The perfect rider and owner

What constitutes to the perfect horse rider? Expensive lessons? Flashy tack?

For me, I’ve seen so many people (including myself) put themselves down for not having anything of the above. No belief, no confidence, no desire to try.

To me the perfect owner and the perfect rider is aptitude. To love their horse, to give it their all and to respect the relationship you build with your animal. The perfect rider has a good attitude.

Nothing makes me more upset than an owner that speaks bad of their partner. “He’s lazy”, “She’s mean” “They won’t do it”.

The attitude you bring to your ride, or your ground work session is so important! If you come in with the wrong attitude, if you’re down or you have ill feelings towards your horse, you will not get the greatest results you can.

If you think positively, or at least neutrally, you’ll find you can alter your outcomes a lot more.

I won’t lie, equipment, training and sometimes pure luck are of importance to being the perfect rider. Physically, a good match works too. But it isn’t entirely important, I speak on my own behalf when I say that not a lot of people thought it was possible for someone my stature (5ft1) to be able to ride, let alone hold in passage, a 16.1 Luso.

Perfect matches don’t have to be aesthetically pleasing. You don’t have to have a long legged warmblood, or the sleekest Arabian. You don’t need matchy matchy sets. Your horse doesn’t have to be immaculately groomed or cost into the high 4 figures . Yes it helps if the rider and horse are matched and don’t out size each other, but with the best mindset, and the best attitude you can muster, you’ll accomplish more than you’ll ever believe.

Your friends, Paige and The Boys.

Me, Myself, and my two boys.

Hello everyone, welcome to my new blog and thank you for taking the time to read.

For those that don't know me, my names Paige, and I am working under the business name of PH equestrian. I'm a classically trained dressage instructor, a HM saddler fitter and work with ridden simulators and positive reinforcement training (+R). I'm also on the boards of directors for not for profit group, Helping Hooves Derby C.I.C, working with children and adults with mental health problems and more.

I've been wanting to start a blog to create an easily accessible place for all equestrians. I want to take away the myths behind classical training, and dressage training entirely. I want your standard Joe Bloggs and Bob the cob to feel confident in themselves to learn new skills without feeling daunted.

I want people to be able to read a dressage and training blog that is on the level they understand. I don't want to patronize and I don't want to assume previous knowledge. I want others to walk away inspired and feeling confident that they can apply new knowledge to their horses.

I say all this because I've been there - I don't own the standard dressage horses. I have a Dales cross who's a nightmare to tack up, and a New forest X Thoroughbred with the biggest sense of humor I've ever seen in a horse.

Yet my dales can do a wonderful half pas under saddle, and my NF can execute a lovely shoulder in on the long reins.

Neither were bought special. Heck, I went to the gate of the field my NF was kept in and said, "Yeah, he'll do"

But through perseverance, trainers that have helped me through the years to break ideas down simply and easily, I've gotten to where I am today.

It's taken a lot to wade through years of elongated sentences and jargon. So many times I've read passages of books and had to take a moment to process. And I want to save you, the readers, the hassle of this.

During this blog, I hope to cover many things, from terminology, basic positioning, simple exercises, all the way through to introducing lateral work and pole work.

They'll be stories of my times teaching, stories of my two mischief makers, and various other pieces.

The only thing I ask is you forgive my lack of intelligence that comes with the IT sides of things, but I'm trying!

Your friends, Paige and The Boys.