You’ve got a group of students ready for their riding lessons and a stable full of lesson horses. How do you know which student should ride which horse?
There are several things you need to consider when you start to pair students with lesson horses:
- Age and riding ability of the student/temperament of the horse
- Size of the student/size of the horse
- Type of riding lesson
- How often the horse has been used in lessons recently
- Needs of the other students in the lesson
- Equipment to match the horse and rider (e.g. saddle)
All of these things must come into play before you put a student on a particular school horse.
Some stables prefer to match students with lesson horses and allow the rider to use the same horse each week. Others like to change it up from week to week, giving the students experience with several different animals.
If your riding instruction business falls into the former category, you’ll need to think ahead. You must consider not only how the student and horse will get along now, but whether their partnership will still be beneficial six months down the road.
For riding instructors in the latter category, long-term goals don’t matter. You need to find a horse that will take care of the rider and will teacher the rider what she needs to know during this particular lesson.
Just remember that safety always comes first. Never pair a student with a lesson horse that he or she cannot control. This leads to disaster and law suits—not to mention long-term guilt.
Beyond that, however, follow these tips to successfully pair students with lesson horses.
Introduce Different Pairs
Students will often tell you which lesson horses they want to ride. At first, those choices will be based exclusively on whether the horse is pretty or not, but eventually students will start to make informed decisions based on their goals.
Riding instructors should never give students free rein to choose whatever lesson horses they wish to ride, but it helps to have feedback. This can be a starting point to selecting the appropriate school horse.
Go with Experience
Everyone is unique. Different. Cut from distinctive cloth. However, you’ll start to place students in categories and identify them based on certain characteristics.
When pairing students with lesson horses, think back to other students you’ve taught with similar personalities or riding styles. With which horses did they work best? Which horses were a terrible match?
This is not a fool-proof method, but it does make your guess an educated one. There is no magic pill to determine how a rider and horse will get along, so you have to use the tools and resources available.
Know Your Horses
Riding instructors must know their lesson horses backwards and forwards. You should know if Sox doesn’t like light riders with poor contact skills, or that Ranger freaks out every time someone comes near him with a whip.
Knowing your school horses will make pairing students with horses much easier. You should know which horses can tolerate baby beginners, which are likely to throw a buck or two when it’s cold outside, which have bouncy trots or tough mouths or a tendency to wander into the middle of the arena.
You should ride your lesson horses to figure out what makes them tick. This is the only way you can successfully teach your students.
It’ll Come
All riding instructors need experience before they become experts at pairing students with lesson horses. It takes time and plenty of hours in the arena, but eventually it’ll come. You’ll get there.
Until then, focus on keeping your horses and riders safe, and on learning from your mistakes.
You might also like:
- Should Students Prepare Their Own Horses for Riding Lessons?
- Lesson Horses 101
- When to Retire Lesson Horses
- 10 Tips for a Successful Riding Lesson
- Reward Riding Lesson Students
with a Schooling Show
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.
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