I’ll check it out. I feel like I could be a much better rider on my own horse if I could get instruction on other horses too. Like I’m sure we both have short cuts and are too complicit with each others bad habits.
By all means ride other horses too!
After my horses died I found a hunt seat lesson stable with lesson horses. In the last 15 years or so I have ridden more horse than I ever had in my life. On each of these been there, sort of sour lesson horses, I can improve the horses’ responses to my aids. My aids have become lighter and the horses usually don’t cuss me out any more.
Riding the other horses, much looked down-upon lesson horses no less, has really helped refine my aids. Filling up the gaping chasms in these horses’ training is not that hard for me now.
I have MS, shaky hands, bad balance and my coordination could be much better. Even so these horses improve with my riding.
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I do not think you need more instruction. You need more riding. Every riding instructor, at whatever level, started as a rank novice. After arriving at some basic skill level, every accomplished rider learns by schooling more horses.
You took a horse to 4th level. That says your skills are above average as a lot of people never get there. If you want to improve, you need to take the skills you currently have and apply them to other horses…which requires other horses to ride.
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Have you considered maybe going on a riding vacation to somewhere like Portugal? There are places that offer dressage tuition at a pretty high level, on horses like your own.
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Agree that riding lots of different horses is really great. Even better if you can work with great trainers while you’re doing it.
But also keep in mind that the first rides you put on ANY horse will not be “perfect”. On average, a pro will probably be able to get a better first ride than your average AA, but even they have to work out the kinks and horse and rider are still getting to know each other.
It took me at least 2 months on my UL schoolmaster to be able to get reliable steering 
, and another 6 months to really feel confident in our connection. Then the real fun began and we really started advancing and not just trying to get through things without completely reverting to beginner habits. I’ve hopped on a few other horses at the barn to exercise while their owners were away and such, and I’ve just accepted that sometimes my first few rides are just going to be W/T because that’s where we need to start before we make anything faster or more complicated.
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I second the idea of taking a riding vacation and going to Portugal. As a broad generalisation, they are lovely horsemen with a very quiet way of riding and dressage seems to be built into their genes. Watch a five year old child ride piaffe!
I’ve had a couple of trips. One combined lessons on schooled horses, under the eye of a superb rider trained at the National Riding School, with hacking out in the countryside. It was a lovely farm, great food and I did things on a horse I’d never achieved before. One was two daily lessons, again superb horses and excellent teachers, staying in a classic Portuguese house with stables and arenas. Most of ones time was spent watching other lessons but as it was located only 20 mins or so from Lisbon we also did some city tourism. Lisbon is a beautiful city.
The Portuguese are taught English as their second language in school. Such charming people.
www.morgadolusitano.pt
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That seems valid.
My coach tells me often how lucky i am to have so many different horses to ride.
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Where in Massachusetts do you live?
Central mass.
A riding vacation sounds amazing. I’ll have to start saving.
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I think your instinct here - to get the opportunity to ride more horses, more often - is right on the money, OP. I’m in a position where I am “borrowing” horses left, right, and centre after spending years of just working with mine. I can tell you that every time I sit on a new one I feel like a rank novice. The ones that ride “more familiarly” I can do more with, more quickly, but some of the odd ones out (there are a few QHs in the mix, and a draftx or two) I am all thumbs and it may take five or six rides before I really feel like I can ride with at least passable competency. Truly, my brain and body are working so hard that even just posting and steering seem like too much multitasking and is completely beyond my reach, and I am not a beginner rider, but my word do I feel like one sometimes 
I am a better and more effective rider for being able to ride all of these horses. They have some similarities (all of their riders work with the same coach, who puts training rides on them all, though some are “once every blue moon” and others are “twice a week on the regular”) so the buttons are arguably all a vague idea of the same but they ride very differently because of their riders, rider goals, skill set, and just the type of horse they are. Being able to ride different ones this often is really bringing back my dexterity, timing, and effectiveness as a rider.
Do you have a local show circuit/show grounds near you? Maybe you can look at the pro riders there and see if any of them have lesson programs in your area. Even if they don’t have lesson horses, if you can build a rapport and a relationship with them they may have client horses that the owners would allow them to use, but you may have to ride with them with your own horse a few times before they are willing to make that leap/offer it to you.
I really like the idea of riding vacations that other people have mentioned though, and if you ultimately go that route, at whatever point you do it I hope you’ll share your experiences! That sounds like it would be a spectacular opportunity.
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This may have ended well for a very experienced rider on a horse owned by a good friend, but I wouldn’t generally recommend the approach of getting rides on FEI horses and then trying to change them. It’s a good way to not get invited back.
Maybe start with riding other iberians before you move towards warmbloods. Vitor Silva at Sons of the Wind can’t be that far from you, and he offers lessons on his horses.
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The friend who invited my ride has ridden my other horses and likes what she felt…direct quote when she rode one, “Oh, power steering!” I was given “free rein” to ride her horse as I saw fit. So it was not me taking advantage of being allowed to ride a horse…I was asked to ride it.
