writing of riding

First of all, a hug for you ❤️ and a face punch to whoever told you that. 🤜😑

I think some information about arenas might come in handy for you, so here’s an overview:

Many facilities where horses are kept for riding or working purposes have arenas, which is a term for an area that is used for riding which generally has a sandy soil footing (though there are all kinds of surfaces of varying levels of sophistication, this is the most common one) and often has a fence, but not always. The term “arena” is not interchangeable with “corral” or “paddock”; these are usually terms for pens where horses are housed, and an arena is where they’re ridden/exercised.

Arenas are usually oval or rectangular, and they’re large. Even on the small side they’re likely at least forty feet wide. Most arenas are outdoor. Some are covered with just tall supports and a roof, so that the surface doesn’t get muddy or snow-covered, and to provide shade in hot seasons. Some are indoor, and are fully enclosed. Some premiere indoor facilities have heat, and some are even air-conditioned. (The famous Spanish Riding School indoor arena even has chandeliers!)

Even an outdoor arena is an elaborate installation. First, the area has to be leveled with heavy equipment. Then, a base may need to be constructed, depending on the conditions. A good base is solid and porous; gravel screenings or composite material are common opinions and several inches of depth may be necessary. Finally, over the base the footing is applied. Even a simple sand arena on the smaller side will require hundreds of tons of footing. Having recently installed my own outdoor arena I can tell you, the process is arduous!

Finally I’ve come full circle. It’s not only inhumane to ask someone to hand rake an arena, it’s not necessary. While there are elaborate arena grooming tools that require a fancy tractor and cost as much as a luxury car, a simple harrow dragged behind an ATV or even a regular pickup truck will do the job better than a hand rake and in a small fraction of the time.

Hi anon! Thanks for the ask. I agree with your instincts on this one... A first-time rider is unlikely to have a good experience at a canter or gallop.

Nobody asked me, but I’m telling you anyway: most people don’t ride stallions.

I’m not saying NO ONE rides stallions, I’m just saying that it’s unusual.

Why? Because stallions are strongly driven by an urge to mate, and they’re easily preoccupied by said urge. They’re also more territorial and can be harder to manage around unfamiliar horses. Unless the horse is being kept as a stallion for the purpose of breeding many mares year in and year out, the typical (and frankly, kinder) thing to do is to have him castrated at an early age, which is referred to as “gelding” him. Most male horses are gelded in their first few years of life, and many people prefer to geld them before their developing hormones result in “stud-like” behaviors, before they’re even a year old.

Many people seeking a horse for competition or pleasure work are only interested in geldings, even over mares. Mares have more hormonal fluctuations that can result in more variable moods, and can be more aggressive with other horses, although these are just generalizations. There are plenty of finicky geldings and sunshiny mares out there.

Most competitive associations won’t permit young children to show stallions. Some facilities don’t allow stallions at all. Even on his best behavior, a stallion may be susceptible to the responsive behaviors of other horses--like mares in heat, or another stallion that isn’t being controlled by its handler. For dozens of reasons, most of the horses throughout history that are put to hard work have been geldings and mares.

I’m not saying I’ll DNF a book for mentioning someone has put his hand on a horse’s thigh, but I will definitely WTF at a book.

Horses actually do have femur bones, but they are not part of the lower limb that most people picture as the hind leg of a horse. Here’s a picture for reference:

Hello! Thank you for your patience (I think? I mean maybe you’ve actually been super impatient and/or you have forgotten about this ask altogether, lol) while I mulled over an answer to this question and also found the time to give it the complete, detailed answer it deserves. I hope it’s okay that I answered publicly. If not, shoot me a DM and I’ll take it down. I grew up as a western rider, so it’s all too easy for me to imagine the environment that you are in within your lesson program. I was a horse-crazy kid whose parents didn’t know a lot about riding, and my grandpa and aunt took me riding with them from a young age, but just on trails. When I first got into a formal lesson environment with western riders, I was quickly introduced to the theories that are central to a big part of that riding tradition... that if a horse doesn’t listen, you jerk and kick. And if you hesitate, you’re told things like...

