The standard of tuition at the riding schools of today

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mystiandsunny

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What do you think? I have, time and again, been shocked at how little progress people have made in the many years they have been riding, and at the general standard (or lack thereof). This isn't just one RS btw.

Some recent examples:

Child 1 rides at RS A for 5 years. She does not know the correct canter aids, nor anything about trot diagonals, getting pony working correctly from behind, giving with hands over jump etc. She is in the top group and jumps regularly, up to 2ft9 (with lots of falling off), does RS comps etc. When put on private, difficult pony (she got a share), with decent instruction, in a year, she is now jumping up to 1m20 single jumps, 1m courses, works pony on the bit nicely, is beginning to understand how to school pony for suppleness etc.

Child 2 rides at RS B for 3 years. She has no idea about any aids other than kick and pull, and her balance is so horrendous that the pony is worried about trotting in case she falls off.

Person 3 rides at RS C for 12 years, then RS D for 2 years. She can stay on ok at walk, trot, canter, and knows aids, diagonals etc, but leans forward all the time and has a funny pulling motion with her hands when she's riding. Cannot get horse on bit as not aware of proper technique or how to send horse forward from her leg. She cannot go with the horse easily when it jumps, and cannot see a stride.

Child 4 rides at RS C for 6 years - no proper balance, no idea of diagonals in trot, horrific jumping position (left behind, no balance). Within a year of finding a share horse is a balanced, confident rider going to shows and getting rosettes.

Person 5 rides at RS D for 18 months. Has good balance but no idea of how to make the horse do anything really. Was a friend of mine and we gave up, had my RI teach on my girl, and within six months person 5 was confidently walk, trot, canter with correct aids, in balance, hacking on spooky pony.
 
I agree- bonkers. I have a lovely pony for sale and a lovely (sounding) 12yo coming to see her on Saturday who has been riding for 8 years. Thing is, that should be waay long enough to ride well but you just can't tell can you? Pony will be fine whatever she is like but I just hope that she can ride and I get to see pony at her full potential! I would have been dragged off horse and not let back on again if I rode at a RS the way I see some kids doing it.. :(
 
Can totally understand that.
As a RI I have torn my hair out on numerous occassions re level of children's ability despite riding for x years.
I have often pushed their lessons forward and have gone back to basics too. Some have worked wonders, some have realised that its much too hard and have quit. What has bugged me the most is the fact that the RS managers have had 'words' with me re my teaching methods - why? - cos they don't want them to progress and move on! They want them to be the same level so they keep coming back hoping they will improve but in reality the school is delibrately holding them back! (money??)

I have had quite a long break from teaching while my kids are young, but I feel things won't have changed much!
 
Abismal around here!Why you ask?Young girls with no experience other than their own riding experience to teach with(all well and good when you are balling up and down to a 6yr old on a pony)...once they progress and master the art of walk trot and kick like hell canter,said girls cannot explain the aids simply enough to the kiddies!
Answer...travel miles and miles away,lol!Thats here anyway :D!
 
I'm a riding instructor. I did my AI and worked in various yards and schools, then in my mid twenties decided on a change of career ( that would pay more and enable me to buy my own decent horse..!!) I returned home to where I grew up a few years ago, and had a few lessons at a local equestrian centre to get my muscles working again before I bought a horse. They'd never let me jump anything over 1' high - which was frustrating as I was going to buy an eventer and wanted to get back into jumping first after a ten year break.. One day they were saying that their weekend instructor was away and they couldn't get cover, so I offered my services. On the day I was working, I was taken into the office and told that their insurance wouldn't permit them to push children too much. They had had numerous libel cases from parents when children had fallen off - to the extent that they daren't push kids anymore.. Needless to say, a child fell off on my lesson - not badly, but the accident book had to be filled in. I was astounded at how they had to word a simple fall - if the pony was in any way at fault they could be sued. I could not believe how much the riding school world had changed for the worse in ten years simply due to society's habit of sueing over nothing.

This doesn't really explain why those schools didn't teach diagonals etc, but does explain why you'd probably not be allowed to jump very high etc. (Suprised RS1 lets them jump 2'6"!)
 
One problem is that the most highly qualified person in many RS's is an AI, they forget that the A stands for Assistant, back in the good old days that is exactly what they were, assistants.
 
I' m an instructor at my local centre and we work off a guide that has skills needing to be ticked off before the client can move up a level.
Our lower levels are based on safety, position and horse management. The higher levels, working a horse properly and preparing for open competition.

We find the guide really successful.
 
