiliated and demotivated me. Now, a week later, I do not want to return to that school, feeling that I can never learn to ride and thus feeling a useless rider. Why did she yell at me, because I am not an 'averidge' beginner? It is my hobby and pleasure to learn to ride, and I am not going there to be shouted at and in tears.
I will read some more of your notes in new ider, to get some new motivation!
ps how does one use the legs properly in trot??
Best wishes,
Annabelle
 
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