He’s not a pet! He’s a lot bigger than you. You can’t hurt him! His friends bite him and kick him harder than a kid ever could, and it doesn’t hurt him. That’s how horses communicate! He needs to respect you!

In fiction, written and on-screen, I often see depictions of a horse that’s wild or at least unstarted one day, then it’s the best horse on the ranch/cavalry/space ship the next.

Just—no.

Even when a gifted horse trainer and a willing horse are involved, the process of teaching a horse to be a reliable mount in a variety of conditions and environments takes many months, and that’s assuming the training sessions are frequent and intensive. I’ve heard professional horse trainers say that it takes about two years of full-time training to “finish” a horse in some disciplines, and in others, the expectation that the horse would be a top performer doesn’t come until the horse has been under saddle and ridden regularly for several years.

You can estimate the age of a horse by looking at its teeth. Horses have what are called deciduous teeth, which means they are constantly growing, and are ground down constantly by a horse’s chewing. The angle, shape, and growth rings on certain teeth change as the horse ages.

So, looking at a horse’s teeth can be a way to tell if you’re being sold a twenty-year-old horse advertised as a ten-year-old, for example.

But if you got the horse as a gift, you shouldn’t care how old it is. Thus, an idiom was born.

In countries with a strong European influence on their riding tradition, horses are taught to lead and stand to be mounted primarily, if not exclusively, from the left side.

This practice dates back to when gentlemen and soldiers, who were mostly right-handed, wore swords on their left hip, which made it easier to swing over their right leg as they mounted, rather than their left. For no reason I can figure out, it’s a tradition that stuck, so much so that the majority of horses and riders I encounter still follow it.

I’d love to hear if this varies in other parts of the world, as it seems as though it would!

Person: “And then the prince rode up on his white horse and--” People with just enough knowledge to be obnoxious (and also the nerve to interrupt): “--there’s no such thing as a white horse!” Actually, there are white horses. Especially if you’re writing a fantasy story where people can call coat colors whatever you want them to.  In the Real World, what would technically be considered a white horse IS rare. The definition is that the horse has unpigmented (pink) skin over its entire body, and white hair. That genetic combination is unusual, but these horses exist. Sometimes they have dark eyes, and sometimes their eyes are blue. The genetics of these horses are usually “dominant white” or “sabino white,” but there isn’t a visual difference between the two types. (Pictured below: a rare “dominant white” horse that happens to be a Thoroughbred.)

The obnoxious person was probably about to say that horses that look white are actually grey or gray. And sometimes, that’s true. In the Real World, gray refers to a horse with a gray gene, which is fairly common in most breeds. Gray horses are generally born a darker color, but “whiten” as they age. Their skin is pigmented. Some of them turn completely white when they’re still very young, and some never completely whiten. But most commonly a horse with a gray gene will be totally white by its middle age. One acute difference between most gray horses and most white horses is the appearance of the horse’s head, especially around the eyes and muzzle, with pigmented versus unpigmented skin. (Pictured below, a mature gray stallion.)

But grays aren’t the only horses that can appear white or mostly white. Appaloosa, paint or pinto markings in certain breeds sometimes result in horses that appear white. A famous example is the “medicine hat” tobiano, which is born with white markings over so much of its body, that many lay people would describe them as white.

(Pictured below, a medicine hat tobiano stallion. The skin around his nostrils, mouth and eyes is pigmented.)

Another example of horses with unpigmented skin that can appear white but aren’t, are the double-dilutes, which are the result of horses that carry two copies of the gene that dilutes other coat colors. When two single-dilute horses mate, they have a 25% chance of creating a double-dilute offspring. An example of a horse with one dilute gene, specifically the creme gene, is a palomino (chestnut + one dilute gene) or buckskin (bay + one dilute gene). A horse with two creme genes is called a cremello, and can range in color from light gold to creamy white. Cremellos have blue eyes or sometimes amber eyes.  (Pictured below, a very light-colored cremello stallion. Note the unpigmented skin on his face and how it affects his appearance.)

One I’ve read isn’t coming to mind, but I’m constantly running into illustrations where the hind legs bend the wrong way. 😂