My son and his girlfriend ae now looking to buy a QH or paint to do western and english riding on. They are english riders converted to western (so just learning the ropes). They both go to University this year and want to take the horse with them. Chances are the university riding club won't do western so they wanted to do some dressage as well.

What the chances of a Qh or Paint, already trained western, being able to do dressage? Would they struggle with extensions of paces etc?

Is there a western discipline that converts more easily to dressage, i.e trail or horsemanship for instance?

We are quite new to the breed of Qhs so any advice is appreciated.
Thanks

hi, my daughter did some english dressage on her quarter horse at the aqha.uk breed show some years ago and has done some schools dressage on another horse and scored fairly well on her but until recently wasn't interested in english dressage. she is now thinking about doing some dressage on her new horse in the autumn. i know that in america lots of people do dressage and showjumping, even eventing on qhs. Many qhs wouldn't have too much trouble in exercises including extensions, lead changes, shoulder in as it is often encorporated into their training as a youngster. the only problem which i can possibly think of is the head carriage as western horses are often bred to have a natural low head carriage, however apart from this i think qhs are more than a good match for dressage competitions. have a look at the classified on aqha.com to see the sort of horses for sale doing dressage and that will give you some idea of the sort of quarter horse being used. good luck

rosie

Hi,

I had an American Paint that did superbly in Dressage - in fact he enjoyed dressage more than anything else - he did not have a problem with any of the movements expected in the Dressage test.

I think it probably depends on each individual horse.

Michelle

No reason at all why they can't do both, but I would suggest getting help from someone who rides both English & western to help you - Bruce Lawrence and his team got my boy (very chunky QH) going English very nicely, whilst also progressing his western.

I can't see a QH competing against a modern warmblood for extravagence of paces, but for riding club dressage and the lower levels of affiliated competition accuracy and going correctly is more than enough to be very competitive. And western trained horses do free walk on a long rein (not to mention rein back) so beautifully my dressage friend's eyes go out on stalks.

I try to make the distinction between disciplines as clear as possible to jack - for example, he's not allowed to jog in his English saddle - ever; if lungeing "western" we use a Be-nice and he is jogs; lungeing English we use side reins and the works and his command is "trot", not click. We do have to work very hard when jumping to get a nice bouncy energetic English canter, as Jack is a lazy little oaf and rather likes staying in a western lope, but with appropriate permission and a bit of revving up he can fly round an arena like the best of them. I don't think it's going to be easy to get him to really extend into a proper medium trot, let alone extended, but there is some extension there - I've seen him doing it in the field!

Thanks everyone. Sounds like a QH will do all the things they want to. My guess is as tehy get more into western they will be less bothered about english stuff anyhow; its just we are quite a way from the big shows so it's nice to do a bit of local dressage.

We'll just have to hope we find a nice horse soon.

Elkay, Jack sounds like a great character.

I'm sorry but I really did have to laugh reading Elkay's response. Good luck to  you, sounds as if you have a really great horse. But I was reminded, for the umpteenth time, how truly generous horses can be and how much we expect from them. One thing in one set of tack, another thing in another set of tack, lope here, bouncy canter there .... ;D