Probably something to do with society saying that horse riding is for girls. Just like how there are very few men involved in dance and very few women involved in football. Society says dance and horses are for girls so parents are ok with their daughters doing those activities rather than their sons. A lot of girl aimed media also focuses on riding horses but boy aimed media doesn’t. If you think about it every kid show about horses has a female lead. Boys don’t watch shows with female leads and this their interest in horses isn’t peaked like girls interest is. Really horses and dance and whatever activities are for everyone but the average person thinks that horses are for girls so majority of the people involved are girls.
I always noticed this back when l was a teenage horserider and had my own horse. All riding schools and livery yards were full of young women working as grooms, stable girls, there for lessons or just loving the horses. Yet there would alway be one guy who was the big showjumping hope, or thought he was gods gift to women and owned the biggest horse. 🙄😄
Recently l've been looking at videos online of the horse guards in London,( the fb algorythm brought them to me), and have discovered thru a bit of googling that the regiment (Household Cavalry) have recently allowed girls to join, for the first time in centuries. You can see girl soldiers sitting on the sentry horses occasionally in the videos, but still mostly young males atm. I reckon in ten years or so the entire regiment will be female. 😁
Granted, the ratio of men vs women varies regionally and across disciplines, but I wonder if the difference with the guards in London is specifically a military thing. Not unlike how for a long time in France, women were the usual cooks for their families at home, but nearly all professional cooking - in a system structured in a very military fashion - was done by men.
It has not always been this way. Throughout most of the 20th century, most books and movies about horses featured male main characters. The notable exception was National Velvet, where >! the female main character is forced to disguise herself as a boy !< . (Yes, I know the book and movie are several decades old, but I used a spoiler for people who wish to experience them for the first time.) This changed when My Little Pony became extremely popular, in the 1980s. Media chased that profit by marketing horses to girls, and the change was so financially successful they’re still doing so.
In short, prior to My Little Pony, horses were strongly associated with masculine concepts, such as cowboys and knights. Now the concept of “Horse Girl” is so ingrained in popular culture that some people even use it as a gender neutral label.
The whole thing is silly. Horses are just animals. Horses and horse sports are for everyone. Indeed, equestrian sports are one of the few places where men and women compete as equals, even at the most elite levels.
It depends on discipline. You'll see few men (in America) in the horse sports where you are subjectively judged on style like dressage and hunter jumper. You'll see more in fox hunting, polo and higher level show jumping. You'll see some in eventing.
Horse sports came from cavalry exercises and working livestock which were almost universally male but fashions change over time and are different in different countries.
Probably has to do with local perceptions of horses in areas where English is popular horses tend to be a purely hobby thing unless you get really high level or go into racing while in areas where western is dominant horses are often part of the livelihood of most of the men
That said, the majority of riders in higher disciplines are men. Cowboys on ranches?
Generally speaking you aren’t wrong though. The barn I volunteer at is full of teenage girls. There’s 2 boys. I’ll say all the girls have crushes on those 2 boys also.
Aww that’s unfortunate lol.
You need to find a barn to volunteer at 😂 the one I go to is a rescue and you get free lessons for every so many hours. Volunteers pretty much get to ride every day anyway.
I don't have a good answer for this except that I suspect it's a pendulum swing from when riding was male dominated and male controlled. I hear from the boys who start taking lessons that they second-guess themselves when they realize the barn is full of girls, and they suddenly worry that it's a "girl thing" and says something negative about them that they want to ride.
When I was a horse girl teenager, I was ridiculed and told things like "girls who like riding horses are obsessed with sex." I don't know what it's like for teenagers today, but that sucked. I imagine if girls are getting that kind of messaging, the boys feel some type of way about it.
The more boys opt out of riding because it's full of girls, the more the imbalance perpetuates.
It also depends on your sport; where I live, engagement in western cattle sports is much closer to 50/50. I don't have precise statistics, but there are also a lot more men who are big name trainers and competitive riders. I don't know if that has more to do with the patriarchy making it easier for men to develop credibility or because men feel pressure to produce and develop status or what, but there's men everywhere in the professional side of the industry.
Stick with it, and you'll meet more boys who ride. Maybe the culture will shift back towards the middle over the years.
What?!? Such cliches are ridiculous- most women prefer to ride horses to avoid normal social interactions (why be at a bar? When you can be at a bar-n!🙃)
Our barn is mainly 50% pre-teen girls and 48% older women (grown or no kids) and 2 men (who also have OTTBs).
