imogen345
Active Member
I will always be a total novice. I learn something new everyday as I find horses need to be treated as individuals, often making common sense and the ability to research and understand, more important.
You are no longer a beginner imho, if we compare with ski-ing, the blue run is for beginners and the red run for intermediates, so you are intermediate, able to cope with steep bits, but in moderation.I have lessons twice weekly for six months.I couldnt do rising trot,canter,have balance & told my instructor on my visit before my lessons i couldnt pretty much do owt but a walk & sitting trot!.Now i ride really good seat,confidence in all transistions,canter freely (also without striuups) tho improving my confidence to start galloping & jumping next, al transitions inc rising trot without my striuups, bareback & ride forward going RS horses.
I class myself as still a beginner & yes I have proved that you can start riding after having children at a later age and believe in yourself and your horse despite me having a serious RTA whilst out hacking last year (with a diff RS).
the instructors at my RS are very impressed with my sheer determination to learn.
I think we need some definitions.
To me a beginner is someone who has only ridden RS type ponies and might be able to post and canter but would fall off if the horse did a buck or a shy. Riding will not necessarily improve beyond this stage.
A novice is someone with a year or so [weekly lessons] who is able to ride most ponies in a RS, can walk trot and canter when asked, trot over trotting poles and jump small fences on a schooled pony. Riding will improve with lessons.
A competent RS rider is able to ride most riding horses and can school them to a limited extent, is able to jump a course of fences and cope with everything they meet out hacking, can tell if a horse is unsound, and is aware of the shortcomings of the horse and themselves.
A good rider is able to stay on most fit horses, school them and improve every horse they ride, without an instructor on the ground.
A few sandwiches short of the full picnic
ARGH I'm going to have a rant.
Can we please be clear about the use of the term novice, it is being misused and it is making the term worthless.
Novice means new to something, a beginner. So all those people saying I'm a novice but I've been riding 20 years are talking rubbish, you may have been riding 20 years and remain techinically a bad rider, or have 20 years experience but lack skill but you are no longer a novice.
You also can't be a novice in confidence, you might lack confidence and that may hold your riding back but confidence has nothing to do with whether you are a novice or not.
Most of us acknowledge and recognise that you never stop learning and improving (and if you don't recognise that then you should give up now) but that doesn't mean that you are a novice all your life.
Calling yourself something other than novice doesn't mean that you think you know everything there is to know, neither does it mean that you believe you are better than Mark Todd. It just means you are no longer a beginner.
So all those people who say that they are a novice but have been riding for years and years have a rethink. Maybe call yourself, competent, intermediate, experienced but nervous, experienced but lacking techincal skill, experienced but rusty, or just tell people what your limitations are.
If we all call ourselves novices it makes it impossible to distinguish genuine novices. So what does the person who has had six months worth of weekly group lessons call themselves? If you are the proprietor of a riding school/trekking centre and you have five people all calling themselves novice riders which do you give the steadiest horse to? How do you know whether they are a beginner or someone with 20 years experience being coy?
Rant over!
I came across a girl who told me she could ride anything, well not in my book, she could not ride any horse, she was useless, no horse went well for her, she could not jump her lovely little [schooled ] arab, in other words she made every horse look worse than it was, the fact that she could stay in the saddle of a quiet pony did not make her a rider.Oh oh oh, I want to be in this category
Well said Kat - novice doesn't mean rubbish, it means new to it. If you think you're rubbish, so say
FWIW, I have tonnes of experience of hacking, riding by myself, with no input from anyone else, low level competition, jumping etc on my horses, analysing my own riding and my horses' manner of going and planning/working on improving that. I'm technically "up" on training methods, techniques etc as I read a lot, but I don't have lessons so I'm sure that is evident in my riding. I have experience of nappy horses, spooky horses, rearers, a couple of strong / fighty buggers, but amost no experience of buckers (and I don't suppose I'll get any now unless one of mine takes it up ). I'm experienced enough to say no if I think a horse looks dangerous
I wouldn't know where to start if you gave me a smart horse and told me to school it over a 1.10 course. I would look a bit of a pillock on a highly schooled dressage horse while I tried to find the buttons which I know theoretically where they should be (depending on how the horse was schooled). I could probably improve your average ned, given sufficient time.
I'm not good by Miss L Toe's description - nor my own - but I'm not an all-round novice either. I'm just plodding around in my own little world, trying not to wreck my own horses...
I wouldn't know where to start if you gave me a smart horse and told me to school it over a 1.10 course. I would look a bit of a pillock on a highly schooled dressage horse while I tried to find the buttons which I know theoretically where they should be (depending on how the horse was schooled). I could probably improve your average ned, given sufficient time.
I'm not good by Miss L Toe's description - nor my own - but I'm not an all-round novice either. I'm just plodding around in my own little world, trying not to wreck my own horses...
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