Battle of the Disciplines

I believe that there is not enough appreciation among horse people for each other's disciplines.

At this point, I feel like I have had exposure to quite a lot of them.  I have ridden Western Pleasure with Walker.  I have ridden with both a Hunter and an Eventer trainer, the latter of whom also focused a lot on Dressage.  One previous instructor of mine was a Reiner and another was a Cow Penner.  I have a friend that barrel races.  I have ridden her racer, watched her shows, and talked for long hours about the discipline.

Baby, I have seen it all.

And guess what?  You are all right.

Velvety noses: the equestrian symbol of love

The entire time I have been riding - both when I rode as a kid and when I started again as an adult - there was a serious hate-on between barns, between instructors, between disciplines.  I'm not just talking English vs Western here.  No.  There's a lot of Western Pleasure vs Barrel Racing, Eventers vs Hunters, etc etc etc.

My friend is currently in a bad situation where she moved her barrel racer to a WP barn.  She is excited to learn some WP training techniques because she thinks they will be beneficial for her new four year old.  That being said, she's a barrel racer and has no intentions of showing WP any time soon.

There is an instructor at her barn who is all over her.  And I mean, crazy all over her.  She pretty much told her the other day that everything she did was wrong, she was going to ruin her horse, and she would be better off not riding.

Yeah.  I kid you not.  Needless to say, my friend is no longer interested in learning anything about WP.

And sadly enough, this is not uncommon for me.  Many of the barns in my area have a full on hate for eachother.  They think the others are nuts, and since I have ridden or had exposure with quite a few of them, I am perpetually told how lucky I am to have escaped from my last barn/instructor/discipline.

As I have mentioned time and time again, I am really enjoying my current lessons, especially the lunge lessons.  They have really showed me what it will take to ride Dressage/Eventing and the way my body needs to move to do it.

It makes perfect sense.  And you know what else?  I'll be damned if I do that on Walker.

That just won't work for him.  End of story.  No more discussion.  He wasn't trained that way.  He doesn't move that way.  He shouldn't have to.  Maybe some horses could make that change, but he's not one of them.

And furthermore, the way I ride Walker is not wrong.  When he's on - when we're on - he moves beautifully.  He can collect.  He can use his body just as nicely as the horses do in my English class, and we accomplish those goals in a completely different way.  And he looks different for it.

Similarly, my friend has time and again explained to me the grueling training that she does for barrel racing. No.  She doesn't just hop on her horse like some yahoo and take off at dangerous speeds around barrels, health and safety be damned.  She works hard.  She trains her horse just like anyone else.

The things I learn from my Eventing instructor make perfect sense.  They make perfect sense for Eventing.  But the things I have learned from my other trainers make perfect sense for those disciplines too.  There is not one right way or wrong way to do things.

Seriously, folks.  The outside world thinks we're crazy enough.  We should really be having eachother's backs.

Just a WP QH and a old pro Dressage Queen hanging out together.
Take a page from their books, kids.  We can all get along.