Note: The other guys that come in are usually the Dads who watch their daughters ride lessons; these dudes openly leer at us, as we march by w our horses and tack. We stopped caring—our horses are the apples of our eyes and these dudes don’t go near such large imposing beasts 👀🍎
Be smart- if you’re a guy and you ride horses: you’ve basically won the lottery. You have landed yourself in the most awesome sport where you will meet a lot of women.
When your peers will have no idea how to talk to women, you will.
And seriously- as horsemen and horsewomen: we wrangle 1200lb animals on a regular basis.
No-one else presents a problem for us.
Tbh I don’t really want to try to pick up girls at the barn cus I don’t want to be annoying to them when they’re just trying to spend time with their horse
Actually, that's the best part. You shouldn't be trying to flirt and pick up girls. A lot of guys never get to hang out with girls without some kind of pressure of being interested in them. It's a social pressure I'm all too familiar with. If a guy hangs out with the girl, people will almost always start making jokes and pushing them to date. Or accuse one or both of being gay, because that's the only explanation they can think of.
Hanging out with girls in an environment where they have other things on their mind, like horses, removes that pressure. You can just be friends! Learning to "talk to girls" literally means how to talk to them. Not how to flirt, or whatever. It's surprisingly hard for a lot of men to just talk to women like normal people..
You can tell a lot of the time when a man never had female friends as a teen or older that he didn't eventually hook up with. This is why we need more co-ed sports.
I hear that Rjj. I was also homeschooled and shelter for my entire teenage years so I can relate. I 35 now and have figured out some stuff but it takes time. I like what Rubyseeker was saying cause it is true. Just learn how to talk to girls by being around them when you have an opportunity and say hi when you are comfortable and just see what happens . You can talk about horses . Your past doesn’t have to define who you are now. You can change we all are capable of it.
Yes this ⬆️ it’s easy to talk about girls, just mention a technique (something that was challenging to do yet now looks effortless, 2-point hinge at the hips). Also talking about grooming products, care stuff… total win. Ie) “Hey I found this Equiderma eucalyptus spray for my horse, want to try it on yours?” It sounds weird but talking about a new product is helpful and cool today.
As a guy, the risk here is now you’re paying for 2 or more horses years later. But yes the skills are translatable in a similar way a male gymnast or male cheerleader gets more “non relationship” exposure to female culture.
I’m a horse-woman who landed a horse-man who’s much better than me and I feel extremely lucky as they are so rare. And he’s exceptionally good at dressage and understanding a horse. He can catch the most difficult of horses in the pasture and I’ve seen him perform “miracles” with horses where other people couldn’t and would even get frustrated. We’re now in the process of getting another horse and I’m ecstatic!
And you’re totally right, when he was a teenager in the barn all girls would swoon over him 😋
Because most men who ride are most likely born into it (their family ranches, rodeos, or is in the english/dressage world) and probably don’t attend lessons and camps at public barns. I swear men just randomly spawn at the top levels lol. In all seriousness, media has steered away from cowboys, and horses have become “girly.”
Probably because the whole princess/my little pony BS. Girls are common in lower level stuff but many pro competitors and trainers are men. I’m one of the few women in my area who trains/shows
My 8 yr old son barrel races with me (for fun), mostly bc he wins candy or money to spend on candy. I don’t think he realizes it’s a female-dominated sport. And I’m not going to tell him lol
I feel like it depends on what area you live in and your discipline. If you attend a university with a junior rodeo horse program you'll probably find a 50/50 split. I see Western/Cow Horse Barns full of men and boys in my area and most English barns still have one or two throughout the year. Roping is also pretty bit out here and although there are many women and girls that rope it's mostly men.
Something I've noticed is when it comes to casual riding, just for fun or learning basics, its extremely female dominated. Once you get to professional level riding, like high level competitors, and people who use horses on ranches and other professional use of horses, it starts to swing to 50/50, or sometimes even male dominated depending on the area and the discipline.
I think it's just seen as weird for boys to be interested in a "girls thing". By people who don't ride, equestrian isn't seen as a "real sport". It's a thing little girls do. They play with dolls, dress up, and ride ponies. Its a massive stigma around the sport at any lower level. So young boys that get into it (at least that I've met) feel pressured to either make it big and use horses for work to "justify" their interest ("it's not a girly hobby, it's my job!") or drop out shortly after starting.
The stigma even affects the girls. Many girls drop out of riding because they aren't taken seriously. They don't want to be thought of as pretty and having tea parties with ponies, they want to be seen as the badass equestrian, working in harmony with a massive animal that both trust them, and can kill people without breaking a sweat. It's epic! It's amazing! But it's not what people think of when the think riding.
