Very interesting. Seems quite relevant to the equine world. Just learned about this.
“The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias whereby people with low ability, expertise, or experience regarding a certain type of task or area of knowledge tend to overestimate their ability or knowledge. Some researchers also include in their definition the opposite effect for high performers: their tendency to underestimate their skills.”
So …
… my good friend who manages a riding school says that the less the knowledge and skill, the more the over-estimation, and vice versa.
Kids who can barely steer around the arena, or manage transitions walk-trot-walk (they are likely to fall off at the canter), cheerfully report themselves as “intermediate”.
Kids who can solidly canter around low jump courses don’t think they are anywhere as good as “intermediate”.
Whatever an “intermediate” skill level is to each individual. 
She never takes a new-student self-evaluation at face value. Every new student gets a test lesson to assess their * true * level. She doesn’t contradict them directly, she just assigns them to the appropriate lesson. 
The whole beginner-intermediate-advanced thing is SO subject to interpretation. If “advanced” is Beezie Madden, then we’re basically all beginners, right?
That is called, learning as expanding horizons.
The more we learn, the more we realize how little we know, how much more there is out there to learn we didn’t know about before and that tends to be humbling.
Learning is the gift that keeps on giving, the more we learn, the more we have to learn. 
I think it’s almost impossible to classify riding into just beginner/intermediate/advanced (beyond someone who hasn’t ridden before or only a few times).
Someone could be a serious amateur dressage rider who hasn’t jumped in 10 years but has trained many green horses and been a working student for a good pro.
Someone could have grown up on a farm and never taken a formal lesson but spends hours trail riding on the regular.
Someone could be winning at rated shows, but only ridden made horses and rarely tacks up her own horses at her full-service barn.
Someone could be very confident and brave, and have good feel for the horse, and progressed quickly, but not many years in the saddle.
In a related article as an aside I found these definitions. Also interesting. Article attached for those interested.
Beginner: needs supervision at all times when riding or handling a low-risk horse;
Novice: able to ride out of an arena or yard independently and do low-level competition;
Intermediate: confident to ride a variety of horses, basic training of a young horse with some supervision, and compete;
Advanced: able to confidently ride and handle a variety of horses, able to ride a green- broke-young horse, and compete at moderate to higher level of competition; and
Proficient: able to do all advanced rider skills, competently train others, and compete consistently in high level competition. (This category was added to include riders who have professional skills, earn an income or compete at the highest level of accomplishment within their equestrian interest).
The Dunning Kruger effect is very real and very widespread across all facets of life, including horses.
I worked in the environmental field and saw it all. the. time. I see it here almost every time the subject of weed and pest control in pastures and crop land comes up.
A couple of years ago I moved and was looking for a new barn. I called around to a couple of places and asked to come by for an intro lesson, saying I’d been riding for 20 years, I typically rode 2 or 3 times a week, was showing in the .90m and jumping a bit bigger at home. When I showed up, every trainer was very surprised that I wasn’t totally inflating my abilities. One person said something like, “You’re the first person in years who has called, said they can ride, and then actually been able to.” Another said “oh, you DO know what you’re doing” the instant I walked up to the lesson horse.
I have had this exact experience every time I’ve moved and had to go look for a barn.
I never had the funds to compete at a high level, and most of my riding has been OTTB restarts and various other greenies or quirky things. I’ve heard some variant of the “okay cool you’ve got this” comment from every new trainer at some point, usually followed by a story about people severely overestimating their abilities.
For my senior trip I went on a beach trail ride with my best friend and her mother. My friend and I rode and showed together, and her mom used to compete and still rides at home. We went to one of those places where they assign you a horse and take you on a guided ride, with various groups based on experience. The guide actually let us gallop flat out on the beach and do a bunch of fun stuff - she said we were the first “advanced” group THAT YEAR that she was able to let go above a jog.
It’s a psychological thing but I also don’t understand; why tell someone you can do all these things when they’re about the see exactly how skilled you are or aren’t?
As I run an equestrian tourism business, evaluating the genuine skill level of clients is always, ummmm, interesting. Habitually, I take everything I’m told with a very big pinch of salt. If clients wish to do something faster or more risky, they must have a practical evaluation first. I do find, however, a conversation can show a lot, because of word choice or the terms used to describe something.
There is a lot to this.
If for nothing else, it seems every riding tradition has its vocabulary. If someone is claiming something, but doesn’t recognize the jargon or has inaccurate ideas of what it means, that shows a lot.
One thing I’ve noticed is that people with genuine equestrian experience usually DON’T want the craziest horse in the string. The last thing you want is to get hurt on the nuttiest strange horse on the beach vacation ride when you have a horse to ride at home you’re progressing with pretty well.
Ditto with stuff like “fox hunting in Ireland” vacations–people I know who have ridden a few times always say they want to do this, while many accomplished riders I know who jump regularly on their own horses say, “I’d just do a trekking vacation in Ireland, I don’t feel confident enough to ride at speed in a strange country.”
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