I have seen a lot of questions posted that made me want to ask this, but a recent on about the person getting kicked and bitten by her new lesson horse made me want to scream.
Now, I understand that the life of a lesson horse is not an easy one, but for the love of Pete people, use decent horses! Think of the liability, think of the new riders who are getting discouraged and leave the sport, think of the new riders you could attract if your current students were not complaining!
We get questions about "how do I make my lesson horse quit bucking, I've been thrown every lesson?" And "My lesson horse runs away when we canter, how do I get over being afraid?" And on and on and on. BE afraid people, be very afraid.
I've run lesson programs, both with me as instructor, and as the barn owner supervising instructors, and the most successful, most professional (not necessarily most expensive) lesson programs had horses that were reasonably trained, happy horses. I know, anything CAN happen .... a horse (or rider) can have a bad day, can spook, can stumble and the rider falls. We had one girl, who had been at another lesson program for some time, just slip to one side at a sitting trot, and keep slipping, and keep slipping, and just tumble off of the horse.
pets question and answers,www.5d2d.com
It takes maintenance of your equipment (the lesson horse) to run a successful business. Lesson horses need to be schooled at least once a week with a gentle firm rider to maintain. I had one instructor working for me who insisted that the horse should NOT be ridden by experienced riders for this purpose, because it would confuse him. Needless to say, she did not last long at my barn.
To end my rant, I repeat: For the love of Pete, instructors .... TRAIN THOSE LESSON HORSES !!!!!
Thank you, thank you very much ...... now back to your original programming.
I too am a riding instructor and horse trainer. I teach reining lessons, and I have 4 lesson horses in my program, all of which are retired show horses, ranging from age 6 to 15. My horses are all very well trained and very quiet and broke. They are safe to be with in the stall, in the cross ties, in the wash pit, as well as under saddle. I have very high standards when it comes to my lesson horses, regarding both safety and the quality of the animal. I want a horse that is safe for all ages and abilities, and can also be shown at the entry-level reining division for my more advanced students who do not yet have their own horse.
pets question and answers,www.5d2d.com I also do not understand why some lesson programs use sour or otherwise unsafe horses. I have several students that have had bad experiences at different barns, and it takes a long time to get them over the fear element. This is sad because it could have been avoided altogether if they had been on appropriate horses. Accidents do happen, and I am not going to say that none of my students ever fall off of a horse, but I will say that when one does fall, it is very rarely the fault of one of my horses and usually a balance issues for an inexperienced rider or the rider forgetting that whoa makes the horse stop and kicking makes them go.
I lunge and ride all of my lesson horses every morning before lessons begin. This not only takes any "freshness" out of them that they may have acquired overnight, but I can also bring them back to what is right and correct so that they ride properly for the students. To keep my lesson horses at the top of their game they have to be reminded daily of how to do their maneuvers correctly and not get into bad habits that new riders will let them get away with. Unfortunately, not all instructors hold their horses or their program to such a high standard.
I agree with you (as you can see in my answer to that question about the kicking/biting lesson horse).
I agree with you 100%.
pets question and answers,www.5d2d.com I have run several riding schools and as you say bad days happen but generally speaking the horses and ponies were generally well behaved and knew better than to take to much advantage of novice and young riders.
I would use my more experienced riders to bring on the young horses and ponies and the very quiet ponies all got ridden on fun rides with better riders so they could charge around, canter down steep hills, jump and generally have a fun time to alleviate the boredom of novice riders.
All the horses and ponies competed at shows and went fox hunting. They were well worked, well fed and correctly looked after. I always had some good competition ponies but they too had to earn their keep and did lessons and apart from one or two young ponies, all could be and were used for therapeutic riders yet non were 'dead' to ride or in spirit. The horses all knew that there were times when they could be naughty and times when they they had to behave.
I had one little mare who would buck with a good rider at the canter but I could have a disabled child on her and she was an angel and more then one caught an unbalanced rider by moving to the side they were going to fall off. It wasn't just training it was also in their instinct to want to please.
