Shocked at poor riding standards of potential buyers!!!

I so agree with all of these, we like to sell a couple of horses or ponies a year to keep the rest going so to speak and although i love finding a lovely natured nice type to bring on and sell I do dread the selling part! We have alovely one now, if cicumstances were different we would keep, but no I tell myself he is for sale no matter how much you like him. I don't mind the endless questions because i prefer the horse to be right for them, but am so wary of the 'yes i am very experienced' and then they arrive and you can tell as soon as they get on they are not the right person for that horse, in fact i would politely tell them so. I tend to look away when the rider first tries because i know it is nerve racking trying out a horse in front of owners and the rider must be nervous because they don't really know if the horse is safe or not. A neighbour of ours made her daughter have lessons before she went to try any more horses as she wasn't doing very well trying out horses at all.
 
shadowboy said:
I actually ride badly when I try horses out. I suddenly 'forget' how to sit, and my old habit of the foetal position creeps in when the heels creep up, the knees start gripping and I tilt forwards- things I dont do when I'm schooling my own and clients horses... I dont know what it is- I think it's because I know in that split second I'm being judged!
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So true! Any ability I have often goes out the window and I resort to old and bad habits. Def a confidence thing, and having people watch can be nerve wracking. It's bad enough that when I go out to competitions people CAN SEE ME RIDE :) let alone in close quarters, assessing if I can ride the equine love of their life !
 
amymay said:
It can be a steep learning curve for buyer and seller when trying horses.

I know that I was shocked at my own cr&pness when I tried a horse out last year. Lovely mare, but incredibly sensative - and I couldn't ride one side of her. Was very glad to get off and say thanks but no thanks.

Some people want to save face and blame the horse - I was happy to hold my hand up and say I simply couldn't ride her and she was too much horse for me.
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Also.....you get used to pressing the right buttons on your own horse ...don't put yourself down- it takes time to click and find out where the controls are on a new horse:)
 
It's all down to the definition of novice...

I speak to people who think their kids are amazing and know everything there is to know cos they've had 3yrs of lessons at the RS, non horsey parents are the worst for it. They don't understand there's a difference between the riding school and the 'real world'...

It's a huge gap between novice at the riding school and a novice owner...
 
I coukd have been one of these people when I was looking for my current horse. I wasn't a novice and had owned 2 horses but the horse I was moving on from was bought to build my confidence after having a break and a baby and whilst he was a fabulous hack he was really lazy and obstinate in the school. When I started trying out horses which were more forward going I realised my balance was totally shot as I had got used to using all my energy and position getting my horse to go forward when they went forward willingly I got left behind!

I did the sensible thing and went and had a months worth of lessons on a more forward going horse and then I remembered how to ride properly!
 
I hate riding in front of people, so trying horses out can be a nightmare - I am less assertive when its someone else horse too, as I don't want them to think I am mean :o

I tried out several before buying my old horse, and two of them I just could not stop! I was merrily cantering round the school, horse had set its head and that was it, we were cantering, its difficult trying to gently gob something in the teeth when the owners are there! :eek: :D
 
Feathered said:
It's all down to the definition of novice...

I speak to people who think their kids are amazing and know everything there is to know cos they've had 3yrs of lessons at the RS, non horsey parents are the worst for it. They don't understand there's a difference between the riding school and the 'real world'...

It's a huge gap between novice at the riding school and a novice owner...
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But the advantage of being a riding school rider is that you get very used to sitting on a new horse each time and finding the buttons! You also get used to riding in front of people and having to assess a horse pretty quickly which are pretty handy skills when you are trying new horses.

Don't automatically write off riding school riders! You could write off the perfect home for a horse you are trying to sell!
 
it's a tense situation on both sides so it's difficult and unless you try horses all the time which most people don't its a big decision and fraught with potential pitfalls so sellers need to cut one horse private buyers some slack.
however there are a lot of time wasters out there and people who are buying their first horse having ridden school horses and just have no clue how different a 'normal horse ' feels.
 
I must be the luckiest person alive! Straight out of the "advanced" class at riding school, went to view a "not a novice ride" horse and bought her. I've learnt a lot about riding over the last 4 years but one thing I now know is that my horse is a saint.
 
I'm in a permanent state of shock generally at how riding standards have fallen: what ARE riding schools teaching? Or are too many people rushing off to buy horses before they can actually ride?
 
shadowboy said:
I actually ride badly when I try horses out. I suddenly 'forget' how to sit, and my old habit of the foetal position creeps in when the heels creep up, the knees start gripping and I tilt forwards- things I dont do when I'm schooling my own and clients horses... I dont know what it is- I think it's because I know in that split second I'm being judged!
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^ This :o

I get really nervous when riding someone elses horse in front of them. I would consider myself to be a reasonable rider and was pleased to be told by a new instructor recently (after deciding to book a lesson for the first time in 15 years) that I had a nice quiet seat / hands and rode well.

