Being an Equestrian

western pleasure v. dressage (western v. english v. natural horsemanship)

WESTERN PLEASURE v. DRESSAGE (WESTERN v. ENGLISH v. NATURAL HORSEMANSHIP)

This is the. Most. Annoying. Thing. EVER!

For some strange reason, everyone thinks their discipline is better than everyone else's. One of the biggest examples of this is dressage and western pleasure. I, personally, do western pleasure, among other things. One of my best friends does dressage and earlier this year, went to a dressage test where she was told by the judge that if she wasn't a perfectionist, she'd be doing pleasure. What annoys me is that pleasure and dressage are extremely similar except for the tack and the fact that dressage is two-handed and pleasure is one-handed. I think one of the reasons people view dressage as being more of a perfectionist's discipline is that pleasure people are generally dressed more casually, which is a load of bullcrap in my opinion; both styles stick to their origins: dressage the classical look of the wealthy when they rode, western the casual and functional look of the cowboys. I admit, there is a certain finesse required in dressage from the horse that is not necessary in pleasure, but many people could probably ask their pleasure horses to do dressage, especially if we were doing it two-handed with much tighter reins and more direct contact.

It's not only with certain disciplines, but, in general, English, Western and Parelli (natural horsemanship) riders can't seem to get along. We're all riders who (hopefully) love horses.

There's also inner-discipline riding. A lot of people, including other western riders, seem to bash on barrel racing. I've done barrel racing, English, pleasure, liberty, reining, blah blah blah. Barrel racing is almost as hard, if not harder than some/all of the others. In the majority of the others, there is rarely subjectiveness found in the judges; they always have some sort of preference. Barrel racing is you, the horse, the barrels, and the clock. You have to time everything, push your horse in and off the barrel at the same time, try to not lose your balance, and try to avoid injuring your horse around the barrels.

Just... Everyone, please, please stop fighting over who's better.