Following on from "If someone rode your horse" post....

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xspiralx

Guest
Reading this thread, I noticed a lot of people saying if someone else rode their horse they'd probably end up in hospital.

This struck me as a bit odd, particularly in the way it almost seemed to be advertised as a good thing.
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I think its probably true that most horses go better for their owners, but it seems very strange to me that so many people's horses are so dangerous that nobody else could ride them without ending up in hospital
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I can't really think of any horses I've come across that have been like that - a previous horse of mine, Taz, was very difficult and didn't really go well for anybody but me, but I would never have said he was dangerous to ride.

So why is it all these horses are so awful and dangerous? Are they never going to be sold? Were they all unrideable when they were bought? Or are their owners just much more talented and understanding riders than anyone else?
 
I'm very interested to read people's comments on this!!
I often wonder the same thing when people make statements like this!!
Both of my horses will "test" new riders and are not as "giving" at first but this is what IMO is to be expected when someone new riders a horse - for them to check them out a bit and then settle down (provided the rider is half decent!!). Both of mine are quite sharp and slightly more so with new people while they test them out so I would caution people about that but never say they are dangerous or significantly different to when I ride.
I think people who say their horses go a million times better for them than other people have slightly too big an ego!! I have ridden many horses owned by other people and have tried many on viewings to buy - a few I have felt have tested me out for a minute or two but I have never experienced a horse going considerably worse for me than for the owner. Although of course I like to think of myself as a great rider
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I have never got the impression that would made the difference either way - simply because the horse never had the intention of being a million times naughtier than with the owner and I think that is because horses on the whole are not as bothered as some owners like to think!!

Of course I can't promise that if someone got on either of mine and did something stupid they wouldn't end up in hospital but if they just rode them around, they would, I am sure, be fine.
I really do think that for most horses the main difference is how much they are willing to give - for mine therefore this makes the difference between being good and great - rather than the difference between being dangerous or good!
I too find it odd that some people seem proud that there horses would be so silly - I like my horses to be well rounded, well schooled, well mannered and chilled enough not to flip there lid at something so simple as someone else riding them!!
 
I have to say, the same thought zipped through my mind for a moment....but then perhaps that is because I was a paid rider and used to rehabilitate horses for a living, so that they changed from being crazy things and became nice, mentally well balanced horses that any competent rider could ride. No they would never have been novice rides but they certainly didn't need any super duper rider to be able to get the best from them once they had finished their time with me.

Only one horse in my whole life was positively dangerous and that was my old showjumper that I had for 16 years. All the rest ended up fine.

I don't know why people say things like this though; seems most odd to me. Surely you should try your darndest to teach horses to be respectful of any rider? I always do.
 
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Anyone at my yard who rode PF or Antifaz would end up in hospital because they're all such CRAP riders.

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From your stories, I can believe that!!!
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I think it just boosts some peoples ego to think they have a one rider horse. If you intend to show your horse in classes where the judge has to ride, it does them no favours not to get other people to ride it at home. Also what happens if you have a regular trainer who wants to get on? I think it is daft to say no one can ride the horse without ending up in hospital. For unless you have had the horse since 1st being backed it will have experienced previous riders, so what has happened for these animals to have become unrideable by anyone else?
 
Yes, (I haven't actually read the whole thread but,) I don't understand the trend on here to make out that your horse is such a devil and that no one else could ride it....
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That would mean a lot of horses are unrideable for all but their current owners...
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Both my girls are well behaved to ride. But I do admit that Star is a total cow to strangers and probably wouldn't be caught by one
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but once tacked up and someone is on her, she knows her job
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I think it just boosts some peoples ego to think they have a one rider horse.

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I agree!
It's like it's cool to say, "oh yeah, i'm the only one that can ride my horse" - I personally don't see that as a good thing at all!!
I know not everybody is like that, but I think the majority are!
 
Mine's an angel to ride but as someone else said, for strangers to catch she is the devil - she'll test them to see how much nerve they have but i am by no means proud of that and would love her to stop - unless someone was trying to steal her of course!
 
Bails looks after anyone and adapts to the rider paticulary if they are very novice, my little cousins have had their first ride on him and he tottered round like a tiny pony, OH has hacked him out too, however with someone more competant he can be very sharp.

Ryu is argumentative and can throw a buck but hes also lazy, if james is down the yard and we're rushing he'll warm him down without any problems.

