What Makes A Good School Horse

Eventually, we want to be able to ride a horse like this reining horse

Or this champion hunter,

or like this 3-day event horse,

Or ride a canter pirouette like Lisa Wilcox and Relevant.

But these elite horses aren't the horses that you learn how to ride on. Yes, that's the goal--to be "world class" like the horses and riders pictured above. But if you want to get there, you have to start with a much different sort of horse. And we should appreciate and applaud those horses, every day, even if they are not now "world class".

( The images have been collected from riding school programs around the United States and arouond the world. Always wear a helmet around horses and while mounted!)

You really can't learn to ride without a series of patient, kind, and for-giving .... mounts. While the simulator pictured has been in use in the UK and the US, and there have been efforts to find an equine simulator; the French National Equestrian School (l'Ecole Nationale d'Equitation, Saumur) had one in 1997, but mostly you need the real thing.

A sweet, kind horse or pony.

Stanford University will now be managing the Equestrian Center on campus. (It seems it will be called something like the Stanford Red Barn Equestrian Center).

This is good news for students, staff, and faculty, but quite a blow to the current lesson-program customers. There was a good riding school there which offered lessons. The clientele was primarily local non-Stanford-affiliated kids (and some adults). The riding school was, however, a concessionaire, and so when the management lease was up, the school was not invited to renew.

Program Director and Instructor Cheryl Maloney, from Chicago, Illinois, has trained and instructed throughout the United States and England for over a decade. Combining a British Horse Society teaching accreditation and successful experiences in the show ring, she brings to her students diverse equitation theories and exercises from her own career, as well as a contagious energy level and an interest in each student's personal achievement.

Cheryl hopes to transfer her business to a location about half-an-hour distant, which will probably mean her clients who are still in grade school can't ride during the week. It's the destruction of a community.

To the best of my knowledge, the University has not acknowledged that a real community existed around the school program, and that the community has been damaged, if not destroyed, by evicting Ms. Maloney's program. The way the whole thing's been handled has hurt my attachment to the university.

Cheryl built up a really good School horse string. Her horses weren't sour, because of her care. As most horse people know, a good school horse is hard to find and worth their weight in gold.

Now, let me explain about school-horses, what they are and what they do.

The job of a good school-horse....is to take care of its rider. A horse at age 5 is still a youngster--if you visit any good riding school or talk to any instructor of able-bodied OR disabled riders, you will find that the best horses in the program are generally in their teens or older. It takes time to develop the skills of a good school-horse, and even given time and the best handling and training, not every horse is suited to become a good school-horse. The expression you will hear, over and over, whenever an instructor refers to the best school-horses at the barn, is "worth his weight in gold". This isn't too far from the truth. A reliable, patient, kind, generous, SOUND school-horse of fifteen is something that every instructor would love to own.

The University plans to expand the Intercollegiate Equestrian Team. I'm going to write about IHSA next, but the least you need to know is that the athletes compete on donated horses. A team needs to be able to find or field horses. Most of the athletes do not ride on their own horses, but rely on school horses. The Stanford Equestrian Team (SET) has eleven to its name. It's a club sport at Stanford. The University owns about eleven horses (because they were donated to Stanford through Ms. Maloney's program, and used by the team and in the lesson program). The University will have to decide if it wishes to own the horses, and if it wishes to build up a string of lessons horses for the team to use in training and competition.

It will take years to build up a good string. Good lesson horses are hard to come by. They are often underappreciated by the unsophisticated public, but there are several awards for them. The Ohio Professional Sportsman's Award. Breyer Models (you know, the plastic models) holds an annual essay contest for the world's best school horse, and the essay winner is made into a model.

What makes a good school horse?

Cherry Hill, who has written numerous books on horses and horsekeeping, writes:

A school horse must be patient, willing, cooperative and alert yet calm. He must be physically responsive to the aids and balanced and rhythmic in all of his gaits. A very thin-skinned hot-blooded horse would probably be disastrous for a learning rider so look for a more tolerant (moderately cold-blooded, thicker-skinned) horse that will put up with mistakes as you develop your rhythm and balance. A tolerant horse tends to go on in spite of the awkward movements of a learning rider.

Choose a horse that is not downhill (lower in the withers than the hips) in its conformation. A downhill conformation would make it more difficult for you to sit in balance and keep your legs under your seat. On a downhill horse, you will either tend to pop forward with your upper body and have a loose seat or brace your back and jam your feet forward in the stirrups, all of which are undesirable riding habits. A horse with withers higher than his hips will carry you in the center of his back and allow you to develop good balanced riding habits with your shoulders over your hips and your heels under your hips.

Pay attention to the spring of rib because horses with very round barrels will make it difficult or painful for you to ride and slab-sided horses may make it impossible for you to attain effective leg contact.