This could account for why I've 'taught' friends of daughters when they've ridden our ponies. There was one that I could barely watch and she'd been riding every week for three years. She's doing grand now, but at the time, we had to keep her on a lead rope or there would have been an accident :(

This is a case of H&S and the suing mentality gone mad :(. We had so much fun as kids at riding schools. Did all sorts of things that were fun and stretched us and just made the holidays fly by - a mixture of memories of bareback, games, jumping, flat out gallops, and sometimes a mix of all four lol.

It's sad.
 
i worked there and got a free lesson < i dont know why i had my own horse but anyway they told me i had an AMAZING canter seat when home fort i take my camera with me on my hack got some clips i was embassed it was so bad :| and they jsut told me it was amazing :>
 
I used to work at a riding school one day a week after school when i was 14, so watched/led the same lessons every week for a good 10mnths-year and none of the kids progressed, they were on the lead for every lesson in this time! :eek: and i had to explain to one how to stop the pony and she had been riding 6 months :o

Very bad!
 
I am 25.

I started riding at 7 years old. I had a private lesson once a week at a small riding school while I was waiting for spaces at the bigger yard up the road. I learnt walk and trot and how to hold a whip correctly.

I then moved onto the next RS, I learnt how to stay on in all gaits but never learnt the correct aids.

Then at 16 I went to college where I finally learnt what "working" a horse meant and what cantering on the right leg was and what an outline was.

I just think that as long as the riders are happy and the horses are happy, where's the problem?
 
Dont forget-riding for 8 years will mean what, say 40 weeks a year perhaps? so thats 240hours on the horse. In a group. not actually that much when you think about it.
Riding Daily will naturally bring the standard up along with one to one tuition.
Many Riding Schools are not up to standard however, and have very inexperienced instructors
 
Do have some sympathy for riding schools.One told me they had a rock steady schoolmaster.So rock steady he is always used for the absolute beginners.Because they are the absolute beginners he has more falls (but not many) than the others.Inspectors questioned his suitability! Thia is a school with a mechanical horse that they always encourage beginners to have a couple of goes on first before they progress to the real thing.
 
I started riding occasionally when I was 8 years old. I had occasional lessons, (never really regular till this february) so I did not progress very much. In the last 6 months, while I have been having weekly lessons and working/helping on the yard, my riding and stable management have improved more than in the past 8 years!
 
I work in a RS. I am a AI, and I am the assistant instructor. We are a BHS approved RS, livery and where to train centre. I also have my NVQ level 3 (through lantra, so workplace training)
We have a full set of show jumps a cross country and outstanding hacking.
Although we are not a big RS we are full...as in we cant take any more clients on right now. We bought more horses and ponies at the start of the Summer and instantly our bookings went up and we found ourselves turning away clients.
Right now however I am not that busy, this is because most of my clients have gone on to buy horses and ponies over the Summer, so now they are liveries. I can promise you they all know about diagonals, lead legs and can all jump a novice height (adults) , and a mini (kids) round of SJ, in a secure balanced seat. They also can all walk, trot, canter, (and mad hooley) while hacking without fear of falling off. We encourage them to learn about tacking, grooming, care of the horse.
Im not trying to say we are perfect, we are far from it I am sure, but we take pride in who we are and what we do, I would hate someone to say they had a rubbish lesson from us.
Oh and I also tell everyone that if you climb on a horse, at some point you will fall off, if you are not willing to take the fall, don't get on.
 
The yard that I'm a livery at is putting myself and another through our PTT's and beyond so we can teach in the RS they are planning to open.

This thread is so interesting. I am horrified at the level of 'skill' these pupils have (sic).
When I learnt to ride, back in the mists of time, by about the third or forth lesson, we were trotting on the correct diagonal, with independant hands and seat, and woe betide us if we weren't!!!

The lessons were hard work, but we were frequently told that we were honoured that these animals let us anywhere near them, and that we owed them and had to therefore ride sympathetically!

Although, obviously H&S, etc hadn't reared it's ugly head back then!
 
Honey08 said:
Needless to say, a child fell off on my lesson - not badly, but the accident book had to be filled in. I was astounded at how they had to word a simple fall - if the pony was in any way at fault they could be sued. I could not believe how much the riding school world had changed for the worse in ten years simply due to society's habit of sueing over nothing.

This doesn't really explain why those schools didn't teach diagonals etc, but does explain why you'd probably not be allowed to jump very high etc. (Suprised RS1 lets them jump 2'6"!)
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I've fallen off a few times at the RS I go to but have only filled the accident book in once :o Can't believe they won't let you jump high. You can jump 4'+ at mine (specialises in SJ apparently which is what I want to do :D).

I know that mine assesses clients before choosing which group to put them in (we're currently doing halt/walk to canter, flying changes, more complex jumps than usual (for me anyway) and improving our approach to and from jumps and are free to go back over what we've already done:D). Lately we've had some teenagers join our group no problem with it but they can't jump eg bad jumping position and balance, horse is practically going backwards (horse either stops or cat leaps que tears and falling off followed by demands that they get a better horse - nothing wrong with the horse as shown when one of us gets on them). Thankfully after 2-3 lessons they more into a different group.
 
