Riding standards

[Shilasdair]

Being wary of overstating ability bit me in the bum once. A group of us (all riders) from all over the country arranged a meet up and decided to go for a hack at a local school. Now in my defence I had not been to an RS for over 25 years so had no clue about their grading system. Had to fill out a very basic form with tick box for experience level. At the time I was competing BE Novice and had just qualified to compete intermediate. One of the boxes was intermediate so that's what i ticked. Was not the most exciting ride I've ever had. Horse saw no reason to canter even when left behind by the rest of the ride.

Whereas I nearly died in my Stage 2 jumping when the horse (a lovely looking chestnut gelding) launched itself into the air in a far-too-extravagant manner, nearly unseating me from shock alone.
'Oh, yeah' they said 'He's an intermediate eventer - we borrowed him'. I think he couldn't believe how small the jumps were.

 

[Bambelina]

Maybe the UK should have a system more like the French levels. I don’t know much about it and maybe it’s a bit rigid but it might mean people had a more realistic understanding of their capabilities and better for horse welfare?.
http://ecoledequitation.net/page7.html

I know a bit about this from working in a riding school that had a lot of French visitors! The system goes from level 1-7, 1 being a beginner. I’d say about Galop 4 is where you can walk trot canter and jump a small course. Can’t really remember much about what you need to be able to do on the ground. I’d class these riders as intermediate in terms of riding at a school but obviously it’s different outside of the riding school (and I’m not knocking riding school riders, one of my close friends rode at a riding school until 18 and when on ponies was competing BS and could get on ANY school pony and have it going beautifully-even those only typically used for a lead rein/very novice class. I also learnt to ride initially on school ponies and they taught me a LOT)
I’d say an advanced rider is somewhat different to an advanced and experienced horse person I guess!