So, maybe I should explain a few things. For most of you, the difference between English and western riding might not be that obvious.
You could say that there are two major schools of riding: English, which stems from Europe, and western, which is used mostly in western North America. Then there are many other schools and subdisciplines, but that would just make things too complicated. So, let’s start with these two.
English riding is what you mostly see on television, atleast in Europe, it’s what they do in the Olympics, it’s the dressage and show jumping and it is also what most people learning to ride in Sweden, Germany, Great Britain and many other European countries are taught. It has it’s roots in the military and is usually quite strict, technical and forcing in a lot of ways. It’s perfectionist and both horses and the style itself has been bred and developed so as to get the horses to jump as high as possible, move as beautifully as possible, run as fast as possible or be as pretty as possible.
Western, on the other hand, has been developed on the great North American prairies. It is what the cowboys, working with cattle, used (and some still use). It’s got a much larger saddle, with a big saddlehorn that you can hold on to, alternately tie your lasso around. And the style doesn’t require as much discipline from the rider and it’s generally more relaxed. Some of the signals to the horse are also different, for example how you get the horse to turn, stop and back up. The horses can be extremely well trained and do the most amazing things, but you wouldn’t know that the rider is making the horse do them, because the rider sits there with her long reins and cowboy hat and seems to just be enjoying the ride.
And while the English has gone from being military riding to becoming mostly sport and a leisure activity for (usually quite rich) people, western is still used for commercial activities, such as the herding of cattle. I think that that’s an important distinction: while the English school is being developed in an environment where it’s practiced soley for it’s own sake, atleast some practitioners of western still have a purpose with their training beyond the riding in itself.
As for me, my training has been soley English. I started taking lessons at a riding school at the age of nine, by twelve I had started riding atleast twice a week, taking special jumping lessons and for a couple of years in my later teens I even rented a pony from my riding school for a couple of years, keeping her as my own. During those years, I spent almost every day at the stables, probably spending more time with my stable mates than with my parents. At eighteen, I changed riding school and at this new place got a teacher who thought I would do well at jumping competitions. Which turned out to be true. So the last years before high school graduation, I did some competing in show jumping with the riding school horses. After high school graduation, I had to scale down on my expenses and during the last five years, I’ve been taking lessons a year here or there, helping out my teachers with their horses and generally not being a very active rider.
So, now you might understand a bit better why the kind of rusty English jumping rider in me got a bit of a chock when I was placed in a western saddle on a western trained horse with the long, divided western reins.
Katja Malmborg 