That is strange but I do see that the norm is for smaller time slots. I wouldn’t find any value in a lesson that short either.
One of the instructors I truck into has swapped to offering only 30 or 45m sessions. If you show up warmed up already I find it immensely better than your traditional 1 hour block.
I suspect that the model is that the riders never ride outside the supervision of the instructor.
In some cases this is due to highly restrictive insurance clauses. No riding outside of an instructor’s active supervision = lesson.
Sometimes the instructor wants to see how warm-up is being done. And in some cases I think it is just the culture.
But whatever the reason, this practice explains why so many kids have zero experience riding outside of arenas. And why so many kids don’t seem to be learning as much or progressing much – they aren’t getting much productive ride time. But it is the same for all the kids in the program, so nothing stands out.
I am sure a lot of us are more accustomed to the expectation that warm-up and cool down are done before and after the instructor may even be present. The instructor’s time is entirely on the lesson itself, which we don’t think includes either period.
Agreed on not understanding the value. My trainer really doesn’t either—she offers 30 minute lessons but they aren’t her favorite to teach and her expectation is that you’ll be warmed up when your lesson starts if that’s the length you’ve picked. I don’t typically warm up outside of my lessons (with the exception of the few minutes it takes us to walk down from the mounting block by the barn to the outdoor), but that’s because I lesson for an hour and my horse is green enough that our warmups are a learning opportunity as much as what we get into afterward. If my trainer is running over with the prior student (which happens occasionally) then I’ll warm myself up while they’re finishing.
I do think doing those things during lessons is useful, especially with new riders who genuinely don’t know how to warm a horse up properly (I know an unfortunate number of people who think that a couple of laps on the rail at each gait counts as a warmup), but as already pointed out, how do you do that with a 30-minute timeslot and progress beyond it? The general lack of self-sufficiency that I see from a lot of people irks me, and it doesn’t just apply to kids. Obviously there are exceptions, but the average equestrian should absolutely be able to tack up and warm up their horse and get where they need to be when they need to be there without needing their trainer to oversee their every move.
There was just a recent Chronicle article from the owner of a barn local to me about how they’ve moved to “semester” programs for their lessons. I wonder how much more of that we’ll see and how much of an impact it’ll have on how people view their commitment to riding (and the two-hour block that they really need to carve out) when it becomes so fixed in their schedule. It wouldn’t work at my barn because people’s lesson slots are constantly moving around depending on shows and individual work schedules (we’re all adult amateurs), but I know former boarders have been asked to leave due to not being a consistent presence in their horses’ lives, so we’re a bit of a different group than the average lesson kid.
Did you know these boarders and this barn? Because if not you are making a judgement based on nothing.
I would like to know the era in which this took place. Because in my own early riding days even good barns did not have acreage for pastures. Horses were kept stabled. These were suburban barns.
Different times, different standards. I am not judging them. Just saying what was in my experience.
This was my experience as well, recently! Although in my case, it was $70-$80 per hour on a schoolmaster, but with warmup and cooldown included. Much more worth my time, but since the horses were older and required so many walk breaks I didn’t feel I could justify the cost on my current budget.
I don’t think it’s just a trust issue or a liability issue. With most lesson programs, when the rider doesn’t own the horse, the instructor is trying to preserve the soundness of the horse, and often that means doing as little hard work as possible.
At other barns, I often wondered if group lessons were jam-packed with riders of varying ability because that kept even the advanced riders pretty limited cantering-wise and jumping-wise.
Yes it’s frustrating!
There is a local barn where my independent instructor also teaches, they have a decent string of nicer lesson horses but I suspect some might be privately owned and in the program. I rode there once and my lesson was just about 40-45 minutes for 60 smackeroos (lesson fee and schoolie fee combined) and I felt that was fair, esp since I was out of shape and tired by the end 
Totally! And I even didn’t mind the half-hour model, but when I was in a program like that I was leasing the horse, so would warm up and cool down before and afterwards, like you said. Honestly, I think that is ideal, because some older horses really do benefit from a significant warmup.
