What makes a person a beginner, novice, intermediate, or advanced rider?
What milestones should you be hitting in terms of your ‘rank of experience’?
I know each person may have a different opinion, but looking to discuss.
Huge question. There are obvious riders that fit into one of these categories. But there are large grey areas.
I would say an intermediate rider has a secure seat at all gaits, can ride independently in and out of the ring, can use aids per the discipline, can do lower levels of moves per the discipline, and can do some basic schooling or problem solving on a horse.
Lacking any of these skills puts you in the beginner range.
Advanced rider is trickier. There are a whole tier of professional trainers out there whose skill levels very few amateurs will ever reach. When I look at my own coach I rate myself a permanent intermediate 
but when I look at the other amateurs in my radius I am probably advanced
These levels really only have meaning inside a structured lesson program, on a dude string, or for kiddies. Once adults get well into the upper intermediate level the big difference is ammie versus pro, and riders end up coming up against their own personal limitations in terms of body type, strength, injuries, courage.
Also once you have a solid seat and and aids, the thing that makes a rider increasingly more competent is the ability to school and train the horse. Most riding advice for intermediate riders on up is about how to school the horse.
It’s also worth keeping in mind the idea from the book “Outliers” that most skills take 10,000 hours to master. That means about 3 hours a day for ten years.
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@Scribbler hit the nail on the head. But here is some of my 2 cents:
- Beginner can be someone who knows enough about horses to know they like them to a competent rider starting a new sport. [LIST]
- I'm an intermediate rider over all but if you asked me to drive, ride a cutting horse or side saddle I would be a beginner.
- Up until last fall I was leasing a been there/done that eventing school master to take me around novice before I bought my next horse. I needed that experience to make sure I felt confident to move up to the next challenge. I needed to have the support of a horse that would take me to the fences and get me out of bad spots so I could learn how that felt. I was an intermediate rider but I was novice in eventing.
- For example I bought a horse off the track through an agent, gave him let down time, taught him better ground manners and to lunge, introduced him to poles and got on him the first 2-3 times before I brought him to my trainer and friend to help. I am putting in the majority of the work with him but I have a support system if I run into a problem or if I can't put the hours in.
- I don't ever foresee me getting to that level. Between injuries, my day job and lack of saddle time with a variety of horses I just can't put the hours in to get there.
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Yes, very good points. Like you, I mull over the intermediate/advanced grey area. From the OP’s other post about looking for lesson barns, its clear they are a beginner after one year of lessons, and possibly wondering how to present themselves to new barns.
when I was in that position and looking for lease horses years ago, I didnt bother with a label. l said I was a returning adult rider with a few years of h/j lessons and let the owners assess my riding in the tryout. I was already savvy enough to know if a horse was greenbroke or stiff and not a good match for me.
OP, any lesson or lease program will watch you ride and make up their mind about your strengths and weaknesses. Just say you’ve been in lessons whatever it is, once a week for a year, etc.
The point about switching disciplines and saddles is important. I had an OK h/j seat when I started dressage, and it took a few weeks to get my sealegs there. I ride horses with soft gaits, and if I were to switch to a big WB I would need to adjust. I rode western best as a kid and still feel at home in a Western saddle. But I would be at sea on a gaited horse, driving, and I don’t jump heights. My dressage is pretty good now though!
Also if the saddle isn’t a great fit for you or horse that will unbalance you.
Imho one mark of an advanced ridet is the ability to get on almost any horse in almost any gait and have a productive schooling ride in a discipline horse and rider both know. This requires a lot of saddle time on a variety of horses, beyond the opportunity given most ammies unless they grew up on a ranch.
I was a one horse ammie as a kid and now as an adult. I love that relationship with a horse but it lots some versatility.
OP, the levels of beginner intermediate advanced applied in your lesson program may have no relation to the levels we are discussing here.