However, went to try a couple of ponies for loan recently and it all went to pot. 1st one I got in a pickle using a mounting block and made a right plonker of myself and then when viewing the other one I could barely get pony to walk and forget trotting, it just wasn't going to happen.

' do you want a crop?' I was asked , 'erm, no thanks I don't think he's quite what I am looking for' :rolleyes:
 
Be careful as looks can be decieving sometimes. When i was looking for my first owned horse 2 months ago, i was a rider who turned up with body protector looking nervous.

I got on my boy and rode absolutly awful! IN fact my non riding husband said he was embarrassed for first 5mins. I had been told so may stories and given so much advice about trying him out i'd worked myself up into a bit of a state. I was so bad the owner (a riding instructor) gave me a 10min lesson (v embarrassing!)

However, after riding for a short while i was jumping a small course of jumps, cantering through their fields and a short hack. I even had my horse working in an outline, something the owner couldnt even do herself prior to me getting on.

So dont always judge a book by its cover!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
Actually, turning up with a BP to view a horse you don't know is downright sensible. After all you never know what porkies the vendor is giving you. The "quiet ride" may well turn out to be a man eater. How many times have we heard that story on here.
 
Well my recently backed 5 yr old who has always been calm and on the lazy side with us ditched her 'extremely bad rider' today - the poor mare was petrified from the minute this women put her 18stone on her back - she rode with one hand and stirrups so long she could barely reach them (which would have been fine if she had had any bit of balance), the mare actually dropped to her knees in an attempted to dislodge this 'thing' from her back. Thankfully the rider got a light fall as I had visions of legal letters.

My husband proceeded to jump straight on the mare and she was 100% again for him but we had been told this wasen't the buyers her first young horse and she had 30yrs experience so we had no reason not to let her try the mare ( you can very overweight and still be able to ride!)

Am now really put off letting folk try her...can you make a green horse idiot proof??? Any tips on how to word advert to say no crap riders without making out the mare is wild????
 
I think a lot of people over exagerate their riding abilities but I also know how nervous people can be riding a new horse for the first time and I think a lot of people don't show themselves off to the best of their abilities in a viewing situation.

When we loaned out my sisters TB we had 2 people come for a viewing, the first was very very quiet, didn't groom for long or very well tbh, didn't pick out feet and when she finally did ride she seemed a bit unbalanced at first especially in trot. I started having a little panic, then she seemed to get it together. Unfortunately her canter left a lot to be desired and she did the kick-pull kick-pull thing :o Poor boy was a bit confused to say the least and didn't understand whether she was asking him to go forwards or not :cool:

Tbh I couldn't for the life of me tell you if it was just that she wasn't the greatest rider or if it was just nerves, mum said she wasn't sure from the start when she saw how quiet she was but tbh she could just have been really shy so unless it's extreme bad riding I personally think can be worthwhile getting someone out for a second viewing.

I know I rode like a sack of tatties the first time I got on my boy but in my defence I was just scared ha ha! I'd had a knock to my confidence and didn't want to put to much leg on so we had a slllooooow go nap extrodinare! :rolleyes::o My second ride was sooo much better! I wasn't afraid anymore and we did pretty well I think :D
 
I found this really difficult when I was buying...

I always get nervous of riding unknown horses so never at my best when viewing :rolleyes:

I made it clear that I wanted a horse that would be ok for a nervous novice, just in case I had a panic moment and froze. I went through adverts with a fine tooth comb, phoned sellers and subjected them to endless quizzes, and still ended up viewing a series of mostly unsuitable horses! One in particular was ok with lad riding, then I got on fidgeted and it took off wall of death style until a handbrake turn put me headfirst into the wall...all on video! Dislocated my shoulder, split my hat, and friend thought I was dead until I started wheezing and trying to roll over... Doubtless I made it worse by freezing when it took off, but surely if it was suitable for a novice, fidgeting in walk wouldn't be that much of a problem? Said experienced friend hopped on, as horse seemed otherwise perfect and could have been just freak accident. Her opinion was that she'd sat on newly backed horses that felt better schooled! Turned out he was the sole cob on a racing yard! So maybe in their opinion he was quiet and slow, but he really wasn't!