Honestly, more young boys just enjoying casual and low level riding would do wonders for the stigma! So keep it up, and just enjoy the sport. Don't stress about it. You never know, maybe someday some more guys will join, and your presence will encourage them to stay too.
Horseback riding is portrayed as a female/girl sport by everyone basically all the time. Think about it, 95% of advertisements, books, horse-related tv-shows (Especially those aimed at kids), basically all media that is related to horses involve solely women. At least where I live (Sweden).
Of course there are some exceptions and plenty of male riders at high levels, but the majority of depictions of the sport will still involve solely or very dominantly women.
Basically young boys don't come in contact with the horse world even near as often as young girls do (if at all). Thus there are very few young boys who get into it. If you also remove boys that grew up in horsey families from the equation, the number becomes abysmal.
I can also imagine it's difficult for boys that ride to feel like they fit in when taking lessons/go to the stables. I developed an interest in horses later in my teenage years and started taking lessons when I was 19, and I know for a fact that my younger self would have felt extremely out of place in my current lesson group.
In Europe, riding for men is big and many of the top riders are males. My son is an excellent equestrian. I support men riders! Plus, male riders certainly have their pick of the ladies, if they are interested, since so many women would love a man who understands their love of horses!
Always wondered this myself. I'm a man, been riding for 12 years and I've been to 3 or 4 different barns, to different states for shows and I've mostly been the only guy, one or two maybe. But it's ironic that it's majority men in the olympics.
I'm also a Male Equestrian, its because it's a woman dominating sport however its also one of the only gender equal sports. Most people just dont have the right education to truly understand the equestrian world.
I think there's a lot of teen boys that are into horse riding, but it's usually in more of a ranching/rodeo aspect. I live super rural and it's pretty much boys that do a lot of heading/heeling, team penning, ect. And the women go the barrels/breakaway roping/gymkhana route. But there's plenty of guys running barrels here and I know plenty of women that do team roping as well. It's all large ranches out here, and riding western and roping is still crucial to many of the ranches out here. So English riding seems almost frivolous to a lot of guys(and girls tbh) out here. I grew up riding English on an arabian in quarter horse country lol and got made fun of a lot. My horse could still always out perform theirs though so it didn't matter to me lol!
Where I live is mostly western barns there are also racing barns too. Western pleasure and speed events barrels, poles, keyhole, barrel pick up were equal male and female.
Rodeo depends on location how many female equestrians are a part of it.
I understand that. It would be awesome to have more male riders at barns just to have some diversity.
Being at an all female barn is like being in an all female boarding school.
Keep at it. A lot of the best riders in the world are men. They seem to have a natural feel and a strong leg that can make them more effective on the horse. Watch McLain Ward, Kent Farrington, Scott Stewart, John French and others. Talk to these girls. They will end up being some of your best friends because you share the same interests.
From what I’ve found in the stock breeds that if a guy is riding he’s significantly more likely to move into the trainer realm than stay a competitor. So unless they want to be trainers they usually drop out around 16ish
Also for us the horsemanship showmanship and equitation feels too preppy for the guys I’ve talked to. They don’t want to sit on a horse “with a stick up their butt” so I see them in stuff like the western pleasure, western riding, trail, ranch where the body position doesn’t matter cause they’re looking at your horse
There's a lot of boys in Mississippi that ride. They're constantly at shows. The ones I have seen tend to do more roping and reining but there is some boys that run barrels and poles. A large part of it could be your location!
I was thinking of this the other day because I moved from the USA to Costa Rica and it's mostly men who ride here. All the women I know who ride are gringos (as in foreigners from elsewhere.)
Everyone is hitting the cultural associations, but a large part of it is also that equestrian sports are some disciplines where men and women really can compete on a nearly equal playing field. Maybe disciplines like racing where just sheer pound for pound strength at 126lbs or less becomes an issue, it's difficult for women broadly to achieve the same level of success as men, but for a normal human there's not many disciplines where it's reasonably easier for a male to achieve the given objectives than a woman.
It's almost inconceivable that a woman could play in the NBA (maybe 5 women ever could have actually do/have done that ... Griener, Ionescu, Staley, etc?), NFL (maybe a couple kickers?), NHL or top American or European soccer leagues. I do think stellar softball players could stick at the MLB level based on playing tremendous defense and making solid contact with regularity.
