How to Teach Children to Ride Horses

Thousands of children develop an interest in horses every year, and many of them start to take riding lessons. If you teach lessons or if you child wants to learn to ride horses, you have your work cut out for you. However, this can be a very rewarding and enlightening experience.

Things You'll Need

School horses
Small saddles
Rainbow reins

Instructions

- 1
  Introduce the children to the horses they are going to ride. Let them pet the horses, feed them carrots and walk them around a small courtyard or barn. It is never a good idea to just pop kids in the saddle and turn them loose.
- 2
  Tack up appropriate school horses for each of the children who are going to learn how to ride. Show the kids how you put the saddle and bridle on, but they don't necessarily have to do it themselves. Some children are simply too small.
- 3
  Show the children how to lead their horses to the arena. Emphasize the importance of holding the reins in both hands and walking at least one or two feet away from the horse. If they have trouble, step in and help guide.
- 4
  Explain the basics in safety of riding horses. Make sure they know never to run around the animals and to always wear a hard hat when mounted. You should also explain the importance of wearing boots with a heel and long pants to avoid sores on their legs.
- 5
  Show the children how to mount their horses and how to hold their reins. To make this easier, use the "rainbow" reins that have different colors up and down their lengths so you can tell the children where to put their hands as they ride around the arena.
- 6
  Remind the children that they should stay at least two horse lengths away from each other, then show them how to ask their school horses to walk.
- 7
  Explain how they should ask their horses to halt as soon as they are all out on the rail. For the rest of the first lesson, practice walking and halting, but don't go any further.