Intermediate Riding Skills

Intermediate Riding Skills
by Robin Hirst Fisher

Offers advice on horse selection, tack, equipment, conditioning, dressage, jumping, cross-country, fox hunting, and competitions

Amazon Review: I already own many riding books. I'd never heard of this book before and am glad to have stumbled across it. Don't be intimidated by the title - this is an excellent book for beginner riders, especially those who are intellectually-motivated and detail-oriented, for it is a compendium of everything you need to know about various equestrian disciplines, including foxhunting. The author explains in the intro that by "intermediate" she simply means the third stage: the first stage is pure beginner (been on a horse a few times, okay trail-riding), the second stage is novice (actually capable of affecting horse's behavior), and the third stage is intermediate (wishing to develop further ways to affect horse's behavior).

The chapters are:

1. Selecting a horse (i.e. buying horse)
2. Saddlery (explains all the details all over again of the components of saddle, the types of saddles)
3. Feeding and Care of Your Horse
4. Outfitting and Conditioning the Rider
5. Horse Transportation
6. Working on the Flat: the Basics
7. Dressage: the Basics
8. Jumping on the Flat
9. Cross-Country Jumping
10. Fox Hunting
11. Dressage Competitions
12. Showing Hunters and Jumpers
13.Combined Training and the Novice Event
14. Upper Level Eventing, International Competition, the Olympics
Glossary
Bibliography

301 pages