Tell me your riding lesson story. Why you decided to take lessons? How long it had been since you’d last taken lessons? What do you hope to accomplish by taking lessons, especially if you just trail ride and don’t show?
I haven’t started to take lessons yet, though I’ve begun to look for a trainer to take lessons with. I’ve just - finally - begun to return to the point where I can have horses again after ten years without them and I feel like I could use the riding refresher even though I only intend to trail ride with my husband. We’ve done a lot of trail riding through state parks for the last couple of years with other people’s horses and it’s really what he’s comfortable with and capable of.
One of the world’s greatest pianists EVER, Vladamir Horowitz, had a teacher until his death at the age of 86. Why? When asked he said that a good teacher helped him be a better pianist…at a time when he was the best in the world and maybe the best that ever was.
There is a myth that “just trail riding” doesn’t require skill, judgement, and expertise. It does. It’s a “doing activity” so you don’t learn it all from a book or spending time in the school with your horse. But you lay the foundation in the school and from time to time you ought to have a coach check your foundation to ensure it’s still “sound.”
Lessons have to do with being the best you can be at what you do. They have nothing to do with ribbons, trophies, or other such things.
G.
I take lessons when I am competing. I ride with a trainer that has competed at the national level successfully and holds a judges card. I just need help with some of the nuances of showing, patterns, etc.
[QUOTE=Guilherme;8531346]
One of the world’s greatest pianists EVER, Vladamir Horowitz, had a teacher until his death at the age of 86. Why? When asked he said that a good teacher helped him be a better pianist…at a time when he was the best in the world and maybe the best that ever was.
There is a myth that “just trail riding” doesn’t require skill, judgement, and expertise. It does. It’s a “doing activity” so you don’t learn it all from a book or spending time in the school with your horse. But you lay the foundation in the school and from time to time you ought to have a coach check your foundation to ensure it’s still “sound.”
Lessons have to do with being the best you can be at what you do. They have nothing to do with ribbons, trophies, or other such things.
G.[/QUOTE]
I will just add this to the above excellent post. You owe it to your horse to ride to the best of your ability. My showing days are far behind me, but weekly lessons keep me safe and my horse happy.
I’m 61, and I mean to keep riding as long as I can sit up.
Yes, because I need to know how to communicate with my horse, not just be a passenger. When the horse is scared or is being obnoxious/not listening, I need a toolbox of well-practiced, calm, gentle-but-clear cues to remind the beast who the lead mare is. And even when the horse is being wonderful, I need to know how to be a good member of the team – how to ride quietly but responsively, how to be easy to carry, how to help the horse have a good ride, how to help the horse negotiate obstacles, how to reassure the horse when the horse needs confidence, how to make cues as quiet or as loud as they need to be to be the smoothest partner, etc.
I haven’t in about a year or so, but I started out as a kid with hunters and took lessons once a week at least. Then in college onto jumpers and dressage and did lessons 3-5x’s a week. Then after college and for the last several years, I’ve done dressage lessons and cliniced when I could. You never stop learning and having eyes on the ground is invaluable at times.
Currently all of the lessons I teach are ladies who want to trail ride safely and have fun 
I use a lot of dressage basics and translate them to the trails.
I haven’t in a long while, but would not hesitate to, particularly if I was experiencing a certain issue.
No matter what discipline you ride, we all can fall into bad habits or become the cause of an issue with our horses. A good instructor or trainer can root out those problems and help us correct them. Many do not realize how much good equitation contributes to a happy horse and a good ride.
I still ride with a trainer even though I am primarily a trail rider now. I will probably do a little Ranch Horse Riding this summer but need to regularly ride for my and my horse’s fitness, too. It keeps me sharp and it’s just plain fun, too.
I’m a trail rider and take lessons. With past horses I took a few here and there, and usually took group lessons during the winter. This spring I adopted a 6 year old mare with 90 days training on her at some point in her past. I’m taking lessons to better myself as a rider, to get guidance in training my horse, and because I enjoy them.
