10 Ways Horses Build Character in Children 1. Learn Responsibility - Horses will teach your child responsibility very quickly. Make sure that your child does all the work involved in caring for the horse. Everything from feeding, cleaning stalls, grooming, saddling and riding. Children will want to ride but they may not always be eager to do the work. However children almost always fall in love with the horses that they handle and they will want to take as good care of them. Once they know that the horse depends on them and that in order to ride they have to take good care of the horses, they will learn to be more responsible in other aspects of there life. 2. Learn Trust - Horses must be able to trust their handlers. One of the first things that your child will learn about handling and riding horses is to be trustworthy and dependable, because if the horse doesn’t trust its handler it will not obey him/her. This can be a very valuable life long lesson for your child.