What To Wear
Riding is a risky sport, whilst we make every effort to ensure your safety, we do need some co-operation from you, therefore, it is vital that you wear suitable clothing. This means a hat and correct footwear are a must, and we have sizes for all that you can borrow. Please return your hats & boots tidily after use. It is strongly recommended that you buy your own hat and boots as soon as you can, as a proper fit will aid your comfort. You may wear short-riding boots and half chaps as an alternative to long rubber-riding boots.
Group Size
We have found that ½ hour group lessons provide the optimum learning environment for horse riding. You need to remember that you are learning a sport, we are asking you to use muscles that you don’t use for anything else, we need you to coordinate correctly and also to use your brain for listening, controlling your body, knowing where you are going and retaining all that information. If you are truly learning and riding you should find this time more than sufficient
Helpers
Your helper is there to help you, to explain what the instructor has asked, to help get the pony moving in the correct direction and at the correct speed, to prevent accidents and incidents with other ponies and to give you confidence.
Lesson Structure
As with any sport you need time for your body to warm up and for your brain to tune in to what it is doing. Your horse also needs this warm up time to adjust to you as its rider and to warm up its own body especially if you are its first lesson. We start with walk, steering and stopping exercises and then progress to faster work. We then progress to balance work once you have settled. Both you and your horse should be WORKING from the first step you take.
Rate Of Progression
As with any sport this varies according to your own ability to learn, confidence, fitness and regularity of attendance. We look for the initiative to come from you rather than any preset time scale. Sometimes you need to change horses until you find one you are happy with and feel confident on.
Your Horse
Although all our horses are well trained, they have been trained to respond to the correct signals as given by an experienced rider. Horses can be rather like computers and can do lots of things on their own but only if the programming is correct. Your horse does not go into the arena and know what it has to do next, it has not seen the instructors lesson plan, and to my knowledge cannot read the letters on the school. The horse is completely dependant on you its pilot to give it the instructions, this is why we give you a helper for your first lessons.
Talk To Us
Whilst all our instructors are experienced they are not mind readers, if you do not tell us that you have not understood something, try as you might you cannot achieve something then we can do nothing to correct it. People learn in different ways, some by doing, some by watching, some by reading technical manuals, if what is being said doesn’t work for you please tell your instructor either during the lesson or immediately after. Otherwise tell the reception staff that you need to talk about your riding further so that your instructor is aware of a problem. We are always willing to help if we can.