21/11/2025
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Why riding schools matter.
In the U.K. riding schools are becoming increasingly rare. Insurance is astronomical, paying for staff, feed and vets bills is crippling, and the workload for the smaller and smaller staff teams managing the show is overwhelming.
It’s easy to criticise riding schools, but without them, as a trainer, I am seeing a crisis for ‘private’ horses and horse owners.
When I was young having your own horse just wasn’t on the cards. We were far from a rich family and instead got my half hour, fortnightly riding lesson. As a teenager I could earn my own pennies, and also work at the stables, so could increase the amount of hours I spent in the saddle.
Long before I had my own horse (in my twenties) I had ridden many, many different horses and ponies, entered shows on kind (or not so kind, depending) ponies from the stables, dribbled along in carnivals (in the rain), hacked for hours with varying levels of control. Through the power of the riding school I had at least learned the basics of balancing myself on a horse in all three gaits.
However, there has been a change which many of us who teach for a living have witnessed. With less riding schools able to afford to exist, and cash in our own pockets, more people are buying their own horses - with very few hours riding under their belt. Often getting a green horse, or an OTTB, or even sometimes an unstarted youngster. Or, maybe someone is coming back to riding after a long break, and their body has experienced many things during the previous years, but sitting on a horse has not been one of them.
Then, all 3 members of this team - the horse, the owner and the trainer - are in an impossible position. The owner may not really be able to rise to the trot. And that’s no criticism. It’s actually not an easy thing to do well, and requires many hours of practice with horses who can do most of the heavy lifting while you learn.
The new horse owner may not have really cantered, or if they did, that was twenty years ago. Something a horse and person need to feel confident and happy about is cantering, even if you’re not doing it that regularly. Because, if cantering is ‘off the cards’, on a day when cantering turns up unexpectedly, you’re both going to get a shock. You both need to feel like your bodies are accustomed with cantering.
What a riding school horse can do is act on behalf of all those privately owned horses and teach the riders. They can provide us with a variety of experiences in a safe way to give us time and brain space to learn. Our own young, green or less experienced horse might not be able to do this for us; they need us to pick up all the slack instead. A riding school horse who knows their job can provide the secure hours in the saddle needed to learn how to ride well in all three gaits. Your own horse can quietly pass on their thanks through the great equine network.
If you’re new to riding and are getting a horse, or haven’t ridden in a while and are stepping back into the saddle, or have only ridden one or two horses and are about to buy a youngster, then please consider getting some good old fashioned riding lessons. It’s far less humbling to take lessons at a riding school than it is to get hurt by your own horse or have things swiftly unravel because you just don’t have enough experience. And you can only gain that experience by, you know, riding. No amount of reading fb posts, watching videos or even spectating clinics can compare to actually riding horses.
There are several good riding schools here in my own locality, and my excellent friend Nikki Stephens runs Burcott Riding centre in Somerset. If you have a riding school you’d like to celebrate please do, and maybe think about going to get a lesson, your own horse will likely thank you for it.
Photo shows an excellent school horse at Burcott giving someone some time to learn…
