eml, I fear insurance and licence may prevent RS students hiring RS horses. We have never found a way round it.
To the OP - I ride RS horses in dressage lessons. You can either take a horse up through the levels (sometimes surprising the horse, yourself and the RI) or ride a school master who already knows the moves. I have done both.
The first task is to explain to a RS what you want to do and then find a suitable horse for that purpose and a good teacher. Plus a dressage arena where you have space to ride a test. As you get more advanced, you may need to visit several riding schools and move from one school to another. But be very clear explaining what you want to learn.
If you have a particular dressage test in mind, buy and print a copy and take it along to the teacher. Have you already prepared Intro Test A/B?
Most teachers at that level are willing to mark you in a test or ask an experienced colleague to do so. And even gather an audience of other students. If you want to learn to compete against other riders elsewhere, - our riding school lets people compete in video on line dressage competition tests, if they want to. They also send Pony Club and Staff teams to compete at outside venues.
Continuity may be a problem - Staff are promoted or move on and horses get older or are needed for other tasks. After a year of good lessons, I lost both my skilled RI and the two lesson horses. That is a disadvantage of being a RS student.
On the other hand in an RS you get the advantage of riding a variety of horses, and that in itself is a good preparation for choosing and buying a horse of your own. It is good preparation to learn a simple dressage test and ride it on almost every new horse you get to ride. When it comes to trying out a horse for sale, I wouldnt start by riding a test, but I do know that test inside out and have it ready to use.
Riding schools are for education - so brilliant places to learn.
