How do you know/decide what to do and when without an instructor?

[jkitten]

In terms of work, I mean? I know this is the most riding school of riding school questions, but honestly it baffles me. Years ago when I was riding regularly, I was asked to exercise a privately owned horse as a one-off. I assumed the owner would be present, but after seeing that the horse and I were comfortable with each other, she just left us in the school by ourselves and frankly I didn't know what to do with myself. It wasn't a question of ability, the horse was lovely and willing and I was completely comfortable, it was just that I had never been in a situation without someone telling me when to do what as in walk, trot, canter. Afraid of straining the horse with insufficient warm-up, I ended up doing very little, which was disappointing.

I'm now an adult about to restart lessons and I have no more clue than I did back then. Is this the kind of thing I can ask my (private) instructor to spend time on once I get my horse legs back, or can anyone recommend resources? Many thanks in advance!

 

[Sail_away]

101 schooling exercises is a good book. I flick through it every now and then and it puts some ideas in my head.
When you were riding before, did your instructor ask you to assess your horse? If not that’s a really important skill and it teaches you to find and diagnose the issues in the horse that need working on.
Once you know what needs work then it’s just finding exercises that will help with that - that’s experience, but reading and researching exercises can help to. You almost want to build up a portfolio of exercises in your head that you can pull out for any particular horse.

 

[9tails]

I was similar to you when I first got my own. I would ride large, do a few 20 metre circles here and there, change the rein and ride large plus a few 20 metre circles then be utterly stumped! Now, I work on transitions, walk to canter is my mare's favourite thing. I work on collecting and extending a pace and smoothly transitioning from one to the other. A bit of leg yield, shoulder in, spiralling in and out of a circle.

Have a look at 101 schooling exercises, it definitely started me off on the right road.

 

[jkitten]

Thank you both!

 

[milliepops]

you can definitely ask your instructor for things to work on independently, it's the ideal way to get more from your lessons because it means you can get the feel for an exercise when you have your instructor there, and they can then give you ways to develop it in your own time, so hopefully by the time your next lesson comes around you are ready to move on a bit more

 

[jkitten]

That sounds like good advice but just to be clear, I will be a riding school pupil for the next year or so at least, so have no horse to work on in my own time. I'll bear it in mind for if that time comes (hopefully it will!).

 

[Cob Life]

I keep a little book of things we need to improve Then find exercises to improve those and practice what we learn in lessons. I usually pick one thing to work on per ride.
like blue isn’t great at walk to halt so I then find exercises to improve that.
i have to pick my battles sometimes, if I planned to work on canter work but he’s very strong/spooky warming up then I work on lateral work getting him more supple, listening and relaxing first

 

[equestrian7474]

In terms of work, I mean? I know this is the most riding school of riding school questions, but honestly it baffles me. Years ago when I was riding regularly, I was asked to exercise a privately owned horse as a one-off. I assumed the owner would be present, but after seeing that the horse and I were comfortable with each other, she just left us in the school by ourselves and frankly I didn't know what to do with myself. It wasn't a question of ability, the horse was lovely and willing and I was completely comfortable, it was just that I had never been in a situation without someone telling me when to do what as in walk, trot, canter. Afraid of straining the horse with insufficient warm-up, I ended up doing very little, which was disappointing.

I'm now an adult about to restart lessons and I have no more clue than I did back then. Is this the kind of thing I can ask my (private) instructor to spend time on once I get my horse legs back, or can anyone recommend resources? Many thanks in advance!

A good warm up is 1 or 2 laps of walk on each rein, at 8 to 10 minutes of trot work and a canter on each rein. Then you can introduce whatever excercises you want. Think back to what you did in your lessons. You can google some exercises to do when riding. If you’re jumping, make sure to start with a cross pole that isn’t too high and work your way up. When you’re finished give them a very quick trot with a long rein and then walk on a long rein for 5-10 minutes depending on how sweaty or hot they are.

 

[Spanny]

I'd start by talking to your instructor about it. Hopefully what will happen is they will start you giving you little bits of free time during the lesson to try doing your own thing. They can watch and then discuss it with you - talk through what you were doing and, importantly, why. This comes back to what was said above about assessing the horse you're riding and working out what exercises/movements would be useful to work on to help that horse (e.g. more suppleness, more forward, straighter etc). Again, this is something that can be done as an exercise with your instructor - they can ask you questions and guide you through the assessment.

It's hard at first! But the more you do it the easier it will get, and in time you'll work out a 'tool box' of exercises that help horses in different ways. It's a really fun and rewarding skill to build, enjoy!

 

[Scarlett]

I think that's a good question and one that's worth a good chat with your instructor. I taught for a few years and working without constant instruction is something I always tried to expose pupils too. A good instructor should be able to teach you what to do, and I would expect them to encourage you to ride on your own when appropriate, especially if your aim is your own horse one day.

 

[atropa]

When I was still at a riding school the instructors would sometimes give us a session of 'free riding' where we got to pick how we rode the horse, it was actually pretty useful as you also had to be mindful of where everyone else in the school was at the time.
My current routine is 10 minute walking warmup (trying to get the walk forward, circling and bending, walk halt transitions, bit of easy lateral work) then pick up into a nice forward trot, again add in a few circles and leg yields, a couple of nice forward canter transitions on each rein getting up off the horses back where I can. Usually after 10 minutes of this my horse is nicely warmed up and I have an idea of how she is feeling that day and what we might need to work on. I generally do 10-20 minutes of this actual 'work' (usually based on my last dressage lesson) then a 10 minute walk cool down.

 

[criso]

I used to have similar to Atropa at one riding school i was at. Given 10 minutes to warm up. Then a discussion with the instructor on how i thought the horse was going and what approach and exercises i would use to improve the horse. We then went off and did it with the instructor giving input. It also gets you used to working with other people in the arena doing different things, a very useful skill on a livery yard.