Welcome to
Riding and Restoration
WITH CATHERINE
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As a girl I was in love with horses. I didn’t have the time to ride as I got older and reentered the horse world later in life. I had the opportunity to connect an older woman with her first horse and was struck by her expression of joy. I wanted to provide horseback riding lessons to beginners so I could see that expression of joy again. Later I added a certification to provide equine facilitated learning and now offer EFL sessions, including a literacy program for students working on their reading fluency.
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I provide lessons and EFL sessions through Trident Farm. Please visit TridentHunterJumpers.com for scheduling information.
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RIDING
LESSONS
I enjoy bringing beginners and horses together. My goal for students is to help them become confident in the saddle. We focus on finding balance and feeling centered while riding.
When learning to ride a horse there are many new things to figure out. For instance, our bodies are learning the natural movement of the horse while we are also learning how best to communicate to the horse where to go and how fast or slow to go. My goal is to help students learn without overwhelming them.
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For the first few lessons students will practice feeling comfortable in the saddle, learning how the horse moves, and begin learning basic commands. I may have the horse walk over some ground poles or move in circles. This allows the student to feel how the horse’s body moves when they lift their legs a little higher or bend their bodies for a circle.
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If necessary I will lead the lesson horse during the first several lessons. As the student gains confidence I will give them more
freedom to direct their mount, eventually taking them off the lead or lunge line. However, if the student begins learning a new skill, like sitting a trot, I will again attach a lunge line. This allows the student to learn the horse’s movement without having to steer at the same time.
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Working with horses also requires that a student learn how to manage a horse while on the ground. Therefore, lessons will include safety, grooming, saddling and bridling, leading, and lunging. Spending some time on the ground with a horse helps a student learn about their own body language and what it may be telling the horse, and how to interpret the horse’s body language. Finding confidence while on the ground carries over to having confidence in the saddle.
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As students gain skills and confidence lessons will become more advanced. Students will learn how to walk, trot, and canter with a balanced seat. Students may also learn to jump. Students will learn how to refine basic commands as they learn to soften their hands and seat.
EQUINE FACILITATED
LEARNING
Equine Facilitated Learning (EFL) includes the presence of a horse to help participants learn about themselves. The presence of a horse as a co-facilitator helps the participant learn about making safe emotional connections, their own emotional regulation, and practice relationships. These are experiential lessons the participant can learn from and improve the quality of their other relationships.
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The EFL work I provide is groundwork. I do not do any mounted EFL work. Examples of sessions include, but are not limited to, grooming a horse, learning to halter and lead a horse in an enclosed pen, observing herd behavior, and reading to a horse.
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An often-asked question is why horses? Other animals make wonderful co-facilitators for similar work. That is absolutely true. However, horses are special because they are finely tuned into the body language of the humans around them. This level of observation is natural to prey animals. They do not mirror, precisely, but react in n real time based on what they observe in us. As the
participant’s emotional state changes, the horse’s behavior will also change. That pure response provides information and insight for participants about themselves. This information and insight reflects their own personal challenges. So, any given session becomes a relationship dance between the horse and participant.
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People who may benefit from EFL sessions are those struggling with work and family stress, anxiety, attachment wounds, PTSD, autism, learning disabilities, and other emotional challenges.
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Sessions will include myself, a horse, and the participant. I will maintain a safe space, which includes all the same safe horsemanship practices I use when I provide riding lessons. This includes requiring participants to wear closed toes shoes, preferably boots, and other barn appropriate clothing. Participants will be required to sign a release form identical to forms for my riding lessons.
Kids working on literacy fluency can read to pony on Wednesday afternoons at the barn by appointment. And we can visit schools and libraries, too!
A WORD
ON FEAR
Sometimes students love horses but have developed fear. Even a person who has worked around horses all their lives might develop fear. Fear can come from an accident or bad experience, or from something completely unrelated. No matter its cause, fear holds us back from something we love and it can feel insurmountable.