My story in lessons started when I was 16. I spent the summer with my aunt, taking lessons at a local barn. I took a riding class in college. I got my own horses in 2007 and took lessons here and there. Now I’m learning a lot with my new mare, and I will probably take lessons until I can’t ride. I do it when I can, once a week, a couple times a month.
Yes, I take lessons, and all I do is trail ride. I’m an aging rider and find that lessons help me compensate for changes in my body so that I can be a more effective, more balanced rider. It is very easy to fall into bad habits without being aware of it. As a trail rider, I often ride 3-6 hours at a time. I think it’s more important for a trail rider to ride correctly than it is for someone who is only schooling their horse for an hour or so each ride. When I am loading my pony to haul to an occasional lesson, my husband will sometimes ask me when I think I will finally learn how to ride.
I show when I need to put a resume on a sale horse, but the main point of riding for me is the training and accessing 100% of the horse’s genetic potential. If canter pirouettes are in there somewhere, I want to be able to get them. After all, I have to pay the same board bill every month whether I have access to 90% of my horse or just 15%.
As part of the overall program, I hack out fairly extensively when facilities allow, especially on young horses. I have never had a ‘problematic’ trail horse; their tuning in the arena translates to the trails, and they stay rideable and relaxed throughout.
The more access to (and thus control of) a horse a rider has, the more confident they will feel. With my fearful students I teach them how to put the horse on the bit, how to raise expectations/performance of transitions, and how to laterally influence the horse. All of a sudden without any confidence pep talk from me whatsoever they are more confident and less fearful, simply because they have more tools in their toolbox and more control.
I see a lot of trail riders who are timid, and quite honestly if I was as insecure in the saddle as they were and my horse were only letting me ride 30% of him I would be wetting myself. Their horses spook, they go too fast or too slow, they won’t cross x stream or y bridge, they wheel around and run home (…?!)… and the riders do not have the toolkit or security in the saddle to address it. Of course that is scary!!
So while trail riding is part of a holistic program, I think moving up the levels in the arena really gives both horse and rider the best experience. And you can access 100% of your horse instead of just scratching get the surface. If horse shows fell off the face of the earth I would still take lessons.
[QUOTE=Guilherme;8531346]
One of the world’s greatest pianists EVER, Vladamir Horowitz, had a teacher until his death at the age of 86. Why? When asked he said that a good teacher helped him be a better pianist…at a time when he was the best in the world and maybe the best that ever was.
There is a myth that “just trail riding” doesn’t require skill, judgement, and expertise. It does. It’s a “doing activity” so you don’t learn it all from a book or spending time in the school with your horse. But you lay the foundation in the school and from time to time you ought to have a coach check your foundation to ensure it’s still “sound.”
Lessons have to do with being the best you can be at what you do. They have nothing to do with ribbons, trophies, or other such things.
G.[/QUOTE]
This.
[QUOTE=meupatdoes;8532070]
I show when I need to put a resume on a sale horse, but the main point of riding for me is the training and accessing 100% of the horse’s genetic potential. If canter pirouettes are in there somewhere, I want to be able to get them. After all, I have to pay the same board bill every month whether I have access to 90% of my horse or just 15%.
As part of the overall program, I hack out fairly extensively when facilities allow, especially on young horses. I have never had a ‘problematic’ trail horse; their tuning in the arena translates to the trails, and they stay rideable and relaxed throughout.
The more access to (and thus control of) a horse a rider has, the more confident they will feel. With my fearful students I teach them how to put the horse on the bit, how to raise expectations/performance of transitions, and how to laterally influence the horse. All of a sudden without any confidence pep talk from me whatsoever they are more confident and less fearful, simply because they have more tools in their toolbox and more control.
I see a lot of trail riders who are timid, and quite honestly if I was as insecure in the saddle as they were and my horse were only letting me ride 30% of him I would be wetting myself. Their horses spook, they go too fast or too slow, they won’t cross x stream or y bridge, they wheel around and run home (…?!)… and the riders do not have the toolkit or security in the saddle to address it. Of course that is scary!!
