@Bijou_Drains - So, how’s the riding going? Are you enjoying it? I hope your toe healed well.
Can’t believe I didn’t see this thread when it started.
When my daughter was young she did hunter jumpers. Some dressage also, for shows. Dressage might be harder to do well, but there is less chance of breaking things.
She started in fourth grade and went right through high school and into college (where we didn’t have to pay any more) and while she could ride before not too long, she got better and better.
I have a friend who had that happen to her – while she was riding through a vineyard. She got banged against the posts.
She showed me her very dented helmet. If she hadn’t been wearing one, she’d have been dead. As it was, she recovered; though it took a while. (And, eventually, got back up on the same horse.)
She was (and is) a skilled rider. Things happen.
Note the “cooperative horse”.
It doesn’t take very long to learn how to stay on a horse who wants you to stay on, and who wants to go where you expect to go, at something like your expected rate of speed.
Staying on a horse who doesn’t meet one of those criteria may be a very different matter. So is getting a horse to go anywhere it doesn’t want to go, or at a different rate of speed than it wants to go at; even if the horse does want the rider to stay on.
And almost any horse, if frightened, may suddenly become a horse that’s going in a different direction than the rider expected, at a high rate of speed, possibly sideways or vertically; without paying any attention to whether the rider stays on.
– I made it to intermediate, many years ago. I know I was intermediate, because Chiquita ran away with me on a trail ride. She never ran away with beginners; they’d be too frightened, and might panic and fall off. She never ran away with advanced riders; they knew how to stop her. She only ran away with intermediates. She was a very smart horse. (Who stopped on her own eventually, when she got tired of the game, and peacefully rejoined the rest of the group.)
I probably had had a hundred lessons by then, at camp and at that school.
Some movie horses must have the hardest, most calloused mouths in creation. At any rate, I certainly hope so, or they’d be in a huge amount of pain from the way some of those actors yank on the bit.
Some teachers start you on a lunge line (a long line attached to the horse’s halter or bridle, the teacher holds the other end, the rider – if any – doesn’t touch it): you don’t get either reins or stirrups until they think you’ve learned to keep your balance without them.
The friend with the helmet took me on a trail ride on one of her horses first – and we started that way first, on a lunge line inside a fenced riding ring, until she was convinced I knew what I was doing enough to go out on the trail, and wouldn’t injure her horses’ mouth. (School horses usually already have hard mouths.)
My next door neighbor when I moved here was at the other end of the spectrum. She showed up on a horse with another on a lead, asked me if I wanted to ride, popped me with neither helmet nor preparation up onto the horse she’d been leading, and took me for a fairly wild ride through the woods; I didn’t know where we were going, and had trouble keeping control of the horse, who wanted to run past her. Turned out she rode him in competitive trail riding, so of course he wanted to run fast and be in the lead – and he was trained to go faster on a short rein, not to slow down when pulled back!
Then he got tired of having me on him, and decided to roll. I jumped off in time not to get hurt.
I thought the first friend – with the lunge line introduction – was being way more careful than necessary; though I went along with it politely, it was her horse. But the second one I thought was pretty reckless – she had no idea whether I could handle that particular horse, and it turned out that I couldn’t.
And it may also cause you to put your heels into the horse’s sides; which is often a signal to go faster, and you may be accidentally giving it in an exaggerated form.
Rode twice this weekend. I’ve never worn a helmet (horse or bicycle), but it always crosses my mind at some point during a ride.
My daughter has been riding (dressage and hunter/pacer) for nine years, and has (unfortunately) gotten the reputation for being the one who can manage difficult horses… so it seems like every six months she’s been given a new one to work on. I’m proud of her, but I also do not like it.
There’s a continual debate about helmets in the horse world. Generally the people who won’t/don’t wear them cite 'tradition" and “how it looks” (mostly these are western riders), and “I want to feel the wind in my hair, it’s too much trouble, my helmet doesn’t fit, I forgot”. Pretty much the anti-seat belt arguments.
On the other side, there’s brain injuries. Your head is seven or eight feet off the ground, and you are balanced on an unpredictable prey animal who can at any time part ways with you very suddenly, often at speed. Falls are not avoidable. There is no one riding regularly who has not fallen multiple times. Many body parts are repairable, but not brains. You can google and find whole websites dedicated to the stories of the paraplegic and quad former equestrians, who face not being able a fucking thing for themselves for the rest of their lives.
Last year I came off my horse when she spooked and spun and the saddle slipped. I was alone, four miles from any road, and – luckily! I fell on my back and not my head. It took me three hours to crawl home, in agony, and I spent a month mostly in bed. She’s a good steady horse who never fails me deliberately but she’s a horse. This kind of event is just par for the course. My rider friends all have such stories and worse.
Nobody I know rides without a helmet. I feel the same way about those who don’t as the people who disable their seatbelt warnings so they can drive without. It’s not a positive feeling.
Me, too. Does he think that you want to become a professional equestrian? LOL
Maybe it’s location. I don’t know anyone who wears a helmet riding. Maybe we should invest in a couple so we have them to offer friends due to liability.
If what @Bijou_Drains wants (they haven’t posted in this thread in quite a while) is to go out on trail rides alone, spending a year learning how to ride first doesn’t seem excessive at all to me.
If what they want is to go out with at least one trained person, on a known trail, on a horse well trained for that purpose, then it does seem more than necessary.
If it’s that particular stable’s requirement for riding there – it’s their horses. Maybe they don’t want them messed up. Horses trained to be ridden by random people who don’t really know what they’re doing are, effectively, being trained to ignore a whole lot of cues that the rider won’t even recognize they’re giving; and often basically to plod along a given course at a slow rate of speed.
Definitely both location and culture. Western riders often don’t wear them, casual trail rider culture as well. On the east coast with lots of focus on jumping, or, if you come out of a lesson-barn situation, folks without them really stand out.
OK, yeah, my gf uses an Australian saddle, mine is western.
No horse show I’ve ever been at would let anyone compete without a helmet. English and Western. I’ve seen plenty of skilled riders get thrown, in competition and in practice.
Oh yes indeed. Same is true in endurance racing, competition trail, etc. I think the casual trail people are going to be the last to catch the helmet-wearing bug. Lots of folks throw a halter on their horse, climb on bareback, and mosey off. I sure did when I was twelve and our horses were in our backyard. I’m a lot more breakable now.
This definitely happened to me when I didn’t have my own horse. The barn and/or trainer would hand over whichever horse needed someone to help it learn manners/learn skills/take a break from being a barn horse. I learned a lot this way, but having your own horse at some point is a huge upgrade.