Beginner riding tips

[Morton90]

Hello.
I’ve recently started riding lessons as an adult.

Are there any tips you found particularly helpful when starting out?
I am currently learning the rising trot and finding it a little tricky to keep my balance, any tips on this would also be really helpful.

Thank you : )

 

[OrangeAndLemon]

Your instructor is best placed to help because there could be a whole variety of things not quite working for you.

Don't use the reins to balance, it's so easy to make this mistake but something your instructor will point out. Rising needs to come from the hips / body. Think about what your core is doing to help you balance.

If your stirrups aren't right, it won't feel right so make sure you say if they are too long or short. (A good instructor will probably notice anyway)

The one lesson that really stuck with me is that you shouldn't land on your horses back but instead the saddle should simply come up to meet you. Be conscious of the horse underneath you and always try to be an easy weight for the horse to carry.

Really, it's all about your core and keeping the rest of you relaxed so you can go with the horse.

 

[Goldie's mum]

How exciting! . Main thing is to relax and enjoy it. Much harder if you are tense. Keep practising & it will click.
Remember to move only a little bit. Don't go right up high. If you go too high it's difficult to stay in rhythm with the horse because it takes too long to get up & down again & the horse is on the next stride by then.
Are you having to drive the horse forward at the same time or is he happy to keep a steady pace while you work it out?

 

[Skib]

I started riding lessons when I was 61.

I had done some rising trot as a child and the word rising makes an adult think of it as up and down. I found it more helpful to think of it as rolling my hips forward between my hands. The forward movement of the horse has moved the saddle forward so it is in the right place for your seat when you sit. And your hands stay still (rest the knuckles on the horse's shoulders if you are unsteady) because you are rollng your hips between them. I learned this from the RI who gave me many lunge lessons. Most of the lifting of your seat is done by the movement of the horse.

Maybe stop trying to rise and let the horse lift you?
Having a year of lunge lessons made a great difference to my security in the saddle. The emphasis was all on balance till I was balanced enough to have lessons bareback. I was off the lunge only the last 15 minutes of the lesson.

If you have difficulty rising, some RIs teach sitting trot first.

 

[JackFrost]

It can be difficult to do a rising trot if you don't have a vertical shoulder-hip-heel alignment. And some saddles don't help with this, they make your lower leg stick forwards.
Ask to practise standing up in the stirrups in halt, then in walk. Experiment with what gives you balance. The issue might be that you are not really sitting right yet.

I know you say you are just beginning, but you could ask to try some no-stirrup work in walk and slow trot, it will help you to sit down better into the saddle and stops you trying to push down (and probably forwards) against the stirrup, which will just throw you back with a bump into the saddle when you need to be lifted up by the movement.

 

[Skib]

I now have time to add to what I posted above.
Although I didnt learn this till my second year of riding, it helps enormously to know what the feet of the horse are doing. From the new rider's point of view this is mostly the hind legs of the horse because you are sitting on the hind legs of the horse. If you walk on the horse you should feel a side to side movement under your seat. When a hind leg comes of the ground, your seat bone that side should drop down or fall a little.
The vocabulary seems contradictory but think of the horse as a 4 legged table. The foot he lifts is no longer suporting him, so that corner drops. If you count 4 as you walk on the horse you should feel the side to side movement through your seat in the saddle as the hind legs lift and then touch the ground again.
If the teacher then starts trot on the lunge, you should feel the same movement under your seat in sitting trot, side to side rather than up and down. It is a good thing to learn because feeling the horse through your seat in this way is an important part of learning to ride.

 

[NoodlesHalloween]

Well Done for starting and age is not a factor we all learn at our own pace. I found lots of sitting trot helped with my balance and lots of no stirrup work. Now I have ironed out a lot of my issues I still have a hip that likes to naturally drop so I have gone back to pilates and I am having some mechanical horse lessons so I can focus purely on me.

 

[moosea]

Hello.
I’ve recently started riding lessons as an adult.

Are there any tips you found particularly helpful when starting out?
I am currently learning the rising trot and finding it a little tricky to keep my balance, any tips on this would also be really helpful.

Thank you : )

Hi and Welcome!

I'm sure you will get lots of helpful advice here.

I will assume that you are learning at a BHS (British Horse Society) or ABRS (Association of British Riding Schools) approved centre?

Top tips for learning to ride;

• Take lots and lots of time to learn the basics, it will be slow but you'll be gald you learnt properly later!
• Ride as often as you can, and when you are ready, on as many different horses as possible.
• Rising Trot is probably the hardest part to learn. Try thinking of it as the horse throwing you up and you being in control of the landing part, So as you come up try not to come to far out of the saddle. As you go down, try to use your central, or core muscles to control the sitting back into the saddle so that it is gentle for both parties.
• Rise from your hip bones and not your shoulders.
• 3 steps of good rising trot is better than 10 bad steps.
• Watch other people do rising trot, count the tempo as they are doing it. It should help with your own riding.
• The reins are only for guiding at your stage of riding. Try to imagaine they are made from a single strand of cotton and you are not allowed to break it.
• If you dont understand something, ask for it to be explained. Any good instructor will be happy to help you.
• Enjoy yourself!
  
  Looking forwards to updates on how you are getting on
  

 

[Muddy unicorn]

Lunge lessons are really helpful because you don’t have to worry about steering or keeping the horse going so it’s much easier to get your movement right.

 

[Kunoichi73]

If you have a mechanical horse near you it might be worth having a few lessons on that. I'm planning some as soon as I'm cleared by the fracture/physio due to my fractured collar bone.

 

[wren123]

When you're doing rising trot think hips to hand.