Creating "Desire" in New Riders

[MsM]

I dont think real “desire to ride” has changed that much. I think more of the change is in accessibility and societal perceptions.

When I was a kid, ( a horseless kid whose parents could only afford a few lessons or trail rides for birthday presents) riding “english” had great snob appeal for social climbing parents of girls. In many cases the only athletic-type activities encouraged for these girls were riding, ballet, and maybe gymnastics. Yuppie moms and dads wanted their girls outfitted and riding in shows they could talk about at the Country Club. In the 60s-70s it was the height of Yuppie-ness and impressing the boss to climb the ladder at work and socially. Even parents who could barely afford it sometimes thought it was an entry to better things for their daughter. So there were a lot of kids (mostly girls) at h-j barns. Some really had the “bug” and wanted to be there and some were apathetic and everything in between.

Then society and economics changed. Horses werent the prestige they once were and the lower ends of the upper-middle class started getting economically squeezed harder and harder. Girls had many more options for activities and recognition. Suburban sprawl and costs squeezed out smaller barns where the less affluent could get a start.

There are still a couple of big “lesson factory” type barns around me. There are affluent families who quickly have their child in a program, with a horse/pony and showing. But there are still kids in the lesson program long-term, enjoying riding and horsey friends without showing recognized shows. I am glad to see that lessons with school horses are still available around me for horseless riders. I dont know if they feel pressure to lease or own, but I do know that a fair number continue lessons until they go off to college without leasing or owning. I suspect they will be our future reriders when their after-school lives are established.

[Limerick2017]

Absolutely, it is the economy! And I have pointed out to anyone who will listen that barns are going to have to pay well to get good help. This new economy does offer jobs for hard workers with decent pay. The barns that want the help to drive miles to a rural location and pay $10 an hour are not going to find decent staff to take care of increasingly expensive horses.

On a side note, I have heard grooms at WEF are recognizing their worth and I applaud them. I wish I could unsee some of the outright nastiness that opposed grooms being compensated for incredibly long hours caring for rich people’s equines but I can’t.

[phosics]

Yep, this. See the “Where are the working students?” thread in the dressage forum for a really great discussion about how fairly compensated labor is becoming more and more important in the horse industry. Having the passion is great and all but passion doesn’t pay the bills when you work long hard hours at the barn and get paid pennies with the excuse that you should be grateful to get to work around horses all day.

There is a lot of crossover between that thread and this one and I think it is super interesting!

[RHdobes563]

(Deleted.)

[candyappy]

@Arelle

As a kid, I was hooked . From day one.

@Arelle

But a lot of what I’ve seen are people priced out of the market, rules that prevent people from moving up in the market, and this weird sense of selfishness that kind of permeates through everything.

I haven’t read through all the replies but I think these two statements from you kind of sum it all up. Horses were all I talked about since I was 5 years old. Where it came from who knows? We lived in the city.

You are either a real “horse person” or your not. I believe there are plenty of people who do ride and enjoy doing it without any real desire behind it. They just find it an enjoyable activity when they do it.

What really limits people is the cost. Although on other threads people don’t seem to blink an eye at spending five figures for a horse, that is not possible for many who do desire to ride and compete and that will absolutely affect the decline.

Even backyard trail horses are too expensive for the average person ( like me). Glad I am not looking!!

[Willesdon]

@Impractical_Horsewoman

… Unfortunately, not all schools do this in practice or have a good mix of less and more experienced riders…

Unfortunately too many owners lack sufficient knowledge to keep horses and don’t know enough to be able to identify a mentor or teacher with appropriate and sufficient skills or don’t know enough to know they need to ask for help. Horse welfare is put at risk by ignorance, whether privately owned or in a riding school. Rider welfare is put at risk by too many incompetent, under-skilled teachers and these appear to be as common with BNT or the high-end Programme as in a riding school, judging by the endless queries about “how do I leave my barn?” or “I’m not happy but my trainer says…” or the current, classic, ‘Daily Dumb’ thread.

[Ponygirlmom]

@candyappy

You are either a real “horse person” or your not.

As the parent of a child rider, this resonates with me. My child had her first pony ride at four and we’d never seen her smile so hard. She asked for lessons regularly until we gave in at seven. A few years later she happily rides five days a week. When a lesson is cancelled or she can’t ride for some reason she’s heartbroken. (I think the main reason she wants to avoid getting Covid is not because she’s worried so much about being sick but because she doesn’t want to have to go a week without seeing her horse .)

On the flip side are a couple of her friends who are really great girls who took up riding as a pandemic activity. They enjoy it, but are perfectly happy to go do something else when a riding opportunity is cancelled, or to take a few months off for soccer/volleyball/basketball/other sport season. It’s possible they’ll stick with and develop the needed “desire” with time, but I think it’s also quite likely that their interest will fade as the demands of doing the sport well grow. And that’s just fine. - to my mind there’s nothing wrong (and a lot right) with kids trying lots of different things on the path to finding their passions.