A good mentor has no bad habits such as bucking, rearing, shying, running away, balking, biting, or kicking. Furthermore, he should not resist by running through the aids, speeding up, tossing his head above the bit, or diving down behind the bit. Learn all you can about these riding concepts before you go horse shopping.

Although a good school horse does not have to be beautiful and fancy, he does need to be sound, relaxed, cooperative, and well-trained. So, if learning to ride is your top priority, don't discriminate against a horse because of such things as its age, color, short tail, Roman nose, or blemishes.  

Jessica Jahiel is an award-winning author, clinician, and lecturer on equestrian issues. She says,

When you are told "The horse will just know what you want", this can be true - IF you are being reasonably clear, and if the horse is well-trained AND a good school-horse.

A good school-horse is willing to extrapolate - if the signals it receives from the rider aren't precisely those that it has been taught to understand, it will do its best to find something familiar in the rider's actions. A good school-horse is able and willing to accept that that a heel in the ribs or a thump in the side might mean the same thing as a squeeze of the rider's calf, and that a pull on the reins, even an uneven pull on the reins, might mean the same thing as a soft, brief squeeze of the rider's fingers. By responding to even a vague approximation of the correct aids, the horse can help the instructor, over time, teach the rider to quiet and refine her position, her balance, and her use and understanding of the aids themselves.

For this reason, a good school-horse is generally a horse with a lovely, generous attitude and good BASIC training. A good school-horse will start, stop, and turn even with crude, inept guidance from the rider, and won't be upset or resentful. A good school-horse is an amazing animal, and THAT is why people who own good school-horses are invariably very reluctant to sell them at any price. Such a horse is truly worth his weight in gold. ;-)

BASIC training means that the horse knows SOME things and knows them very well. Too much training, too precise training, is not an advantage for a school-horse. A horse that has been trained to high levels is quite another matter; such a horse will require a highly-trained, subtle rider with excellent language skills.

A highly-trained horse that is accustomed to an equally highly-trained rider will expect - and insist on - very precise signals that involve all the finesse of a well-told joke (order, emphasis timing, intensity) - punctuation and intonation, if you will! Such a horse is NOT happy or comfortable when ridden by a novice whose grasp of the language of the aids is still at phrase-book level. To this horse, a novice rider will be virtually incomprehensible, and to the novice rider, this horse will be virtually impossible to ride. There's a language barrier! Every movement and shift and nudge and twitch on the rider's part - never mind actual, deliberate aids, I'm talking about the rider shifting one shoulderblade or looking in a new direction - will mean something specific to the horse, but the rider's reaction to the horse's response will tell the horse "That's wrong!" - followed by a stream of (to the horse) incomprehensible babble. At this point, the horse is in a position not unlike that of a human who is trying to follow instructions given through headphones, and suddenly finds that what's coming through the headphones is word chaos, like the sound of four or five different radio newscasts, talk shows, and game shows all playing simultaneously. In this situation, the human would tend to remove the headphones - the horse will usually not remove the human, but it will be confused and unhappy, and will eventually "shut down" in self-defense. An occasional "schoolmaster" will have a slightly different attitude, and will ignore EVERYTHING the rider says UNLESS the correct signal is given, but there aren't many of those horses around...

Erin Harty is the Associate Editor of VetCentric

The horses are a huge part of the equation at a good lesson barn. They may not look like the fanciest, prettiest, or most athletic equines you’ve seen, but never underestimate the worth of a good school horse.

"The situation is particularly difficult for parents, because they are releasing their child into the care of a 1,200 pound animal with a brain the size of a lemon," said Ms. Teale. "We have a number of saintly school ponies that are very patient with young kids and their learning curve. A good school pony is priceless. Sometimes they're a little older, or a little slower, but you always want the one that is going to slow down if the rider is sending mixed signals."

Welcome to the Official Website of Resistance Free™ Training & Riding Methods of Richard Shrake.  Richard wears many hats in the equine industry and has for nearly 40 years.

Dear Richard: I have a small riding school, and have been in business only a few months.  Several of my school horses are driving me crazy!!  The worse is a POA mare, 13 years old.  She is GREAT on trail.  Easy on ground.  But in the arena, if the kids ask her to do anything more than walk, she pins her ears and even tries to turn and bite their foot in the stirrup!!!  My more advanced kids will smack her, and that helps.  I've had her to the vet.  He found very little wrong, maybe slightly inflamed hocks, which he treated.  We also put a hormone-patch under the skin of her chest, to try and take the edge off her behavior.  She had no other physical maladies. Is she just the wrong horse for a school horse?  I've owned her three years.  Tho always a "pony" -- she's never acted so sour!!!  Anything to try, or do you think I should just sell her? Any general advice on training good school horses?  Is souring a constant problem?  How do you FIND, or TRAIN a horse to be a good school horse?  Please help me!  I love my job, but I'm so frustrated, I'm tempted to quit!   Thanks for anything!  Katherine H.