I don’t see anyone in our public lesson program riding beyond upper beginner or maybe very very lower intermediate. And while I don’t know much about the rotating crew of young coaches in that program, its possible that some of them are not what I’d call advanced either (meaning better than me! ). I could probably teach beginners riding with a few tips and lesson ideas from my own coach.
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I think there is a big shift between intermediate and advanced riders and it is that an advanced rider thinks only about the horse and how to improve it whereas an intermediate still has to think about what they are doing in the saddle. But it is a fine line.
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Here is a nice list taken from the The Long Riders Guild Academic Foundation web site:
Total Beginner – Total beginners have little experience (if any) at all with horses in general. They may have been on a “trail ride” at a rental stable once or twice but they do not know general horse handling or the basic commands to make the horse move forward, turn, trot, stop and back unassisted. They cannot saddle or bridle a horse themselves and are not comfortable handling a horse from the ground.
Advanced Beginner - These people have a little experience with horses. They may have grown up around horses or taken a few lessons. Maybe they used to ride a little as a child, but they may not be able to saddle and bridle a horse by themselves. This rider can mount and walk off unassisted. They know how to ask the horse to move forward, turn and stop. They may also be able to even trot or canter on a very smooth, well broke horse.
Confident Beginner - A confident beginner has the knowledge of an advanced beginner, but will also be able to handle a horse that may not be overly willing to do as asked. Sometimes an older horse that is well broken may still balk at leaving the barn or be a little reluctant to leave a secure place. This rider will have the confidence to give a little kick if needed or use a more persuasive aid when required even though they may lack experience. They may or may not be able to post or rise to the trot. They are willing to learn and have no “fear” of horses.
Novice - Novice riders have some pretty basic experience with horses. They have possibly had a few lessons, maybe owned a horse as a child (or recently), but have not competed or trained young, green horses. They can catch, halter, groom, saddle and bridle a horse by themselves. They can mount and ride off unassisted. A novice rider may or may not be able to rise (or post) to the trot, but they can trot without bouncing and can stay comfortable with a slow canter on a gentle, well broken horse. They should know how to ask and obtain a slow controlled walk, trot/jog and canter/lope. They can change direction and circle their horse. They are learning what a diagonal is and leads are. They may have even started a little jumping and are comfortable on a well broken horse, but may not be comfortable on a greener, younger or less experienced mount.
Intermediate - The intermediate rider has taken lessons or trained under a mentor for a while, rides in a specific discipline (or has experience in several disciplines) and may compete. He or she has ridden several different types of horses and can independently manage a horse’s care. Their seat is secure, they do not apply unintentional aids to the horse when they lose balance or become unseated. They know how to rise or post to the trot and ask for and obtain a specific lead or change in lead. They are capable of riding a less experienced horse and helping in that horse’s training. They are able to train/compete at a more advanced level with a trainer’s assistance. The intermediate rider is knowledgeable about different horse breeds and disciplines. He or she knows basic horse conformation and can detect lameness issues.
Advanced - Advanced riders have ridden most of their lives and have worked with a trainer/mentor for several years or had several years with intense riding instruction. They have competed successfully at recognized shows in their discipline. They are able to ride most horses including working with young/green horses without assistance. They know advanced manoeuvres in their preferred riding discipline and can positively affect the horse they are riding at all times. The advanced rider is able to teach lessons to beginners, break and train horses and teach a horse advanced manoeuvres. The advanced rider knows horse breeds and conformation well and is able to detect unsoundness vs. blemishes in a horse.
Professional – Professionals are paid to ride horses. They have studied under masters and are able to break horses, train and handle problem horses. The professional makes his or her living from horses. They are able to teach both horse and rider and have themselves competed in high level equine sport.
I stumbled across it while I was trying, unsuccessfully, to find something that I have seen before, an infographic of skill progression. But, this list is pretty good, I think.
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Yeah really useful with the caveat that going in leadline or walk trot children’s class isnt really competing, and also you could be a great colt starter or ranch rider and not compete much or at all.
