Confident rider...novice rider...

very very subjective and dependent on situation - novice at a riding school is probably someone still not confident in canter, BE novice events are 1.10m xc!!

Confident is something different again - my 3 year old is very confident on his shetland (he has no fear in anything!) but he's not even a novice - still being held on his leg all the time!!
 
Confident for me is when you do not get that cringe-feeling inside.

Sometimes that means to confidently say that I am not happy to do that.... whatever "that" may be!
 
Depends on the context, if it is a sales ad " Needs confident rider, not suitable for novice!" Then you better have a super glue butt and nerves of steel :D I jest, but an ad like that would generally mean the horse does require someone experienced and confident.

If its a riding school, dividing their classes " Beginner, novice, intermediate, advanced" then the word novice has an entirely different level. Just because you are a confident person and in the intermediate class at the riding school, doesn't mean you will be ready for the horse in the ad above.

Confidence is a funny thing, we all have our limits, I was a super confident rider, would jump on anything! Then I met my match. I lost confidence by the bucket load! Now I would say that I have re-gained my confidence, thanks to a wonderful horse, to the point that I would jump on most things, but not anything!
 
I don't think a confident rider is necessarily a GOOD or KIND rider, but rather gets the job done without too much fuss.

A novice might be a good or kind rider, but might take a lot longer and with a lot of umming and ahhing about the best way to do the job.
 
Two different things - but no necessarily mutually exclusive!

I have one of mine advertised for part share atm - I had a lady respond who had had horses on loan for 3 years, taught at the RDA but had a couple of years break for uni. Fine thinks I - the mare was bought for my mum to start riding again on after 30 years break and is what it says on the tin - a lovely sensible mare , but still a horse at the end of the day!
She came to try her, and was clearly exceedingly nervous wandered around in walk not really doing anything productive but sitting there, i asked if she wanted to try a trot she managed about 3 strides before losing her balance, bashing down on the back of the saddle frightening the mare who did a spanking trot over to me, which she managed to fall off!!!!

Ive now had to put an NB no suitable for returning to horses, on the ad - for the horses sake as she was so frightened by this sodding woman she became v nervous and I had to get on and calm her down.

I think its all open to interpretation but you have to know in your bones you can deal with a horse in any and all circus before going there.
 
I've met some very over confident riders who were terrible and certainly not in control of their nice horses, let alone a not straightforward one. You can easily be confident and clueless in any activity.
 
It's such a difficult thing to define. We have a lot of difficulty establishing rider levels when selling riding holidays and trying to match people to the right experience. I like to separate ability and confidence as someone can be a complete beginner but very confident around horses, not nervous, willing to give anything a bash. Equally a very experienced and competent rider can be very nervous.

In my opinion it's basically impossible to summarise riding ability in just a few words, it's just so subjective.
 
I agree that a confident rider can be very clueless. Also, most people have a comfort zone which they are confident in. I would say I am confident riding on the flat, but less so over jumps. I'm also more confident on smaller horses/ponies as that's what I have most experience with- I can't remember the last time I got on something over 16hh. I think it can be a very meaningless term, especially when used in adverts, although some horses do take confidence from the rider. Some people may be confident on their own horse but lose it when they get on another.

I agree that novice is subjective to the situation as well. It is often used to cover a wide range of people, from complete beginners to people who can actually ride quite well and effectively, but lack experience of difficult horses, or a wide range of horses. I would probably use beginner instead when talking about someone who was new to riding and didn't yet have a secure seat in W/T/C. To me a novice is someone who has mastered the basics, and can maybe even influence how the horse is going a bit, but doesn't have the skills to school/re-school something from scratch or deal with major issues. They can ride a safe, made horse relatively well, but don't yet have the skills to deal with anything more than that.

I agree that assessing people for lessons etc is a really difficult process, and in general I would avoid the words confindent and novice. Instead I'd ask what sort of riding they had done before, how often, how recently, what kind of horses they rode, where they rode and so on, to try and build up a more full picture.
 
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