The Purple Guide to Learning Horseback Riding in 10 Days

Chapter 1: First Day

Your first day is not about riding. Let's get that out of the way immediately. Your first day is about standing next to a large animal that could kill you but almost certainly won't, and learning that you can survive that experience without panicking. That sounds dramatic, and it is a little bit, but it's also the honest truth of what your first session looks like. If you've never been near a horse, your body doesn't know what to do with a 1,100-pound animal that breathes loudly and has hooves the size of dinner plates. So today, we fix that.

Let's start with what you'll actually do. When you arrive at a barn (and you should have booked a lesson at a reputable place — more on that in a moment), you'll meet your instructor. They'll probably ask if you've ridden before. You say no. This is not the time to impress anyone. Then they'll walk you into a stall or a paddock and introduce you to the horse you'll be working with. For your first lesson, this will almost certainly be a horse that has an older, patient soul — think a school horse named something like "Duke" or "Molly" who has done this exact lesson five hundred times. That's a good thing. You want the boring horse. The boring horse will teach you more today than the flashy one ever could.

Your first task is simply to be in the horse's space. The instructor