horseback riding | The Academic Equestrian

Teaching Tips for Horseback Riding Instructors by Jo Struby

c 2013 Rose Dog Books Pittsburgh, PA, 94 pages

ISBN 978-1-4809-0034-9

As a professional riding instructor, I always keep my eye out for new resources and reference materials which can help me to improve the quality of my work. Teaching Tips for Horseback Riding Instructors, by Jo Struby, was reviewed in a recent issue of Eventing USA, the publication of the US Eventing Association, and it caught my eye. Ms. Struby used to teach at Wetherbee Farm in Boxborough, MA, and while I am sure she doesn’t remember it we had several conversations while I was in high school. Struby is a former vice president of the former US Combined Training Association and also holds an M.A. in Education, which both have clearly influenced her perspective as an instructor.

This book is not intended to be read from cover to cover, though certainly one could do so. Instead, Struby envisions readers to use the book as a reference. She is specifically targeting instructors and teachers of horsemanship, stating in her forward that she hoped her book would fill a gap in the available literature by addressing the art of teaching horsemanship, rather than the specifics of riding and horsemanship itself. In this book, Struby has compiled over sixty “teaching tips”, which she originally wrote monthly and sold by subscription from 1996-2000.

Struby’s tips are arranged by category, ranging from philosophy of instruction to curriculum and lesson organization to teaching tools and techniques to student needs and desires. Instructors looking for insight or inspiration in a specific category can easily utilize the table of contents and locate short, succinct blocks of reference material on a given subject. Struby is clear that she is not intending to create a text book, and the format of the book feels very much like a collection of shorter articles than one longer, cohesive reference book. I believe that she was successful in achieving her aim.

The content in each of the segments is of decent quality and shows Struby’s background in the field of education. Her material addresses students’ unique learning styles and motivations, as well as how these can influence their progress as horsemen. For me, though, the delivery was sometimes tedious to process for several reasons. There are pervasive grammar and typographical errors throughout the text which impeded comprehension and lend an air of poor quality execution to the book. It is also completely text—visual learners always benefit from quality graphics and I feel there is no reason to not include them in any book.

I don’t have a sense that this book went into a widespread printing, and I had to contact the publisher directly to get a copy. For the motivated instructor, I think it is worth taking the effort to pick up a copy to use as a reference in order to better apply educational concepts to riding instruction. It is too bad that readers must be prepared to wade through some of the editing issues and somewhat low quality of production in order to access what is in reality quality content.

3.5/5 stars

With the start of a new calendar year, I am taking advantage of shorter days and less motivation to be outside in order to pour greater effort into my writing in general, including more regular attention to this blog. If you are a new reader, welcome, and if you are a returning reader, welcome back!

If you have landed on Chronicles of a Mini-Pro, then you likely have an interest in the equestrian world. We share an interest in common. I found myself enamored of horses starting at an early age and have been fortunate enough to parlay this passion into a full time career. However, the route which I have taken to this point has not been direct and my role within the industry is ever-evolving. At the end of the day, though, my greatest passion is to simply be on the farm and around my horses. Any day is a better day if it involves horses.

In this blog, you will read a variety of different types of posts—stories of my own personal experiences with horses, reports from clinics which I have audited or ridden in, reflections, observations and insights from my own riding, teaching or training, book reviews and training tips. I hope to share the ups and the downs which any equestrian experiences, as well as provide a forum to always reflect back onto what horses mean to me, and the critical relationship I have with them. I also hope to document the process of turning my Cold Moon Farm into a model of sustainability, marrying these concepts with horse keeping practices. A healthy planet is a key foundation to healthy farms and horses, as well as a more viable equine industry in the long term.

The longer I have been around horses, the more I feel there is to learn about them. I hope that you will enjoy reading along with me as I continue to explore all that being intimately involved with these animals has to offer. I hope that you, as a reader, will feel a degree of connection with the subject matter or perhaps even recognize shades of your own experience which mirror mine. I hope that you can take away a kernel of new information, or inspiration, or comfort, or whatever quality it is you are needing, from the words I write here.

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