What Will I Learn in My Novice Lessons?

The skills you will learn with beginner horse riding lessons are the fundamentals of the sport. Whether you continue with your riding or stop at this level, the skills you learn are vital.

Mounting: In order to ride a horse, you have to know how to get on a horse. Your instructor will show and teach you the correct and safe way to mount and dismount a horse.

Balance and Control: Once you’re on the horse, the next skill you’ll learn has to do with balance and control of your body. In order to ride and be one with the horse, you have to develop your seat and center of balance. One of the most important parts of developing your balance and harmony with the horse is learning how to “post.” Posting is the motion that allows you to get off of the horse’s back and move in harmony with him while he’s trotting.

Stopping and Steering: Once you’ve developed your balance, you’ll then be taught to stop and steer the horse. Stopping and steering are essentials to correct and safe riding.

The Aids: Once you’ve developed your seat and have learned to stop and steer, you’ll learn how to ask the horse to walk, trot, canter, and halt.

What Will I Learn in My Intermediate Lessons?

If you’re considering intermediate riding lessons, you should have already mastered basic riding skills and feel secure and confident in the saddle as well as your basic handling of a horse.

Further development of your seat and hands:When you learned your basic, beginner riding skills you may have been taught simple stop and steering aids that allowed you to get the job done without feeling overwhelmed. When you begin your intermediate riding lessons, you’ll be taught the more advanced way of stopping and steering: you’ll use something called a “half-halt” to stop and slow the horse, while you’ll use your seat and legs to steer. You will also continue to improve your seat and center of balance to prepare for more advanced movements.Furthermore, you’ll be taught to coordinate your aids both in upward and downward transitions. When you first started riding, you had to release the reins before putting your legs on; your intermediate riding lessons will teach you how to use aids together, a skill required as you move up the levels.

Transitions within the gait:If you’re past the beginner level of riding and know how to give aids for the walk, trot, and canter, you should also feel comfortable and balanced at each gait. The next step is to learn how to do transitions within the gait. It doesn’t matter what level of horse you’re riding, transitions within the gait is a great exercise for getting your horse supple, responsive, and swinging over the back.Transitions within the gait are also good for the rider; you’ll have plenty of opportunities to practice your half-halt. Also, you’ll learn to feel the difference between the working, lengthened, and or medium gaits.

Circles & Other Figures:Once you can steer your horse, the next step is learning how to ride a proper 20 meter circle, serpentine, and figure-eight. These figures are not only beneficial for the training of the horse, but they also offer an invaluable opportunity to perfect your steering aids, which will be useful in the future when you are completing a show-jumping course or a dressage program, for example.These figures can be considered the foundation for advanced riding skills and, if you continue with your riding endeavors, you’ll find that the figures pop up in more complex forms. Intermediate riding lessons may also start to incorporate basic movements that will be required in lower-level dressage tests.

The training scale and “on the bit”: With intermediate riding lessons, you’ll be introduced to concepts like the training pyramid that are considered the fundamental training process for horses. Once you’ve mastered skills like a half-halt, coordinating your aids, and having a completely independent seat, you may also be taught how to put your horse “on the bit” or “in a frame” to increase your horse’s use of its hind-end. The latter will help you have better control of your horse and will assist for more complicated maneuvers later on.

Intermediate riding lessons offer riders a way to further advance their riding and prepare for more advanced riding skills.

What Will I Learn in My Advanced Horse Riding Lessons?

Advanced horse riding lessons, unlike beginner and intermediate horse riding lessons, have an intense focus on how the rider affects the horse’s way of going. For this reasons, riders taking advanced riding lessons have to have exquisite balance, body control, and a complete understanding of how the horse’s body works.

“Advanced” aids: Riders taking advanced riding lessons can expect to learn some of the most advanced movements that horse and rider can perform together. Lateral movements, including both two and three track movements are often taught to riders to further better the rider’s horse. Riders will also be taught to give aids to achieve advanced levels of collection so that the horse will develop more thrust thus allowing more suspension in the gaits. Also, riders will learn helpful exercises involving both transitions within the gait and lateral work to further school their horse to achieve the best result possible.

Extended and collected gaits: In addition to learning the advanced aids, riders taking advanced lessons can also expect to be given the tools to achieve the extended gaits with their horse. The walk, trot, and canter all have the potential for extension. Riders will be taught how to best prepare for the movement in addition to how to execute it and bring the horse back to a medium or working gait. Riders can expect to learn the aids for collection, a way of going required for the upper levels.

Riding tests and other movements: Not only will riders taking advanced lessons be taught how to ride through individual movements, they will also learn how to put the movements together in a dressage test. Riders working at this level should be able to effectively ride through an upper level dressage test preparing for and executing the movements well. At this level, riders will find that an immense amount of emphasis is put on correct and accurate riding.

Training skills: Once a rider has reached the advanced level, they may also learn techniques that will assist them with bringing along a variety of different horses. Riders, if they desire, can be taught how to make their own horses as well as train horses at many different levels.

Advanced riding lessons consist of invaluable information. Not only can advanced horse riding lessons better prepare riders for the sport of dressage, they can also provide a solid foundation for other sports such as show jumping and eventing.

Riders who are taking advanced riding lessons have reached a level of riding that will give them tools to both teach other riders and horses what they have learned during their riding careers. For riders with serious equestrian goals, advanced horse riding lessons are the next step that needs to be taken to achieve those goals.