When someone starts out learning to ride western are they taught how to post? I mean someone who has never ridden and starts western. Just wondering. Thanks.
I would suppose, it would depend on who’s teaching 
Western riders don’t typically post, but if it is helpful for you and your riding, then go for it. Western riders usually ride with a longer stirrup than they would with an english saddle (except dressage) so it can make it difficult to post. If your horse has a faster trot and you’re going to be trotting a longer distance, then you might find posting helpful. When I was little and would go on trails with my grandma, she would always tell me to two point or half sit the trot if we were going to trot for a while. If I get on a horse whose trot hasn’t been slowed down to a jog yet, then I might have to post at times when we are working at it. I don’t know if any of this answers your question but I hope it helps a bit anyway
“Western riders” are a very large group.
The better, more educated western riders post just as any other rider out there.
If you go to a end of the road little stable that doesn’t do much competing, you may have someone teaching that is clueless enough not to even know about posting that just happens to be using western saddles.
I think there are less and less of those around, since most everyone at least has RFD-TV and videos to learn some mere basics.
Other than that, everyone else posts when trotting out or riding a not very smooth horse and beginners are taught how to, even in western saddles.
Decades ago, some cowboys didn’t post, they just stood up in the stirrups when trotting long down the pastures, but today everyone I see posts.
Those that start and work with 4H do, helping others learn from them.
All the “real” cowboys I know post. (I am in Oregon, and there are lots of them here) If you have an athletic, working horse and a job to do, you don’t to a little show ring jog. You have places to GET TO, and your horse has a real TROT. So they post…
The only ones i have seen who don’t post are very uneducated western riders, or ones who learned to ride in a controlled encironment on flat moving peanut rollers. If you got them out of the arena on unlevel terrain with 20 miles to cover to get to dinner, they would get their horse going in a real trot and figure out how to post!
Ditto what others have said. All the western riders I know post, except, of course, the ones who ride gaited horses/mules. You could never cover any ground if all you did was jog along like you were in a western pleasure class.
Back when I first learned to ride it was at a well known western barn…not a working farm by any means, all about the kiddie lessons.
I was never taught to post, ever. And I rode there for over a year.
Fast forward 15yrs and I went back to re-ride as english. My coach had to teach me to post 
It took only a couple lessons to get it, but would have been good to have back in my western days.
I do a reining based clinic and one of the first things you learn if you don’t already know is how to post (he teaches from brand new riders on up to folks who show). Gives you a better feel for the horse moving under you.
The exact same way an English rider is taught to post! And whoever said western riders don’t post??? And, I ride cutters and my stirrup length is very similar to that of an English rider, so please don’t make assumptions.
I started Western and was not taught to post until many years later when I went English. I was shown sitting trot instead. Gave me an advantage later on - my sitting trot was always great when I swapped disciplines.
Yes.
Thanks all ! I learned a lot. I appreciate it.
Uh, sonomacounty, I’m pretty sure that cutter99 was replying to bubxjade’s post, not to yours. You might want to take another look.
Ooopsie, thanks NSP. Apologies.
I currently have a Walker, but did learn to post when I first started riding. It’s an important riding skill to have regardless of discipline or breed. I am considering a trotting horse for my #2. It would take my body a while to remember what to do…just remember “rise and fall with the leg on the wall”.
When I started bombing around western in the 50s, no, posting was not mentioned by friends, cowboy uncle, or anyone else. But I will also observe that there wasn’t a lot of trotting- many working cowboys just walked or loped. When I rode working ranch horses in the early 60s, on a big spread in Texas, they just flat didn’t trot, if you asked for speed, it was instant comfy lope. I know only one fellow today who discourages his horses from trotting. Likewise, first lessons at summer camp in 1960- no posting at the trot.
When I learned to ride western in the 70s, we didn’t learn to post. I developed a great sitting trot, but wish I had been taught to post. I had to learn to post when I took dressage lessons as an adult.
