I’ve been in and around riding schools for a long time. Half a century, when I think about it. Ancient wisdom about riders gets passed down by word of mouth by BC instructors. (If you are wondering what a BC instructor is, it is an instructor who comes from the generation Before Computers.)
One of the biggest issues with riding schools is assessing new clients. Many Malaysians and others, especially true of Middle Easterners and East Asians, will come in and declare themselves a much higher standard than they really are. If you are not careful, they might start with lessons well above their level, holding others back and scaring themselves in the process. They might even have an accident, something we generally try to avoid in the first lesson.
So, the received advice is that if someone walks in a declares loudly that they are experts, put them on the lunge – they probably can’t ride much more that a stuttering rising trot!
Assess also, how they are dressed. We had a flamboyant Dato’ Seri who declared himself an ‘advanced rider.’ He turned up for his first lesson in cowboy boots, a big cowboy belt buckle and a Stetson. Couldn’t ride, and looked the wrong part.
It’s not limited to Cowboys and Indians. In polo, a lad just returned from university in England told us he had an English HPA handicap of 0 goals. With tall tales of a game-winning hook on an 8-goal professional, it would have been easy to have been taken in. But we couldn’t find his name anywhere in the HPA records, and decided he should start from the bottom at -2. He has remained on -2 the last four years!
On the other hand, a girl once came in to book lessons at the Bukit Timah Saddle Club in Singapore. When pressed, she admitted she ‘could ride a bit.’ Her ‘bit’ was good enough to be jumping 1.30 m courses almost immediately. We later found out she had grown up always around horses, and her father was Breeders Cup winning trainer and a former show jumper who had actually won an Olympic gold medal!
Nowadays, if I am forced to ride when I am overseas, and if I am asked if I can ride, my answer is usually, ‘Yes, I can ride a bit.’