Several years ago I found a chart by I think Denny Emerson, or one of the other older “greats”, that had a pretty good breakdown of skill levels of riding. I can’t find it online, I had it printed out and tacked up to my bulletin board though. I’ll keep looking, see if I can find it again.
Interestingly, I think that the experienced riders on this forum are ending up pretty much in agreement on this question!
OP, if you are in the first year of a lesson program, you and everyone you get to see rider is a beginner according the list above, maybe edging into novice.
The “Long Rider” list looks to me like it’s geared a bit towards Western and trail riding, which is fine, but with the caveat that in an English riding lesson program, everyone learns to post the trot right away. The Long Rider list may be assuming that people start out sitting the jog trot on Western horses, and posting is a bit of a fancy add on. So if you are doing lessons at a h/j barn, being able to post the trot does not necessarily move you past Beginner level. And I have certainly seen students at clear beginner level (in terms of seat, control of horse, and use of aids) cantering and even jumping cross poles.
I think that the a real marker is what you can do outside of lessons and outside of the arena. I think the “Long Rider” list is imagining people doing these things, walk trot canter circles, discipline, alone on the trail or in a big field. The “Long Rider” organization is about distance trail riding and not about lesson progression. So novice for them is someone who can confidently canter on the trails, which is indeed a huge step for many arena riders, and many intermediate and even pro riders never canter their competition mounts outside of the arena, for whatever reasons.
I think this is an important point because many folks in lesson programs never get a chance to even do an unsupervised practice ride, let alone go out for a trot and canter on trails. If all your riding is done under the eye of an instructor, you tend not to develop much autonomy or problem solving skills, and you don’t have mental space to develop a feel and intuition for your horse. The ideal situation for developing at an optimum speed once you are safe riding unsupervised (confident beginner/ novice) is to ride daily and have lessons once or twice a week. That lets you catch riding errors before they become bad habits, but also to have enough time alone with your horse to develop your own feel and tact.
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Gladwell’s interpretation of Ericsson’s work is pretty cringeworthy. A dozen or so excellent violinists at one music school had put in an average of 10,000 hours of solitary practice by age 20. So half of them had likely put in less than 10,000 hours. And that’s based on self-reported yearly estimates of their prior practice time. And why age 20 as the point for assessing expertise (other than convenience)? What of the early and late bloomers, and how did they all fare after they earned their degrees? Most importantly, how do we get from hours of violin practice to “most skills” across a wildly diverse range of domains? The “10,000 hour rule” is catchy but arbitrary and really not all that well founded or useful, even as a general rule of thumb. Some of the stuff Ericsson has done/said since then (incl. his responses to Gladwell) is far more interesting in thinking about the development of expertise.
I’ve known a few people who’ve were still clawing their way out of what I’d consider beginnerdom after at least 10,000 hours of horse time, come to think of it. And on the other hand some really dedicated folks are able to do a lot more with a lot less than that. All of the other factors in developing expertise (e.g. motivations, focus, physical body, cognitive ability, instruction/mentorship, diversity and quality of experience) seem to readily trump hours of experience when it comes to equestrianism.
I tend to think labels like “beginner”, “intermediate”, “advanced” are all but useless in equestrianism outside of individual lesson programs. One lesson program’s advanced rider is another program’s beginner. Someone who is quite experienced in, say, the barrel racing world might be well in “beginner” territory in an English performance discipline, and vice versa. It’s easy to label the poles of the spectrum – the very inexperienced who cannot do much at all independently and have no sense of horsemanship more generally, and the elite riders at the top of various disciplines – but most of us belong in the great gray expanse between the two that @Scribbler mentions, in which labels tend to be relative.
