How did you learn to ride?

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PinkTulips

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Well last night i was having a chat with mum and she was horrified at how much i pay for an hour lesson (£35) she then said she has never done a lesson in her life :eek: I couldn't believe it! She has rode for years and she is fantastic never seen her fazed by a horse and she was devistated when she had to give up riding due to a injury at work to her legs and right arm :(

so it got me thinking, my mum is 48 and she said when she was a kid her dad just chucked her on and told her the basics. Her and the pony learnt together, she said you can learn more from the horse itself than anyone can ever tell you.

She said ok she would never survive in the competing world but as a pleasure rider she is fine. So how did you learn?
 
I spent hours bumping around and off ponies for £12 a go at the local riding school.

I think the throwing a child up and off you go can work in some cases but not in others! My husband and his brother had their big sister do it to them and they are both quite wary of horses now. He also didn't actually learn to do rising trot until I gave him a wee lesson on my horse earlier this year. Previously he had just walked, kicked on to trot and not enjoying the bumping went straight on to canter. He was put off totally when the pony he was on had a fight with another in a field and basically didn't gat back on again until this year with me. He now wants to go to lessons and learn to ride properly so he can get a horse.
 
we have a load of travellers living near us for years, and you see the kids start riding and how they develop over the years. Its a completely different style of riding. It would be interesting to compare the pluses and minuses between them and bhs taught for example. the pluses are they seem supercinfident and have good seats, the bad is that their contact is absolutely horrific, and the horses have tense necks and heads jammed in the air

there was an interesting tv show on irish telly a few years ago where dermot gavin took a load of street kids who liked horses and trained them with jessica kurten to jump in the rds. there was one kid who hadnt done traditional training but he adapted really well and would have been a cracking rider later. the rest found it much harder to ride 'correctly'

i think if i had been self taught i would never in a million years figured out concepts like self carriage in a horse, correct strides, proper contact
 
My older sister was learning to ride at our local, so I pretty much followed suit by getting chucked onto a pony at the age of 4 and quickly progressing into doing yard work in return for free rides and lessons.

Wasn't scared by literally being thrown onto a pony and told 'go!'....but I think the fact that I was already obsessed by horses helped!! My brother and cousin was not a fan of the 'throw the child in at the deep end and see what happens' tactic...
 
Next door neighbour had a little companion pony who needed a job, I was small enough for him, so I was popped on board and taken out for "hacks" when next door neighbour's teenage daughter rode her horse out.

At first I had one of those kiddie saddles with a handle on it but by the time I out grew him I was doing rising trot on the lead rein properly. At that point my parents were going to get me a slightly bigger pony on loan but the arrangements fell through and I ended up having riding school lessons for many many years. My sister followed me into riding school lessons not long after that.
 
OP i learnt in very much the same way as your mum.

my family had a trekking centre so there was always lots of horses around, my mum used put me in a back pack when i was a baby and go for 4 hour rides. i guess from that i learnt the way horses moved and their rythym which helped me alot when i was finally allowed to take charge of my own pony (under strict guidance) when i was 4yrs old. myself and my brother used to ride 5 miles to the stables every day and by doing that i learnt alot, my pony would throw me off if i didn't sit right.
i would get to the stables with mud on me and thorns sticking out my body/face/hands/legs and instead of being concerned about me she would have a go at me telling me that i should be riding better! lol

i joined the pony club when i was 6yrs old and we used to learn lots there but my main riding 'skills' came from being thrown in at the deep end!
 
I learnt to ride at the age of eleven on a neighbours four year old cob :D
The cob couldn't even canter under saddle & had done nothing much really! I was told to just get on with it. If i wanted to ride then it was the cob or nothing! It was a good way to ride because now i am quite good with green horses & don't have much fear at all, however it takes guts to learn to ride like that - many falls & accidents! I didn't have any formal lessons for quite a while & the ones i did were just riding club. But i progressed onto ther local ponies until i got my own for free & got several good oppurtunities & was lucky that i kind of fell into things such as working for a trainer & working at racing yards etc.
 
I started off back in the 60's as a 5or 6 year old at a RS. Wasn't allowed off off the lunge until I could sit properly. Then soon after introduced to jumping as instructor said this would improve my balance. Summers as a teenager, while staying with an aunt were spent taking tourists out trekking in Connemara in return for free rides.
Trekking with its hours in the saddle taught me how to feel the horse underneath me and to ride in a way that didn't impede the horse. Think that taught me far more as a youngster, than any RI with their meaningless euphemisms.
 
I started when I was 4 at a local riding school and pretty much did that for about 16 years then stopped to go to uni, I used to work for rides at the school when I was older so I could ride more and usually ended up on the youngsters/nutters/loons :D I started again when I was 33 at another school and then got a horse on loan and it's a mixture of self taught and lessons :)
 
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Aoibhin said:
thown on a heavy of grandfatheres at about 3/4 & horse was sent home with the instructions to me of hold on & DO NOT LET GO!.

then went to lessons when i was 8 onwards to make me ride "nicer looking" hasnt worked though :)
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Love it ! My earliest intro to equestrianism was probably around that age too, given instructions to take donkey and cart down the lane to home from the bog. Didn't realise at the time, but donkey was actually taking me home.
 
