12/05/2025
One of the fastest ways to elevate the safety and quality of any lesson program is to shift from reactive decision-making to proactive thinking and planning.
Reactive instructors wait for something to go wrong before tightening up a policy, changing a piece of equipment, or rethinking how they teach a skill.
Proactive instructors ask the questions before the incident occurs:
🤔“Where is the weak spot in this setup?”
🤔“What could go wrong with this piece of equipment when it's used by a beginner student or a student who needs additional support.
🤔“What can I teach today that prevents a problem six months from now when advancing in this same skill?”
A proactive mindset can change everything.
It shows up in how we check tack, how we structure mounting and dismounting, how we train volunteers, how we choose adaptive equipment, how we progress skills, and how we layer on and off support.
It shows up in our willingness to say, “This works… but it could be safer, cleaner, or more effective.”
I've learned the hard way that you don’t get safer by betting something will "never happen to me" or for a big name organization to put a rule into place.
We get safer and become stronger instructors by being curious, questioning our what/hows/whys and polices, and tightening the gaps long before anyone else or a big organization says we need to.
The change from proactive to reactive....
Families feel it. Students feel it. Horses feel it.
Proactive instructors build programs where safety isn’t based on a run of good luck… it’s built into the culture, the teaching, the policies and procedures, and the equipment from the start.
That’s the standard our industry should expect.
That's the standard our students deserve.
To the instructors that want to stay reactive vs. being proactive because they think they and their horses are the exception to the rule...let's hope that horseshoe is stuck up there super well 😆
