ONE VITAL QUESTION PARENTS SHOULD ASK RIDING INSTRUCTORS

Parents, you need to know this about horses to make good decisions for your young riders' safety:  horses need good leadership from their riders to behave calmly for their riders. 

You might think students would learn that in riding lessons, but most don't. It's not that riding instructors have anything against your children. Far from it. It's just that most of them are following a trend that started long before they were even born. 

Back when riding started becoming a recreational sport rather than a necessity, the lesson industry adapted to the times. People wanted to learn to ride for fun, so instructors (with good intentions, no doubt) obliged by giving students more and more riding time so they could have fun. It's basic economics. But the law of supply and demand brought us to the point we're at now... where most riding students get only riding time. The problem with that is nobody learns how to be a good leader to a horse by sitting in a saddle.
 
Leadership skills are developed on the ground, by learning to recognize and handle the challenges horses are instinctively driven to present for their own safety... to make certain they are always following the strongest leadership. Without learning anything about it, it's easy for riders to assume horses should behave calmly once they've been trained. Truth is, no amount of training trumps a horses desire for strong leadership.

Without learning anything about it, it's easy for riders to assume horses become spooky, high-strung, aggressive and dangerous because something is wrong with them. The only thing that's wrong is that most riding students miss out on the "leadership" part of their education. 

Parents, our industry took a wrong turn ever allowing that to happen. But, economics being what they are, it's not going to turn itself around until you get involved. For the sake of your child's safety, get involved by asking your child's riding instructor one vital question...

"Will you help my child develop good leadership skills in addition to riding skills?"

If more parents asked this question, fewer young riders would wind up getting confused, frustrated, scared and injured by horses. 

The riding skills students develop serve them well only if they develop the leadership skills they need to keep themselves safe. You can help your child get started by ordering a copy of The ALPHA Equestrian Challenge so she/he can gain a clear understanding of horse behavior. And then ask the riding instructor to allow some lesson time on the ground so your child can learn to handle the challenges horses present. 

Supply and demand, parents. Ask for leadership education. I've yet to meet a riding instructor who didn't want the best for their students, so my guess is they will be happy to supply it.

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PROCEED WITH CAUTION: Tips for Dealing With Fear Effectively

Horseback riding is a ton of fun until fear halts you in your tracks. I’ve learned from experience that fear is not a stop sign. It is a warning sign telling you to PROCEED WITH CAUTION.

Too often we view fear as a weakness, something to be ashamed of or embarrassed by. It feels negative so we learn to hide it, laugh it off or deny it. Yet, fear is an emotion… and our emotions are our inner guidance systems meant to steer us onto the paths that are right for us throughout our lifetimes. If you get a good feeling about something, you are headed in a direction that is right for you and vice versa. In our attempts to control our emotions, we tend to bury them rather than listening to them and allowing them to guide us as they are designed to do.

I encourage riders to listen to fear as the voice of reason. “Slow down. Go easy on yourself. Prepare yourself for the next step so you don’t get hurt.”  Granted, most riders never hear that voice until a horse does something that scares the crap out of them or until they actually get hurt. Then the voice becomes loud and clear. DEAFENINGLY, MADDENINGLY LOUD AND CLEAR…to the point that you want it just to shut up.  But if you heed its warning, your fear will stop screaming at you. “Slow down. Go easy on yourself.  Prepare yourself for the next step so you don’t get hurt.” What’s more reasonable than that?

Even if your fear has slowed you to a halt, do not get down on yourself about it. It is making you take the time you need to learn how to protect something that is very valuable to you – your body. It’s the only one you are going to get in this lifetime. Now that you are sensitive to it, your fear is and will continue to help you protect your body around horses for the rest of your life. Bless it and be grateful for it.

And then move on knowing your work is not about overcoming fear. It is about...

1. learning what it takes to get horses to behave calmly, and
2. developing the ability to focus and remain calm no matter what so you can help your horse focus on you and remain calm no matter what.

To get horses to behave calmly, you must become sensitive to their fear and provide the leadership needed to prevent them from freaking out.  Oddly, it is normal for people to learn how to ride without learning anything about this... so most riders have no idea they are missing a pretty vital chunk of information.  First step first - educate yourself.  Buy a book on the subject of leadership and read it.  I would love it if you bought my book, but if it doesn't suit your fancy, buy someone else's...anyone else's.

Once you start learning what horses need from you as a leader, a light will click on. Suddenly a whole lot of things will start to make sense. You will begin to understand exactly why you are in the predicament of struggling with fear. But you will also learn what you need to do differently to get your horse to behave calmly for you.

Learning and practicing relaxation techniques will help you develop the ability to focus and remain calm at all times. To get really good at it with your horse, learn some basic leading and lunging exercises and then get out of the habit of working with your horse only when conditions are ideal.

You must have distractions to practice focusing through them. Is the wind howling? Are roofers hammering a new roof on the barn? Is a lawnmower or tractor running? That’s when you need to be working with your horse.  Or create your own distractions with tarps, umbrellas, etc. Bomb-proofing exercises (working with your horse amid distractions) are perfect for helping you learn how to focus and remain calm no matter what.

Develop good leadership skills on the ground, apply them in the saddle and your fear will settle down. It will feel less like a ball and chain and more like sweet, dependable intuition, which prior to now you weren’t even aware you were lacking. In my opinion, you can’t become a great horseperson without it. A great rider, sure…but not a great horseperson. 

Think about it. Lots of fearless riders stay glued to the saddle while horses fearfully buck, bolt and rear beneath them. To me, a great horseperson is someone who tries hard not to put a horse in that position. She will spend time on the ground building trust and cooperation with her horse, and won’t climb on its back until she is fairly darn certain she can easily and quickly calm the animal down if it should get frightened or confused.  Let’s face it, we must have some sort of sensitivity to either our own fear or our horse’s to be willing to do that.

So go on…proceed with caution. When you look back, you will see how this struggle with fear caused you to expand in ways beneficial to both you and your horse.

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