Why does it seem like kids who come from riding familys can't ride as well as those that dont come from...

Question

Why does it seem like kids who come from riding familys can't ride as well as those that dont come from riding families. NOW WHAT I MEAN is they can show well and all but at like this stable nova it seemed like many of the kids didnt know how to train a horse, they only knew how to ride one after it was broke, does anyone know why? mabey are the parents more protective?? (when I say kid I mean like teens to early twenties)

Answer 1

some are but like me i come from a riding family but i can ride but i don't show so i can see what you are saying. its because they focus on showing and nu thing els and some of there parents are over protective.

Answer 2

Some of it probably that they have always had their parents to help out. Since I come from a nonriding family, I do A LOT of trial and error, and a lot of reading and picking of brains. I don't do anything because thats the way my parents do it.

Another reason is that often, kids whose parents ride start to young. A four or five year old simply cannot control thier own body as much as a seven, eight, nine, or ten year old can. young kids have short legs and proportionaly heavy heads. So as akward little kids, they learn how to look good, how to stay on, ect, but they can't learn to really go with the horse or to read it until they are older, at which time all their habits are firmly ground in.

Kids who start when they are older learn how to do things properly from the get go. They are more mentaly mature when they begin, and can pay attention longer, all of wich gives them a better overall foundation.

Not that there aren't kids from horse families that are exelent riders and trainers, or that there aren't kids from non-horse families that can show but not train.

Answer 3

I don't know that it's from or not from riding families - but there's absolutely a trend of people who show up, look pretty with the horse in the ring but couldn't handle day to day things. Being a horseman and a passenger are two different things. Many don't know how to *train* because they've never had to - they get horses that need minor adjustments and do what they've been trained to do without a fuss. The won't usually have a horse who is a little more independent because it's a "problem" when he acts up.

I've seen some show winners in equitation who couldn't tack up their horse if their lives depended on it. And have seen others who were well versed in all aspects of horse care. Most lesson programs have a goal of winning shows - not necessarily being a horseman/horsewoman.

Answer 4

I don't think thats a really fair generalization... I've always noticed the opposit actually, I think you may just be seeing kids from experianced families pick out well suited mount. Kids from non-horsey familes are more likely to be on unsutible horses, or not have taken lessons, making it look like their horse is really more green than it actually is. I come from a very horse-interested family (we own a boarding/training barn with around 30 horses), and I have not ridden a well broke horse since I was 12. I always have green horses, or horses with problems (I have had some very bad luck with buying horses). This leads a lot of people that I show with to think that I can't ride, but I have never had the same horse for longer than 2 years, this makes it so I can get on pretty much any kind of horse and adapt...I have a AQHA rom and top ten at the congress, but I deffinitly don't just sit pretty.

I have found when I ride a horse that is well trained (because I have put work into it) I get comments like 'oh shes only doing well because her horse is dead broke'....well my horse is dead broke because I made it that way. a good rider can make anything look easy to ride, even when its not. Don't discredit people on easy looking horses, you don't know how much work they may have put into them to get them there.

i used to have a horse that would attack other horses in the arena, and do other insane stuff. Well I would be riding it, then it would flip out, and people would always make comments about 'what im doing to it to make that nice horse flip out like that' one day I let a particular person that would always make these comments get on him, she got thrown into the arena wall head first and went to the ER...no more comments about me making my "really nice" horse go crazy. She couldnt even make him do one lap of the arena, which I guess I made look really easy...

Answer 5

Kids that come from riding families usually are entered into the sport because their family does it, but not necessarily because they want to do it. They also sometimes take the ability to take riding lessons for granted and don't try as hard to excel, because they know it will be in their life regardless of how hard they try to be their best. Some kids also just want to earn the blue ribbons and be the best, but slack on the job once lessons start up again;it just isn't that important a sport to them. Children that don't grow up in riding families, like me, tend to want to try their hardest for many reasons: They want their family to be proud of them and their sport, they save up for lessons and realize how much work it is to take them, so they want to do well in their well-earned lessons, they want to show off their love of the sport by doing shows ( and being good in them) , or they might just want to be the best!!! Hope this helped a little!!! :)

Answer 6

Not in my experience!! Where I am from the riding family kids kicked the butts of the ones who thought they could. I was breaking & training at 12 yr. I worked at two ranchs, & my parents ranch as well. The two ranches I broke at I worked there for 10 yrs each, they were brothers.

Answer 7

well if they come from riding families they are more likely to own a horse, or their parents know which horses at the barn are the best... so they would be trained on horses that are already broke.... i know thats what happened with me..

Answer 8

Note: The following is something I've noticed, and I am not saying that all people who ride at barns are unskilled, but:

A lot of times, kids like these ride at full-service barns where ALL of the horse's care, training, tacking, and grooming is done by someone else. All the client has to do is show up and get on the horse. After the ride, the horse is handed to a groom to be cooled out, untacked, etc. If the horse needs training, a trainer does it, not the client. The very basics of horses and riding skills are lacking. These people are passengers, not riders. On a horse that acted up, they'd be in big trouble. In many places, the emphasis is on winning, not building skill.

For some people, the only time they actually ride the horse is at shows. If he horse is 'pushbutton' and the rider has decent position, this can work.

When I worked at a guest ranch, we saw people all the time who had been riding and winning in shows since they could walk and claimed to be expert riders. Some were, but many were not. These people were clueless about what to do if their horse tried to eat grass while they were riding, etc. Their position on the horse was excellent, but their riding ability on rough terrain or a horse that wasn't 100% schooled was not good. More than one person refused to ride after the first day since they couldn't ride with a loose rein and stay balanced. One girl, who came equipped with photos of herself on hunters winning big classes panicked and fell when her horse spooked a step sideways at a deer in the bushes, and her friend (also a long-time rider) stopped riding with us after a horse kicked at a fly on it's belly and she was convinced it was bucking. Basic knowledge that one learns while working daily with a horse (not just riding) was completely lacking. One of the girls' mothers berated us for allowing her daughter to get on a horse that we had not 'schooled for an hour or so' before she got on to ride. She was convinced her daughters' "skills" would be ruined by leisurely ride on a regular trail mount and that we were giving her daughter and friend mean and untrained horses. The horses guests rode were not wild, unruly, young, or untrained horses, but your typical everyday-type horse that follows along and does what the horse ahead of him does--- generally very easy to get along with, safe, and easy to ride but nothing fancy.

There's more to learning about and getting confidence in horses than just getting on a trained horse and showing. The little things like general management, grooming, feeding, and training make better horsemen than riding skills alone. Anybody can be taught to pose and stay on a trained horse. It takes a lot more skill to have to learn how to do everything for that horse yourself and work through problems on your own.

Kids who aren't blessed with 'riding families' have a lot tougher time getting to be good riders and horsemen (and horsewomen) but those people generally know a lot more and are better all-around with horses than those who strictly ride at full-service barns.

Answer 9

maybe its because the family is pushing the kids to ride and its not there thing. Those who want to ride will usually do better because its their decision and not their parents. The kids need support not pushed.

Answer 10

because the parents are too protective. my dad just turned me loose in the pasture with some old nag till i figured out what i was doing, when i fell off he told me what i did wrong and made me get back on. now parrents are so scared of jerms and scrapes that kids cant gain any real experance these days.