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Fear is a biological process. While it is biological in nature, it can be rewired. You can resolve your fear.
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I will help a student create their own lesson plan. Together we will ease up to your goals. This requires taking small steps and celebrating small successes. Taking small deliberate steps every session will help you reach your goal of riding without fear.
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Please bear in mind that the only way to work through fear is to be honest. The student must admit to me that they have fear and that they wish to work on it. This is still true if the person with the fear is a parent or guardian of a student. Fear is contagious and will negatively affect the student, particularly if it originates from a care-giver.
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If you are afraid, please say so. If you are the parent or guardian of a rider and you are afraid, please say so. Please note that if you are the scared parent or guardian of a rider you need to understand that your fear negatively affects your rider. This becomes even more true if you pretend it is not true. Instructors try very hard to read your mind, but we aren’t always successful. On the other hand horses pay close attention to the emotional state of those around them and do seem to read your mind. They do not feel safe if their rider is scared. And then the rider is more scared because the horse seems tense. However, all this changes if you talk to us about your fear. We can help you feel less afraid and still become the rider you want to be. If you are a fearful parent or guardian of a rider, again, you need to communicate this to us so we can help your rider become the rider they want to become. Most, if not all, riders, including the instructors, have overcome fears in this sport. But we cannot help if you do not acknowledge it and talk about it.
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While working through fear can take time and effort, it can be liberating to resolve it and enjoy what you love.
REQUIREMENTS
There is a waiver students (or their parent/guardian) must sign prior to their first lesson.
Students are required to wear horseback riding helmets at all times while mounted. I have riding helmets available for students to borrow during their lessons. If you bring your own riding helmet please note that it must be a horseback riding helmet. Other types of helmets used for other purposes do not provide adequate protection.
Students must wear closed-toed shoes. Horseback riding boots with a short elevated heel is highly recommended.
Long pants are highly recommended.
Always dress for the weather. Even the indoor arena gets cold in winter. Keep in mind it’s a barn. Everything gets dirty. Wear clothing in which you are comfortable getting dirty.
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Student Expectations for safety and getting the most out of each lesson:
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Follow all safety rules and recommendations, including, but not limited to, do not run or yell in the barn, arena, or around the horses. Parents are expected to supervise their children to ensure their child’s safety. Most horses are thousand-pound animals who do not like surprises. Sometimes they are several hundred-pound animals. Sometimes they are two-thousand-pound animals. Nevertheless, they never like surprises.
Parents or guardians are responsible for their children. We teach general horsemanship skills and riding skills. We are not able to also babysit children. Additionally, riding lessons are a small part of the Trident Farm business and regular horse keeping activities are a constant. Large livestock animals who are well known for making poor decisions are not ideal babysitters.
Follow all safety rules and recommendations, including, but not limited to, instructions on arena safety. For example, if your instructor tells you to stay on the rail, please stay on the rail. Please trust your instructor when they ask you to do something while in the arena (or outside the arena). Pulling your horse into the middle of the arena or stopping in certain areas could cause a pony collision.
Arrive on time so you can ride for your full lesson. If you arrive late the instructor will still need to end your lesson on time. Arriving late for your lesson means you will miss out on ride time. Instructors need to move on to the next student or may need to end their workday to handle personal and family obligations. Instructors need to stay on time.
Riders are expected to stay engaged and learn. Similarly, our facility is not a full-service barn. Even if the rider cannot retrieve, groom, or tack up their own lesson horse without help, we expect that they will pay attention to what the instructor is doing so that they can learn to do these things independently. We do not do these things on behalf of students as a service, but as a learning opportunity for the student. This does require that the student get into the horse’s space and get dirty.
If you are watching another student’s lesson, please do not walk around the riding arena. Stay on the sidelines. The arena is for riding and instructors. Instructors cannot divide their attention between teaching a student and keeping spectators safe.
