How to improve?

jellytot1

Hi all

I've been reading this forum, it's brilliant especially for people who dont have too much experience with horses, but this is my first time posting. I have been riding on and off now for a year - before that hadn't ridden since I was a kid. I go to a great lesson at a good riding school in Dublin once a week and can now manage a decent canter. I have absolutely caught the horsey bug and love it.

My question is - how do I improve more quickly without it costing a fortune? I can't afford more than one lesson a week as one group lesson alone costs 35 euros. But I think I need to be doing at least two a week to really improve and to get my muscles adapted (they are still aching after every lesson!) Would you suggest trying to help out at a stables in exchange for a free lesson or would it be worth going into a horse share on a well trained horse who I could ride more often, even if it was on my own outside of a lesson? Stable management classes are also pretty costly. Out of all the hobbies and sports I've done, even ones that require a lot of kit like sailing, horse riding is definitely the most costly!

Any advise on how to improve without killing my bank account is welcome!

fits

Its a tough one. Its hard to get in more than the weekly lessons. If you put in an investment to get up to a certain standard, say by doing the BHS stage 1, maybe you could share a horse with someone which would involve riding once or twice a week.

Harric88

Aaah I share your pain I went riding on Sunday for 2hours for the first time since September - feel slightly crippled now!!!
Try cycling and exercises using an exercise ball - horse riding uses pretty much all of your muscle groups. You need to have good core strength so balancing on the exercise ball would be great. Swimming might help as well for upper body strength and fitness

ilovemarmite

Hi

I am in same kind of situation rode for about four years as a teenager and have not ridden in ten years apart from odd trek, only back into it about a month and loving it!

I do group lessons once a week but did a private lesson in middle of week and found it really good and helpful as you can get more advice and instructor can just focus on you. If you could afford to do one every few weeks in addition I am sure it would help as you can work on all areas you need help with individually for your riding. I found I had to work a lot harder as was on a slightly difficult horse anyway and wasn't doing the follow the leader type thing which can happen sometimes in group lessons at this level.

There are horse share adds on an advertising website sometimes, not sure if I can name websites here so send me a pm and I will send it to you.

Also try different horses at your stables and if you feel you are doing well talk to your instructor about being allowed ride a more challenging horse.

Really good to get experience on the ground too, planning to do this myself, as I imagine anyway who does horse share wants the person to be able to take care of horse well when they are not there.

I used to help out at stables when I was a teen and you learn a lot, and get to know everyone in the yard and all the horses really well. Often riding schools have the teens helping at weekends but you could certainly ask if you can or even during the week when they might be glad of some help. Not sure if they'd give you lessons in return but you would learn a lot of horse care.

I did hear of another stable in North Dublin that does a horse share scheme where you do horse share on one of their horses, riding couple times a week and grooming, mucking out and other stuff like that and I think they may help you if you don't have experience at first in horse care as seemed to be advertised to any level. Too far away from me unfortunetely but seems good idea. Let me know if you want me to send a pm about it.

Best of luck and well done getting into riding again, it is brilliant I agree.

jellytot1

Thanks for those replies guys, it seems like lots of people are in the same boat. Yeah fits I am going to pursue the bhs stage 1, I need to be a more competent rider and most importantly need to know how to care for the horse before I even think of a horse share. I'm going to approach my riding school about helping out in exchange for a lesson and do the odd private lesson instead of a group lesson once in a while.

I've heard of that community horse share project, it's a brilliant idea but it's pretty far away from me and I also think it's aimed at troubled teens, I was one of those not too long ago but couldn't count myself as one any more!

A riding school / stables is a brilliant idea for a co-op actually, say if 20/25 people got together they could pool the cost of keeping say 7 horses and getting in instructors for group lessons 2 or 3 times a week at a much more cost effective price. If you cut out the profit the riding schools are making I bet things get much more affordable.

FueledByAisling

strongly advise privates! I've been riding 8 years now and found my riding ability had come to a halt in the past few months but I decided to start privates and my riding is improving sooooo much more! I can't afford the privates as often as the group lessons so I only get to ride fortnightly but even still I'm improving thousands times more then I would with 3 group lessons per week monthly.

marley123

Totally agree - One private is worth 3 group lessons, highly recommend - or if you know someone who would do a Semi Private with just the 2 of you worth thinking about.

FueledByAisling wrote: »

strongly advise privates! I've been riding 8 years now and found my riding ability had come to a halt in the past few months but I decided to start privates and my riding is improving sooooo much more! I can't afford the privates as often as the group lessons so I only get to ride fortnightly but even still I'm improving thousands times more then I would with 3 group lessons per week monthly.