Riding styles in different countries

[bikina]

Hi all, can anyone shed any light on the riding styles in different parts of the world? In particular, Western and Eastern Europe, the Causcaus and Central Asia/China/Japan. Just wondering if there is any particular way the horses are trained - eg English, Western, etc. I have ridden in China where I was perched on top of all sorts of things and the riding was purely sit on and stay on! Just wondered what other peoples experiences of riding abroad have been.

 

[0ldmare]

I originally learnt to ride in South America and they use neck reining. There is virtually no contact on the bit so the horses all go long and low. Leaning back slightly is 'stop' and leaning slightly to the side is 'turn'. Even after all the years of living in England I find it hard to take up as much contact as the english method prescribes!

 

[0ldmare]

PS Any luck selling your horse?

 

[Tia]

Obviously there will be an awful lot of stereotyping in a post like this, so my experiences are purely that, my own experiences and what I have gathered in my trips and living overseas. They are purely my own opinions and based on a comparison to British owners and riders.

Germany and Denmark - VERY high standards of riding. Training is particularly methodical and sometimes appears incredibly harsh. Some unethical horse-keeping procedures.

France - lower standard of riding. Bit more hicksville type of horse care and lower education with regards to horse keeping. Training - what training? You just sit on and hope for the best!

Spain - again a high calibre of riding but moreso an extremely high quality of training, almost to the point of verging on cruelty at times. They have very high standards, however horse care is very different over there due to lack of grazable land.

USA - well trained horses and competent riders. There is a general feeling of people knowing exactly what they are doing, even if they don't appear to think they do. Regular riding horses are generally trained to a higher level than the regular happy hackers in the UK. Competitors are often FAR more competitive than in the UK and they will go to further lengths to win than we would in the UK. Overall I'd say that the average Americans are decent horse owners even if they do training at different ages/time frames to what we see in the UK.

Ontario, Canada - absolutely massive differences here. Some people are quite knowledgeable and some have no clue whatsoever. My overwhelming experience of overall riding ability here on my side of Canada is that it is often incredibly basic. People do however appear to want to learn, they ask questions but whether the answers are understood or make sense to them I don't know. A lot of people just cannot ride here, but they will be awfully quick to tell you that they can - that just seems silly to me. The level of care given to horses is of a far lesser quality than that seen in the UK. The level of training is lower and the level of riding is far more inferior to the UK.

BC, Canada - very high standard of care, although very unusual in a lot of ways. Horses are rarely turned out together and are kept in pens. Training is of a higher level generally than the UK. Riding is of a similar calibre to the UK.

As said, these are purely my own collection of thoughts from what I have seen in riding in these countries of the world.

 

[bikina]

Thank you both, still not sold B but have had some interest so fingers crossed!