Gone! Lessons, and English VS. Western

Well today, 2 of our horses left. Our 2 mares Wildfire (TC DUNNIT AGAIN) and Duchas (Bates Chic Ten "not on all-breed"). Were sold/traded for training and lessons for my horse Chuck and me, so far the the idea is Chuck will be moved and boarded at a barn, where their is an arena to work in, when he comes back he will not think he owns the place, and hopefully continue to improve and move forward in his training.


I am at my dads this weekend, so when I get back to my moms I will upload pictures of our lesson, in some of the pictures you can see me checking my diagonal. We got to ride with one of our instructors Anne while Libby watched and called out commands from the ground. It was a big surprise, my horse Mavirck really likes to get close to other horses, and the horse our Anne was riding is Musta who is Libby's horse in training, and Mavrick wanted to be close to him a LOT Musta didn't like it when Anne asked him to lengthen his trot. Musta kicked up and about kicked Mavrick in the face! Mavrick then decided he didn't want to be so close behind Musta anymore. We worked over ground poles, and Mavrick seemed to think they would eat him. Snickers was to busy trying to eat the thistles on the edge of the arena so he got some reinforcement a few times.  Overall it was a very good lesson, the weather was nice. Both me and roni had our problems, but at is what lessons are for is trying to fix them, when I upload the pictues I will point out the problems in our riding, this will help you realize your own problems when you ride along with helping others, I have a problem with my hands being high, I am still trying to get my diagonals right, along with other things. Roni has a problem with keeping her leg quiet, her feet try to slip through the irons, and her leg bounces around at the trot, and makes Snickers go faster. We have problems but thats what we try to do is fix them.

 So now for the big topic english VS western.

I like both, if I were to choose which one I wanted to ride in I would probably pick english first. I like english because you feel free, there isn't as much material between you and the horse, and it more closley resembles bareback riding, which I am a huge fan of. I also like western if you are looking for comfort for long easy rides, I think working is more uncomfortable in an western saddle because you feel so restricted, also I thought posting in a western saddle and an english saddle were the same. WRONG!!!! Way way different posting in an english saddle is much harder and takes more muscle. Also I learned I really wasn't as good of a rider as I thought I was, western saddles were made to make life and riding easier, even the way the stirrups hold you are different, the western stirrups keep your legs from moving and banging around, it is harder to keep your leg quiet in an english saddle. Like I said the western saddle was made for comfort, western saddles were created to help catch, heard, and manage cattle, they were made for long rides and were ment to keep the person comfortable at a nice easy pace. The english saddle was made for war, this is how dressage became and english sport, dressage was a training method used to train war horses. I think english and western are equals, I like english more, I do think it is harder, but western is relaxing, fun, and has its challenges too.