Sounds pretty solid to me . Sure in an ideal world you pair inexperienced horses with experienced riders and visa versa , experienced horses with inexperienced riders so one can help the other but there ' s something to be said for the achievement of overcoming an obstacle both horse and rider were uncertain of together . None of what you described sounds dangerous for the horse or any more than usual for the rider so all good . Incidentally my 14 year old exchampionracehorse , decent eventer , still jumps out of his skin on a hack when he goes past a concrete water troughsp ? . He thinks they are dragons I guess . Won ' t go near them . If that ' s first fence on a XC we ' re eliminated . If it ' s 2 nd or later we ' re fine when he ' s got his blood up .