Dear Katherine:

I am really sorry you have gotten so frustrated....but don't quit!  Good school horses are hard to find.  When you have the right one, your job will be easy and they will become your best friends.  School horses must start with a forgiving disposition.  They also need to be well trained.  The more training and knowledge, the better they are.  Right now you're putting a round peg is a square hole.  Rather than continuing to try to force your POA mare into something she isnt suited for, find an individual that fits her.  You need to replace her with a horse that is forgiving, patient and that has enough training that when the student gives them an aid or signal to respond, they will because they have been trained to do so.  You will usually find that your older show horses make the best schooling horses.  Make sure they are turned out every day.  This will keep their minds fresh and they are much more willing to give you what you need from them.  Dont over use your schooling horses.  This is a big mistake many instructors make.  Once you build a good string of school horses, treat them as you would treat your best friend. Good Luck with your business.  Not everyone gets to work with horses, so enjoy.

The following is the observations of a person who's been riding in a riding school for about six years.

This entry is just some stuff I've learned or observed over the past six years about taking riding lessons. Hopefully, it'll come in useful somewhere.

Try and spend some of your grooming and tacking time getting to know your horse. A horse isn't just a personal transport device; he or she is a living creature with its own distinct personality. They have moods and likes and dislikes.

Remember, in every riding lesson you have two instructors, the one with two legs who tells you things and the one with four legs who shows you. A good school horse can teach, and has forgotten more about riding than you will ever know.

I've been on course more than once when I wasn't so much driving as sitting in the co-pilot's seat giving directions from a map while the horse was giving me the equine equivilant of "Sit down, shut up, and hang on." Good ones will take care of you, and great ones know the difference between experienced and inexperienced riders--I've seen a horse that had dumped me off the day before for doing something wrong when I should have known better carefully adjusting his stride at trot so his inexperienced rider didn't get thrown off-balance.

I've seen my own horse walk bravely by objects that should have given him fits simply because the person on his back was inexperienced and unbalanced. This is a humbling experience.

Stanhope Stables is a very well-run and respected riding school in New York State.

School Horses

Neither fast nor rushing, but not so slow that you need your crop more than your leg. Sensitive to the aids, but kind and forgiving to the mistakes of a new rider.

One of the most important instruments for a beginner rider is a good school horse.

I would say that most people think when they come to ride that the school horse they are riding is an animal that no one else would want. This is so far from the truth. It will take months to find one good school horse. I have found that it has become a never-ending search with a lot of trials and very few finds.

I will probably ride twenty to thirty horses before I find one Stanhope Stable School Horse. As far as I am concerned, I feel that they are an endangered species. Our school horses are treated as you would a private horse; they are on a complete maintenance program. They are not allowed to go for more than 2 1/2 hours a day and we do not book lessons back to back. An In-house trainer schools all our horses once a week. To quote the famous instructor George Morris, “If you are ready to jump courses, you are ready to own your own horse.” At Stanhope Stables, our first priority is for you to learn the basics of horsemanship and to have a safe lesson.

Fantasy Farms is another well-respected school.

The atmosphere at Fantasy Farms has always been friendly and relaxed. Safety for horses and riders always comes first. The lessons are all taught by experienced, caring and fully insured trainers. Fantasy Farms offers a wonderful string of school horses that Meredith brought with her from NY. Meredith explains,

“finding a good school horse is worth it’s weight in gold, I could never part with my horses, they are all part of our family, and they are what make our lessons safe and allow our students to progress forward in their equestrian goals.” “I always have horses available for lease to riders on a month to month basis, but I evaluate each rider for their own safety as well as the safety of my horses”. Lessons are offered daily, and the farm offers a discount for prepaid lesson plans. Riders of all levels and ages are welcome. The instruction is primarily in Hunt Seat Equitation, but a bit of Dressage is added for a more well rounded comprehensive education.

Well, there's an outline of the school horse and lesson horse program from around the country. I wish the new manager of the Stanford Equestrian Team great good luck in replacing what was thrown aside in such a callous manner.

Yes, we all want to end up looking like these horses and riders....but you can't start there. You have to start with the kind, frumpy, old, creatures that will put up with your mistakes and flailings around.

These are elite, champion hunters:

These are elite reining horses (showing what a horse has to do to work cattle well):

Comments

[Liz]

more--another newspaper article--here:

http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/mld/mercurynews/living/health/9439572.htm