Helpful Books for Young Horse Riders

Heidi 1 Comment October 13, 2015

As you may already know, I have a horse lover in my house. My youngest child has been obsessed since she was a wee one. We have filled her space with horse crafts, horse parties, given horse gifts, horse, bedding and more! We spend much of our free time at the barn, riding, mucking stalls, and meeting with friends.

Dealing with horses is new for me, and there is always something new to learn! My daughter will often come across a situation, a problem, or something to solve, and she will tell me about how she just read about it in one of her horse books, or how she is going to reference one of them when she gets home to find the answer. Needless to say we have numerous horse books both fiction (Coming Soon!) and non-fiction in our possession.

Helpful Books for Young Horse Riders

1. Complete Horse Riding Manual by William Micklem {Disclosure: I was given this book for free to review. All opinions are my own and I was not required to post a positive review. Your experience may vary. Please see my full Disclosure Policy for more details.}

This book is a book geared more towards advanced work with horses, beyond the basic care and keeping. But not so beyond that it is too complex. This has been the perfect book for us to dig deeper into what a horse is thinking, how they are wired, and how to better train and work with the horse we are riding. The Complete Horse Riding Manual is all about training from basic horse training to showing with both physical and mental preparation for the horse and rider.

2. DK Complete Horse Care Manual by Colin Vogel. {Many thanks again to DK Publishing for providing this book to us for review. Please see my full Disclosure Policy for more details.}

I want to start by saying that the pictures in this book are gorgeous! They are over the top beautiful! I love how each and every picture is an actual photo (even body parts) instead of line drawings. I think it is so much easier to identify things from an actual picture.

This is one of our big “go to” books. When the horse we are riding is doing something different that we are unsure of, this is where we look to see if we can figure out what she is telling us. This book includes detailed photos and explanations of horses from their color and markings, to gait and movement, teeth and jaws, and all their body systems. Then it goes beyond that and into showing, keeping a horse both indoors and out, feeding and nutritional concerns, horse health and disorders, and more!

3. Horses for Dummies by Audrey Pavia. This is one of the first books we picked up because of the full color photos, online resources, and easy to use format of the book. Horses for Dummies is more than just a care book, it’s an everything book. Don’t know what breed you are looking at? Find it here. Need help with what equipment to have now that you own a horse? Find it here. I also love the checklists and resources in the Appendices of this book.

There is also a Horseback Riding for Dummies that is on our list to own as well.

4. Horse Health Care by Cherry Hill. This is one of many books in Cherry Hill’s Horse Keeping Skill Library. I love this one because it is a great reference for all things horse health related. Everything from just every day care to wound care. This book is packed with step by step instructions and photos to go with each step! This is super helpful when you are unsure what something is supposed to look like.