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montyforever said:
I used to work at a riding school one day a week after school when i was 14, so watched/led the same lessons every week for a good 10mnths-year and none of the kids progressed, they were on the lead for every lesson in this time! :eek: and i had to explain to one how to stop the pony and she had been riding 6 months :o

Very bad!
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If this is the school I think you're talking about, I helped there too and also assisted in the lessons. With the lead rein lessons, the riders didn't actually learn to do anything as such, it was me doing all the work!

I also had lessons at this school, the first one I was told to jump off after 15/20 minutes and the YO's daughter (who was doing the lesson) jumped on as the horse refused to canter. She proceeded to canter the horse around in circles for a good ten minutes before concluding the end of the lesson. The other lesson I had was an hour of trotting around - I learned nothing.

I had a year of lessons at college doing flatwork and jumping and improved LOADS. I learned to jump 3ft, improved my balance and did a few practice dressage tests, jumped a course and did lots of lunging etc.
 
QR

A friend of mine just started taking her 4 yr old daughter to a riding school. She has had 2 lessons, has never sat on a horse before.

In her first lesson, the instructor made no effort to make her feel at ease, even though it was her first time on a pony and she was nervous. Within ten mins she was trotting...and hadnt had any instruction how to go, stop or steer.

She gave the RS the benefit of the doubt and thought maybe it was an off day and took her back the following week.

It was worse, lots of trotting again and a ten yr old girl was leading her, which made her mum feel really uneasy. If that pony had been spooked or done anything naughty what could a 10yr old do?

So today, my friends daughter has her first lesson at my yard on the shetland. She came up on sunday and met him and groomed him and just had like little get to know you session with him.
 
I have ridden all my life and a few years back, due to my horses being unwell (one sick, one PTS and the other lame) I decided to go and ride, just for exercise really, at my local riding school. They asked about my ability (I was riding at Ad Med at that time) so they put me onto the 'advanced' lesson. I got on what I was told was 'a plod' as it was the first time they'd seen me (fair enough) and told to work in. The 'plod' was just bored sensless within 10 minutes he was trotting round on the bit and doing a bit of leg yeilding etc etc... now note that this was their once a week advanced lesson, I had several comments from the other members of the lesson saying 'I didn't know horses could go sideways'. And not one of their more 'forward' horses could keep up with my 'plod's' active trot. Now I'm not saying they have to be dressage trained but after several (many) years of riding not knowing that a horse can go sideways, or be taught to get a horse to track up, to me, shows poor education.

Blitz
 
Don't get me started. The RS at my yard is (generally) great, but I wince watching my little sister riding her loan pony. She's a fairly confident rider, and has been riding for almost 11 years. The pony is fairly forward, but rather than wrapping her legs round him and using her seat to control his speed, she hangs off his mouth and keeps her legs off him, so she canters round bouncing off the saddle. And when she jumps she gubs him in the mouth because her reins are too short and she doesn't give with her hands. Pony's neck is now completely upside down because he tanks round with his mouth open and his head in the air. It's horrible to watch, more so because she has a lesson every week and they don't appear to be doing anything about it.

And, of course, being a typical bl**dy-minded teenager she won't listen to me.
 
i have been vaguely looking for someone to ride my horse a bit in the winter & a lovely woman came to try her - she rode as a young person & has been having weekly private lessons at a very large local RS - she couldn't even steer in trot - clearly she has learnt nothing in her very expensive lessons:eek:
 
OK - I'm gonna take this thread as If I was person 5 in the OP post, which, to be frank, I was very similar to.

The problem is if you're in a smaller riding school and everyone who's new starts in your lesson, we all go back to basics and start over. Also rising trot was not encouraged as most of us had not a clue how to balance and to be honest without getting out of my saddle I don't think I'd have a clue about what weight I was throwing on each stirrup and how bad I was. it wasn't encouraged as there were quite a few knuckleheads - the "oh yeah I can do this" brigade who then came a nasty cropper as the horses my RS used weren't entirely RS robots which I thought was a good thing. Apparently there were stipulations in the schools insewerans. Anyone say "health and safety"? Also in a large-ish class just how much of your hour is spent on instructing you as opposed to waiting in line with everyone else?

