30/03/2026
Looking for a coach?
Wondering whether you should go to that clinic your friend/club/instructor has mentioned to you?
Who is your 'go to' when it comes to seeking riding advice?
Some riders go to clinic after clinic and are disciplined and confident enough to just take away what they believe will be useful to them.
Others stick to the one coach and progress their riding skills that way.
And there are all the variations in between those two extremes!
It has been a fairly tortuous path to where I am now and there are a couple of coaches who must have been glad to see the back of me, as I have been a slow learner! 🥸 These days I have a regular coach who I am lucky enough to see fortnightly, and an occasional coach who I see every three months, if she makes it down from QLD. ✈️ They are each different in their style, system, and method, but they are also compatible, so my ethics and principles are not challenged in applying their advice. 😆
Occasionally an opportunity comes up for a clinic with an unknown, typically a 'star' from overseas. What to do? 😳
Do I risk my money, ('cause they are always expensive!), or do I risk missing out on the potential to learn some amazing new knowledge? I consider the money I spend on riding lessons as an investment in myself. (It is not my horse being trained by someone else, just with me in the saddle!)
There is no easy answer.
How do you decide?
We don't know what we don't know!
Recently I was asked to give advice about clinics by overseas riders and I have done my due diligence and asked around. I was shocked by some of the information I found out about one of the coaches and I was able to advise caution. I realise not everyone has access to the same information, so how are we to judge who to trust with our horse and our money? My suggestions are;
- Find a rider who inspires you, and ask who they admire and have lessons with, then, if appropriate, ask that person who they have lessons with, and so on...
- Look on the internet and see how the 'star' coach presents themselves, and what others say about them. (There is currently one popular 'star coach' who's website reads like a cult! 😱😱)
- Be wary of anyone who says their way is the only way! 🧐 (Remember, many roads lead to Rome.)
- and last of all, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is! The more radical the 'star coach's' advice, the more suspicious I would be!
And, of course, if their method or system is not kind, and not good for the horse, making their body more physically sound and balanced, then it is not good welfare for the horse, no matter what their words say.
There is no need to reinvent the wheel! I am a big fan of science and learning theory, and most of what the great 'classical' riders have taught still fit ethically into a more modern understanding of why their system works. The coaches of Nuno's and Klimke's quality might have different words and explain it differently, but if the method is good for the horse and rider, then it is probably still valid and can be explained with a more modern understanding.
Below is an example of my riding goal and this is how I judge the coaches I go to. If their horses and long term students don't look like this, they are probably not for me. 😎
A horse that is stretching the neck forward, actively seeking the contact, balancing through it's strong core, lifting the rider with it's strong back and thoracic sling, and pushing strongly from behind with positive tension in it's body; and the rider looks like he is sitting there doing nothing. 🥰
It is Nuno, of course, but it could also be one of the Klimke's.
What is absent from this photo is negative tension, a dropped bit with slack reins, a hollow back, a braced under-neck, and a jammed gullet.
