How Good Riders Get Good New Edition

A revised edition of the inspiring bestseller, now in paperback with new good rider profiles! This book is exactly what you need to become a better rider. It's a smart, honest, on-target kick-in-the-pants, guaranteed to rev your engines as you see how a few changes in your life, a few smart choices and strategic moves, can transform you from a run-of-the-mill rider into a good one. How does Denny Emerson know what makes a good rider? For one thing, he is one—he is the only rider in the world to have won both a gold medal in international eventing and a Tevis Cup buckle in endurance. Plus, he's been around great riders, and taught those on their way to becoming great, for over 40 years. How will what Denny knows help you become a good rider? He's boiled the whole thing down into seven broad "Areas of Choice" that determine whether you are a "gonnabe" or whether you'll be stuck in the "wannabe" category for decades. Examine how your choice of riding sport may or may not be the best for who you are and where you live. Find out how those frustrating hurdles known as "life circumstances" don't necessarily hold you back like you think they do. Learn how to build a strong support team by winning people to your cause and choosing the right teachers and mentors. Analyze your physical self (your body, how it is formed and how you care for it) and your intellectual self (your "horse smarts" and how you are adding to them or not) and apply the results to your "gonna-be-good" equation. Take a good hard look at your partner—your horse—and think critically about his ability to help you attain your riding goals. Discover the nine key character traits of successful riders and how you can learn to call each one of them your own. Along the way you'll read the stories of 23 of the world's top riders from different disciplines and sports—including dressage, reining, driving, show jumping, endurance, hunter/jumper, and eventing—and how they "got good" despite the same kinds of challenges and setbacks you face in your own day-to-day riding. You'll get an inside look at their path to success, as well as their very best tips for how to "make it" in the horse industry.

Off-road riding is one of motorcycling's most popular pursuits and also one of its best training grounds for improving street-riding skills. Off-road riding takes many forms, from motocross and enduro racing, to dual-sport day trips, to trail riding, to adventure tours. No matter the specific pursuit, all dirt riding (and much street riding) shares the same basic skill set. How to Ride Off-Road Motorcycles schools the reader in all the skills necessary to ride safely and quickly off-road. Chapters cover the basics, such as body position, turning, braking, and throttle control, then proceed to advanced techniques, such as sliding, jumps, wheelies, hill-climbing, and more. If you've ever wanted to try dirt riding or if you're an experienced rider looking to sharpen your skill set, How to Ride Off-Road Motorcycles is a perfect riding coach.

The USEF and USPC have both listed The Complete Guide to Hunter Seat Training, Showing, and Judging by Anna-Jane White-Mullin as recommended reading. Never before has such a complete text on the American hunt seat and equitation disciplines been compiled! Based on Anna Jane White-Mullin's now out-of-print bestseller Winning and chock full of gorgeous, full-color photographs taken at Beacon Hill Show Stables owned by Stacia Madden, The Complete Guide to Hunter Seat Training, Showing, and Judging provides every aspiring equestrian the means for achieving greatness in the show ring. Beginning with a comprehensive overview of the basic principles of horsemanship—recently re-emphasized as compulsory by such luminaries of the sport as George Morris—and progressing through essential schooling exercises in the development of the hunter or equitation mount, as well as advanced concepts applicable to upper-level competition, Part One lays the amateur's riding and training foundation. You'll find: • Discussion of collection and lengthening—long, medium, and short frames • Flatwork for improving the basic gaits—cadence, pace, and transitions • Training and showing tips for USEF Tests 1-19—patterns and how to prepare for them • Introduction to hunter and equitation jump courses—basic, intermediate, and advanced As an added bonus, the education of the rider is made complete with the inclusion of White-Mullin's famous text on judging hunters and equitation. Offering a complete discussion of the USEF rules, requirements, and tests, the second part of the book explains what judges look for and the training methods necessary to achieve the desired results.

Here you'll find smart, honest straight talk intended to help equestrians at all levels from Gold medalist and renowned rider and coach Denny Emerson.