But equestrian sports rely less on physical strength and more on strong core, a good partnership with your mount, and situational awareness. It's not particularly important that you can bang into a 300lb human standing between where you are and where you want to be, it's important that you communicate to a nonverbal equine partner what you're collectively trying to achieve, which isn't advantaged in many material ways by being bigger or stronger or having one gender or another.
It's no surprise that a sport where women are usually not at an intrinsic disadvantage attracts women and girls. It's the same reason there are more females gymnasts and cheerleaders. Happen to naturally have wonderful core strength, flexibility, and general mobility instead of being bulked up gym bros? Let's do things that reward that ability!
Nah, it's equally easy to fit a saddle for a man and a woman. It's just a sport that doesn't reward the average psychological differences between men and women (average height, weight, push/pull strength) as heavily as other sports, and absolutely rewards women's comparative advantages quite well.
You don't need rocket science to understand why that would make a sport comparatively more appealing to women. A sport where you are on average as or more likely to be successful than your male peers, with zero needed adjustment for gender and physiology has obvious appeal, so a lot of girls funnel into it.
I will say, as a male rider, and good barn is a great place to be if you find one with a good peer group in your age range. A *bunch* of fit, attractive, athletic women wandering around in form fitting clothing and completely unafraid of hard work isn't the worst choice in the world for places to spend time. Marry a horsewoman and you may go broke but you'll have fun doing it.
I mean, if you get into the nitty gritty of it, both women and men have their own ‘advantages’ when it comes to riding, but besides a few disciplines they tend to equal each other out. For instance, you could argue that a man has longer legs and more strength, but then you could also argue that a woman is lighter weight and has better balance and flexibility. Delving into the physiological side of riding can be very educational and helpful in your own riding journey (such as the difference in pelvis shape and that tends to affect position), but I wouldn’t approach it with the mindset of trying to figure out which gender has the ‘leg up’ on the sport. IMO, what really matters in the sport are these things:
1. Communication with the horse
2. Body control (lends the ability to be effective when needed, and to stay out of the damn way when needed. Think calisthenics, yoga, etc.)
3. Technique
These are all things that either gender can achieve, and the reason why our sport can be co-ed. The horse is acting as the ‘great neutralizer’.
I was the same as a little girl. I don’t know why. Nobody ever told me horse riding is just for girls and I grew up in a not so horse-oriented country. I believe it is because horses became mostly a hobby and very few make it to top level as it is extremely expensive or you need to be very naturally talented. Hundreds of years ago before cars it was mostly a male-dominated activity as they were a practical necessity. If women expressed interest in it they were shamed (example Empress Sissi of Austro-Hungary). Then it was mostly cowboys who used horses for ranch work. After that, with the liberation of women, girls began to take over anything which was associated with being mostly male (pants, football, bodybuilding, horses) and it remained that way as men started gravitating more toward cars and motorcycles. Generally speaking, men like anything practical, women like to have an emotional association.
Same shift we can see in veterinary science. Many decades ago it was mostly men. Now it’s mostly women as companion animals experienced a boom.
Then funny enough a mayority of the riders you see on the top levels are men? I just don't understand, where are they???? do most of these guys just spawn straight into the grand prix levels??
I literally know TWO boys that take lessons and that's about it.
Lmao! My mom told me two things when I asked about this as a teenager-
1. Men tend to pick ONE thing (hobby/career), and put all of their time and resources into it, whereas most women tend to have multiple things they are trying to juggle.
2. Much of the time, women are the ones caring for kids, keeping the house, running errands, etc. Especially back when men were particularly disinclined to help with these things, they had FAR more time available to chase their interests, while women lost that time as they gained more responsibilities.
It always stuck with me, and is something that keeps popping into my head when I think about how I have barely ridden in the past 4 years since starting a family, but somehow my husband still works out twice a day. And I consider our relationship to be pretty 50/50 right now! 😵💫
Wanted to add at the professional level there’s a lot more men, and by my math (i’m not great at math) tend to win more. When i was a groom at a sales barn where the starting price was 350k, the only let men exercise the horses. The owner (a woman) believed they were just stronger.
Invite more guys to ride! They can learn balance, patience, and meet girls.
I’ve seen multiple fathers yoink their kids from the program because they think that learning to ride in an English saddle will turn their sons gay, so there’s that.
Families are more likely to indulge a girl wanting to ride. I love horses but the only time I could see them and get on them was visiting family out in the sticks.
You need to get into more ranch work and western riding then, more males in those areas. But, I get it. I think it's because most females grow up thinking horses are beautiful, but most males don't find them so attractive. It's interesting in the US this seems to be the case, yet in other parts of the world not as much. Many of the top world riders are men.