Both mine have been shown at local level and I have worked hard to produce them as well mannered rides. I can imagine if some awful rider got on and yacked them in the gob and kicking them in the ribs then the would protest but then I'd never let someone like that ride them.
 
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But I do admit that Star is a total cow to strangers and probably wouldn't be caught by one
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A slight understatement I think
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As I do not have my own horse I have to make do with riding other peoples and have only ended up in hospital once (and that was at a Riding School). I think there is an element of people wanting to believe that their horse is difficult and goes well for them only because they are such a good rider. While I agree that someone who owns the horse and rides it all the time will be more familiar with their horse's quirks and will know how to ride in certain situations that does not mean that another person couldn't do a reasonable job of riding it...
 
One of my older ponies was a one person horse. If anyone else got on she'd shut off and ignore them! Dangerous? Hardly.
All of mine have been ridden by as many people as I can get on them. If someone completely ignorant gets on, they wouldn't go anywhere or do anything. They certainly would never hurt anyone!
I think, for the most part, it's people bragging, although I can't see why anyone would boast having a dangerous horse.
If, for some reason it happens to be true, it's incredibly selfish. If these people had an accident and could never make it to the yard again, their horses would have to be shot as no one else could manage them! How very selfish and arrogant indeed.
 
Mine are quite different - anybody could get on them and ride perfectly safely. They may not get the best ride in the world but would be prefectly safe IMO.

I have had difficult ones, but these days life is too short to be messing around with big challenges
 
Whilst I agree that horses that are suitable for novice rides are ideal, not every horse is like that. My old TB mare is sharp and very, very responsive.
If you accidentally twitch a leg muscle she responds...that's fine for me...but novice riders can't help involuntary movements so she is not suitable for them. I have put her on loan and shared her in the past with happy results, but I am incredibly careful who rides her as she is athletic in her reactions...and I would not want to be responsible for rider injuries.
Anyone who has managed or taught in a riding school knows there are some horses suitable for the more advanced riders, some suitable for nervous novices, and part of the skill of teaching successfully in these situations is matching horse with rider at suitable stages in their riding career. To do otherwise, or to treat all horses as homogenous transport would endanger the horse, but more importantly, the rider.
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My lad will allow anyone to ride him(likes to play i am not going off ya leg for a short while,but once he realises you can ride he gets on with it) and i have in the past had people help with his schooling,it is my choice that noone else rides him,after all he is MINE,lol!!!
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The only reason the OP would end up in hospital is by the fact that they had the cheek to get on any of my horses without my permission - it wouldn't be the horse that hospitalised them!!!!
 
I can actually see why people say this, as quite a few horses although highly talented just don't tolerate anyone who isn't skilled.
I think it would be better to say only experienced riders can ride your horse perhaps.
Looking round our yard a few spring to mind. Jonty who although only 15.2 hh is a fireball of energy and has to be ridden firmly but with gentleness regarding her transitions. Jacques who is still wary of new people getting on and if worried will fire them off into orbit , there is no way we would allow anyone other than a professional to ride him, yet he is totally quiet and trainable once he has got over the initial first ten mins..
Both would scare the average rider witless, because they are unused to people who can't sit still and in balance. Their reaction is to speed up and in Jonty's case bounce, which then tips the rider forwards and makes the situation worse.
It's no good saying "My horses would never misbehave like that because of how I train them" either, because competition horses are a weird bunch, that's why so many reach the top.
It's a bit like expecting the average rider to ride all racehorses, of course they couldn't!
One thing which did please us however is when Sooty's Mac went hacking with my husband the other weekend, the stallion looked after him perfectly.. Some horses do take care fo their riders, others just follow their whizzy brains, look at recent H and H reports, the top grey event horse who attempted to ditch Lucinda Green over a two foot fence: William F P admitting they have to virtually re-break his top horse if it has a week off.
I think they are the horses who can't be ridden by average riders, I just hope the ones some owners are talking about aren't badly behaved badly trained "normal" horses who have been allowed to misbehave...
Oh and I don't feel proud about Jonty or Jacques behaviour, but one was caused by a teenager (no names
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) moving up from a quiet 14.2 hh to a little Tb and treating it like a gymkhana pony, the other is from a line who can be difficult to break!
 
