A good review of how to get your horse ready to ride. Great for beginner riders just getting into the sport of horse riding!
A good review of how to get your horse ready to ride. Great for beginner riders just getting into the sport of horse riding!
How to adjust stirrups on a saddle before you ride. Also check out “Running up your stirrups” for more about stirrups!
“The art of horsemanship is keeping the horse between you and the ground.”
–Robbie Gaskins.
How exactly that feat is accomplished varies from sport to sport, but for everything from polo to cattle roping, you need three things: balance, communication and precision.
Read more on Horse Riding Basics: the foundations of equitation…
The first time I climbed on a horse, I was sure I was going to slide right off again. There were no handles, and certainly no seatbelts.
Fortunately, I’ve improved a bit since then, and learned a whole lot about how to stay balanced in the saddle.
How you sit on your horse will determine how good your balance is. You want to sit on your horse in such a way that if I could suddenly yank him out from under you, you’d land happily on your feet! Read more on Balance…
Riding costs chucks of time, money and energy. Of all the sports a youngster could start, I figured it probably only outranks curling in the chances of it earning her a scholarship to college (but, it turns out I’m wrong! Check out my new scholarship blog post). And as parents likely notice, riding also puts their child in direct partnership with a very large and sometimes exceedingly foolish animal.
So why should you let your daughter ride?
Honestly, it is for those exact reasons listed above that I think anyone vaguely interested in riding should dive right in. Here’s why.
photography by Dave Russell
Fear… It happens to everyone. Your horse spooks at a trash can, you miss the spacing on a jump, you lose your balance in the canter or maybe you even fall–and suddenly the thought of throwing your leg back over the saddle makes your stomach flip.
At some point, something will scare you about riding. Maybe you started out scared or maybe something spooked you after you got started. I’d never been afraid of anything until my horse and I completely crashed through a 3’ 9” jump before a competition–and I mean we took out all eight poles and both standards–and suddenly even warmup fences seemed insurmountable. It doesn’t matter where the fear snuck in. The trick is to first recognize the feeling, next control it, then plan out your actions and finally just go for it!
There is nothing wrong with being afraid. The more you try to pretend you aren’t or the more you punish yourself for feeling that fear, the harder it will be to honestly address the issue. Or worse, you’ll do something you’re not ready to do just to “prove” you’re not scared. My infamous crash happened right before I was supposed to compete. I’d been training Noah for four years and although every warmup fence after that crash was terrible, because we were both so shaken, I thought it would be “chickening out” to forfeit the competition. So we tried anyway. Noah refused to jump the fourth fence and we narrowly avoided getting seriously hurt. I should have recognized that we were not ready to take on that course after our accident, but I was too embarrassed to admit my fear. You don’t have to make this mistake–be brave enough to listen to yourself and your horse. Be brave enough to know you’re not ready! Read more on Conquer Fear — 4 easy steps to getting “back on the horse”…
If you share an arena with other riders, knowing what to do can help avoid accidents.
Here are ten simple rules to follow whenever there are other riders around:
1. Call out, “Door!” before you open a door to an arena, and wait for a response before you enter. This will let anyone inside know you are there and they will be able to let you know when it is safe to enter.
2. Mount and adjust tack in the center of the arena, where you are out of the way of other riders. Stopping along the rail blocks the way for anyone else who is riding.
3. Leave at least one horse-length between your horse and another horse. Riding too closely can scare horses or result in a horse or rider getting kicked.
4. Often at big gatherings, riders tie a red ribbon onto the tail of any horse that kicks. Make sure to give plenty of room to any horse with a red ribbon in its tail. And if your horse is a kicker, make sure you tie on a red ribbon!
