Do you assess how good an instructor is by the way they themselves ride?

Yes, and its both the way the horse goes and their riding style.

I watch a lot of rides and can often recognise who their trainer is.
 
no.... I judge them by how they teach. My instructor can't ride any more and hasn't since competed she broke her leg 25 years ago (just before she started teaching a 4yo me to bounce about on an 11.2 welsh pony on a string....) and yet in all my years of lessons, I've never had any instructors who just gets me and my various horses (over the years) to work so well - and those instructors include a former Olympic team gold medallist and a couple of 4* event riders....
 
Wagtail said:
This ^^ I am sooo fussy about instructors, I haven't had one in 7 years. I can't stand the shorten the reins and push them into to the contact philosophy. I also don't think someone can teach you effectively until they have ridden your horse.
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Isn't that the aim though? To have your horse working into a consistent and elastic contact with energy and suppleness, which achieved by asking them to move forwards off your leg into your contact- not something you can achieve with long reins and weak leg signals!
 
i think the most important thing is to be able to explain the whys and reasons for what you are saying, how can you tell someone else if you can't actually do it yourself? conveying the feeling of how it should be comes from being able to do it yourself.
i breed, break and train youngsters and in the past have competed and beaten the instructors, if i give a lesson i want the pupil to understand the whole process, the reason the horse is like it is , what will change it, the timescale, the management of the horse during the process and most importantly what they should be doing as riders, so often its starts with correcting or enlightening the rider and opening up new vistas of experience like riding on a very light contact and achieving a balanced seat and posture so the whole thing carries itself forward with its own momentum, in other words they are training the horse by improving their riding and knowledge and ability.

so i think yes it is most important.
 
I definitely judge all instructors on how they ride. My instructor (well my main one that taught me when I had P) was absolutely brilliant. I have always learnt better by seeing something done rather than it being explained to me so obviously having an instructor that could not ride, or does not ride in a style that I like would be pretty useless to me. I was very lucky because my instructor rides very well, ok he does not have the competition record that many local ones have but that is because he works in racing. Many people cringe when they hear me say that he works in racing because they think he would be very hard etc but he is in fact a soft balanced rider that did not resort to "kick, kick, smack smack" when all else failed. He rode P beautifully, always getting on him first to see what to work on and how P was behaving and always, without fail managed to get him going beautifully and guided me well!
 
We have 2 instructors in very close proximity that charge alot for lessons but I know wouldn't get on my horse!!

My current instructor, very reasonable price, gets on and shows me how to do anything that I struggle with. I gain alot of confidence for my instructor, but go to pieces when these others won't even get on my horse!!
 
I teach better than I ride! I can tell most people what is needed of them and their horse, how to do it, and exercises to be us I'm the not the most amazIng rider myself! Was teaching my friend on my horse the other day and she got better work out him than I had before her, but she said it was only because I told and explained what buttons to push and how. As long as they have the knowledge. I picked up a lot of mine from watching every lesson i was allowed to.
 
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