(calm music) - So you wanna start riding horses. Riding horses can be
a wonderful experience when done safely and correctly. They're beautiful and they're powerful. There's so much to know about them and a lot that is involved in owning and working with horses. But today, I'm gonna give
you just a basic overview to help you get started if
you're interested in riding. So whether you bought your first horse or you're looking to
just get started riding, the first thing that you wanna do is look for a professional that you trust that's qualified in the discipline that you're interested in going into. Now, this may be something
you're already researching right now but finding that professional is not only gonna help prevent you from developing bad habits, they're also gonna help to keep you safer and make your riding
experience more enjoyable. So when you look for an instructor that is the right suit for you, you wanna find someone
that you really connect with their teaching style,
that you can understand them, you feel like they're really approachable because they're someone that's going to help you out in the ups and downs that you're inevitably gonna run into in your riding experience. (calm music) Legend. Hi, buddy. Good boy. So this is Legend. And Legend is a really laid back guy. I've had him for many
years and he's a horse that I teach a lot of beginners on because he's very forgiving and he's got more whoa than go, which means he'd much prefer to slow down over speed up when you're riding him. And he's forgiving for that beginner, if they accidentally bump
him or make a mistake, he tends to just go along and be really relaxed and tolerant. So when we're first
getting started riding, we love all our horses, they're beautiful, but we wanna be riding a
horse that's really calm and really tolerant of mistakes as we're all gonna make mistakes
when we're first learning. So I'm here with Sonic
who's a really relaxed guy and I'm gonna get started
in showing you the steps of how to ride your horse. So we're gonna start off
with brushing our horse off. This is gonna prevent any
saddle sores from occurring and is a great way to
connect with our horse before our ride. (upbeat music) So now our horse is all brushed
and we're ready to saddle. So first I'm gonna put my saddle pad on and I'm gonna put it
on too far up the neck and slide it down in the
direction of the hair till I get to round the
middle of the shoulder here. Next, I'm gonna put my saddle on, which is a nice custom fit for Sonic. So it's nice and comfortable for him. And I wanna put it on right
behind the shoulder blade here, right where it locks into place. And then lastly, I'm gonna secure my girth to my billets so that my saddle
stays on nice and secure. (upbeat music) Next, we're gonna put
the bridle on our horse. So to put the bridle on, we're going to start by putting
the reins over the head. And this just helps me to
be able to hold my horse if he were to go to leave and then I'm gonna take my halter off. Now, if you want a more in-depth view on how to put the bridle line, you can check out my video
that I'll leave linked up here and I talk in more detail
about how to put the bridle on, but I'm gonna take my noseband
here and my throatlatch, move them out of the way. I'm gonna put my thumb and
my pinkie through the bit like so, feel for my horse's teeth and I'm gonna be putting my bit up here where there's no teeth in the mouth, and then I'm gonna gently
put my horses ears forward, lower my noseband down. And then whatever bridle you're riding in, whatever discipline you're riding in, you wanna make sure that you always have a throatlatch here. The throatlatch helps
to prevent the bridle from going over your horse's head. So it's very important so
you don't end up riding without a bridle. So you want it to be tight enough that you can't pull it
over your horse's head, but loose enough you can
easily fit your hand in there so your horse can swallow easily. (calm music) So we're out in the outdoor arena, which is a wonderful
place to start off riding when you're just learning. It's a closed space and
we've got good footing for our horse to make it a little easier. Now, when you get started riding, you wanna make sure you're
wearing the right equipment. So the first thing, the
most important thing to wear is a helmet, which is gonna
protect you if you fall. And you wanna wear pants to keep you from your legs from
getting rubbed or chafed. You wanna wear some nice boots that have got a good heel on them so your foot doesn't
slide through the stirrup. They're close-toed and
they're above your ankle. So now I'm going to
adjust Sonic's stirrups and we're gonna get started. (calm music) So now we're ready to mount our horse. Got my stirrups adjusted. I like to Mount using a mounting block because it is the healthiest
for my horse's back. So when I go to mount my horse, I'm going to line him up to the block and then I'm gonna walk you through the steps of how to get on. So I'm gonna lead Sonic around. (calm music) And I'm gonna step up onto my block. As I step up on my block,
I'm gonna switch hands, so I'm gonna take my left hand
and send him forward here. (calm music) And I'm just gonna walk him
up to where he lines up nice and then stop him with my outside rein, then I'm going to hold
my rein and my mane, right hand in the middle of the saddle, push off with my right hand,
step up with my left foot, swing over and then I'm
just going to use my ankle, wiggle my ankle and catch
my stirrup on my right foot. So now let's talk about
how to hold the reins. You're gonna pick up
your reins, slide down, separate the reins, holding in between your thumb
and your pointer finger. You wanna keep your thumbs up, just like you're holding
an ice cream cone. Now that you've got your reins
organized and ready to go, let's talk about the
correct position to ride in in order to stay on your
horse, not fall off, which is important and work with the motion of the horse as opposed to against it. So the correct position is ear, shoulder, hip, hip alignment, which you can see here. And if your horse were
to suddenly disappear out underneath you, you should land on your feet like
this in a kneeled position. Now that we've talked about good position, let's talk about how to
ride our horse forward and stop him. When we go to walk our horse off, we wanna start off by looking
ahead where we wanna go. We're gonna stretch up nice and tall, and we're gonna squeeze,
starting with our butt, then our thigh, and then our calf. When our horse walks forward, we're gonna relax our leg and just follow the motion with our seat. So I'm gonna stretch up, squeeze. When he walks off, I'm gonna relax and just allow him to walk. When I wanna stop him,
I'm gonna quit riding so I relax then I engage my
core a little bit and sit back. And then if he still doesn't
stop, I squeeze my reins. Now that we've talked about how to have our horse move
forward and how to stop, let's talk about steering. We steer our horses using
our seat, which is our core then our legs and, lastly, our reins. So when we go to steer our horse, one thing that may help
you as you start steering is you always think about closing the door you don't want the horse to go through and opening the door you
want the horse to go through. So if I want the horse to turn left, I'm gonna close my right leg and my right hand and open my left hand. Now, when you close your
leg, what I mean by that is here, my leg is relaxed
and it's off the horse. There's not a lot of contact there. Closing the leg means that your
leg comes against the horse. So you're bringing it in like this. So here, it's off; there, it's on. So now I'm gonna walk Sonic
up and I'm gonna make a turn to the left off of my right side. So we're gonna walk forward. (calm music) So I'm gonna turn my
shoulders over my hips, close my right leg and open my left hand to allow Sonic to make that turn. Now, if I wanted to turn him to the right, I would close my left leg, turn my shoulders a
little bit to the right and open my right hand. So riding horses and
improving your horsemanship is a wonderful journey to take
with a lot of ups and downs along the way. If you're on that journey
right now, you can subscribe. I release a new video every
week on different horse topics. I hope that this video was a help to you. And I hope that you enjoy your riding. (calm music)