[NC001]

Parent of a high schooler here-
My kid is kind of one of those kids that does a lot- the APs classes, the academic teams, school teams, grades, and rides 5 days a week. Yes it takes a lot of management from me to make sure it all gets done. But she does it and she enjoys it. She always enjoyed staying busy. I don’t feel horse riding will be seen as a negative on her college applications. She works at the barn to help support her costs. And there are so many other great kids that are just like her- smart and hard working. So what if they are mediocre at it all- if they are enjoying it good for them.

A lot of my kids start in horses was luck- she was at the right place at the right time. And when she was ready to do more she again got lucky and ended up half leasing a horse that, while nothing spectacular, was a great match for her and turn her into a real rider. Other kids her age also leased but some worked well and some didnt for a variety of reasons.

As for lesson barns- I mean right now every place within an hour has long waiting lists for lessons so I’m not sure why some of you feel there needs to be changes to increase the number of riders. Yes, the horses teach 2 lessons a day, try to do one more advanced and one less advanced lesson, and they get 1-2 days a week off a week. Over holidays and bad weather they may get several days off. No one is jumping the lesson horses more than 18 inches or so- at least not regularly. It’s not realistic or worthwhile for most programs. If you want a school master to learn on, you need to do some digging to find one. I know there are some school masters available to lease locally to people but they need to be able to ride well already. I would let some one partial lease my kids horse. He isn’t a school master but he’s solid and competitive locally. But I’m not going to lease him to some random person who says they want to ride - and definitely not unless you take lessons and work with our trainer.

We have plenty of adults and kids that lesson, most stay around advanced beginner but some move up and they are the ones that lease or own.

There is plenty of passion among kids for riding. There are plenty of kids who can afford to ride and even show - doing half leases and schooling shows are a great and somewhat affordable way for serious kids to get their horsey fix. But a lot is luck. If all the horses are already leased where you ride, you are kind of out of luck until something opens up. Sure you can try somewhere else but it’s pretty much the same most places. I laugh when I see so many on these boards say move to another barn for lessons- that is not easily done right now because they are all full and all have similar issues.

[miminorthwest]

I would argue pricing in ge really, but on a more granular level, a lack of different pricing models to keep each level of rider in the arena. I’m sure most of us here started lessons as kids. In my area, there are a few (and I mean 4 to be exact) lesson barns with actual lesson horses but they cater to children. This is great to foster the development and interest in a young rider. But when that young rider goes off to college, sells the pony their parents eventually bought for them, then where do they ride after they’ve settled in their career and have their own adult money to play with. Out of those 4 lesson barns with lesson horses, only a small handful of those horses can be ridden by adults. So there are around 25 actual lesson horses in my area and maybe one or two of them can safely pack someone over 150lbs.

So where does that leave the adult rerider looking to get back into riding before buying their own horse? If they weigh over 150lbs, they can’t even really take some lessons with a trainer to get to the point of making a decision to buy their own horse. The adult rerider will have their own money and autonomy to get into a program, but if there are 40-50 of them fighting over the use of 2 horses to ride, then how is that exactly going to pan out?

Many folks are told to not buy their own horse until they’ve been taking lessons for a few years again and can get a trainers help. But there are virtually no lesson horses to ride, so with that there is no trainer help. They are often left on their own to buy a horse themselves, hopefully making a good purchase, and then source out a coach after the fact. Then comes all the inherent bias from the coach because the rider didn’t consult them on the purchase of the horse, so now comes all the backlash from that.

So I really see a lack of availability and inclusiveness in barns. Easy enough to get some kids involved, but how do barns manage the lifecycle of the rider to ensure there is availability and horses for all ages of riders.

[173north]

@NC001

I laugh when I see so many on these boards say move to another barn for lessons- that is not easily done right now because they are all full and all have similar issues.

I just found out the biggest lesson barn in my area has a four month waitlist.

[Mander]

I naively asked to be added to a lesson wait list back in mid-late December.

I found out a bit later the waitlist literally has hundreds of people on it. Needless to say, I’m not holding my breath that they’ll even contact me this year.

[kirbydog]

We have 3 instructors, all with wait lists. People get super annoyed when they can’t get lessons booked, but it’s not like your on a list at a restaurant; people book lessons with the intention of continuing

[Rackonteur]

@Arelle

Grooms tack up horses and riders simply get on and off without actually caring for the horses.

