Novice Horse Rider? Experience More Comfort and Safety on your Next Ride

When you’re just starting out as a horse rider, it’s easy to find it less than comfortable, to begin with. You may have found that you experience nerves and anxiety before you ride and are concerned for your safety when out on a hack. Furthermore, you might find your body feels sore or stiff in the days following your rides. This is to be expected and not at all unusual!

With plenty of lessons and practice, your comfort will of course naturally improve over time. However, there are some things you can do to enhance your progress. It’s worth ensuring these areas are covered to rule out anything that may hinder your riding achievements.

Correct Tack

Let’s be honest, horse ownership is pretty costly. As a result, beginners tend to opt for the cheapest tack they can afford and this is soon recognised as a mistake!

Investing in a quality, suitably fitted and comfortable saddle is well worth the pennies, as the more comfortable you are in your seat and the more comfortable your horse feels, the more likely you’ll be to achieve a relaxed and fluid riding experience.

Strictly Professional

Would you believe that many riders learn to ride from watching youtube videos or from their friends, rather than from a professional riding instructor?!

If you want to be both safe and comfortable when riding, the single best thing you can do to achieve this is to ensure you have some consistent professional riding lessons.

Safety First

Understandably, novice riders tend to be quite nervous about falling off or experiencing problems when starting out and especially when out on their first ever hack.

Ensuring you have covered certain safety measures will do wonders for your confidence. Aside from the obvious things like wearing suitable clothing and safety gear, you can invest in extra equipment to protect you from potential problems, such as a performance breastplate to keep the saddle as secure possible in the event of something unfortunate happening to the girth or billets.

Core Stability

Your riding position is key to both your comfort and safety whilst riding your horse. Improving your core strength will do wonders for your balance and help you to keep your seat correctly throughout the ride.

Yoga or Pilates are the perfect choice for increasing core strength and flexibility and improving your overall balance.  

Body Position

If you’ve had professional lessons, this should be a basic that is covered. However, many novice riders don’t always have enough consistent lessons before getting their first horse.

So, if you haven’t had many lessons, be sure your riding position is correct to maximise your comfort and safety (you and your horse!).

Here are some of the areas to keep in check:

• Gripping tightly with your legs
• Positioning your feet too far forward in the stirrups
• Poor posture, such a slouching
• Stiff or ridged hands and arms
• Knees to high or far forward

Effective Breathing

To further increase your stability and comfort during a ride, you may want to consider improving your breathing technique.

How we breath affects our entire body and when experiencing nerves, stress or uncertainty, you can expect your breath to become shallower, more frequent and your muscles will tighten as they serge into fight or flight mode.

Horses are sensitive animals and will pick up the tension from your body and respond as such i.e. if you’re tense…so is your horse!

By learning how to control your breath to relax your body, you will be able to increase the fluidity and connection between you and your horse.