7 things only people who took up riding in later life can relate to

Sara Walker's avatar
By
Published In Features
horse riding lessons at riding schools
Library image.
(Image credit: Lucy Merrell)

Not all of us were ‘born in the saddle’, and often we had to wait for life to quieten down and children to leave home before we could really get stuck into horse riding. If you’re a bit later on the scene, here’s what to expect…

1. Your instructor (a mere ‘child’) spends patient hours trying to get you to mount correctly. Her cheerful chant of ‘one, two, three…..and spring!’ is all very well in theory, but in practice your spring seems to have well and truly sprung. You can get your foot in the stirrup (using both hands), but your left knee is so outraged at being asked to take your full body weight for the first time in years that your ‘one, two, three….spring’ turns into more of a ‘one, slip, scramble, aaargh…thud’.

Sara Walker
Sara Walker
Freelance writer

Sara is an experienced copywriter and journalist, who has owned horses all her life. As a journalist, she’s written about everything from following in the footsteps of William the Conqueror in Normandy to interviewing top chefs, while when it comes to equines she says: “if it’s got four legs and a mane and tail, and, er, isn’t a lion, I’ll write about it.” Sara is also a fluent French speaker and also enjoys writing on countryside and rural topics.