So while trail riding is part of a holistic program, I think moving up the levels in the arena really gives both horse and rider the best experience. And you can access 100% of your horse instead of just scratching get the surface. If horse shows fell off the face of the earth I would still take lessons.[/QUOTE]
Good post and an interesting contrast to dressage riders who lesson all the time but are afraid to take their dressage horse out of the arena onto the trail. They may be getting a different 30% of their horse than the above-mentioned trail riders get out of theirs, but it is all a pity that they are not getting that 100% or even trying.
Love to trail ride and go out frequently. But I also aspire to show in dressage, HJ schooling shows, and eventing. I like to mix things up. I can’t imagine having a horse that did not get to go out on the trail regularly. I think having a variety of activities makes for a well rounded and happy horse.
Thanks for the awesome responses. I really appreciate that they were very varied and awesomely worded and explained.
I’m in my early 30s and haven’t taken lessons in about 20 yrs. I’ve owned horses and been trail riding continuously that whole time. I’ve known lots of trail riders over the years who for one reason or another decide to start taking lessons. And I’m always intrigued by their reasons and you guys hit everyone of them right on the head. But you’ve worded them so much better than I’ve ever heard before.
I am thinking about taking lessons again and its on my mind a lot. However, due to issues at work, I can’t even begin to look for an instructor. I’m also unsure of what I want to accomplish by taking lessons. Which is why I thought I’d beef up my “research” into why some trail riders take lessons.
I predominately trail ride lately. I did a lot of trail riding as a kid with no lessons at all. As an adult, I did some hunter showing, low level dressage, low level combined tests, a couple of low level events, hunter paces, fox hunting, team penning. For the majority of the hunter riding, I did take lessons, and then some occasional clinics for the other stuff. I still do some occasional clinics thru the riding club I belong to. I do have a few friends that are taking some lessons although they mainly trail ride. The one lady’s horse has been injured and is just about ready to be rehabbed, so she wanted to get back in the saddle on a school horse to get her balance and stamina back. Another friend recently got a new horse and is needing some assistance in figuring out how to work with the horse.
sort of. I’m the “extra horse in the ring” at my granddaughter’s trainer’s barn. I take my trail horse (reiner in his past life) and do what the kids do in the lesson --walk, trot, canter, reverse, etc. They practice passing me or changing gaits when I’m doing one (like a trot) and their horses are supposed to walk. If I have a problem, the trainer will give me a suggestion (best way to open a gate, side pass, etc). But formal lesson? Not for a few years. Used to have clinicians here and always took a lesson from them --but that hasn’t been for 5-6 years.
Foxglove
I grew up taking lessons and have had lessons my whole life - but I always loved trail riding! So I guess my experience is backward from yours in that I’ve always had lessons and when I brought my horses home I used trail riding as part of a conditioning program (except for one place when I was in HS, the barns where I boarded didn’t have trails).
I haven’t been in a regular lesson program for a couple of years (started with h/j, then eventing, then dressage), but have continued my education with clinics to learn new skills (Buck Brannaman, Harry Whitney, Bryan Neubert, and some others) that weren’t part of my “traditional” english-riding upbringing.
I’m looking for someone to start lessons with with my pony. She’ll be four this spring and I’m not necessarily looking for specific discipline-related lessons (that will come), but experiences for her to get out and about and see places other than my farm. There’s a horsemanship barn near me that does a lot of kids’ lessons and so I think that will be a low-key place to get the pony out and about and exposed to a lot of new things. I hand-walk her on the BLM trails near my house, and I’ve ridden her on the little trails on my property, but it is time to see the big world and so I’m ready to start some related lessons.
I think educating oneself as a rider only benefits both horse and rider and I think everyone should take lessons!
I quit showing years ago and am only a trail rider now. I do a 4 day Connected Riding clinic every year and have for over 10 years. It helps remind my body and brain how to ride the most balanced and work on riding with the least amount of restrictions so my horse can move his best, plus I can ride without pain.