When you think about where all the world’s riders collectively fall on the spectrum of horse experience, I expect it’s not a uniform distribution, or even a symmetrical distribution. That there are so many labels that try to identify gradations on the lower end of the axis (cf @NoSuchPerson 's list) makes sense, as it’s surely a right-skewed distribution with a lot of bulk in the beginner range and there’s a decent amount of commonality in the basic skills that anyone new to horses must master. That “expert” tends to be used for an elite few also makes sense if you think there’s a skinny right tail of people with the skill and experience (and resources and mentorship and motivation and luck) to truly excel in equestrian sports. But the area around the median and into the right shoulder is hard to describe with words.
I don’t think that’s an accident. That’s where different disciplines and traditions of riding tend to progress differently and value different skills and knowledge. “Intermediate” and “Advanced” in that list above are pretty much “garbage can” categories that catch a huge number of different levels of equestrian skill, each probably as different as the more explicitly delimited set of beginner levels. I think it’s folly to put too much energy into trying to label anything in this range. You’d need names for a whole lot of bins, for one thing, and you’d have to ignore so much of the activity-specific diversity of equestrianism that they still might not be all that meaningful.
@cannoli2425 , if you’re thinking of this in terms of finding a suitable lesson situation, I wouldn’t worry too much about it – all programs will have their own way of applying labels. Just be ready to describe your experience and the things you’re confident doing to an instructor, and don’t worry too much about it if the label they use for where you’re at sounds more beginner-ish than what you’d use to describe yourself.
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I don’t think you’re portraying the list accurately and I don’t think it is particularly skewed toward western riders. The first time posting is mentioned is under Confident Beginner, where it says “they may or may not be able to post or rise to the trot,” so they aren’t saying that knowing how to post advances you past beginner stage.
And in an English riding program, not everyone learns to post the trot right away. There has been at least one thread here in which people teaching English riding discussed their preferences for starting with sitting or posting trot. I thought that there were good arguments for both approaches.
And it’s not at all uncommon for western riders to be taught to post or stand at the trot before learning to sit.
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Yeah I agree that after a certain level of competence it becomes kind of pointless to label too much.
When I’m trying to compare two riders in my mind, there are several criteria.
Balance, position, confidence, courage, effectiveness, tact, hands, training ability, experience in a specific discipline, etc etc. Some of these things are hard to change like courage, some can improve or decline like position, and some are incremental like experience in a given discipline.
I know pros who are effective but IMHO have brutal hands and a misconception of training goals. I know ammies that are correct but cautious and others that are brave but have flawed position.
And I know lots of people who have mistaken ideas about the quality of their equitation 
In my world, the divisions really are adult beginners/returning riders, adult ammies, and adult pros. I might have my own private rankings but that’s just subjective and generally secret on my part.
Once people start competing the metric is usually height of fence or level of dressage test plus ribbon won.
But I think this is a useful discussion for a beginner like OP to follow because I am sure that in lesson programs the category of beginner is broken down into all kinds of arbitrary levels like advanced students get to jump 2 foot verticals or a lease a horse or something.
Useful for OP to know that whatever they are seeing IRL is probably very low level. And for instance the frenemy who has been in lessons for 2 years and is boasting about their skills at a schooling show is probably a beginner too.
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I think the problem with asking for benchmarks is that there aren’t any, there are just gradations in skill that don’t mean the same thing to all people.
Beginners come in all shapes and sizes. I started Western without much formal training, didn’t know my aids or my leads as my horse was responsive and TBH once one canters the rest will go along too. As long as they don’t fall over then leads aren’t really important. I am aware now that they are important for equal development of musculature etc but at the time I had no clue.
In the eyes of my contemporaries at home I was a “good rider”. I don’t even think we thought in terms of anything above Beginner, AKA people who didn’t know how to ride yet. Trail riding and gallops at the beach were part of what we did on a regular basis. She knew how to jump, I had seen her do it over a small fence in a pasture, but she had no desire to jump when asked.
So I took lessons in High School with a very good instructor but I couldn’t afford to put the horse in training or replace her and board her replacement. I thought about it but the $600 she wanted for her spotted large pony with a wall eye (not fashionable at the time) and talent to teach me right wasn’t in my budget. I had to pay my own way, my parents insisted on that and the lessons were at the limit of my earning power.
