[Black Leviathan]

I feel like in all these responses someone had to bring it up but I see most folks talking about routine use skill modifier and pointing out that 11 is a pretty low skill.

Skill checks aren't for every use, It's only when you're struggling or need to make it look easy and only when there's a real consequence to failure. So you'd make a riding check if your horse got bit by a snake or if you're trying to break-in a horse you've never ridden with, or performing on the Dressage Square. 11 is a pretty ordinary skill, what most teenage girls who've been out to the farm a few times have. Those tests are tough for that level of experience and you could fail them very easily. Failure depends a lot on the severity of the circumstances and the margin of the roll. You might fail your riding roll to control your snake-bit horse by one and the horse just wheels around in place in a panic letting the snake strike again. You might fail your roll to break in Mean Butch with a critical failure and he throws you into a ravine. You might fail your roll to perform your dressage routine by 2, but other competitors fail by even wider margins so you win the chance to be rewarded by the Duchess and have a few seconds to speak to her without her handlers.