I maybe able to answer some of your queries. When starting the horse I believe it is best to llstart with one style only to avoid confusion. I would tend to favour starting in the English style as I believe it is easier for a horse to relate to and many trainers advocate the advantages gained from teaching a horse some dressage. However this is probably a matter of preference. Horses can be retrained from one style to the other but it takes patience and is a relatively slow process. It is important for us to put ourselves into the position of the horse and think of them constantly during this retraining. Clear signals need to be given re the style you are expecting your horse to accept as they can get confused between the two styles otherwise. My Nicky is now 19 years old. She was trained western and must have been a great western horse as she is so responsive and quick and spins beautifully. My young neighbour purchased her from a dealer when she was seven so I feel that she must have had a bad injury during her early weatern years and was then sold on via a dealer. Her back has had problems in the past. I have had her for 10 years now and only started teaching her dressage this year. Previously I had just enjoyed riding her western style but with an English saddle on the roads and trials. It has been challenging to teach her dressage but she tries so hard to please me and has come a long way. Yes, she can still get confused if my messages are not clear. For example yesterday our instructor wanted us to pretend we were at a show and were being asked to trot a figure of eight and then canter it which was new to both of us. Nicky watched the horse before her attentively and as soon as she went out she figured she knew what to do i.e. canter a figure of eight. My signals were also obviously confusing as she was just cantering on the spot while I was trying to encourage her to trot. Finally she understood trotted then cantered beautifully for me. Our fairly rough instructor said I should have given her 'a good kick in the guts" when she was having problems understanding that I wanted her to trot first. That would have totally freaked her out as she is so sensitive to the legs which comes from western riding - she certainly didn't need to be punished as she was simply confused! When I was first given her to look after she didn't know how to trot at all - just walk and canter and stop. Now when she is not confused or over excited she trots beautifully and it is my favourite pace on her as she is so smooth. So yes horses can be rtrained but they can get confused between the two and I am sure riders do too. I didn't ride western but I did a lot of country riding as a kid in a stock saddle mustering our cattle and sheep from very rough country. It has been very hard for me to learn dressage and when I get a bit stressed I tend to revert to my country riding. Just like Nicky does! So it is the same for our horses. I think for both rider and horse it is better to stay with one style only if you can as they are very different.

Hi emlaw - I responded above before realising who I was responding too! I may add that I think western would have suited me much more than dressage but it is too late to convert now. Perhaps given you are changing countries it would be fun to change riding styles too! Dressage is more popular here in Melbourne hence the reason for me taking it up but there are Western clinics and schools too - more so now than when I started with my horses here.

Hi Maggie - part of the reason for my question was that I know Western is reasonably popular in Australia and it would be good to have a go and see how it suits me when we move over there. I have ridden only English for over twenty years and it took me a long time to get the correct position - especially the lower leg, just wondered whether I might end up riding in mixed up style of no particular merit if I tried Western! I have seen Western riders do dressage moves though - have you seent he film 'Buck', about Buck Brannaman? It shows him doing some amazing moves on a Western trained horse.
It would also be hard to learn not to rise to the trot or to lean into a gallop. The man who recently bought my gelding tried him out first in my English saddle and just hated it, so he brought along his own saddle which is a hybrid stock endurance saddle (looks most like a Western, but smaller and lighter) and he found that much easier. In the case of a hybrid saddle like that, I wouldn't know which way to ride, probably most suited to Western. Perhaps when I get to Melbourne I need to try a few different riding styles, you are right, it will be fun!

While I have only ridden western, I was talking to a guy I know who trains his horses in western reining and sold a horse for a large sum of money to a man back in the Eastern U.S. The man had the horse at some kind of show and was approached by a woman who asked if she could ride the horse in an English Saddle. So she did and started jumping him, well he was so good at it that he's winning jumping competitions all over the U.S. The woman leases the horse from it's owner for $15,000.00 a year. So you can only imagine how much money he must be winning in competition. Anyway, I found it interesting that this horse that was only trained in western reining has taken so well to English jumping without any training at all.

As far as horses getting confused when changing back and forth between styles, I have a friend who does both with all her four horses and they seem perfectly OK with this. She competes successfully in dressage and show jumping as well as Western disciplines.

That is amazining Kicki. She must be very good and very versatile herself.