Spending the day with these two adorable critters today :) Woody (the piebald ;) is a permanent house fixture, Basil (the skewbald) is a visitor, I look after him from time to time.
131: Monday
I'd been browsing the usual monthly equestrian magazines (Your Horse, Horse and Rider, Horse) and it strikes me how much of the content seems to be aimed at a more "amateur-professional" areas of the market. Many training features are done by UK's top riders and trainers on some seriously smart horses (to be fair, there are some nice grassroots examples of riders too but all very much competition minded).
It made me think - what are the actual learner riders reading? Or do they? I often ask my riders what they tend to buy horse mags wise but most don't buy any. Some read Horse and Rider and Your Horse.
Maybe it's just me but do you think there is still a huge gap between a riding school rider/non-horse owner rider and owner/grassroots competition rider as far as magazine market buzz goes? When you look at other sports mags they cover pretty much every niche you can think of.
Riding has pink pony magazines with stickers for girly girls and then some decent mags for an ambitious amateur horse owner...
Is it just me who has trouble finding some learner-rider magazines out there to recommend for my learner riders?
Why would you buy a mag? Any mag? I am thinking - to fuel your passion, see what others are up to - how they cope with that lost stirrup in canter or stiffness in arms or uneven rein contact or [input own issue here]; to learn what might be good to learn about...to share experiences...?
If you know of some good titles that can be an interesting learning-to-ride companion, please do let me know! You know, a good pick me up type of read for people without own horses who want to improve their skills and work on own seat, confidence, understanding of training and healthy development of the horse. Learning to train and training to train level of rider, not training to compete level of rider...On that note, neither do I mean a read for someone who prefers hacking/trekking to schooling and training.
The current monthlys are great, they really are, and I am sure many riders enjoy them immensely but I feel they are not enough.
I try to browse all horsey publishing at least every couple of months but to buy it all to read through is out of question :-/
Wx
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