If you spent your childhood and teenage years at a riding school, you’ll know it was so much more than just learning to ride. It was a way of life, a community, and for many of us, the place where our deepest love for horses truly began. From mucking out stables at the crack of dawn to leading endless beginner lessons around the arena, every moment was an adventure. If any of these memories sound familiar, you were definitely a riding school kid through and through…

The Riding School Experience:

• The earlier you got to the riding school at the weekend, the better, as this meant you got to choose which horses and ponies you could muck out (and we all knew which were the cleanest!)

• Students were the coolest people who walked the planet, but really you thought you knew much more about horses than they did.

• Friends made at a riding school were friends made for life.

• You used the same grooming kit for every horse and pony, except you kept your special kit for your favourite and it was ALL coloured the same – purple.

• You had your favourite horse and felt threatened when someone else rode it, or even worse still… groomed it!

• Newbies made you feel ‘knowledgeable’ and you felt kind of ace showing them what to do.

• Pot Noodles, chocolate and cans of Coke were the staple diet.

• Each Christmas was an opportunity for a new grooming kit – again, naturally all in the same colour.

• Leading beginners around made you feel experienced and, above all, important… However, this resulted in much exhaustion after trotting endlessly around the arena for 30 minutes.

• Working a ‘late’ made you feel even more super important; topping up water buckets, haying up and skipping out was best done in the dark anyway…

• You spent every minute away from the riding stables engrossed in horse books and videos that featured horses and their riders, even if the videos were all in subtitles… GCSE revision didn’t even get a look-in.

• You dreamt of the day you could own your own horses and the freedom you would feel being able to ride how you wanted to.

• You desperately (but hid it well) wanted to be that person behind the desk making the decisions on who rides what horse.

• You could tack up in under two minutes.

• Christmas gymkhana games with endless tinsel with your yard buddies rocked, on horseback or off!

Those days at the riding school shaped who we are today – teaching us responsibility, hard work, and an unshakeable bond with horses that has lasted a lifetime. Whether you’ve gone on to own your own horses or simply cherish those memories, the riding school will always hold a special place in your heart. After all, once a riding school kid, always a riding school kid.