Sit up straight.

Sit up straight, no matter how much the horse is moving. It’s a common misconception that you should follow the horse’s movements with your body so that it feels more like a rocking chair. This is actually false, because having your body in line with the horse’s movement means you’re not sitting straight and not holding yourself properly in place. Your legs are there to hold the saddle in place—your torso and head should be oriented towards a single direction so that you don’t fall forward or backward and are properly able to see where you’re going.

Keep your head up and look at the horizon. This accomplishes two things: for one, ever been to an amusement park? There’s a reason why every timer tells you not to look down when going on a roller coaster—it makes the ride more intense, but also makes it harder for your body to stay upright. When riding a horse, looking at where you’re going will help keep your body aligned with the seat of the saddle. Secondly, this helps keep your neck muscles relaxed while still staying tall and poised while riding.

Activate your core muscles to stay upright. People often underestimate how tiring riding can be if they’ve never done it before! A lot of people think they can just sit on top of the horse and let their hips do all of the work while they move around independently from their seat, but this isn’t true! The best way to maintain good posture is by engaging those hard-to-reach core muscles (the ones under all of that belly fat), which means activating them through focusing on doing so mentally as well as physically (do some crunches if it helps). This will help make sure that have adequate support for keeping yourself centered between both stirrups as well as keeping balance as you ride along uneven terrain or change speed/direction on purpose or unexpectedly.

Don’t slouch or bend your back too much—this will throw off your alignment with both stirrups and

Keep your back perpendicular to the ground.

To the best of your ability, try to keep yourself sitting up straight, and perpendicular to the ground. Your back should be straight, not slouched or leaning forward or backward. This is important for a couple of different reasons. First of all, it helps you to stay balanced in the saddle as your horse moves around underneath you. Also, if you are leaning too far forward or backwards from time to time, this can cause an awkwardness in your connection with the horse’s mouth (the reins) and make it harder for you to communicate with him about when he should go faster or stop. If your elbows start getting tired while keeping them bent at that angle, try putting one hand on each side of their withers (shoulders), and holding onto the saddle horn with both hands while they trot around.

Hold the reins gently but firmly.

Your reins should be held in your dominant hand, with your fingers wrapped around them loosely. If you hold the reins too tightly, you run the risk of making your horse tense, hurting his or her mouth, or dragging him or her around.

Once your hand has a firm grip on the reins, but not an overly tight one that could hurt both you and your horse, check to make sure that you aren’t holding them with just your thumb. This will cause pain for horses as well as a potential loss of control. You also want to be careful not to hold them with your wrists; this can cause pain in both you and the horse when turning or stopping!

Look where you’re going.

Make sure you’re looking in the right place. When you ride a horse, it’s important to keep your eyes focused on where you want to go. If you’re nervous, there’s a chance that your eyes will wander and look at the ground. This is a bad habit to get into because it can make the horse either very nervous or unresponsive (or both). If you can’t help but look down, try looking at something a few feet in front of you instead of directly at your feet.

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Lean with the turn.

• Lean with the turn.
• Lean your body in the opposite direction of the turn.
• When turning your horse, lean your body with the turn. If you’re turning left, lean your body to the left; if you’re turning right, lean your body to the right.
• If you want to go up a hill, lean forward; if you want to go down a hill, lean back.

Know and understand your horse’s moods and signals.

• Know and understand your horse’s moods and signals.
• Knowing this will help you read what the horse is trying to tell you. Some horses are very sensitive, while some horses are more relaxed. By knowing your horse’s natural behavior and how he reacts to signals, you can better understand his mood when he responds to a signal differently than usual.
• For example, if your horse normally slows down when he steps on the left rein but today ignores the signal, there may have been something in his path that disturbed him, or another rider may have passed by too close for comfort.
• The most important thing is to know how to react depending on the situation! If it’s a typical scenario where you’ve lost control of your horse due to a sudden movement from another rider, simply pull up on both reins until he comes back under control. While calming him down gently with reassuring petting and stroke his nose softly so as not to startle him further as you speak calmly in soothing tones until he begins to calm down himself.

Horseback riding is a sport that requires training, patience and practice.

The first thing you need to understand about riding a horse is that it is, in fact, a sport. Why is this important? It’s important because of what that means: like all sports, riding a horse requires training, patience and practice.

To explain why these things are so important for this particular sport, let’s look at some examples of how each one applies in the context of horseback riding:

• Training: Simply being good at horseback riding or knowing how to do it doesn’t automatically mean you know how to train horses or teach others how to ride them. The two are quite different from one another; in fact, I’d say they’re on opposite ends of the spectrum. If you want to be able to train horses and/or teach people how to ride them well, then you’ll need a much more extensive knowledge base than simply knowing how to ride a horse yourself. There are many things involved with training horses (and teaching humans) that go beyond basic competency in the arena—for instance, you have to have deep understanding of equine anatomy and physiology if you truly want your students and/or animals under your care to succeed.
• Patience: Let’s face it: no matter who we’re dealing with (human or animal), knowing when it’s appropriate to take things slowly and demonstrate patience can come in quite handy! In terms of teaching people how to ride a horse safely and correctly, patience can allow them the opportunity they need to learn new skills without succumbing too quickly to pressure or confusion—after all, learning something new about any subject (especially an equestrian one) will involve leaps into unfamiliar territory for most beginners! That’s why having an instructor who knows when it’s best for their students not only teaches but encourages them is integral for fostering perseverance as well as creating opportunities for success among those who may be struggling at first.
• Practice: Just like any other sport or activity worth doing well—whether we