Obviously this made my nervousness even worse, and by the time I viewed my lad, I was too scared to even try a canter on lovely genuine cob :o

So poor owners must have thought I was horrendous - a few weeks before I'd been doing Novice dressage, mini hunter trials, and plenty of hooning on old cob, then too scared to try faster trot! :rolleyes:
 
I've had the same problem. Last lady who came was lovely but just couldn't get my boy to canter, he's push button and even goes by voice.
I've had a teenager come who somehow managed to get him to p**s off accross the field, he's never ever done that with me. And a lady who made him reverse at 100 mph when she jabbed him in the mouth getting on! I did say he had a light sensitive mouth.
I've got another coming tomorrow who used to play polo so that will be interesting!
 
sashasmith1001 said:
Well my recently backed 5 yr old who has always been calm and on the lazy side with us ditched her 'extremely bad rider' today - the poor mare was petrified from the minute this women put her 18stone on her back - she rode with one hand and stirrups so long she could barely reach them (which would have been fine if she had had any bit of balance), the mare actually dropped to her knees in an attempted to dislodge this 'thing' from her back. Thankfully the rider got a light fall as I had visions of legal letters.

My husband proceeded to jump straight on the mare and she was 100% again for him but we had been told this wasen't the buyers her first young horse and she had 30yrs experience so we had no reason not to let her try the mare ( you can very overweight and still be able to ride!)

Am now really put off letting folk try her...can you make a green horse idiot proof??? Any tips on how to word advert to say no crap riders without making out the mare is wild????
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I'm shocked. You really let an 18 stone woman get on your 5YO? Seriously?? Good Lord.

I do think it's all down to perception of riding abilities. As someone said earlier, RS's categories do state "advanced" if one is able to sit to walk, trot and canter, and jump a little. When compared to LR, I suppose they are right! There's a HUGE HUGE gap between that and being able to actually ride.
 
I have seen it with folks replying to an advert for someone to exercise my OH's saint of a horse a few years ago now. A few vastly overated their knowledge and riding ability despite my filtering out of the ones that I thought would not be suitable or too novicey.
 
Just on the flip side of things, we get people coming to the RS I work at who have owned their own for years, jumped this, won that, blah de blah, then get on one of the school masters and can't ride for toffee. Then a few of our RS riders go to livery yards and school privately owned horses for people who've owned them for years. I think a lot of people are buying before they're ready despite RS's advising against this. My boss actually said to someone the other day who was going to buy a horse NOT to do that, and to keep having lessons, even of they were elsewhere and not with us. People definitely do get inflated views of their ability but it's quite often down to themselves, not the group they ride in at a school.
 
Another flip side - I had somebody try Titchy last night, 14 year old girl, been loaning a RS pony for a while and Mum now looking to buy her something. Rode Titchy really nicely - a few novicey things where she's been on a ploddy cob but listened to her instructor straight away and I saw her improve while riding. Titchy is an exceptionally well behaved 4 year old and this young girl got her going very nicely indeed.
 
hippiechick said:
It's the balance and the hands that shock me the most! Surely these things are taught in lesson 1!!!!![/QUOTE


Wouldn't bank on it, round this area the standard of riding is quite shocking, I assume it's down to the lack of decent riding schools and a very low number of good instructors. Hanging off the mouth is quite common place!!!
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Stencilface said:
I hate riding in front of people, so trying horses out can be a nightmare - I am less assertive when its someone else horse too, as I don't want them to think I am mean :o

I tried out several before buying my old horse, and two of them I just could not stop! I was merrily cantering round the school, horse had set its head and that was it, we were cantering, its difficult trying to gently gob something in the teeth when the owners are there! :eek: :D
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So funny and so true! I went to try a horse 6 weeks ago. He was advertised as a Gentle Giant but I was told that he was too much horse for a lady rider who was getting too nervous on him. I thought my riding had come on a long way and I wanted a more fwd going/sensitive horse than my previous one so thought I would give him a try.

The horse was amazing when ridden by the seller, then I hopped on and couild feel the 'electricity' under me. After asking for canter I could not stop him and must have circled around the school, in what felt like a gallop, about 20 times before I could finally stop him, collapsiing in a heap! Luckily for my dignity, I was honest about my ability as a rider (or lack of!)

The seller told me what I was doing wrong and I KNEW what I was doing wrong, giving the horse signals to go faster through crappy position.

I left feeling completely deflated thinking I was truley the world's worst rider and decided that I would be over-horsed. The next morning, I had a change of heart and decided to go back and give it another shot. I called the seller up and asked if I could have a lesson on the horse - after addressing my previous errors, he was amazing - had the confidence to try a few jumps; hack him out; canter around a field, etc, etc.

After owning him for 6 weeks I can say that he is the perfect horse for me. I will never count a horse out after a first trial unless it does something nasty/dangerous from now on. I am also pleased the seller gave me a chance to have another go, although, it was a sales yard, so I am sure she would have aloowed ANYONE a second go! haha!
 
