Some Thoughts for People Taking Up Riding as Adults

I wanted to delve into this subject after giving it some thought on this morning’s hike with the dogs. First and foremost, I want to touch on a few basic skills that you should learn that will serve you well in your career as a Horse Person.

The first one is to learn some basic groundwork which would include how to read a horse’s frame of mind, how to be a fair leader, and that you should NOT confuse a horse with a dog or your baby. That final item is what will keep you safe and allow you to build a healthy relationship with your horse. What I mean is that a horse is a prey animal that weighs approximately 1000 pounds. So it’s really important that you learn how to maintain safe boundaries. No feeding treats. No high pitched baby talk. No allowing the horse to push you around. This has to be the priority. Love and trust will come later and it will be love and trust built on a solid foundation of respect, not a horse that is searching for a carrot while you have this warm fuzzy feeling right before he steps on your foot. You also need to learn how to read your horse’s mood. Is he anxious, afraid, aggressive? It’s important to know which it is so you know what to do about it. Are you holding your breath which is making him anxious? Stop, relax, and exhale. Drop your shoulders while you’re at it. Does your horse see something that he is honestly afraid of? Touch your horse in the center of his forehead or on his shoulder. Pick up your shoulders and be a leader. Is your horse being aggressive? is he trying to move you around, being threatening with his body? Get your lead rope busy and drive him off. Don’t yield to him. Do a one rein stop on the ground. These are just a few examples of reading a horse and understanding what your reaction should be. Working with horses is an exercise in breathing, mindfulness, and detachment. Not allowing your emotions to rule you.

When you’re first learning to ride, it’s so important to be on a horse that is the right level for you. Don’t fall into the trap that you have to have that perfectly fit, perfectly sound, 5 year old so you can “grow together.” That’s a recipe for failure and you will betray that horse and possibly ruin him for life. No, I’m not being dramatic. Don’t buy the long flowing mane and the gorgeous tail. Buy the horse that will take care of you while you learn. Even if he’s old enough to vote and has a little hitch in his gitalong. On that subject, horses have an expiration date. A time when they are no longer marketable and trying to sell a horse like this is almost surely going to end badly for the horse. I’m advising you to consider an old horse for your first horse but I'm also cautioning you that you have to be prepared to keep the horse to the end of his days even when you move on to a younger horse as your riding improves. This can work just fine for people who have their own place and can afford more than one horse. Not so good for people who board their horses with all the expense that comes with boarding stables. If this is you, consider leasing that old horse and leaving the responsibility for the horse’s care in his retirement with his owner. The bottom line is that horses are a responsibility. An expensive responsibility.

So now you’ve learned how to handle a horse on the ground, a little bit about horse behavior, you don’t feed your horse treats, and you have a serviceable older, gentle horse to learn to ride on. What is the first step? I’m going to tell you some things that will help you learn to ride. However, you can’t learn to ride from watching Youtube videos and reading books. You need to find someone to teach you basic horsemanship. Where to put your feet, how to hold the reins, how to stay balanced. It’s important to find someone who will teach you the basics and it’s also important to understand that this person you choose has to teach in a style that you can learn from. Not everybody is the same. So watch some lessons. Talk to people. But don’t listen to everybody! Sometimes the loudest people are the ones who are just learning themselves and they are super excited to teach you all that they know which will take about 7 minutes.

In my opinion, the most important thing you will need to develop is an independent seat. What this means is that you learn to go with the horse. You are relaxed, breathing correctly, maintaining good posture from the waist up, and are relaxed from the waist down. Your legs are long and your heels are reaching for the ground. Your head is reaching for the sky. You feel “lifted” in your torso, not all scrunched down and hunched over. You can move your hands and your legs independently without affecting your balance on the horse at the walk, trot, and canter. You’ll achieve this magical seat by doing a lot of trotting, preferably outside an arena over varied terrain. You need to look up “two point” and “posting.” Yes, cowboys post. Don’t let anybody tell you otherwise. And don’t let anybody sell you on getting a gaited horse by telling you that you don’t need to learn to post on one. First, that’s not true. Second, unless everybody else that you ride with is also riding a gaited horse, you will either be way ahead or way behind on all of your trail rides. And you will still need to learn to post and ride in the two point position at the trot if you want to develop a good seat. One other bit of advice as you learn to ride is to do some activity that distracts you from overthinking and allows you to relax and enjoy your horse. Some examples would be trail riding with friends, pushing cattle around an arena or a pasture, or basically anything that let’s you and your horse just enjoy each other’s company.

While you’re busy taking lessons and trotting and posting and two pointing all over the place, make a concerted effort to study how horses move in each of their gaits. You will need this knowledge when you learn higher level maneuvers like side passing, turning on the haunches, turning on the forehand, and picking up the correct lead.

Now a few words on “natural horsemanship” and “The Horse Whisperer Generation of Riders.” About 25 years ago, the movie The Horse Whisperer came out. It inspired thousands of people to want to buy slick fork saddles and silver bits and twisted horse hair doodads and ride the open range, preferably in Montana in the summer, and preferably with Robert Redford. And who could blame them? The problems started when these people started going to clinics, usually with horses that weren’t suited to them, and learning how to wield a brightly colored flag, how to achieve “lightness” in the bosal, and how to do the “soft feel.” What they didn’t learn to do was to ride correctly. They basically skipped kindergarten, grade school, and high school, and went straight to college. So, long story short, natural horsemanship or as we like to call it, horsemanship, got a bad wrap. Because along with the crop of clinicians who sprang up all over the world, the majority of people were trying learn some pretty advanced concepts before they really understood some very basic ones. So, what I recommend is to work on the basics. They will serve you well. And you will eventually learn that all horsemanship is “the basics” just in different orders or different speeds. When you understand that, go ahead and get that younger, faster, stronger horse. You will be ready for it and you will have earned it.

Special thanks to Chris and Mathilde and Natalia who appear in the photos in this post. Oh, and KC and Ronan as well!