When we were a riding school....

Frances144

Frances144

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Dec 21, 2011
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Things I remember when Wally and I ran a riding school!

One Dad arrived with his 6 yo daughter for a lesson. She was wearing a dress!

One lady refused to wear a hat and when I said "no hat, no horse" burst into tears!

"So, where do Icelandic horses come from?" (errrr.... Iceland?)

We were told to get all the horses ready to be ridden so that the kids who were visiting for the day to play ponies did not have to get dirty or wet!

Other things..... they will come to me!
 
oh dear!!!

hm, our yard isn't a riding school, but we get some very odd people turn up for loans and shares as well ... putting a saddle on backwards takes some skill!
 
Oh good one.

We got gifted a disgusting saddle which had a broken tree. Wally dumped it, along with other useless stuff, in the skip.

A few months later the saddle reappeared as "something I found in my attic" and was asked to give her opinion of it! She did.

Now we always saw bad saddles in half and thump with a mallet old hats so they cannot be "recycled" in any way.
 
The chap who came in shorts, open toe sandals, who whacked Ugla with the reins and then said she took off with him. IN fact she was a lady about it and realised he was a prat and only went so far with him.

The kid who fell off the mounting block.

The parent who slammed her own daughter's head in the gate.

The woman who ride Hákon SO BADLY then blamed him and said "all horses play up when I ride them"
 
At the riding school i used to stay at in the holidays I remember one mum coming up and saying "So, exactly how long will it take for my daughter to be able to ride then?" like it was a programme of starting to finishing!

Another wanted to do the ride and road safety test but her mum wouldn't let her out on the roads! (Main practise was in the sand school)

oh and once we did quadrille practise but one parent couldn't understand why there was no 'star part' her child could take part in!
 
From the days we did Birthday Parties, asking kids about any experience they had and one piped up she had her own horse...then proceeded to scream when we were getting out the ponies for them to ride that she didn't want them let out of their cages??!!
 
laceyfreckle said:
At the riding school i used to stay at in the holidays I remember one mum coming up and saying "So, exactly how long will it take for my daughter to be able to ride then?" like it was a programme of starting to finishing!
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Hey now I just asked MY RI something similar! I need some hope that eventually there will be visible improvement. lol
 
I worked at a RS for nearly 3 years and there were some gems!

The kid who every 5 minutes would drop his reins and try to be an aeroplane. Luckily pony was a saint and stayed plodding on.

The man who said he could ride then when after being helped to get on said his pedals were wonky and was it a manual or automatic?

The husband who asked his wife if one grey horse was the same one she rode last time. She said no, but he said oh but they are the same make right, like a Mercedes or a Saab??

There was a pony there who if you couldn't ride too well would take you into the middle of the arena where the roof leaked, drop her head and deposit child in the puddle!
 
KarinUS said:
Hey now I just asked MY RI something similar! I need some hope that eventually there will be visible improvement. lol
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yes, but i bet you didn't ask with the idea of going from never having sat on a horse to do high level SJ within about 4-6 weeks lol.

Improvement is one thing but don't think we ever get to 'finish' :smile:
 
Sunshine-x said:
There was a pony there who if you couldn't ride too well would take you into the middle of the arena where the roof leaked, drop her head and deposit child in the puddle!
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How smart and evil all at the same time!

(not a riding school thing but something my husband said when I told him he HAD to wear a helmet: "well if the horse goes too fast I will just hold on tight to the horn (Western) and wait till she gets tired and slows down!" sadly he seemed to get tired of holding on more quickly than the horse got tired of going too fast around a bend.)
 
Sunshine-x said:
I worked at a RS for nearly 3 years and there were some gems!

The kid who every 5 minutes would drop his reins and try to be an aeroplane. Luckily pony was a saint and stayed plodding on.

!
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Now see my daughter when she was 4 to just turned 5 had a issue with reins. She once said to me "If I'm meant to be looking where i want to go and thinking faster or slower then what do we need 'these' (shaking reins) for anyway??!"
 
I took an adult friend along to my RS. She said she could ride. She'd get led 4 feet from the gate then the horse would walk back to the gate and stand there. She said: 'I CAN ride. I just can't make them go where I want them to!' She then added 'how do you make it go?' And 'usually there are other horses to follow'.... :rolleyes:
 
Oh I've fallen off the mounting block and landed by Joys front legs under her neck. I very nearly wet myself when her puzzled face looked down at me!


I also remember back in my early teenage years when my family booked in to do an experienced trek in Cornwall. 2 couples turned up and the blokes were in shorts and the ladies in sandals and admitted not knowing if they could ride but justifying it by saying it couldn't be too difficult. My dads horse farted at every step which stopped being funny after about 30 mins.
 
Frances144 said:
People arriving in sandals to ride.

One man who insisted he wore his shorts to ride in! :nerd:
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I see your shorts and raise you a miniskirt.

I offered her my spare jodhpurs but she said no thanks, she didn't like wearing other people's clothes as it was unhygienic. Once I'd got her on it was a different story as she realised everyone could see her crotch (well duh...), casually leaned down and whispered in my ear "actually... do you think I could borrow those trousers...". Oh the temptation to say no!

Someone phoning up to enquire about our day-long picnic rides and if we could offer a vegan option. Another person asking if they could do the picnic ride without actually stopping for a picnic :unsure:

One day when we were in the middle of a summer Pony Club camp with 24 kids, two 20-somethings staying at a nearby guesthouse popped in on foot asking to book a "cantery 2hr hack" for the following evening. I explained that we were extremely busy with camp and they would have to turn up bang on time for their hack so I could be back in time for the evening activities. And indeed the girls turned up nice and early..... with their fellow holidaymakers in tow... all 12 of them.... and they all wanted to join the hack... and they were all complete beginners. :help:

The poor girls were absolutely, genuinely surprised when we said it wasn't doable.
 
The girl who ripped her jods when she got back into riding again, front to back, then insisted on tying her fleece round her waist and carrying on with her lesson regardless... AHEM :redcarded:


This thread makes me anxious. I have done SOoooooOOoo many stupid things! Lol!


ETA:
Sunshine-x said:
The man who said he could ride then when after being helped to get on said his pedals were wonky and was it a manual or automatic?
Click to expand...

That guy is a LEGEND!!!!:giggle:
 
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