Private Riding Lessons
Riding instruction has modernized. Whether you're experienced or new, embrace the learner-friendly "Ride With Your Mind" method, pioneered by Mary Wanless.
“The rider’s role is to be a framework around the horse, not a load on top of the horse.”
rider-biomechanics focused
ages 6 and up
60 minutes
Private lessons only - no more than one student at a time
$150 for the hour
Travel fee added if I’m meeting you at your barn
Photos and/or videos may be sent to you post-lesson
Lessons are comprehensive; building well-rounded equestrians
Lesson Structure
Goal Setting: We'll start by discussing your goals for the lesson.
Assessment: For new students, I'll capture a "before" photo/video. For returning students, we'll review key takeaways from previous lessons.
Warm-Up and Questions: I'll observe your warm-up and ask questions about your focus, the horse's back shape, your breathing, and pelvic stability.
Addressing Issues: If your horse has specific challenges, we'll analyze the underlying causes and work on solutions through demonstration, hands-on guidance, and visual aids.
Rider Biomechanics: I'll help you understand how your body influences the horse's movement, using clear explanations and various tools to illustrate key concepts.
Lesson Wrap-Up: We'll recap the main points and discuss how to implement the changes in your future rides.
Key Focus
Awareness: Recognizing when something feels or looks incorrect.
Change: Learning how to adjust your own body to improve the horse's movement.
Clarity: Ensuring you understand the concepts and techniques covered in the lesson.
“Emily’s coaching helps me cultivate awareness of my body and mind while riding. The effects of this connection, not just to the horse’s movement, but to his/her general affect and the richness of our relationship, are deep and perpetual. Through my experience and self-inquiry, Emily helps me realize how my perceptions differ from the reality of my riding. She encourages me to specify, quantify, and qualify what things “feel” like so that I may continue to practice on my own with clear purpose and direction. She is completely present with me during my lessons. I can depend on her honesty and expertise to support me through my personal journey with horses, and I look forward to continuing to learn from her!”
Your Learning, Uninterrupted
If the weather prevents us from riding in the arena, we’ll meet in the barn instead and build out your horse knowledge foundation. There’s always more to learn, and horses appreciate people who have more skills than just the ones needed for great riding. This will also apply if the horse you were scheduled to ride is unable to be ridden and there are no substitutes available. Here’s a list of subjects we can cover, including but not limited to:
“Emily’s ground and virtual lessons have been absolutely invaluable! I’ve learned things about my riding that I just couldn’t see while in the saddle. These sessions gave me fresh insights and a clearer understanding that translated into real progress—sometimes even more than my in-person rides.
On weeks I had to miss a riding lesson, these kept me moving forward instead of falling behind. In fact, I often improved more when I added them in between.
Thank you, Emily, for making such a powerful difference in my riding!”
rider biomechanics training/ off-horse exercises
reward-based horse training
anatomy/conformation
herd dynamics/social structure
daily care/husbandry
health/feeding
key needs of equines
reading equine body language
or any other equine-related topic the student is interested in finding out about!
If scheduling or weather prevents us from getting to the barn at our normal time and rescheduling isn’t possible, we’ll meet virtually, via video call. How can a riding lesson happen when you’re stuck at home with no horse to ride? It’s not as crazy as it sounds… but don’t take my word for it, read my student V.S.’s recent comments about her experience with virtual lessons. —————————->
Become a more skillful, kind, and confident rider.
schedule a Private riding lesson today!
Progress of some of my stellar students
Each one of these riders is on their own journey. They are all working hard to make changes that help them become better riders. These “before/after” photos capture moments in time that illustrate the profound difference a rider’s biomechanics can have on the horse’s shape and movement.
How far can you go with this biomechanics stuff?
check out superstar milly dove, another student of mary wanless and big proponent of the ride with your mind approach to riding!
Milly has proven that the Ride With Your Mind way of riding and teaching makes professional rider status accessible to the average rider. Milly was fortunate to grow up in a horsey family, but her biggest break was getting a chance to learn from the best from the very start: Mary Wanless. Her journey from average kid rider to serious competitor with the chops to win big and ride the most gorgeous horses for a living is the kind of stuff dreams are made of.
She chronicles her journey in her Instagram account with raw honesty, and is a shining example of someone working incredibly hard and achieving success and admiration across the globe for her beautiful riding and immense love for her horses.
Take a look…
“Thank you so much for sharing your time and talent on Thursday morning. Your style of teaching seems to work well for me. I was able to recall your visualizations and practice them when I rode today. My horse responded well too. ”
“I found the lesson incredibly helpful. While I may not be able to implement all the things you showed me, I feel like I finally understand where I am going wrong and have a path forward. THANK YOU! I look forward to seeing how much of the lesson I can translate to my riding in my next lesson/lease rides this weekend. That will be a good litmus test for how soon I think I need another lesson based on whether I can replicate what you taught me on my own or if I need some additional reinforcement so that I can do more work on my own.
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“Mary Wanless is incredible! If you are a rider struggling in any way, Mary has a solution for you. Her methods open up a whole new way of thinking about the way we ride. Her books literally spoke directly to the issues I was having in my dressage riding. By the second chapter of The New Ride with Your Mind Clinic, I already had tools to apply in my next ride. If you can’t ride with Mary, observing even just a day of her teaching will provide enlightenment. I highly recommend riding with Emily Osbourne. Emily has an excellent grasp of the RWYM method and brings her own analogies and insights to each lesson. She has an extremely acute eye and readily identifies the root of problems, not just the symptoms. She structures lessons so that you are pushed just beyond your comfort level but never too far. Emily strives to develop independence in her riders, and she helps you build the skill set to analyze your own riding. Above all, Emily is kind and caring and creates an incredibly positive atmosphere in her lessons; she can work with a wide variety of personality types as well as riders at all levels. Through riding with Emily and reading Mary Wanless, I have improved my riding so much in just a few months! You must give this method a try!
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“The RWYM approach is so different than any way in which I have been instructed through years of riding and various instructors. While it’s only been about a year and I still have so much to learn, this is the first time I have every been truly mindful of what each part of my body should be doing and why while I ride. I have never used my mind so much while riding! By being provided concrete and understandable descriptions of what individual body parts should be doing and being asked to continually quantify what it feels like, it is easier to replicate what to do over time and with different horses. I now have a mental checklist of what each part of my body should be doing in order to ride better and strategies to apply when things aren’t going right. I feel like a much more secure, competent and effective rider.”
“Since I have been taking lessons with Emily, I feel like I have become a better more confident rider because of the personal attention I receive. Although at the previous place I was riding, I was doing walk, trot and canter on a regular basis, I never felt like I was prepared enough. Even though I have only been riding with Emily a few months, I feel like a stronger more conscientious rider and look forward to making more progress.”