What is a novice rider?

[CobsCan123]

I know this is a vague question but what do you class as a beginner, novice, intermediate rider. I think i would be classed as a novice as i have only been riding a year… i am confident in all 3 paces and have been jumping for the past 5/6 months. I am very confident but i doubt that confidence comes into it? What would you class me as?

 

[kc921]

IMO
Beginner is learning to ride
Novice, can do all three paces but not well balanced, etc and can't ride without an instructor or guidance present.
Confident novice, all three paces, well balanced but don't know full ins and outs (e.g trotting to the correct rein or sitting in canter) can ride without an instructor or guidance.

And so on,
I don't think it's about the length of time they have been riding personally ?

 

[Dasher66]

I think a novice can do most of the basics but isnt yet able to "read" the horses mind through its movement and feel through the reins.
Once you can feel if the horse is locked on to the jump or going to stop three strides out you stop being a novice.

 

[Meowy Catkin]

My own personal feelings are that the real world definitions are different from the riding school ones. So someone in the advanced riding school lessons could still be a novice. Think of what a novice dressage test looks like for example.

I think that a big step in a rider's progression happens when they can improve the horse that they are riding. This is when they move from a novice to an intermediate rider in my mind. It's a huge but subtle shift in what is happening when they ride.

Advanced riders are the best of the best at riding, helping the horse do its best and training/schooling.

 

[Casey76]

I still consider myself a novice rider, despite being a horse owner for 15 years. I’m happy to school up to medium dressage alone...

But, I’m exceptionally nervous, or at least I can be, and I don’t jump. Jumping terrifies the pants off me - hence the reason I consider myself a novice rider.

 

[abbijay]

I know this is a vague question but what do you class as a beginner, novice, intermediate rider. I think i would be classed as a novice as i have only been riding a year… i am confident in all 3 paces and have been jumping for the past 5/6 months. I am very confident but i doubt that confidence comes into it? What would you class me as?

How long is a piece of string...
In a riding school you would likely be in an improvers/intermediate lesson but it would depend on if you can do all this on pretty much all the horses they have that you can fit on or only on 1 of them. Also can you just do this in a group ride in the arena or can you do it out in the field or on your own without an instructor calling commands to do it.
If you are looking for a share or first horse in a private setting then you would still be a beginner to me.

I rode in riding schools for 20 years and have owned my own for 12 years. Like Casey I can school happily to medium (taught my old boy to do it all), pop fences up to 2'6" (but I'm not a big jumper and don't do a lot) and am now schooling up my second youngster who were both backed, broken and hacked away before coming to me. I recognise I'm not the nervous-novice I was 12 years ago but I also don't think I'm anywhere near being a really competent rider.

 

[1523679]

I am a novice rider, and have been for nearly 40 years.

ETA: because the amount I know is tiny relative to the amount there is to learn.

 

[CobsCan123]

Thank you all, another question following on from this, just because i am curious not necessarily because i am in this situation…. On adverts, when they say ‘not a novice ride’ what exactly is that? I know its another ‘how long is a piece of string’ type question!

 

[1523679]

“Can be a bit (or a lot!) of a sh*t when it feels like it”
or
“Is young and impressionable and could easily be ruined by the wrong rider”
or
“I, the seller, think I’m an excellent rider and that’s why my horse isn’t for novices”
...
You get the idea. Could be a whole range of things, as we’ve already seen in this thread with the definition of a novice rider,

I’d describe my youngster as unsuitable for novices because of his age. He’s great and has a fantastic temperament, but just doesn’t have the mileage to be a safe option for everything that could come under the generalisation of “novice”.

 

[Lipglosspukka]

To me it means something totally different depending on the horse and expectation of the rider.

For example. I would consider myself experienced in the sense that I have done some pony racing and hunting, am happy riding a fizzy, forward thinking horse. As a rider I don't particularly consider myself a novice.

Yet if it was an advert for a show jumper ready for a rider to affiliate then yes, I'm a novice and cannot ride well enough for such a horse.

 

[Elf On A Shelf]

Not Novice ride could mean any of a hundred different things. I put it on most of the ads for the racehorses to stop the idiots and day dreamers asking if the horse would be suitable for someone that has sat on a beach donkey once or has had a couple of lessons and thinks that they know enough to have their own horse. Trust me I sift out a lot of idiots!

 

[Pearlsacarolsinger]

Thank you all, another question following on from this, just because i am curious not necessarily because i am in this situation…. On adverts, when they say ‘not a novice ride’ what exactly is that? I know its another ‘how long is a piece of string’ type question!

That always tells me that I don't want to view the horse! And I have been riding for almost 60 years, owning my own for well over 50 yrs. If the vendor feels they need to issue a warning, I'm happy to heed it. I am happy to ride a green horse, or a strong one but I prefer to avoid those which are described as 'not for novice'.

 

[kc921]

I put not a novice ride on my adverts of shares/part loan, and for me that means I don't want people who have just started to learn to ride, e.g they can do all paces but aren't balanced and they are not confident on and off the horse or where I would have to be up there when they rode and I wouldn't be able to trust them alone with the horse ?