Photo courtesy of Forest Brook Equestrian
For those who have never been in the saddle, horseback riding may seem simple, effortless and passive. The horse does all the work, right? All there is to do is sit.
However, riding a horse has more physical – and mental – demands than initially meet the eye.
Just the act of sitting upright while the horse moves under the rider can be demanding, and the difficulty only increases when other specializations of riding, such as jumping, are added into the mix. Successfully riding a horse requires a lot of core and leg strength in order to maintain balance and keep from falling out of the saddle.
According to the Compendium of Physical Activities, which measures the MET (metabolic equivalent) of various exercises and other tasks, general horseback riding is about as demanding as skateboarding, baseball and tennis at 5.5 METs. Cantering or galloping with a horse is about as demanding as rock climbing or field hockey at 7.3 METs. Jumping is the most demanding at 9 METs: more demanding than ice hockey, sand volleyball and rugby.
Photo courtesy of Stealaway, Inc.
“You’re not hitting a baseball, you’re not hitting a golf ball; all of these are inanimate objects,” says Kara Zarr, owner of Forest Brook Equestrian on Johnstown Road. “You are actually attempting to ride and communicate with a living, breathing animal. It’s a fairly difficult sport to master.”
Horseback riding benefits mental health, too. Disabled Sports USA, a national organization that uses sports to help individuals with disabilities, recognizes horseback riding as an adaptive sport, and that’s just one example of a horseback riding program for the disabled. Horseback riding has psychological benefits for people across the board, whether they have special needs or not.
“It takes patience and mental focus, and it relieves a lot of stress,” says Zarr. “I think that horseback riding covers mind, body, spirit in a really nice way.”
Though horseback riding is accessible for all ages – young and old people alike take the reins for the first time, she says – Zarr has seen great success with her Interscholastic Equestrian Association (IEA) team, which has members from sixth-graders through high school seniors. The IEA is a national, nonprofit equestrian competition, and its goal is to educate riders on, and set minimum standards for, equestrian competitions.
Competitions through the IEA differ from other equestrian shows because of its scoring system, which encourages riders to compete as a team. Another major difference: Riders are provided with competition horses.
This single fact makes the IEA much more accessible than other competitions, which typically require riders to bring their own horses. When one considers the cost of owning and caring for a horse, the stable fees to house that horse, and cost of transportation to get the horse to the competition – all on top of the fee just to compete – the price tag gets high quickly. IEA competitions alleviate those costs greatly.
Photo courtesy of Forest Brook Equestrian
Zarr believes the supply of competition horses provides an additional challenge to riders. With other competitions, the average rider works with a single horse so often that he or she caters riding style to only that horse, and rarely adapts to other horses. IEA allows riders to become more generally skilled and enables them to learn the basics and general etiquette of riding, no matter what horse they ride.
“When you’re showing as an individual, you’re showing your horse over and over; you know that horse, you know their bad behaviors, you know their good traits,” says Zarr. The IEA tries to “level the playing field, so (riders are) going into a situation where they don’t know what this horse does.”
This element of surprise brings the riders together. For example, if one rider draws a horse he or she has never ridden, another teammate who has ridden that horse is able to provide pointers about its behavior. In this sense, the IEA harbors positive leadership and sportsmanship skills.
“You’ve gone from the known to the unknown,” says Zarr. “You have to focus on riding properly. The focus is really for the coaches to train to ride properly.”
The IEA recognizes hunt seat and Western styles of riding. Hunt seat is characterized by a small, lightweight saddle and usually includes the rider and horse jumping over obstacles. Hunt seat is named for the riding style’s origins of fox hunting, and riders hold the reins in each hand.
Western style is based in ranching and in riding styles of the cowboys of the West. Western riding includes a larger saddle, which spreads the weight of the rider more evenly across the horse’s back. The rider holds both reins in one hand in this discipline, the other hand resting on the horn of the saddle.
To view the IEA’s scoring system for each discipline, click here.
For children who otherwise aren’t interested in typical team-oriented sports, Zarr says, horseback riding, particularly with the IEA, is a perfect mix of individuality and fellowship. As the rider gets more fit, strong and healthy, he or she also makes new friendships and has the opportunity to bond with an animal in a unique way.
“It’s really neat to watch a kid find a niche in a sport who maybe doesn’t necessarily do so well in a group setting,” says Zarr. “They’re competing with their horse against others, and there’s … a healthy mental bond with an animal. There’s a healthy (feeling) that they’re doing a really difficult sport.”
Photo courtesy of Forest Brook Equestrian
The IEA has gained so much traction that the organization has had to break up zones recently in order to allow for a greater number of teams. The IEA team offered at Forest Brook is quite popular, Zarr says.
Between 60 and 70 percent of her clients in the IEA age range of 11 to 19 years old join the team, and parents of Zarr’s students have shown increasing interest in placing their child in the IEA. Zarr has seen a lot of encouraging growth from members due to the IEA’s group-oriented nature.
“The kids have a lot of camaraderie and they cheer each other on; they’re each other’s biggest fans,” says Zarr. “It’s really neat to see them just rally around each other in such a good and healthy way.”
Amanda DePerro is an assistant editor. Feedback welcome at gbishop@cityscenemediagroup.com.
Photo courtesy of Stealaway, Inc.
Not Just for Foals
Angela Moore, owner of Johnstown riding stable Stealaway, Inc., has seen riders of all ages – from 4 years old to a group of women in their 60s – and says the mental side of horseback riding has helped them all.
“If you’re stressed out by life, you pretty much have to leave that because the horse senses that,” says Moore. “A lot of the adults that come out love that. It’s 100 percent focus with the animal, and their mind doesn’t keep running in the background.”
The benefits of horseback riding are threefold, Moore says: Physical benefits, mental benefits and learning in a group from a “compassionate leader standpoint.” Stress, Moore says, goes away when a person gets into the saddle, because of the bond the rider forms with the horse.
At Stealaway, Moore focuses on teaching her students about that relationship with a horse. As with a dog or cat, if a mutual trust is built between the human and horse, the student will learn a gamut of new skills.
“We focus not only on the riding and the care and the grooming of the horse, the horse personality and how the person fits into that horse’s herd,” says Moore. “You have such an honest relationship with the horse.”
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