IME this is a hunter-jumper thing, and also a thing at some western barns. At the dressage and eventing barns where i have ridden, grooming and tacking up is done by the student as part of the lesson. Catch your lesson horse in the pasture, bring him in, groom, tack up. And after your lesson, untack him, rub down, cool out, and either put him in his stall or turn him back out, depending on the time.

IME, hunter/jumper is not part of the AQHA/APHA world. I believe AQHA has HUS but it’s not the same as hunter/jumper in the hunter/jumper (non-AQHA) world. IME.

[Rackonteur]

@Willesdon

Now riding, even at a lowly beginner level is all about leasing/owning expensive horses, wearing the right brand of long boots, having multiple bridles for different disciplines, jumping in cookie-cutter patterns and winning prizes. There are many, many people (probably adult) who would like to ride but have no interest in jumping or in showing, just looking to pootle around once or twice a week, meeting people with a common interest and having a bit of exercise. Sounds a little bit “Western”. T

IME this is just in the HJ world, not in other disciplines.
Pootling around doesn’t sound just “a little bit ‘Western’”. It also sounds a little bit dressage-for-fun. When I was at dressage barns no one gave a rap what labels were on your boots or breeches, or your tack. Very few of us showed, either, and then mostly at local barn schooling shows.
It was fun.

[Rackonteur]

@Sticky_Situation

To beginners starting out who don’t have those resources but who are interested in competing, it has to disheartening to see that at the entry level, what you can afford gets you far more recognition than what you can do.

To a degree, this has existed for decades outside the horse world. And I agree, it is disheartening.

[Mander]

@Rackonteur

I believe AQHA has HUS but it’s not the same as hunter/jumper in the hunter/jumper (non-AQHA) world.

They have a handful of over fences classes that are a bit closer to “real” H/J land, but their HUS classes are extremely similar to the western pleasure classes. The most notable differences are that the HUS horses are generally 16-17+hh (the western horses can get away with being a bit shorter), and they go just a smidge faster than their western counterparts, but the meat and potatoes are the same - headset level with or just below the withers, on or just in front of the vertical, and with extremely light contact, possibly even a slight loop in the rein. In my circles, a lot of them were spur trained so the contact was mostly just for looks.

This is a pretty fair example of what your standard AQHA/APHA HUS horse would look like.

[Alterration]

@Rackonteur

Pootling around doesn’t sound just “a little bit ‘Western’”. It also sounds a little bit dressage-for-fun. When I was at dressage barns no one gave a rap what labels were on your boots or breeches, or your tack. Very few of us showed, either, and then mostly at local barn schooling shows.

This is actually how I’ve modeled my barn. We have an eclectic group, some dressage-for-funners, some western riders, others with a history of primarily trail. My background is mainly hunter/jumper though I no longer want to jump. I was a very serious rider and trainer through my early 20s and burnt out. I still show on occasion, though I highly doubt I’ll show hunters ever again. I digress -

Some of us have young/green horses, some of us have very seasoned horses. We all take lessons of various sorts, but we also have a great time drinking wine and riding together. Sometimes we do both at the same time. We have lots of barn play days where we set up goofy obstacles and do goofy things. It helps us gain confidence, and de-serious our rides.

I think barns could thrive if they had a model like this for kids. Our niche is adults. But if kids could learn safely and have a blast (maybe not with the wine, but the rest of the things are still fun) I think barns could really create that desire. Instead things have gotten just so serious and the disciplines so specialized - who wants to join that from the get go? Parents don’t need to buy a $100k pony for their kid to have a good time and reap all the benefits an equine education can give them, an $800 fluffy fugly beast can do very well at this sort of barn.

[findeight]

Ahhhh….but the parents influence the choices available for kids. They control the time and money spent. There are many factors influencing parents, too many to list but there are far less time and money sucking alternatives to let kids have fun with their peer group.

The horse environment many of us grew up in is long gone. Thats the challenge today. Desire needs to be nurtured be mentors, parents and like minded peers. Difficult with the time available to many over scheduled tweens and teens today. Add the financial and disappearing barn factors and the picture is grim.

Complicate that with the instant gratification star complex-kids want to be instant superstars, often with a stage mom pushing the buttons ( hardly a new issue). These days, few want to spend time and money on Susie braiding flowers into the mane of that $800 Fugly, who is now $3500.

[Alterration]

@findeight

Complicate that with the instant gratification star complex-kids want to be instant superstars, often with a stage mom pushing the buttons ( hardly a new issue). These days, few want to spend time and money on Susie braiding flowers into the mane of that $800 Fugly, who is now $3500.

That’s true - I failed to factor in inflation and the instagram culture.

I do think though that if you got some cute fuglies that maybe are not the soundest creatures on the planet you’d still have something!

[Rackonteur]

There were kids at these barns.

We never broke out the wine 'til the kids had gone home.

Even on New Year’s Eve.