This question was posted on r/Equestrian today, and it I wanted to address it here in longer form (I commented on the post too.) The poster had been riding for 5 years, and felt like she wasn’t getting any better. When she watched videos of herself, her lower legs were swinging and she didn’t feel like she was making any progress. Later in the comments it came out that she had been taking one lesson a week for 5 years. A month ago her dad had asked her trainer about taking an extra lesson a week, but the trainer never got back to her.

Riding is a complex activity that involves a wide variety of skills. My friend J., who is a better rider than I will ever be with decades of experience, struggles with being balanced in the saddle especially on her left side. For my part, decades of martial arts and body building mean that I am actually fairly even in the saddle (not perfectly, stupid shoulder knots, but not terrible.) However, I cannot for the life of me get my toes pointed forward. When I ride bareback my feet look like North-South compass points. So I would argue that we’re all bad at riding in specific ways according to our weird body pathologies. The best rider in the world probably still quietly thinks to themselves “Left seat bone…LEFT DAMN IT” or whatever they’ve struggled with.

The book The Tipping Point posits that you have truly mastered something when you have spent 10,000 hours practicing it. If you ride one a hour a week for 5 years and never miss a lesson, that’s 260 hours – a literal drop in the bucket of your 10,000 hours. Horseback riding can be a tough sport to practice – lessons are expensive, barns are usually a drive, you don’t just buy your own horse right away, even if you do horses are amazingly good at injuring themselves (don’t I know it!) etc. etc. So it can for sure be a struggle. However, if you really want to progress, you need to work at it every day – figure out what you can do to build skills out of the saddle that will help you in the saddle. There are a lot of rider fitness programs out there, and even some trainers that specialize in equestrian fitness. Hell, 20 minutes of yoga a day will probably benefit you as a rider, and you can find that for free on YouTube.

Even with having two horses and riding 5 days a week, I feel like I should be doing more to improve my riding. According to my Apple Watch stats, I spent 66 hours and 2 minutes in the saddle in 2023. So far, with 2024 a little more than half over, I’ve spent 51 hours 48 minutes. My New Year’s resolution was to double my total, so I’m well on my way (having a 2nd horse really helps!) but I have more work to do outside of the saddle for sure.