…… and bought a western saddle.
I’m just so excited that I want the world to know! My goal is for my little paint to have a well rounded life. We enjoy the hunter/jumper ring (with itty bitty fences), but I wouldn’t mind taking her in some trail classes at a club level in the future. She is a much better citizen when she keeps her mind busy. The western ladies at the boarding barn are pretty impressive riders and I strive to have a horse as neat as theirs 
It is NOT the dark side. Its just another side. It can be a lot of fun - lots more handles and attachment points for snacks and drinks.
I joined the dark side and have lesson next Friday with a reining trainier recommended here.
I am so excited! Also switching from eventing to reining. Many other big life moves in the mix as well.
When I was younger there were no sides. A lot of us rode both English and Western.
I just gives you so many more ways to have fun with your horse!!
I don’t actually view it as the dark side. I’ve started all my horses in a western saddle. I worked at a western barn as well.
I am very excited about my new adventure.
I know you’re trying to be funny, but the funniest part is that you think western riding is the “dark side.”
I’m in the H/J world. I mostly always have been and mostly that’s because H/J has always been most available to me. If I lived someplace where there were good western trainers, I would jump ship over to Ranch Riding or Versatility Ranch Horse so fast all you would see is the cloud of dust I left behind.
I’m glad you can see the humour in my post and that I’m excited to try other things with my horse - I’ve spent my entire “riding career” in English tack and have missed out on all the other opportunities that different disciplines bring.
I like your new use of The Dark Side for western. For years, eventing COTHers (and some dressage riders too IIRC) would invite H/J COTHers to “Come over to the Dark Side.”
i just dragged my western saddle out of the tack room and started cleaning it up. My buckskin needs to train in it. My goal for him is Western Dressage…
I’m not sure i can even lift the thing. I think i could put it on the side of my pickup, stand up in there and kinda lay it down on top of him.
Or i may just sell all of them (i have about 5!) and buy a lightweight synthetic. BUT…i’ll see how it goes with him in western first. He’s so intune with body…half halts and pelvic turns…it’s going to be an entire re-train.
I just bought a used western saddle because the ones (yes, plural) I already had don’t fit my current horse. It’s an older Big Horn. Holy crap! That thing weighs a ton. I can barely heft it up on my horse’s back.
I know I’m going to lose money, but I’m going to send it back to the consignment shop. I’ve definitely been spoiled by the newer, light weight western saddles.
my feeling about western saddles is, if you don’t have to stop a cow at the end of a rope, get the lightest one you can find. Spoken from the height of 5’0".
I was thinking today that maybe i should just ditch all of mine. There’s an auction house nearby that does online auctions…i’ve used them before. Normally they don’t take a small quantity for a bunch of different people, normally they do entire households…estate auctions. But, maybe i can talk them into taking my saddles. I’d just as soon not have to deal with buyers directly, have to weigh and measure and answer questions and extra photos…etc.
Come. I have cookies. 
I recently sold all my hunt seat stuff, including my Antares saddle (which I adored) and my English show clothes. Then I sold my Paint that did the all-around and bought a 12-year-old AQHA mare that’s a finished reiner and solid ranch riding and versatility horse. It’s so much fun to be on a horse that knows its job. For once in my life I’m not on a green horse and I get to learn on her. It’s a blast!
At the last show, I was surprised at how many other women “of a certain age” were competing. The majority of the ones I chatted with came from a background in eventing, dressage and jumpers. I found that… fascinating.
The horses are smaller, and the saddles are bigger!
Watcha got? Any oldies? Buckstitched? Fancy tooled Herefords or Big Horns from the 70’s?
We are looking for some to add to our collection.
well after purchasing the Western Saddle next if really going to dark side would be getting a set of driving harness and a cart
i’ve got two carts (one big wheel and then a farm cart) and a harness! I wish i knew a trainer in these parts. I’d love to have my Standardbred trained to cart and i just don’t think i’m able to do it.
i got them from a neighbor when his wife died. That was in the 90s and they were not new then. Will take pics and send you a DM one of these days.
Haha… don’t tempt me with a good time!
Would probably be more on my radar if I had a close friend to teach me the ropes. Perhaps in the future!
I love this! I just did the same.
I’m going to PM you, hope you don’t mind!
Wjere are you? We’ve found a lot of great resources and a few trainers just right for what my D needed in different phases of moving from Hunters/Eq to Western, Ranch Riding specifically. And we are in Hunter Mecca, Old Salem Farm / Fairfield Hunt Club / VT Summer Festival vicinity in the Northeast.
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