Erin Givens, left, and Laine Miller, a member of the Texas State University Equestrian Team, bridle a horse before a recent lesson. Givens is the trainer for the university’s equestrian team. (Photo by Wes Ferguson)
by WES FERGUSON
The bay trots in a wide, slow circle. His hooves kick up clouds of red dust. In a barn in Buda, trainer Erin Givens follows every move.
“Watch him,” she says to rider Laine Miller, who is sitting high on the thoroughbred. “He’s dipping his shoulder.”
Givens notices something else.
“Your toe’s turned out,” she says.
From Miller’s toes, Givens can tell the rider is gripping too tightly with her knees, instead of keeping even contact through her thigh, knee and calf.
Those pressure points wouldn’t matter as much if Miller were riding a western-style saddle, like some cowboy in a pasture, but she’s sitting on a smaller English saddle, where precision is essential.
“It takes a lot more control to have a true partnership with the horse in an English saddle,” Givens says. Western riding can be enjoyable too, she added, but “with western, you can just hop on a horse and hang onto the saddle horn.”
Givens is the owner and head trainer of Sterling Hunter/Jumpers Riding Stable in Buda. She teaches the more popular western-style riding too, but her main focus is in the English style, with its old-world disciplines including dressage and show jumping.
And while there are other English-style equestrian facilities in the Austin area, Givens’ stable is different. It’s the only certified United States Pony Club riding center in the state of Texas.
Riding centers differ from traditional Pony Clubs in one important way: the student doesn’t have to be a horse owner to receive lessons. Buying and caring for a mount can be prohibitively expensive – no less so for prospective students in Buda.
“Most of them weren’t going to be able to do that,” Givens says. “We have always operated our business in such a way as to cater to the ‘average family’ and make horses accessible to all, regardless of economic status.”
The U.S. Pony Club launched its riding center program in 2005, and the Sterling stable became certified this fall after opening nearly five years ago. Sterling boasts 14 lesson horses.
Givens, who grew up in Buda, began western riding when she was 7. She switched to English riding when she was 9.
“My parents said that if I wanted to be really serious about riding that I needed to take English lessons,” she said. “They compared it to being a dancer and taking classical ballet and then deciding what you wanted to specialize in.”
During Givens’s first English-style lesson, her horse was trotting through a field in Kyle when it unexpectedly decided to jump over two poles. Caught off guard, Givens still managed to hang on to the reins.
“I was hooked,” she said. “Didn’t go back.”
