07/24/2026
Do you thank your horse after each lesson?
Being a ridden horse is hard work and goes against their very nature. Flight prey animals, letting a predator ride on their backs, controlling their movement and dictating their responses. Traditionally, horse training and riding methods are based around utilizing said fear response for training (eg. methods involved driving the horse away, such as roundpenning), flooding/learned helplessness (“desensitizing”, hard tying etc) as well as negative reinforcement (pressure + release). So I believe that riding in general is stressful for most horses- even if the riding "isn't stressful".
Now consider a lesson horse with all of that above, but switch to a certain volume of various lesson riders with different degrees of skill, and variations within how they ride. Now this horse has to also adapt to each different rider, further suppress their natural responses to keep these riders safe, and compensate wherever skills or even balance is lacking on each rider.
I don't think rider experience matters too much, as a beginner lesson the horse may not have to work so hard in regards to the exercises; but they have to work very hard to compensate for a rider lacking in skill, balance, softness etc. And be very patient in the process.
An experienced rider may have the balanced seat and softer aids, but they will be doing more advanced exercises which take a different physical and mental toll on the horses.
I feel like there is an element of a metaphoric holding of breath, and they can finally breathe when the rider gets off. And the horse can exhale that stress.
Now, NONE of this is to say that lesson programs are bad. I'm just talking from a broad scope, equine behavioral perspective- we are ALL really bad for not fully appreciating what these horses have to suppress in order for them to "serve us".
Some horses struggle with this more than others. Some I truly think don’t mind too much at all, and are naturally very patient and unbothered. Many horses aren't suitable at all for this lifestyle, beyond a certain degree of riding ability, or not at all.
Regardless, you have to be ignorant to not believe that there is a level of stress involved for riding in general and then amplified when in a “lesson horse format”. This is why I absolutely stress the NECESSITY of how to manage lesson horses.
All of mine receive monthly body work and each have their own individual professionally fitted saddles/tack (no sharing!) and the saddle fitter on a 3-4month schedule to continue to monitor the fit and adjust as necessary. Which sadly is viewed as above and beyond, and often I get told that that isn’t “realistic” for most lesson programs. However, in my opinion, if we are ensnaring the service of these animals, giving them next to no choice/autonomy over their lives, is it truly unrealistic to make sure that they are as comfortable as possible while they labour for us? I don’t think it is.
As an industry, we are all horrible when it comes to truly appreciating and recognizing how amazing these horses are for us. Because we are paying for it we feel very entitled to it. As though the horse “owes us”. The horse doesn’t get paid for it though, they do not understand the value of a lesson, of a horse show, the cost of board, tack etc. They only understand what they are physically feeling, emotionally feeling, and what they are being told.
I absolutely cannot thank these horses enough for their hard work. While I am talking mostly about lesson horses in this post, this also applies to personally owned horses.
Look at where you are today in your riding. Do you ever think back to the lesson horses that got you there? Not just the easy, positive rides, but also the difficult, frustrating ones that ultimately taught you the most. Did you bring them a carrot and give them a scratch after each ride? Did you thank your lesson horse? Do you still?
