Riding schools - tutition, horses, facilties etc - DISCUSS

[teapot]

Following on from a number of mainly disillusioned threads regarding RS and their tutition/horses/cost etc - just thought would be interesting to hear everyone's views on them. As they're seem to be an awful lot of people obviously not getting value for money.

So is there a problem in this country? Is it not taken seriously enough as a sport? Is the current scheme working regarding approvals etc with the BHS/ABRS ....

 

[sunflower]

I rely completely on riding scools as I don't have my own horse and won't for the forseeable future. I have found a really good place to ride at but it is expensive. Having said that the horses are amazing and I haven't had a bad instructor. The last place I went to was also fantastic and really cheap (especially compared to down here).
I have been to some terrible places though and the worst one I have ever seen (and fairly recently) is BHS approved. I have no idea how. As with all things there are good and bad ones and I think you have to hunt around to find a good one and one that suits you. They do seem to be disappearing fairly rapidly though and the good ones do seem to be fewer and far between

 

[matthew]

Personally as i mentioned previously i think it is much easier to get good instruction privatly on your own horse - my previous dressage instructor got my last girrafe necked horse working beatifully and it really helped my showjumping-also pony club instruction was always good imo!
Also i think it must be bloody boring to be an instructor who teaches the same thing time after time-we the hell would you be an instructor if you didnt love it-certainly not the money!!!!
plus the place i had my lesson at last week had the dirtyest tack i have ever seen!!!

 

[dwi]

I don't think the problem is so much the establishments themselves but the training of the instructors.

The yard I worked at as a teenager had some really variable instructors, some great others not so.

I spent five years at university training to be a school teacher, it seems that alot of people get someone to pay for them to do their stages and then they're teaching without any requirement for ongoing training and development. There is a huge difference between being able to ride well yourself and being able to teach someone else to. Teaching anything is a complicated process and the BHS could learn alot from looking at how teachers are trained today.

 

[teapot]

I'll add my 2 pennies worth. I rely about 90% of the time on a riding school. Had my first ever share earlier this year which lasted 2 months (had enough of the owner) so I'm back properly with my yard. Have been there 6 years and spent 3 of those being on the staff team as it were.

I'm very lucky with my yard that is has brilliant tuition, brilliant horses (ranging from 11hh ponies up to 17hh+ comp horses of varying levels), good facilities and a good atmosphere. I do pay for the priviledge though with £40 for a week day private lesson or £20 for a group so not cheap by a long shot. Worth it though and in this area - there is a serious shortage of good schools.

I have been to a couple of yards before this one when I was first learning, but my circumstances changed and it made sense to ride where I still am now. But from hearing stories of like cascadegrey's lesson from an earlier post, it makes me realise how lucky I am. The yard is known for being expensive but I don't think people truly realise what they can offer with regards to the horses and tuition.

forgot to say: none of my instructors are college taught - they've learnt it from the bottom up and worked their backsides off to get where they are today. Infact one of them was in the final for the best BHS instructor of the year today. Hopefully will find out tomorrow how she got on. I have been taught by college instructors and out of the 4 or 5 I've had (did a lot of their training lessons as it were) I've only ever had 1 who was what I deem a good instructor.

 

[Tierra]

I think the system is in dire need of a shake up

The standard of tuition appears to be getting worse and its affecting the availability of good competition riders (olympic standard).

I posted this in the other thread and should also say it was another forum member who originally said this, but i totally agree with her - Riding here is taught on the basis of it being a pastime and not an actual sport.

The BHS exams dont seem to be valued anymore... not when you compare them with the foreign equivalents (the reitabzeichen for example). Its been a long time since I did my stages but have seen the riding levels of a couple of people who recently gained their 3s and they were really not that great :/

I dont know much about the requirements for ABRS / BHS approval to be honest.. although the last BHS approved livery yard I was on was terrible and despite being there a number of years, I was never aware of them having any kind of follow up checks once their approval was granted?

My OH has actually shown an interest recently in learning to ride and Im honestly at a complete loss as to what to do. My horse is far too small for him (and tbh, whilst lessons on school masters can be advantageous, for a total beginner it would be pointless), my trainer or myself would happily teach him but we dont have the horses for it and our local riding schools are appaling.

We do have a lot of very talented trainers in the UK but many of them arent in a position to teach people who dont have their own horses. I think the problem is at the absolute grass roots level of the sport.

People with no experience of the sport and none equine families go to riding schools to learn and they trust the opinions of those teaching them! Yet so many of these people spend years trotting round in circles with very little progression made and appaling positions. Its often only when they eventually buy their own horses, mix with more experienced liveries, perhaps look at competiting that they start to realise how much there is to learn and often, how incorrectly they have been taught in the first place.. But how were they to know that?

The fact that people do look abroad for training should be testament to the fact that there is something going wrong

*Steps down off soap box*. Just as an after thought. This isnt meant to offend anyone! I know there are a lot of very good trainers and establishments in the uk (both well known and unsung) but Im afraid im of the opinion that they are few and far between and this is an issue that is particularly close to my heart.