I think it is tricky. Although a lot of people have over-inflated opinions of themselves sometimes it is just tricky to get on a strange horse and ride it well - that is a real skill!!

I have been riding for a long time but mainly in riding schools (!) so i am used to riding lots of different horses. I went somewhere for a lesson on saturday which is a much smaller yard with more competition type horses. I rode a 14.2hh pony club speed machine who was just like "come on!! let's go" and I just freaked out and forgot to ride!! It was so long since I rode anything like that and generally i like to ride "nicely" so i stopped thinking and did a terrible job. However with a lot of help from the instructor i calmed down and managed to get a relaxed and controlled trot and canter. We then did some jumping and ended up flying over some 90cm jumps!

So don't write off everyone you see riding badly straight away!

Also in most riding schools i know i would be considered advanced but a lot of you would probably think i am a bit rubbish. I can walk/trot/canter/do basic lateral work, do some jumping, assess and improve well behaved horses but I know if i bought a horse it would have to be fairly straight forward so i could get up and running on my own.
 
CharlesMax said:
I left feeling completely deflated thinking I was truley the world's worst rider and decided that I would be over-horsed. The next morning, I had a change of heart and decided to go back and give it another shot. I called the seller up and asked if I could have a lesson on the horse - after addressing my previous errors, he was amazing - had the confidence to try a few jumps; hack him out; canter around a field, etc, etc.

After owning him for 6 weeks I can say that he is the perfect horse for me.
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What a lovely story :) Well done you for being brave enough to go back!
 
Twiglet said:
In defence of buyers too - it's not that easy to get on with a new horse straight away, and it's especially difficult if you're used to riding your own, your riding style may not be very 'adaptable'!

I've been riding a friend's advanced horse lately and although it's taken a while, things are starting to improve :p I got off him, having spent an hour doing flying changes, leg yield, half passes and medium canters, straight on to a 5 year old I was trying out to buy. I couldn't get the thing into canter :p I lost my stirrups, his head was up in the air and I rode like a sack of s**t! If you'd never seen me ride before, you'd have thought I was atrocious! But after 20 mins or so, it started to come together and he was going nicely, and seems a really promising horse, it just takes a while to find the buttons...
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This ^^^
 
Agree with this.

I look back on the videos of me trying my mare out last yr, for the months prior to that I just rode a variety of riding school horses, some easy but not so easy!
My Mare had just gone four, was totally different than riding an older more established horse. Huge step up, and definately wasn't my finest hours riding but I don't think I disgraced myself, we managed to do a bit of everything that day, flat, jumping, spin on the gallops etc..
To be fair I bought my horse from my instructor whom didn't think horse would suit so she was super suprised how well I got on & still teaches me to this day.

At the end of the day most us us would struggle moving from one horse to another and in fairness it takes more than 20mins to adapt to riding a different horse unless you are riding a a high level.



daydreamer said:
I think it is tricky. Although a lot of people have over-inflated opinions of themselves sometimes it is just tricky to get on a strange horse and ride it well - that is a real skill!!

I have been riding for a long time but mainly in riding schools (!) so i am used to riding lots of different horses. I went somewhere for a lesson on saturday which is a much smaller yard with more competition type horses. I rode a 14.2hh pony club speed machine who was just like "come on!! let's go" and I just freaked out and forgot to ride!! It was so long since I rode anything like that and generally i like to ride "nicely" so i stopped thinking and did a terrible job. However with a lot of help from the instructor i calmed down and managed to get a relaxed and controlled trot and canter. We then did some jumping and ended up flying over some 90cm jumps!

So don't write off everyone you see riding badly straight away!

Also in most riding schools i know i would be considered advanced but a lot of you would probably think i am a bit rubbish. I can walk/trot/canter/do basic lateral work, do some jumping, assess and improve well behaved horses but I know if i bought a horse it would have to be fairly straight forward so i could get up and running on my own.
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Spudlet said:
Thing is, I think if you asked 5 riders what 'not a novice ride' means, you would get 7 answers and a punch-up! It's a difficult one, as how do you describe what a horse is like in limited words? I think it's most helpful when using the dreaded not a novice ride phrase if you explain why - whether it's because the horse is a bit green, a bit of a sensitive flower, a fire-breathing homicidal maniac with fangs...
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So true, mine is not a novice ride because if you flap, he loses confidence, if you use a whip rather than gentle leg aids, he'll be in the next county! He can be spooky but if you're confident, he's a plod!

I had someone try him for share who reckoned she accompanied hacks as the 'guide/in charge' person. She nearly fell off going over a cross pole, socked him in the mouth and generally flapped. It was horrible to watch.
 
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