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right?!? i don’t even let someone else drive my tractor!
When my coach hopped on one of my horses, just for like 3 minutes during one of my lessons, i immediately felt a change in him (she didn’t cure or fix anything, she just wanted to feel what a pace felt like). Within a couple of minutes after remounting, he readjusted back to me though.
Unless correction or adjustments need to be made, and can only be made with someone else’s riding, then i’m not into it. But me, i’d much rather be given instruction on how-to myself. Even if it takes 2wice (or 10 times) as long. I want to learn.
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Hey each to their own…I’m not trying to make converts here. Someone asked how to become a better rider, I offered a suggestion.
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I’m not asking people to let me joy ride their horses. I was more hoping there might be a place with some lesson horses.
I do appreciate everyone’s input.
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Ok first, you’re probably not as bad as you think you are on these other horses. I completely recognize the feeling - it’s like trying to eat with your non-dominant hand.
The hard part when you catch ride for other people is that you don’t want to change the horse too much for them. I learned that lesson in my hunter-days, when my very good trainer told me that if I was going to catch ride for someone I needed to ride like them. The hard part was that the particular amateur in question was very handsy and I am NOT a handsy rider.
But I digress - yes, to get better, yes, lessoning and riding as MANY different horses as you can is key so that you can quickly assess the type of horse you have underneath you, and adapt your ride accordingly. I’m assuming you want to stay in dressage-land, but it’s difficult to find trainers who have lesson horses in this land (at least in my area), so you might have to cast a wider net. I wouldn’t suggest it to a beginning rider, but you sound sufficiently advanced that a lesson in a different discipline wouldn’t hurt too much.
Good luck!
Your coach should be sitting on your horse and changing it for the better. And then when you get back on, your coach should instruct you on how to keep the feeling.
OP, can you find a trainer to ride your horse for you once a week and give you feedback? Or have them school for half an hour and then have you get on after? I used to do this with a coach when I was a working student and it was a TREMENDOUS help. I thought I knew my horse and how to ride it but we unlocked things I didn’t know were possible with this horse.
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Yes I have done that when he was younger quite a bit actually. I got to a point I felt I needed to be able to get him there myself and that I could. Of course it can always be improved but I feel as a rider my biggest hole is not riding different horses.
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For me, getting quality instruction on a variety of horses really helped. 95% of the time it wasn’t even on highly trained horses. Correct basics are so important.
I would try to search out a dressage instructor in your area that can connect you with opportunities to ride a variety of horses. School horses to start most likely, but my experience has been once people see that you can ride well, opportunities will present themselves to ride personal horses.
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Ah, yes, the much aligned school horse, at least where fine riding is desired.
I started riding school horses only over a decade ago. I have learned SO MUCH from these noble horses.
They ALL had problems with contact. Most of them had no true idea that a leg aid could mean more than one thing–depending on the stride and circumstances. I was clearly told by the horse that their top speed at a walk was 2 MPH and that 2 1/2 MPH was an extreme extension of their stride. Their normal school trots had all the impulsion found in a dead, dead, dead to the leg WP horse.
However problems arose when I asked the horse for any impulse (feeling the push of the hind leg into my seat bone). “Impulse? WTF HELL do you mean by impulse. MY legs are not for pushing, my legs are for slooooowly going around the riding ring. Sheesh lady.”
Since these were hunt seat horses they had the basic idea of contact, thank goodness. They even had a rudimentary knowledge of how combined hand and leg aids worked, well most of them did. But I went through a lot of bits (now residing in my overflowing bit box) to find the one that the horse preferred IN MY HANDS. My hypothesis is that with all my balance problems and all my neurological problems if a horse accepts a bit I try on it that other riders should be able to have decent, non-abusive control while riding the horse.
But stopping? STOPPING, halt, stand still, stop fidgeting, that is another matter. “Why stop when I know that you WILL be demanding that I start moving again before I even get to take a full breath. WHY should I stop? WHY do you want me to stop there, the view from here is so much better? Make up your mind woman!”
So I get to work on all the training these horses missed out on because they were quiet enough for beginning riders. At thirty minutes a week over weeks and months I transform these horses, at least for when I ride them. They become more responsive to the leg AND they understand that the meaning of my leg aid depends on where their feet are. I train these horse to slow down when I apply my leg aid at a certain moment, to yield their forehands or hind quarters, or to lengthen their stride.
Their backs also improve. With regular breathing the back muscles relax enough so the rider feels the push of the hind leg in their seatbone. Then the back starts “swinging” and it all starts to coordinate, and you and the lowly lesson horse you ride go dancing off into the sunset as your riding teacher smiles.
This is when contact problems can truly be addressed. They are addressed by your LIGHT hands, hands light enough that they feel what the horse’s tongue is doing. They are addressed by ADVANCING THE HAND &/or relaxing your fingers. They are addressed by never blocking the push of the hind leg even when it is not convenient for you.
Getting an excellent ride out of a working school horse is proof positive to me that you really know how to RIDE a horse.
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