What do people think about instructors riding during a lesson? One instructor I had did that, using the horse she was schooling as a demonstration model. I didn’t hate it usually, but sometimes it felt a little weird, like she was distracted when schooling the horse she was riding.
I think this could work depending on the level of the rider. If the rider needs more guidance, I don’t think it would work well, but if they need less guidance it would work.
As for 30 minute lessons, I think that could work depending on if the rider is at a level they were able to warm themselves up. If that is 30 minutes for grooming, a lesson and putting the horse away just isn’t going to work.
The average once-a-week lesson student is in no way warming up a barn-owned lesson horse without my eyes on them. Most of them can’t properly get on without my eyes on them. It’s different if it’s an experienced rider on their own horse.
I definitely think the lesson horse program is dying and I wish more than anything that amateurs were allowed to do something about it. I’m a decent riding amateur who happens to really love (and be respectably good at) teaching. I have my own farms and a career outside of horses that would make it very comfortable for me to keep and manage a few nice lesson horses/ponies. But under no circumstances do I wish to give up my amateur status competitively. I do not have any desire to ride at that level and I rather like living in adult amateur land. I do not have any desire to teach/coach at the AA level, heck I’d barely want to coach at local shows! But I love teaching beginners, reriders, and people just looking to learn more about our sport. I would absolutely love to be able to have a small lesson program and still continue riding as an amateur, but the USEF is too blind to recognize that these sorts of alternatives may be the very thing that salvages the future of our sport.
That’s very true. I think it’s reasonable to presume there are quite a few AAs with their own farms and a couple of semi retired saints that could potentially fill some of the demand for lessons and horses.
I saw this article and where I live this has been normal since I was a kid? My parents always paid for “sessions” which was 3 months/10 lessons or whatever and then there would be a week to allow for makeups. If you missed more than 1 you were out of luck. I assume that’s still how it is around here and I am surprised to hear that it’s not more common!
This all day long.
I would love to use my pony and one of my horses for beginner lessons and once the beginners get ready to show send them off to a real pro. I have the $$ to support it and already own the horses.
I’d like to up my horse count to 5-6 and have Women’s ride and wine night for re-riders and newish riders a couple nights a week and do pony camp. I loved teaching pony camp during summers.
This is a great idea, and it’s been test-driven and worked well for at least one lesson program.
The consistent income model is one of the best features. For both instructors and the program.
Not for nothing, the consistent income would also make a program more desirable for good local instructors. And more access to good instructors it would allow a program to have more accountability for instructors. If an instructor is not reliable about program guidelines & policies, or cancellations, or anything else, it should be easier to replace them.
One of the biggest problems is lack of suitable (read affordable) facilities near a population base that’s affluent enough to provide customers. Even at its lowest form it still is probably cost competitive to travel baseball, soccer etc. So 18 acres in podunk doesn’t work if you have no kids. I am looking to get back into it. I was a very successful JR and still have many contacts where I could get semi retired decent horses, but in FL finding a farm is tough. Our old farm in Ocala 8 miles from WEC we sold for 290k when I aged out…it’s now 1.5 mil…I’d love to be in VA or something but there’s no customer base.
Do you mind saying what era you were a kid in? I was a kid 60+ years ago. 
Back then i could go to my lesson barn between lessons and rent a lesson horse to ride by myself. Trails, arena, outside course … the world was mine for that hour. I also paid for lessons when i arrived for each lesson.
When i have lived in podunk, lessons have not been a thing. People say, I don’t need lessons, i already know how to ride. Maybe they actually do, maybe not. There are several nose-to-tail trail barns in my current podunk but not one single lesson barn.
1995 Maclay finals was my last year. I still road a little during college and such. Lately when I lived in Key West of all places I taught 4 days a week and got my kids to their first show in S FL…
I ran into that “but you already know how to ride” stuff out west. My response: “even Olympic athletes have coaches.” It worked!
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