08/07/2026
This is EXACTLY why we love teaching Learning Levels
What if… the horse world valued EDUCATIONAL achievement over COMPETITIVE achievement? 🤔
What differences would we see in business models? Riders? Horses?
Don’t get us wrong, horse showing can be incredibly fun and motivational - if you’re into that sort of thing. Just recently, we were reminiscing with friends about some of our eventing expeditions and the delight of spending a whole weekend on beautiful land, surrounded by beautiful horses and like-minded people.
But when it comes to enjoying horses, competition is just one tiny slice of the pie of possibility. And many people DON’T actually enjoy getting up at dark o’clock to get judged in front of an audience. Some people would rather muck fifty stalls and treat a hundred thrushy hooves than put themselves in that kind of high-pressure situation.
Showing is also expensive. It requires money and a support system and time. Sometimes, it requires an incredible amount of emotional maturity - especially if we want to put horse before sport, a philosophy that gets REAL tricky when competition results are the backbone of your business model.
To be quite candid with you, competition wasn’t part of our horse life for years and years, because we were always that family making sacrifices just to afford our horses - and before that, just riding lessons. We created the Learning Levels for people like us, believing that our students should be celebrated just for showing up and learning, with no strings or upsells attached.
Okay, we also did it for the horses. Because horses only occasionally benefit from competitive systems, and quite frequently suffer for the sake of sport. Education, on the other hand? That helps horses every day. 💞
When you reward educational achievement, you are rewarding commitment, empathy and understanding. You are giving students a system where they can control the outcome - many things can stop you from winning a blue ribbon even if you do everything right, but nothing can stop you from learning if you want it bad enough. 🏆
If we all made educational achievement the real prize, we might see better riding and horse care, with an emphasis on foundational basics.
We might see more patient training and less reliance on harmful shortcuts and gadgets.
We might see more enthusiasm and student retention at the entry level, because riders could earn ribbons and unlock levels just by showing up to lessons.
We might see healthier relationships, because collaboration and camaraderie would lead to faster progress.
We might see more inclusivity in the horse world, because you could achieve great things with horses from the ground as well as in the saddle.
❓ What does your lesson program do to encourage and reward educational effort? What kind of impact do YOU think this would have on the horse industry?