I have been called an Advanced Beginner as a re-rider, of course it bummed me out as I had this wealth of experience but physically my instructor was correct, I am older and stiffer and my fat has moved around my body (hey, I grew boobs!) so my center of balance changed significantly. And I never did learn to jump or get very good at it.
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There are people who win lots of ribbons, but cannot jump and will not Hunt, yet those who start their own horses, never fall off, hunt all day, never yank and pull may not be called Advanced by the general horse crowd.
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I will never understand why being a ‘pro’ automatically makes anyone a better rider or horseman than an ‘ammy’. Just because someone is paying them? :lol:
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Because they can’t show against amateurs?
I know, let’s make all classes open for everyone.
If pros ride like everyone else, why not.
At the upper end of ammies, there are certainly riders with better skills than many lower level pros. But at the upper end of pros, there are riders that exceed any ammie on earth.
In my world, I do recognize that even the lower level part time established coaches/trainers have more confidence, more versatility, possibly a stickier seat, and more effectiveness than myself. I don’t like their hands, I don’t like their training philosophy, and I don’t like how their students develop (they mostly don’t). But there is some level of get 'er done and ability to do this on multiple horses and unfamiliar horses, that I don’t have and never will, because I haven’t ridden that many kinds of horses in my life.
The local pros I actually respect and admire are far beyond what I can aspire to, because they have sunk a lot of time into riding different horses, taking lessons, really thinking about their teaching and training goals. I’ve put that kind of time into my professional and arts career. I know what it requires in terms of raw talent, focused development, and real effort, to go pro in something others do as a hobby. I can respect that they have gone pro in a genuine way in riding, and that I never wanted to do this.
Below both these two types, of course, are the folks who really aren’t at pro level, but advertise on FB for horses to train. Sometimes they are teens. Most don’t get much traction. And there are the young women who teach beginners lessons in big programs, who might or might not be competent riders. But clearly since almost every 19 year old girl would jump at the chance to teach riding lessons for a few years :), there must be some selection process.
So there are level of pro, from incompetent to entry level to mediocre to excellent and amazing, etc. Just as there are levels of ammie. In general, I would say that folks who try to go pro in riding have better than average physicality, that is courage, balance, stamina, co-ordination, which has made them feel ahead of the game all along. What holds back many of us older ammies and returning riders is often related to physicality. Indeed, one reason I never considered a career in horses even as a teen was that while I could train my pony better than anyone in my area, I also realized that I did not have great courage for riding problem or strange horses, and I was happy as a one-horse ammie. I also knew I didn’t have exceptional stamina, and I was never going to be able to clean stalls for a living (I watched a high school friend who dropped out and went to work at the racetrack at 16).
But of course, the place this distinction really matters is in categories of showing. And if you read the threads where people are disgruntled about “shamateurs” riding in ammie classes, or seasoned pros dropping their pro status and riding in ammie classes, there is very much a perception, and probably a reality, that in general pros ride and train better than ammies, and will take home the ribbons.
It’s an interesting, confusing and sometimes frustrating issue in this country, not so much in other countries because of the systems in place, such as in Germany, England or France for instance.
When you have such a system in place it’s much easier to know a rider’s true level.
Precisely. And it is a common perception that a pro is - simply by virtue of being a pro - a ‘better’ rider. I would not be inclined to include ‘pro’ as a category at a step above ‘advanced’ on a continuum of rider levels, as it essentially overlaps with ‘advanced’ in the best cases. I am by no means suggesting that amateur classes should not exist.
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It doesn’t …. but it does provide them with the numbers. The number of horses that you’ve learned - who they are, what they can do best and how to work with them. This gives you the toolbox that a good horseperson has. Unfortunately I’ve had to buy my numbers, a good pro gets paid to learn theirs.
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