Several years ago, I received a phone call from a frantic mother whose daughter has recently suffered a terrible accident during a riding lesson.
“They put her on an advanced horse!” she exclaimed. “He took off with her and she fell into the arena fence!”
I’ve heard horror stories like this on more than one occasion, and was actually the subject of one during my formative years. At the first stable where I took riding lessons, my riding instructor put me on a four-year-old gray gelding with no saddle and only a halter and lead rope.
That incident resulted in a broken tailbone on my 10th birthday. Not exactly the surprise gift I’d been hoping for.
Riding instructors will make mistakes now and again, but you have a responsibility to your students. Failing to exercise this responsibility in an appropriate manner can get someone killed.
Riding is a Dangerous Sport
That’s the last thing we want our students to know because then they might not want to take lessons anymore. But the reality is that horseback riding is a dangerous sport, and anything we do to compound those dangers qualifies as negligence.
Before you put a student on a new lesson horse or decide a student is ready to jump or run barrels or work on cows, ask yourself a very important question: “Is she ready?”
If you can’t answer that question in the affirmative with any confidence, you need to back off. It’s human nature to want to push our students toward loftier goals, if only because we enjoy teaching advanced lessons, but this is a recipe for trouble. Not only will you suffer under the guilt of causing an accident, but you could find yourself in legal hot water as well.
But How Do You Know?
This is the question that riding teachers all over the world are asking. How do you know if a student is ready for the next step? How do you know you aren’t making a terrible mistake?
The frustrating answer is: You don’t. There is no way to know for certain if you are pushing a student too hard, too fast. However, experience and responsibility will take you a long way in this department.
A few signs your student isn’t ready:
- He tells you he isn’t ready. Your students in riding lessons are very cognizant of their own abilities. Some will be more daring than others, but a student who says, “I don’t think I can do that” probably isn’t ready for whatever you’ve proposed.
- Other students don’t feel ready. If you’ve got a group riding lesson where one student wants to start jumping and the others have doubts, your one student is probably too daring for her own good. All other things being equal, listen to the students who err on the side of caution.
- History gives you pause. Learn from your past mistakes. If you’ve pushed students too hard, too fast in the past, start to slow down your curriculum. Give your students time to get hold of the current concept before moving on to the next. The worst thing you can do is fail to learn from your mistakes.
- The basics are not covered. Horseback riding is a skill that builds on itself. Students shouldn’t learn to trot until they have mastered the walk, and so on. If your students haven’t mastered the basics, there is absolutely no reason to introduce new material. Build a solid foundation, then work up from there.
- Students start complaining. If your students leave a horseback riding lesson feeling extremely tired or sore, you are probably pushing them too far. Riding lessons should be enjoyable, not debilitating. If you aren’t working with them to build up the necessary strength and muscle control, you’re asking for trouble.
This is not a complete list, nor does it suggest that there aren’t exceptions. Riding instructors will begin to develop a sixth sense about when their students are ready for the next level, and it is usually those first few years of instruction that are the hardest.
However, it is important to consider the repercussions of your actions. If your students aren’t ready, you could wind up with a kid who is no longer interested in the sport she loves, even if she isn’t seriously injured.
The Opposite Problem
Some riding instructors will go the other way: Failing to push their students at all. There is a fine line between caution and helicopter instruction.
You will occasionally encounter a timid student who has absolutely no confidence in his or her ability. One of my students, a nine-year-old girl no larger than a sack of grain, was convinced she could never canter. Her form and technique at the walk and trot were impeccable, but the canter scared her to death.
I had to push her a little bit to convince her that she was capable. We worked on the lunge line for a while, then proceeded out to the rail. Once she tried the canter and realized it wasn’t as big a deal as she thought, she couldn’t get enough.
Again, this is a matter of experience. You will slowly develop the ability recognize timid riders and you will learn the best ways to push them. I’ll address this further in a future post, but start thinking about your current students and whether they fall into this particular category.
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Riding Instructor? - What do your students
want to learn? - How to Challenge Students in
Riding Lessons - Why Do Your Students
Want to Ride? - The Number One Way to Make
Students Happy in Riding Lessons
About the Author: Laura Jane Thompson is the Chief Equestrian Officer of Riding Instructor University and the Feature writer for the horses section at Suite101. She believes that any horse business can succeed provided its owner practices smart strategy.