This best-selling book is also “#1 book in motorcycle safety” (Nielsen BookScan) and essential reading for all motorcyclists regardless of their years of experience. Author David L. Hough, a revered motorcycle author, columnist, and riding-safety consultant, lays out a clear course for all riders who want to sharpen their handling skills and improve their rides. This second edition, expanded and now in full color, offers new riders and road warriors the exact kind of advice they need to be prepared for anything when on the road, how to avoid accidents, and how to handle the unexpected. Hough, who began motorcycling in the 1960s, tackles every imaginable topic—from the mechanics of the bike, selection of the right-sized bike, and basic riding skills to night riding, group outings, and advanced survival tactics. In the chapter called “Motorcycle Dynamics,” Hough spells out the equipment needed and basic skills required to control a bike, and specifically keeping the rider’s safety and ability to avoid potentially injurious or fatal crashes. The author is outspoken and direct when it comes to safety, and he emphasizes the importance of the rider’s braking abilities and spells out how to improve them. The chapter offers six tried-and-true techniques for quick-stop tactics, critical for every rider to understand and master. He also addresses other vital skills that riders need to evaluate and improve, such as turning, maintaining balance and stability, and steering. He defines, compares, and analyzes the ins and outs of steering and control: direct steering, countersteering, push steering, out-tracking, coning, u-turns, and directional control. The chapter called “Cornering Habits” is a virtual master class in acceleration, deceleration, use of weight, throttle, leaning, and handling challenging terrain. Hough’s skill as a photographer and illustrator adds a graphic element to his books that leads to immediate understanding of the concepts he explains. The detail offered in each section of the book can only come from decades on the road, and the author is the consummate instructor, assigning homework to the readers in the form of exercises to practice and improve specific techniques that he outlines and illustrates in the text. Any rider who would venture out on the road without David Hough’s voice in his head takes an unnecessary risk with his own life. Proficient Motorcycling takes riders from long, snaking country roads right into the traffic of the big city, and Hough offers the best advice for riders dealing with the most challenging conditions, whether it’s road construction, snap-jawed intersections, skateboarders, or suddenly slippery road surfaces. A critical section of the book offers riders advice on how to deal with automobiles, including aggressive car drivers, oblivious SUV drivers, or “blind” truck drivers. The book offers the kind of first-hand experience that can literally save riders’ lives, as illustrated in the chapters “Booby Traps” and “Special Situations,” which offer evasive tactics and advice to avoid and handle everything from slick surfaces, curbs, and construction plates to ferocious dogs, hazardous wildlife, and difficult weather conditions. The final chapter of the book, “Sharing the Ride,” is geared toward experienced riders who travel together in groups or who travel with a second passenger on the bike. Topics covered are formation, packing for trips, communication between riders, sidecars, trikes, and more. The book concludes with a resources section of organizations, training schools, educational tools, and websites; a glossary of 80+ terms; and a complete index.

Olympic Show Jumper Anne Kursinski’s acclaimed guide to riding horses over fences, now updated with hundreds of full-color photographs. Olympian Anne Kursinski’s acclaimed book on riding horses over fences delivers on-target counsel and the kind of sophisticated, quality instruction you can only get in top barns around the world. Let this medal-winning international competitor show you “how it’s done” with step-by-step descriptions of dozens of exercises to improve your position, your “feel,” and your overall understanding of how to confidently and successfully master a jump course. Inside, you’ll find a top-notch education in both basic and advanced flatwork and jumping, including: Bending Adjusting stride length Moving laterally Riding straight lines and curves Jumping without stirrups Flying changes Flexion and collection Counter-canter Half-pass Ways to perfect distances and count strides Tips for riding different kinds of combinations, bigger jumps, and natural fences. Throughout, Kursinski’s explanations are clarified with hundreds of illuminating photographs, completely reshot in full color for this new edition. Even better, the photos feature Kursinski herself in the saddle, and the text includes her illuminating personal commentary describing what she is experiencing in the saddle during a particular exercise. In addition, this revised edition includes an all-new chapter on riding derby-style courses as well as course walks with Kursinski, to give readers a sense of how she plans a winning ride. This classic references offers time-tested techniques and invaluable skills for every hunter, jumper, and equitation rider.

An exciting follow-up from the bestselling author of How Good Riders Get Good and Know Better to Do Better. We all start somewhere with horses. As a toddler on a pony. As a teenager with friends who ride. As an adult who always loved horses, but life just got in the way…until now. Some of us start over. We sell our horses to go to school, to have careers or babies (or both). We decide to quit dressage and start reining. We fall off…and get back on. There are all sorts of beginning places, and they can be for the first time or after a “gap.” They can mean you are beginning, or your horse is. They can mean you barely got started, or you started badly. Renowned horseman Denny Emerson knows all about the importance of these beginnings. Through an impressive career in the saddle that spans decades, he has worked with all different breeds, competed at the top international levels of eventing and endurance, lost horses and found new ones, taught young riders and adult amateurs, traded Western tack for English and back again, been injured…only to rehab, climb back in the saddle, and start over. In his third book, Emerson once again masterfully intertwines his entertaining reflections from a life embedded in the equestrian world with serious philosophical questions faced by the industry today and practical advice honed by his immense experience. Readers will discover: How to make your beginning with horses easier…and how to make it harder. How having the right horse versus having the wrong horse can affect a beginning…or mean you should begin again. The importance of a team (family, friends, trainers, coaches) you trust and rely upon. Ways to identify how you learn, see, hear, and feel, and how to apply that knowledge with horses. The need for knowing how far you want to go and how much are you willing to give up to go there. With inspirational stories of beginning and beginning again from top equestrians, as well as personal reflections from “regular” horse people around the world, these pages promise to inspire a start or a change, and provide a roadmap we all can follow, whatever our ambitions. Emerson reassures us that it doesn’t matter where your beginning point is—start where you are. And, even better, there is a do-over button—you just have to decide to push it. This book is for every horse person who continues to dream of something else or something more, and just needs someone to say: “Begin.”