 

[Toby_Zaphod]

It's been a few years since I've been to a riding school however the one I last went to wasn't very nice. The whole place was rather tumbledown & tatty & the tack was just the same. The yard was an approved riding school though. How it ever passed I don't really know....the reason it did was that the inspectors always announced the day of their visit. Out came the fire extinguishers (empty but looked good). Tatty tack was hidden along with other poor condition helmets, sometimes they'd invest in a tin of paint to try and freshen up an extremely tired & tatty yard. They didn't even have any Hi Viz tabbards for hacking out on the roads.

There were too many people trying to earn a living out of the yard....one instructor was qualified but others weren't & clearly had little knowledge, it was all take & no put back into the business.

I called back there a short time ago on another matter & in the years I'd been away it had just got tattier. Approval certificates don't mean alot. You need to go on what you see & personal recommendation.

 

[Skhosu]

Only one good equestrian centre over here, and it's a book a horse and go xc!
Other than that, the only ones I've seen have been
a)shoddy
b) horses do very little more than plod around
c)dirty, with dirty tack and horses (saddles just go over the mud)

There are obviously good points to every yard, but none of them appear to take pride in themselves, and neither do they have anything to offer to any but the very novice IME.
Of course, I may not have been to some over here, so maybe others have better experiences!

 

[Patchwork]

I agree with Tierra in that a big issue is the fact that a lot of the best instructors are not in the position to teach people who don't have their own horses. You can spend forever at a riding school going nowhere and a lot seem to cultivate a 'big fish in small pond' mentality so people aren't shown how much there is to learn and how much further they can go.

 

[SouthWestWhippet]

I read through this post with interest. I'm currently working towards my AI and to do this I spent a year as a working pupil and I now work part time in an ABRS yard and part time in a office (gotta make rent somehow!)

Having been through the education system to degree level, I found the BHS exams very odd in that if your aim is to teach, there is only ONE exam that is about teaching in the whole exam package. Certainly where I trained there was no emphasis put on teaching... it was considered that once you knew the Health and Safety you were good to go...

But teaching in itself is a real skill just as much as riding is. Personally I feel (and have been told) that I am a much more natural teacher than I am a rider. Yet the emphasis in the AI exams is really on ability to ride and care for horses rather than to actually teach people to ride.

My understanding of the PTT exam is that there is a huge emphasis on Health and Safety and 'teaching a certain way' rather than an emphasis on things like the instructor's ability to create a rapport with students, to respond to the individual, to come up with creative ways of explaining and working on exercises...

I dunno, I absolutely LOVE teaching but I do sometimes feel that the exams I take prove me much more as a rider than an instructor which seems frustrating. I have no desire to be a 'Professional Rider' - I like to do stuff on my horse for me. But I *do* want to be an instructor - and I am good at it... I'd like to take exams that really reflected that.

Of course it is important to be able to ride well if you are going to teach. I'm not suggesting that we do away with the riding/caring parts of the AI package... but I think that the teaching part needs to be equally important and possibly if there was a second exam after the PTT but before the AI once you'd got your hours... that way you could prove you'd actually developed your teaching skills in your hours!

Maybe as well this would reduce the number of instructors who really only want to ride - the ones who only teach to keep the money coming in. JMHO

 

[eahotson]

Very interested in this post.Most of us (that is those of us NOT from horsey backgrounds) will start our riding in riding schools and for many of us who haven't got either the time or the money for a horse of our own its going to prove the only real alternative.Most schools are poor.I have sympathy with them because they have many problems, insurance, litigation and getting money from pupils who think Oh its only a riding school, I shouldn't be paying much money!Also, a riding school that takes their time and concentrates on things like position will fare badly against one that has a complete novice "Cantering" in a couple of weeks. If you are very novice you don't know the difference and feel you are getting on quicker and better than someone still walking.Ihave only found one riding school I would unhestitatingly recommend in our area.It is only a riding school with absolute patent steady horses/ponies but they create a real solid basis for you to continue and improve on. As it happens it is a BHS one but that is not necessarily a recommendation as I am sure a lot of people are aware. I am quite old so I do have to say that horse welfare seems much improved from some of the schools I remember from the dim and distant past where it was truly awful.

 

[vicm2509]

I hadnt been to riding school for years but just before buying Baron I has 2 lessons at my old riding school to get me back into the swing of things, I paid about £17 for 30 mins and didnt really learn much.

When I bought Baron I went to a private insturctor with him and we came on loads but the instructor worked on our bond and taught me how to get HIM to go better and lots of the things she taught me applied Baron and not all horses. She also concentrated a lot more on the horse rather than the rider.

I am now about to start my BHS stages and went for an assesment lesson at a different riding school a few weeks ago. It was the best lesson I have ever had, she picked up on loads of things my normal instructor has never told me about, also taught me exercises to do in the saddle. Since that one lesson I have applied some of those tips to Baron and he is going much better.

So in all I think I prefer the lessons at the school I go to now, but it is nice to have them on your own horse so someone can comment on him from the ground and not just on my riding skills. The school I go to now is one of the most expensive in the area though at £24 for 30 mins, compared to £20 for an hour I was paying for instruction on my own horse.