I said that i don't think people would dare to get on mine. That is more due to the fact that I tend to keep myself to myself when it comes to the majority of the liveries on the yard. Also no one else does dressage on the yard and they all think Osc is this super talented animal (haha, I wish!!) and a few of them have seen him doing his 'thing' when I get on. To be honest most people down there wouldn't be able to get on him as he does everything in routine and won't wait about for someone to fiddle around. Also some of them probably would hit the deck if they hadn't got on properly as he is very sensitive about it. But once you are on and he is going forwards, in the school anyone could ride him! Although not necessarily get much out of him!
 
in a lot of cases a horse goes better with a (decent) new rider, because the new rider can feel slight inconsistences, unevennesses etc which the usual rider might have become a bit oblivious to over time, or be compensating for (or causing) themself. the clever horses might try it on a bit, obviously, though!
 

Having had one of my mares go from being an incredibly difficult and unpredictable ride for anybody (myself included) to the calm, happy mare she is today who is a fun and safe ride for any competant rider, I am so proud that she can, and is, ridden by various people.

My second mare is exactly the same. I would be ashamed if my horses couldn't be trusted to give a safe ride.
 
I thought that most people in that thread were mentioning hospital not because the horse would put the joy-rider there, but because the owner would? Which I also find a bit worrying but there you go
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Maiden is a total beginner's/ first horse, confidence giver extraordinnaire! Anyone could ride her, but only someone with experience and an amount of skill could actually get her working properly. She's so used to being a beginner's horse that it's hard to get a decent tune out of her, but certainly not because she's difficult. I certainly wouldn't mind if a friend wanted to borrow her to let a non-horsey person have a ride, or something like that. In fact I'm hoping to loan her to the RDA or to a nervous/ beginner person when she's recovered.
 
Anyone could ride Dan pretty much without injury as long as they sit quietly. A quiet novice he will plod for a more experienced rider he will actually work for. BUT he doesn't like very heavy handed riders who try to boss him about, those he will dump though he hasn't dumped anyone in several years (hey thats how I ended up with him as he had personality clash with old rider!
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Fleur however is a different quantity. An experienced rider would be fine but someone a bit novicey or not quick off the mark would almost certainly find themselves on the floor. She is very sharp and very quick and will test whoever is riding her. One second she will be working beautifully the next if you haven't read the signs from her and prevented it she will be the other end of the school having shied at a leaf. She is 'dangerous' as such now if you are an experienced rider but there is no way I would stick a novice on her. She used to be dangerous though without question for several months, and you had to be constantly thinking of what she was doing as even a second of lasped concentration and she would be bucking/rearing/broncing for Britain.
 
I also read many of the replies to mean that it would be the owners hospitalizing the person riding without consent as opposed to the horse doing something horrendous.

Mine isnt a crazed uncontrollable animal, but he is very difficult. He's sharp and he had an accident last year which has left him with some damage inside his mouth. He's also very confrontational and "threatens" various behaviour although rarely goes through with it. An example being if you were to try to "ask" him to come into any kind of shape with your hands, his immediate reaction would be to go insanely hollow, slow right down and start bunny hopping with the front end FEELING very much like he's going to stand up.

He never has so far but he feels like it and that alone made the last "stranger" (to him) who rode him jump straight off.

His main actual behavioural issue is that he's a spinner. If he's got too much energy, is feeling that way inclined or sees something he dislikes, he spins and runs and hes very very quick with it. The problem then is that if you try and grab his front end, due to the damage in his mouth, he'll go ballistic and run all the more so you have to be able to stop him with your body and legs rather than touching the reins.

All in all... he's not awful by a long way, he's actually a lovely, gentle and responsive horse and when he's working correctly, he feels amazing. He's tricky rather than difficult i think as its more learning how to ride him without aggrevating him rather than him being super crazy or needing an amazingly good rider
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Providing someone was prepared to work with him rather than against him, i think most decent riders would find him quite good fun as he's like an oversized pony with elastic running through him :P
 
I agree with HenryHorn - I think it is a totally different thing to say "not a novice ride" and "complete one rider horse".
Both of mine are sharp and this does make them unsuitable for novice / not quiet riders but for competant riders, both would be fine.
Definately an ego thing for some people and in very few cases do I believe owners when they say this. In fact it makes me want to get on the horse to show the owner up
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