Women riders can't cut it at the higher levels

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MizElz

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When you look at each of the equestrian sports, the top levels are quite densely populated by men. of course, there are the Pippa Funnells, Mary Kings, Ellen Whitakers, Nina Carberrys, and so on......but men remain predominant. its the same in most sports: look at F1, football, rugby, etc. so perhaps women - as a whole - are not physically strong enough, or ambitious enough, or perhaps too emotional, to truly compete with men on an equal basis.......
 
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Hmmmm is that why 3/4 of the recent British Eventing team that went to the Europeans was female?

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Or are they?
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I have always thought MK was far to strong for a women.
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No, women are not physically strong enough to compete with men on an equal basis. That is why they have female football, rugby, tennis etc.

I think males are pre programmed to be more competitve. After all they have to impress the girlies and girlies are pre programmed to flirt and look pretty.
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I think as a rule women have the upper hand when it comes to horses. They are generally more finally tuned to the horses feel. I believe Mark Todd said something along those lines once.

I have noticed more women only sport on TV recently. I think this is probably because historically only men did competitive, high adrenalin sports. The female side of the sports is now breaking through as mainstream. It's a good thing.
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Bonzabean - i think i would pretty much agree with you there. its always annoyed me tho that at the lower levels, its the girls who are prevalent (boys - pony club? tack cleaning? MUCKING OUT?!?!?!)
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yet when you get to the top, its often a different story, and women, supposedly the weaker, are the ones doing all the graft in order for the men to compete. and i certainly think that women's emotional tendencies can often make for a stronger emotional bond with a horse.
 
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Hmmmm is that why 3/4 of the recent British Eventing team that went to the Europeans was female?

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And a quick google of the past winners shows that more women than men have won the individual competition (OK, only by 1 but even so.......)
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well, i'd like to see you say that directly to Pippa (only ever winner of the Grand Slam), Beezy Madden, Lucinda Fredericks, Ellen Whitaker, Anky, Ulla, and any of the other many, many women at the very top of their sports.
no, women aren't as physically strong as men, obviously. but fortunately with horses, pure strength has very little influence on how well a horse goes.
also, with a few noteable exceptions, i'd always rather have a woman ride my horse than a man. there's usually less ego involved, which has an enormous effect.
 
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also, with a few noteable exceptions, i'd always rather have a woman ride my horse than a man. there's usually less ego involved, which has an enormous effect.

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I could not agree more!!!
 
Things seem to be much more equal in the eventing & dressage world, than in the SJ world - in which men do seem to have always been more predominant, I do feel that this may start to shift though, the USa is already mainly women & they do tend to be trend setters in most aspects of life.
 
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well, i'd like to see you say that directly to Pippa (only ever winner of the Grand Slam), Beezy Madden, Lucinda Fredericks, Ellen Whitaker, Anky, Ulla, and any of the other many, many women at the very top of their sports.


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dont get me wrong, im not saying that no women can do it! (See OP!!) im simply drawing a comparison, and if you look at the ratios - im plucking things out of the air now - you will probably find that there are maybe 4 or 5 men to every 'top' woman. im not dissing in any way, i just find it interesting!

i had better add that i am perhaps a little SJ biased, as this is where my own experience lies.....and SJ the strongest example of male dominance
 
"and if you look at the ratios - im plucking things out of the air now - you will probably find that there are maybe 4 or 5 men to every 'top' woman."

umm, not in dressage and eventing, or show-jumping at the highest level. wasn't there only one man in the last 4 of the World Cup final?
 
There are very, very few top SJers in Argentina. I think though that they all give up when they get married and have kids. Absolutely NO eventers to my knowledge, but then eventing is dominated by the army who have the only 4* (not sure if it still IS 4* but it once was) track in Campo de Mayo, Buenos Aires.
 
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well, i'd like to see you say that directly to Pippa (only ever winner of the Grand Slam), Beezy Madden, Lucinda Fredericks, Ellen Whitaker, Anky, Ulla, and any of the other many, many women at the very top of their sports.
no, women aren't as physically strong as men, obviously. but fortunately with horses, pure strength has very little influence on how well a horse goes.
also, with a few noteable exceptions, i'd always rather have a woman ride my horse than a man. there's usually less ego involved, which has an enormous effect.

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Perhaps my post wasn't very clear. When I said about women and men not being equal I was talking about sports in general. I did list some.

I also suggested that I felt that women have the upper hand when it comes to horses because they have a better feel.

I was actually trying to NOT sound like a raging feminist and trying to be balanced in my view.

I too would much rather have women on my horses as I do feel (I did try to avoid saying this) that men are a little more likely to ride on ego rather than feel.

I hope that has cleared that up.
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Ponies SJ
3 girls 1 boy

Juniors Euro SJ
2 boys 2 girls

Young Riders Euro SJ
3 girls 1 boy

Looks pretty in favour to the girls if you ask me?? All came home with medals as well.

I think SJ will see more and more women rising up. Its getting the rides on good horses and having the chances to compete them.
The eventing and dressage teams at all levels were dominated by females.
 
There are many reasons, less physical strength, less support from parents to their children to girls, society's expectations, childbirth and raising children. In spite of all those things I think we have moved on and women are better represented at higher levels now than they were 20-30 years ago
 
Women leave to have babies and stuff, men just carry on - its quite simple
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If you look at YR SJ there are plenty of girls, then you look at seniors and the numbers drastically reduce - babies/men/etc al get in th eway!
 
adding on to the_watcher's post, there is the fact that young men are expected to earn a good living, and if they decide to do horses, they have the huge drive to make a good living from it. some women (not all) do not have this pressure. that drive can sometimes be to the detriment of the horses, i personally believe.
 
There are some really interesting views coming up here.

I also have pondered on the thought that boys on horses are generally ridiculed by their piers so they have to be very good and/or they tend to give up because of being called names.

I know that is a sweeping generalisation but I do know of a coupld of men I know who were quite severely bullied at school as he loved and rode his pony everyday. He did quite a lot of show jumping and they were more impressed by that.

Do you think girls can get away with playing "ponies" better than boys can?
 
Well every other National Governing Body in the country practicers with men and women competing separately, this has never happened with equestrian, men and women compete on euqal ground, and to be fair I think the women do pretty well with it.
Like lou says, women have other stuff to do in their lives, they are far more driven to coquer the entire world, men are quite happy finding one thing they are good at and doing it for the rest of their lives- us women have vision
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My boyfriend tries to argue that this is why riding isn't good exercise, because it's the only sport in which men and women compete on an equal footing, and therefore he thinks it's all down to the horse not the rider (yep, he's totally ignorant but refuses to sit on a horse to test his theory).

However, there are plenty of other "sports" that i'm sure could be competed in equally (snooker, darts etc) as they don't rely on physical strength.

I disagree that women can't cut it at the highest level though, specially in the UK as everyone's pointed out.
 
I was thinking about this a while ago. I think it's apparent in SJ especially. My theory is that men in general are more competitive. Women are happier to have horses as a hobby, but if a man does it, he wants to be the best at it, which makes them keen to compete.

Then you have the whole having babies/looking after children thing that takes up a few years and a lot of energy. But I'm still proud that horse riding is one of the few sports where there is such a level playing field between the sexes.

Isabelle
 
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