by Rena Sherwood

Created on: September 22, 2008   Last Updated: June 25, 2009

Horseback riding lessons (also called horse riding lessons) cost a small fortune. You get only a half hour or an hour in the saddle (if you're lucky) and then it's back to the mundane horseless world until your next lesson. Many people can only take lessons once a week or only a couple of times a month. Here are a couple of things you can do to get the most out of your incredibly expensive horseback riding lessons.

Regularly Exercise

You can read all of the equitation books you want. You can watch videos of world champion riders until your eyes bug out of your head. But none of that will do any good when it comes to the actual physical coordination your muscles need to learn. The only way you can properly learn to ride is to actually ride. This is because horseback riding utilizes muscles in your body that no other activity does.

But, if you can only ride a couple of times a month, you're not a lost cause. You can help your muscles by regularly exercising. Concentrate on leg exercises, especially those that cause a pulling sensation in your calf. Heel walking for as long as you can is a great way to keep your muscles toned in between lessons. You'll enjoy your lessons more when your muscles aren't screaming in agony.

Groom Your Mount

Don't just show up to a horse already tacked up and waiting patiently for you to swing up into the saddle. That's only like being allowed to sniff a freshly baked cookie without being allowed to taste it. In order to get to know your mount and horses in general, you need to groom them, clean up after them and learn how to tack them up.

By getting to know as much about your lesson horse or pony as you can, this not only makes you a better rider, but better to emphasize with someone else, whether they are a horse or another animal. You can see if your lesson horse likes cats or is afraid of them; which horses in the barn they like to hang out with and which ones they don't, which muscles might be sore that day and so lesson plans should be altered to accommodate the horse.

With just taking the time to groom and tack up, the horse becomes more real to you. He's not just a warm toy that plods around a ring and seems to purposefully ignores you. He's a vibrant individual. Instead of feeling as if you have to make the horse do something, you find you want to cooperate with the horse. They appreciate the effort. When a horse likes a particular rider, you feel it all over from your hands holding the reins to the tips of your booted toes. That's priceless.

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