Just saw on BBC breakfast an item about a playground in Wrexham called The Land. It looks more like an industrial waste ground, children can climb on stuff, jump off ( onto old mattresses), swing, even build things with hammer and saw, in general be kids as they used to be. Its carefully managed, but kids are truly allowed to be kids as I was when a youngster. Health and Safety Executive even seem to approve. Not a safety helmet in sight, nor body protectors. I am afraid that children learning to ride now are being over protected by making them use body protectors on the flat. Fine for jumping and hacking, but for me to try to teach the child to use the lower back and pelvis correctly without being able to monitor it, would be impossible. I never see children in Portugal wearing body protetctors, in fact they often do not even have hats, and are riding stallions of 15 to 16 hands, often the child is maybe only 5 or 6 yrs old! But these stallions are well trained, the children taught to ride and handle them from earliest years, and it is almost unheard of to hear of serious accidents. Maybe I am too old fashioned in thinking, but I am afraid that we will turn out a new generation of riders who are afraid to go near a horse without full body armour PS need to amend this to point out that under no circumstances am I recommending not wearing a hat!! I am merely illustrating that correctly trained horses and riders excperience far fewer falls in my experience than those on horses and ponies that are in control of their rider rather than the other way around!!.
Posted on: Sun, 25 May 2014 08:03:41 +0000
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