I have to admit when I came out of there - my groundworking was spectacular but my riding, well I knew nothing :) Glad I did it but glad I got out after 6 months so I could get some real lessons ;)
 
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Ruthnmeg said:
Can totally understand that.
As a RI I have torn my hair out on numerous occassions re level of children's ability despite riding for x years.
I have often pushed their lessons forward and have gone back to basics too. Some have worked wonders, some have realised that its much too hard and have quit. What has bugged me the most is the fact that the RS managers have had 'words' with me re my teaching methods - why? - cos they don't want them to progress and move on! They want them to be the same level so they keep coming back hoping they will improve but in reality the school is delibrately holding them back! (money??)

I have had quite a long break from teaching while my kids are young, but I feel things won't have changed much!
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I agree and I won't teach pony club around here for the same reasons (and elf'n'safety b"£$%^s). Keep them ignorant keep them paying seems to be the motto. Not mine though I charge pin money and make sure it's fun and educational.
 
Ruthnmeg said:
they don't want them to progress and move on! They want them to be the same level so they keep coming back hoping they will improve but in reality the school is delibrately holding them back! (money??)
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Yeah this does make sense. The RS used the context of "new people in the class" so we'll cover it again. All of it... Nope didn't know how to steer either or what impulsion was and how to get it. Trouble is I thought I could (take note RS riders :) ). Real eye opener when we went to buy Sleepy and I tried to ride him. Oh. My. God. Like being able to ride a bicycle and then being chucked into a powerful car. Not the same.
 
I've never been to a riding school before, my mum taught me how to ride when I was tiny, and about the same time moved from teaching RS to teaching BD, as a qualified trainer, obviously the difference is vast.
My sisters from my dad's marriage all go to a very pricey RS, eldest has been going once a week for 6 years. She can walk, trot and canter around an arena, cannot steer and can't use leg aids more complex than the thelwell kick.
I've been very fortunate to always have had my own ponies and horses, which I think makes a difference as RS ponies are usually immune to any kind of aid and usually look at least half asleep.
I also wouldn't put pony club in the same camp as RS- most pony clubs involve using your own ponies, and learning how to get along with them, and (my) pony club had some pretty amazing instructors roped in for us.
 
As an adult, you get out what you put in. It seems I've been lucky - I've ridden at 5 RS's since I've been grown up.

1st one (Scotland) if you can steer adequately all adult lessons are open order - so you have to be aware, and can't just follow the horse in front. Diagonals always mentioned, correct aids required. When I was there as a kid, they tended to get you to grab the mane when you give with hands jumping, to make certain you don't sock the horse in the mouth - as you get older, you're weaned off the habit of going too early, but it seems like a decent safety net.

2nd (Bristol) - all lessons I've been in (walk and trot upwards) have been anything but nose to tail - you are required not to follow - so circling/turning away into a space is required. Lateral work in walk and trot, basic jumping etc.

3rd (devon) - only went once as they didn't have times that suited me - just had a private, but was challenged - it was my first lesson for a while... later heard that they weren't great, but impossible to judge on a private - diagonals mentioned, although I was told off for looking down to check before I'd got more important things (steering) organised!

4th (devon) - not really a riding school so much as a trekking stables that gives lessons out on hacks/on a flat bit of moor. Very traditional - lessons based on accuracy and control - walk to bush, trot to rock, halt (square) mid way between. Rising and sitting trot without stirrups, the odd canter without stirrups. Doing 3 walk, trot, canter, walk transitions between where you've been left and instructor etc - i.e. don't let horse tank you back to its mates. How to do gates - really practical stuff, really improved my assertiveness and ability to influence the horses. All theirs will go on the bit if you ride them right as well, so learned far more about a contact and finally cured my tendency towards washing lines.

5th (Exeter) - riding school - put me on a sane sensible plod the first time - and managed to get her going nicely - had to remind myself about changing whip marginally later if changing the rein as lead file to discourage napping back to rest. Moved on to various more interesting horses - including one which looked like a bit of a loon - the loon wasn't too bad, just don't make him hang around waiting to jump - do something else in the other end of the school rather than wait in line (which was encouraged anyway). Really encouraged to use the open order warm up to assess the horse - which way does it bend best, which bits start falling out. All this in the basic adult lessons (which tended to alternate jumping with flatwork.

The only real pattern is that only 2 (scotland and moorland one) would really let you ride without stirrups, so I seem to have lost my sitting trot again - I find it easiest to get the knack without (with the odd bit of rising if I get tense) which I can then translate. Most RSs only seem to allow you to go stirrupless on the lunge, which is difficult to schedule around work
 
I rode at a riding school for a long time and sometimes I was shocked at the standard of riding from the people who had their OWN horses or ponies and had been to PC and thought they were above the RS lot.I obviously went to a fairly decent RS because I knew about diagonals early on, we did lots of lateral work and could get a variety of horses working nicely but considering only riding 1 hour a week I was still able to beat some of the private owners in low level dressage tests.
Perhaps the RS's around here are of a better standard or something?
 
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