Its amazes me that she rides so beautiful with no lessons, she told me when Grandad taught her to trot he told her to "Bloody pick your bum up girl" hahaha :D Did make me laugh.

I do see her point about the expense of learning to ride tho, its a very expensive hobby indeed:rolleyes:
 
my 3 kids are just starting to learn now (5,3 & 1yo) & have the love of our section A to play with, there is much less hang on & dont let go & much more have fun.

my gran was apperntly horrified when Tuppence strolled into the yard with me perched on her, grin from ear to ear & hanging onto her hames like a scotsman to a fiver! Tupps would never have hurt anything bless her & its my grandfathers (pops) passion for animals that made me ME.
its scary looking back now on what he did as would prob be reported for putting minor at risk but then it was just ok & it was only the early 80's so not THAT far back.
 
I learnt fairly "late" compared to a lot of riders, I was around 12 or 13 (1992). It was a riding school of sorts, bit of wood outside the yard painted with "lessons here" :D

The price was £6 for an hour, both me and my brother went. By the 3rd lesson we jumped a cross pole and immediately after landing (still on) had our first canter, which we also survived.

Unfortunately we moved from Lincolnshire to Sussex and when we started riding lessons again it was very expensive in comparison, about £20 for an hour and it was a lot more "regimented". Couldn't canter or jump or hack out until we were excellent at rising trot, changing the rein, bit of leg yielding etc. Progress was very slow compared to our last experience.

I much preferred the "get on and go, yeehaw" freeness of the place before as most kids would do but the more I grew up the more I realised I wouldn't have progressed so much if I hadn't been taught "correctly".
 
My mum got her first pony at the age of 5 & taught herself to ride by getting chucked off..my nan & grandad knew nothing about horses & her uncle got her a little welsh pony & she learnt from scratch, self taught & then had a few lessons as she got older. My mum later then got back into horses when I was 8 & she put me on a lunge line & taught me to ride in a field.. I then rode her friends cob out because it loved my mum's tb so much that my mum could literally canter off & the cob would want her nose as close to the tb's bum as possible so she never worried about me leaving her side.. I started having dressage lessons last year at the age of 21 on my tb, I obviously had to change my position & bits like that but my instructor commented on how hard it would be for me to come off..I supposse because I'd learnt to ride by learning to stay on.. Now years later my mum would probably never do the same things again, she thinks that by having her horses at home when she was young she missed seeing the potencial dangers that you would see being on a yard..so she had no fear.. But for me I'm now teaching my 8 year old cousin the same way I was taught, on a lunge line & in 2-3 weeks she's now cantering with no stirrups & her bum doesn't leave the saddle.. But she will be havinf lessons with my instructor too!
 
Blimey, people started young didn't they! I was 42 (X years ago!!!), just decided to give it a try as too old to get my kicks out of the 'contact sports' I was used to. Went to a riding school and that was it 'hooked'!
Now on my 4th horse, hunt and have dressage and SJ rosettes to show for my efforts (all at a very low level I should add!).
 
On a Shetland! Which is make or break, I feel or it was with Louby Loo anyway! ( she used to buck you off at least 4 times a lesson, but boy did we learn to bounce!) I was just 4 and had always wanted a pony or donkey. Still want a donkey.

Then started lessons at a riding school and finally ended up with a Welshie x who taught me a lot. But as to how I look, apart from having excellent balance and stickabilty (you get that hunting a 14-2hh nutter who can clean a 5 bar gate in a cat leap!) But it is the posh bits for dressage that I can't get. It took me ages to understand that contact was what we called "on the bit"

I love riding, unfortunately can't ride much due to illness, but I am not a particularly "pretty" rider. Fany and I are not interested in outline etc. ( she does that with Elizabeth) We like to pootle around and have fun together.

FDC
 
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Riding school from age of 5/6 for 10 years then when I was earning my own money went back to riding schools, then got a loan schoolmistress. Now at 32 I own my own horse, and then I realised I can't ride for toffee and he has taught me more in nearly 3 years than I ever learned at all the riding schools put together. I jokingly blame my parents when they ask why the house is a mess/ I am covered in mud/limping/skint because they never bought me a pony when I was a kid!!!
 
Apart from a few donkeys on the beach, my first riding lessons were taken at a riding school on a pony called Nobby when I was 9 years old. They used to cost £1/hour (don't even ask how many years ago that was!:o)
 
Chucked on mommy's dressage horses aged pretty much zero (along with her, clearly!) and expected to deal with it.
Aged 21 and planning my first GP dressage competitions (so far we can get 12 one-tempis in a row :D) I guess something must have worked!
 
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