“Am I a good rider?”

” ‘Am I a good rider?’
She asked, pensively, sat upon her 14.2 cob, covered in poo stains
that she couldn’t quite get out before her lesson, that she
had persuaded her mum to buy a year ago for just £400.
(It wasn’t wanted anymore)

‘Because I want to be one’
Her instructor pondered on this for a good few minutes,
whilst reassuring the nervous cob in front, and then said,

‘A good rider is not someone who buys flashy horses and
competes every Saturday and makes it to the top within a year.
A good rider is not who jumps the highest jumps or owns the fastest horse.
A good rider isn’t made just because they’ve been riding since they were 3.
A good rider is not someone who can move their forward horse forward…

no

A good rider is that pony clubber you see fall off every time
she gets on something new, yet still gets back on
with a smile on her face, A good rider is that girl who
cries in the tack room because of how her horse
behaved and how hard it’s been to cope watching everyone
else be successful, but to her it seems like she is the only
one failing, yet still rewards her horse with a treat and a smile
because at least he was better than last time, A good rider
is the boy with the angel horse, yet doesn’t claim
any of its successes for himself

“‘It was all him’,”
he would say,
“I just sat to it’”

A good rider listens
A good rider is soft
A good rider makes sure the horse is always happy,

As a matter of fact, a good rider often has nothing
to do with the riding, If you love it, and you try, and
you try again, even when you fall off and it was your
fault, even when people point because your seat
isn’t quite as deep as they’d prefer, if you never give up,

That’s what makes a good rider.’ ”

Author Unknown

(picture copied from post)