Male riders

Native Lover

Native Lover

Native Pony Fan
Jul 13, 2009
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Lincolnshire,wheres the hills?
stores.shop.ebay.co.uk
For those of you on livery yard etc how many male riders ....I know we have a couple of male riders on here.....
But on the whole a lot more females.

I have been chatting to a young male rider thing hes 19 or 20 that wants to come and ride some of my ponies, I have never had a male rider before lol I hope we get on....He s 5 ft 9 and 9 stone so perfect height and weight for my ponies and has ridden 13 hh to 15 hh ponies :) I know a lot of top riders are males

but you rarely see male riders for some reason except hunt and comps
 
One of my friends are male. Makes no odds to me if I get on with the person.
Ridden with teenagers and kids as well, if we gel they can be really fun to go out with.
 
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I'm one of the only male riders or liveries at my yard. If I'm not mistaken there's only a young lad, and an older chap who does some of the teaching and stable-work, and me. I don't see that anyone gets treated as different. I don't compete (well, apart from a bit of Interdressage) but I like that this is a discipline that is open to all.

It may not be coincidental, then, that there are not many horses that I can ride! I'm 6.1 and 14 and a bit stone, which is over many riding school weight limits.
 
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There is one where my share is kept, and none at my current yard. Don't see any men when hacking out round here either. But funnily enough I work with 3 men who all used to ride regularly, in a small company with only about 10 male employees!
 
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Calder said:
@Ale, what made them give it up?

I think that might be one difference: lots of men have done a bit of riding, but there seems to be fewer who stick to it.
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It's an interesting point, one used to ride his sisters horses and she moved abroad. The other used to ride with his daughter who gave up. Not sure about the third.
 
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2 on my yard, both hunt. I know a quite a few guys from hunting and 1 or 2 in the riding club all younger, under 21.
 
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Mr T was always in a minority when we were on yards. He still is now, amongst our riding community but it makes no odd to him. He hacks with women - doesn't matter so long as they have the shared interest of horses and lol we all know how much we can spend time nattering about our four legged friends!
 
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Ale said:
It's an interesting point, one used to ride his sisters horses and she moved abroad. The other used to ride with his daughter who gave up. Not sure about the third.
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Yes, it's quite common for horsey men to have a female family member who is the keener one.

I'm the other way round: my OH will ride occasionally, but it's me that has the passion. Now, my 7 year-old daughter is starting to show an interest.. I don't want to push her into it, but if she wants to that will be great.
 
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My OH decided to take up riding when I got Raf. He doesn't do it any more though because he has a bad back and he's not really that interested. If it was something he really wanted to do he would stand the pain of his back, but it's not worth it for him. When he did ride though he had a naturally good seat and really good posture. He just wanted to gallop though, couldn't see the point in schooling or other boring things. A couple of falls took the wind out of his sails a bit. We used to have another male livery on the yard and he was the same - gallop, gallop gallop. In my limited experience I think all the male riders I have known have been generally braver than their female counterparts.
 
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Both my sons rode when we lived in the Uk until they were 12 or so, one of them in particular a really good little rider - then much the same as mentioned above, a lot of teasing at school as it was considered 'cissy'! .......cissy! Can you imagine one of those little scrotes put on the back of a sparky little gymkhana pony?? :eek: I met my OH in the Uk when he took up riding at the stables and went on to be more interested in driving than riding, does nothing these days he has turned into a wimp in his old age!:rolleyes::p

Here in Ireland of course that is the total opposite, more likely to be considered a cissy if you can't ride around my way anyway.;) Since we have lived here again one of them did still occasionally ride out with me when I had more horses for him to choose from. My other son has made mutterings about possibly getting his own horse and starting up again - wish he would, his health is very poor and it would do him a lot of good mentally and physically if I could find the right horse for him.
 
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Kite_Rider you are so right about how brave some men can be - when I had JJ and a huge crisis of confidence one of my sons started taking him out alone for me - despite very little riding since he was a child, after a few very hairy moments watching them leave the yard I was convinced I had signed my son's death warrant allowing him to get the beastie hacking out alone for me. He came home riding a very settled and chilled out cob - no idea what happened in the hour they were out - but it worked lol!
 
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Bodshi said:
My OH decided to take up riding when I got Raf. He doesn't do it any more though because he has a bad back and he's not really that interested. If it was something he really wanted to do he would stand the pain of his back, but it's not worth it for him. When he did ride though he had a naturally good seat and really good posture. He just wanted to gallop though, couldn't see the point in schooling or other boring things. A couple of falls took the wind out of his sails a bit. We used to have another male livery on the yard and he was the same - gallop, gallop gallop. In my limited experience I think all the male riders I have known have been generally braver than their female counterparts.
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Steve was exactly like this, he couldn't see the point in anything except going fast. No training, and he had a naturally brilliant seat - perhaps men's hips are a better shape for it? He loved riding Mattie, but stopped after a couple of scares and because I told him sternly that Mattie was not allowed to gallop...
 
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My OH hasn't ridden since his horse was retired a couple of years ago with navicular but he's always seen it more as a "job" than hobby (old school military trained rider:rolleyes:) although I think he got a scare when his horse chucked him off at canter - or rather my OH said he didn't ask for canter yet he took off to follow the troop when he "wasn't ready':D:D:D I secretly think that scared him into old age as he's never been much of a rider since:rolleyes:
But in answer to OP I think males in general either seem to be high end riders or nothing at all
 
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Yep I think the issue is that it is harder to get boys/men interested in the first place - once they're interested they're no less dedicated than the girls/women.
The riding centre I worked at in the Algarve also did quad-biking tours. We used to get couples coming and the women wanted to ride and the men wanted to go out on the quads... then a few days later they'd book again because the man wanted to try riding.
I know a number of men who took up riding because their daughters rode and they wanted it to be something they had in common... they then got as obsessed with it as their kids did.
I noticed male riders were quite common in Portugal and Italy - I think because in those countries it is still seen as quite a "macho" thing to do.
 
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