It’s always interesting to take a few moments when I’m working at a horse show to check out the competition. I mean the real competition – the riders who have trained long and hard and are now showing off their skills in the ring. Especially in dressage shows, but also at the lower level hunter/jumper shows – it is almost painfully obvious how few boys there are riding and competing!
It’s almost cliché – girls and their horses – but it’s really sad that (especially in North America it seems) hardly any boys are entering the sport. Most of the top competitors who are male and riding dressage got their basic training in Europe: Steffen Peters, Guenter Seidel, Tom Dvorak to name a few.
Riding is just not a ‘generally accepted politically correct sport’ for boys in North America it seems.
I grew up in Germany and I grew up on horseback. Almost all of my friends rode – and we started off together in pony camp. I also indulged in another ‘girly’ sport: ice dancing with my sister as my partner. (I am so glad that I had girls, because I would not have been a good ‘boy dad’ – I knew nothing of the classic North American sports when I came over; football, baseball, hockey… only soccer would have probably been an option!) I also thought I knew how to skate when I was invited for a couple of pick-up hockey games with ‘older’ neighbours (they were in their late 30s while I was early 20s). What I didn’t realize is that Canadian males are born with hockey skates on their feet; while I was a pretty good ice dancer they were the ones skating circles around me (I call them ‘pirouettes’).
But let’s examine the question a little closer concerning why boys specifically generally don’t ride. Beyond the ‘peer pressure’ issue of it not necessarily being a ‘macho’ sport, perhaps there are other reasons at play; issues that have to do with my favorite subject: saddle fit!
I conferred with my friend Dr. James Warson (author of “the Rider’s Pain-Free Back” and one of the only certified equestrian medical professionals in the industry – besides also being a Comanche warrior! – this man is seriously cool!). This is what he told me, and what I actually included in a chapter in my book.
“A young man’s testicles lie between his pelvis and the saddle. There are three muscular components in the testicles… Read the full blog here.
~ Jochen Schleese CMS, CSFT, CSE, courtesy of Saddlefit 4 Life