If you are watching a lesson do not call out advice to the rider or coach from the sidelines. The instructors will handle the coaching. Sideline judgments can negatively affect a rider’s confidence. Sideline judgements also distract riders from what their instructor is trying to help them focus on. This is a difficult sport, and it takes a long time to develop all the skills required. Positive encouragement is always welcome. However, if you insist on calling out advice we will place you on a horse and make you do the work. If you are unable to join us horseback in the arena, then we ask that you save your coaching from the sidelines for your favorite televised sport.
Try. Keep trying. Do not give up on yourself or the horse. Riders are not passengers but are active participants in a working partnership. This is a tough sport. It takes determination and hard work. Every other skill you have ever developed has taken determination. So keep trying. And if you are trying, then please give yourself a break and acknowledge you are working hard. Your instructors do not care if you are accomplishing a task perfectly. We care only that you keep trying.
Trust your instructor to have your best interests in mind. When we ask you to do something difficult, it is not to make you suffer. For instance, if we ask you to pick up a certain gait in a certain area of the arena it is because we are setting you up for success. If you have questions about our instruction, please ask them while you are cooling down your horse at the end of your ride.
There are those people who have fallen off horses and there are those people who do not ride. If you ride you will, eventually, fall off. Falling is a very real possibility every time we mount up. What goes up must come down. Be aware of this reality and keep trying anyway.
Chances are the horse has no strong feelings about you. Horses are thinking about horse things. Telling yourself that the horse is thinking or feeling something which you might think or feel is pretending the horse is a human. Horses are not humans. Give your lesson horse the freedom to be a horse with horse thoughts, not human thoughts. This will help you to be a more competent rider. If the horse you are riding is challenging, it is because that horse provides you with new challenges. It is not because the horse is naughty. That is a human characterization. We ask our students to change their thinking to one of empowerment. What can you do as a riding student to overcome your challenges you are facing with your lesson horse? This is the learning process. Once you master those challenges you will ride that horse better. Not once through your learning process was the horse scheming against your efforts. They were simply being a horse. To reiterate, your lesson horse is not naughty just because you are still learning certain skills. The horse gets to be a horse and you get to be the human.
Please note that if you are the parent or guardian of a riding student and your rider while mounted up is crying, or otherwise miserable, during a lesson we will allow your rider to dismount. We will not force miserable riders to ride. In this current day and age there is no reason any person must learn to work with horses if they do not wish to do so. Additionally, if your rider seems lukewarm about riding, we will check in with you to ensure this is truly where they want to be. There is a waiting list of people who love this sport and those are the students we want to teach.
Follow your instructor’s advice regarding warming your lesson horse up for a lesson and cooling your lesson horse down after your lesson. A lesson horse is like any athlete and needs its human to help it warm up and cool down.
Clean up after yourself and your lesson horse. Return all equipment and tack where they belong. Leave the barn spaces you used cleaner than you found them.
PRICING
Horseback riding lessons are $35 and last an hour. That includes time preparing the lesson horse to ride, about a half hour of riding time, and time afterwards taking care of the lesson horse after riding.
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EFL sessions are $60 per session per participant. Sessions may be done as a small group. For each additional participant the cost is $20 additional. These sessions last about and hour and a half.
If you have a student who would like to come read to a horse, the cost is $15 for a half hour. I will sit with the student and the horse in order to maintain safety.
STYLE OF RIDING
I teach beginners in an English saddle or western saddle based on student request. Sometimes I will encourage a student to ride bareback. I do not teach jumping unless the student is riding in an English saddle designed for that purpose. I utilize ground poles, cones, and other items in the arena to encourage students to build riding muscles and learn new skills.
SCHEDULING
I do lessons by appointment only. Please contact Trident Farm to schedule a lesson. Trident can be reached by visiting TridentHunterJumpers.com.
Trident Farm
1643 Cottage Grove Road
Deerfield, WI 53531