German riding lessons

Due to some comments I’ve received about the state of horsemanship in Germany, I wanted to post something of a response. If you’ve been reading my blog for a while some of this will be familiar.

My perspective is not from the higher levels (private clubs--I think Eryn can enlighten us about that end of things). My perspective is the commoners’ horse world.

I have to stress that horse riding is considered a basic skill in Germany, like swimming back in Seattle. There are many opportunities to drown in Seattle, so all children have swimming lessons in school. Most children here take riding lessons. When I say  most I do not have actual figures, sorry.

Every German city has multiple riding stables and private riding clubs that are available so that any child can learn to ride. I’m talking about big cities – horses are an essential part of the culture here so the government has ensured that this remains a part of modern life. There are designated horse trails throughout this Montana-sized country, ensuring that as long as we pay for and attach our horse license plate, we can ride outdoors.

It is just as easy for city kids to get to these stables (on busses, streetcars, or bicycles) as the country children living around me.

Riders are mass produced here. Every stable has after-school group lessons on school horses. The kids learn very good arena etiquette because they’re sharing space with so many other riders. (Space is at a premium everywhere in this land.) These are skills I have not yet mastered.

Lessons are extremely cheap, because riding is a basic skill, it must be accessible. From my experiences, group lessons are 12E per hour. Private are 30-40E.

The school horses are part of this industry. Thousands of them doing their jobs giving kids time on horseback every day. The school horses have atrocious manners across the board, but they cannot help it, they usually have unnatural  lifestyles (much time in stalls) and are treated like the parts of the machine they are. Eryn said she’s not allowed to correct the horses, and I’ve gotten that impression too on several occasions where I’ve tried to enforce manners; I’ve shocked people with my "brutality".

The children all learn it is mandatory to scrape the arena footing out of hooves after exiting the arena, and they all sponge their bits before putting bridles away. They all yell “Tor Frei!” before leading their horses into the arena.

They all learn to ride in Abteilung (battalion). This means the horses follow each other around the arena in a pattern, so there is little steering or actual riding to be done. I feel bad that they aren’t learning to ride *well*, but the ones I’ve spoken to are satisfied, they don’t know anything else. One lady had ridden 7 years in group lessons and told me she wasn’t a good enough rider to take off the side reins, on any of the school horses there. She was getting what she wanted: the chance to ride with acquaintances every week.

I know that Germany turns out top riders, and I know that some of them come from this humble beginning, but what I see is a very homogenized state.

Every time I go to the grocery store, there is at least one person wearing riding breeches. I spent a while being jealous of these people until recently. I’m starting to realize the difference here. Taking riding lessons does not necessarily mean you are a horse-crazy kid. Also, different from America: of all the riders I bump into in the grocery store (correction: they bump into ME) how many of them own their own horse? Compared to back home, only a small percentage. Most people just take lessons and the serious horse lovers lease or even buy (but must board, keeping a horse at home is practically non-existent here).

Those lucky ones who own their own horse usually have one or two people also leasing it to help out with the cost. It is common for horses to have 2-3 people riding them weekly. Leasing costs between 60 and 100E per month. Leasing is such a huge industry here there are insurance contracts simply for leasing! I had to sign up when I leased. (All horses are insured in Germany against damage they might do.)

The kids go through fun competitions to get certified to go up in the levels, and even progress to real shows if they wish. I see a lot of mass-produced riders who don’t really pursue horsemanship. Of course my perspective is skewed because I'm looking through "foreigner glasses."

This is a horse country, where horses are essential to the culture, but horses aren’t anything special here, because they’re available to all. It would have been awesome for me to live here as a child. I wouldn’t have had to dream of horses from a distance; a bike ride and 12E would get me an hour on a horse.

But would I have turned out with this horse-crazy illness?? Good question.

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The photos were taken from the Internet -- I googled "Reitunterricht" and "Reit Abteilung" and these are the images I found. I did not specifically seek out photos showing gadgets. I wanted to show group lessons with the Abteilung thing especially.