Riding accidents are common enough in the horse business that we don’t blink an eye when we hear about a fall.
“Johnny got his foot caught in the stirrup, lost his balance and was dragged for forty yards while yelling for his mother.”
“Yeah, that happened to Marry last year. She made it through all right.”
Some horseback riders even consider the number of accidents they have sustained as a badge of honor, a bragging point to be addressed during parties and other social functions. As a teenager, I once heard someone say that you aren’t a real rider until you can’t count the number of times you’ve fallen off. After I repeated that assertion to my mother, she threatened to ground me from the barn for two weeks.
Here’s the thing: Horseback riding is dangerous. Not only are you pairing 100-pound humans with 1,000-pound animals, but you are asking those humans to jump their horses over ditches, or to run their horses around barrels at lightening speed, or to chase after cattle on horseback. At least, when you jump out of a plane, you have a parachute.
It is up to riding instructors and other horse business owners to keep their students safe, to act as a buffer between what a student wants to do and what he should do.
Yesterday, I wrote about the hazards of the question: “What would happen if…” Riding instructors always want to try new things, to push the envelope, to discover new ways of teaching their students. But they are bound by ethics and by the voices in their heads that tell them they are pushing it too far.
Case in point:
I once taught a very talented fourteen-year-old girl (we’ll call her Tasha) who was progressing quite beautifully in both jumping and dressage. Once afternoon during her weekly lesson, she expressed the desire to jump a four-foot fence. She felt her horse was capable, and she saw no reason why she couldn’t rise to the challenge.
Part of me wanted to see her jump a four-foot fence. She was jumping 3’6” perfectly, and perhaps she could have conquered another half-foot if I had given her the opportunity.
However, my gut told me she wasn’t ready. That extra six inches might not seem like much, but it makes a world of difference to both horse and rider. I told her that if she was still doing well in six months, we’d talk about it again.
Tasha wanted to be able to say that she could jump four feet. She wanted to do something that none of her classmates had done before. She wanted to impress me as well as her peers.
That isn’t enough. Riding instructors must keep their students in check if they want to prevent serious accidents. Just because a student says he wants to do something doesn’t mean he is ready.
When You Aren’t There
I discussed yesterday the fact that kids do stupid things when they are unsupervised. It is unreasonable to think that you will be able to be at the barn 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It just isn’t possible, and your students who own their own horses might show up hours before you arrive or stay hours after you leave.
Your job as a riding instructor is to instill in your students the desire to behave when your eyes are looking the other direction. They should have sufficient respect for your position to follow the rules—not least because you are trying to keep them safe.
How do you do that? By sticking to the rules yourself. When your students step out of line, you have to be willing to show them your UGLY SIDE. You must be able to say, “No, what you did was unacceptable,” and enforce consequences for poor behavior.
And the moment when a riding instructor becomes apathetic toward the dangers of his profession is the moment at which he should hang up his spurs—because he has become a danger to his students.
About the Author: Laura Jane Thompson is the Editor in Chief of Riding Instructor University and the Feature writer for the horses section at Suite101. Follow her EquiTips on Twitter.
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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.
