Community Notes
Horse Riding - The Basics
4C Family Ranch is offering a series of classes for beginners to horse riding and ownership. The goal is more than just a trail ride where one horse follows another — these classes focus on learning and honing the basic skills that help riders build confidence with horses, gain their trust and respect, and enjoy the rewards that come with this relationship.
Each class begins with retrieving the horse from the pasture and brushing and preparing it for the saddle and bridle. Each class ends with removing the saddle, washing and feeding the horse, and returning it to the pasture. Over the course of five individual classes, riders will incrementally learn basic reining techniques to build confidence, balance, and control in the round pen arena — first on a lead and then in full control of the animal.
After completing the fifth class, the rider is invited back to put their skills to work on a real trail ride: a round trip from our ranch on top of Monterrey Mountain down to the waterfall in Chucuyo Valley. The total cost of the five-class series is 50,000 colones. Each class lasts about 1.5 hours, and the final trail ride takes about 3 hours.
In the first lesson, students are introduced to walking and trotting with the horse. They hold the reins, but the horse remains on a lead.
In the second lesson, students continue to improve their walking and trotting — this time without the lead and in full control of the horse.
In the third lesson, students walk, trot, and canter, expressing their confidence and continuing to build control and balance. They also learn to communicate with the horse using sounds to slow down, speed up, and stop.
In the fourth lesson, students learn how to turn 180 and 360 degrees, go backwards, and continue to practice and build upon what they learned in previous lessons.
The fifth and final lesson is dedicated to practicing all the techniques and skills learned so far. In this lesson, students are encouraged to ride without the aid of a saddle, mounting the horse bareback — the true expression of horse and rider.