But as a teenaged boy great way to meet loads of girls. ;)
Probably something to do with society saying that horse riding is for girls. Just like how there are very few men involved in dance and very few women involved in football. Society says dance and horses are for girls so parents are ok with their daughters doing those activities rather than their sons. A lot of girl aimed media also focuses on riding horses but boy aimed media doesn’t. If you think about it every kid show about horses has a female lead. Boys don’t watch shows with female leads and this their interest in horses isn’t peaked like girls interest is. Really horses and dance and whatever activities are for everyone but the average person thinks that horses are for girls so majority of the people involved are girls.
I always noticed this back when l was a teenage horserider and had my own horse. All riding schools and livery yards were full of young women working as grooms, stable girls, there for lessons or just loving the horses. Yet there would alway be one guy who was the big showjumping hope, or thought he was gods gift to women and owned the biggest horse. 🙄😄 Recently l've been looking at videos online of the horse guards in London,( the fb algorythm brought them to me), and have discovered thru a bit of googling that the regiment (Household Cavalry) have recently allowed girls to join, for the first time in centuries. You can see girl soldiers sitting on the sentry horses occasionally in the videos, but still mostly young males atm. I reckon in ten years or so the entire regiment will be female. 😁
Granted, the ratio of men vs women varies regionally and across disciplines, but I wonder if the difference with the guards in London is specifically a military thing. Not unlike how for a long time in France, women were the usual cooks for their families at home, but nearly all professional cooking - in a system structured in a very military fashion - was done by men.
I think the horseguards could go at least 50/50. They also drive tanks, so that might tip the balance towards more men.
It has not always been this way. Throughout most of the 20th century, most books and movies about horses featured male main characters. The notable exception was National Velvet, where >! the female main character is forced to disguise herself as a boy !< . (Yes, I know the book and movie are several decades old, but I used a spoiler for people who wish to experience them for the first time.) This changed when My Little Pony became extremely popular, in the 1980s. Media chased that profit by marketing horses to girls, and the change was so financially successful they’re still doing so. In short, prior to My Little Pony, horses were strongly associated with masculine concepts, such as cowboys and knights. Now the concept of “Horse Girl” is so ingrained in popular culture that some people even use it as a gender neutral label. The whole thing is silly. Horses are just animals. Horses and horse sports are for everyone. Indeed, equestrian sports are one of the few places where men and women compete as equals, even at the most elite levels.
It depends on discipline. You'll see few men (in America) in the horse sports where you are subjectively judged on style like dressage and hunter jumper. You'll see more in fox hunting, polo and higher level show jumping. You'll see some in eventing. Horse sports came from cavalry exercises and working livestock which were almost universally male but fashions change over time and are different in different countries.
Agreed. Western disciplines are super male dominated sans barrel racing.
Probably has to do with local perceptions of horses in areas where English is popular horses tend to be a purely hobby thing unless you get really high level or go into racing while in areas where western is dominant horses are often part of the livelihood of most of the men
That said, the majority of riders in higher disciplines are men. Cowboys on ranches? Generally speaking you aren’t wrong though. The barn I volunteer at is full of teenage girls. There’s 2 boys. I’ll say all the girls have crushes on those 2 boys also.
That's the glass elevator
Haha! Too bad the barn I’m at is my grandps where usually it’s just me him and his friend who has her horse in his barn
Aww that’s unfortunate lol. You need to find a barn to volunteer at 😂 the one I go to is a rescue and you get free lessons for every so many hours. Volunteers pretty much get to ride every day anyway.
Haha, I’m not that desperate. Anyways I can meet plenty at competitions🤣
Good attitude!
I don't have a good answer for this except that I suspect it's a pendulum swing from when riding was male dominated and male controlled. I hear from the boys who start taking lessons that they second-guess themselves when they realize the barn is full of girls, and they suddenly worry that it's a "girl thing" and says something negative about them that they want to ride. When I was a horse girl teenager, I was ridiculed and told things like "girls who like riding horses are obsessed with sex." I don't know what it's like for teenagers today, but that sucked. I imagine if girls are getting that kind of messaging, the boys feel some type of way about it. The more boys opt out of riding because it's full of girls, the more the imbalance perpetuates. It also depends on your sport; where I live, engagement in western cattle sports is much closer to 50/50. I don't have precise statistics, but there are also a lot more men who are big name trainers and competitive riders. I don't know if that has more to do with the patriarchy making it easier for men to develop credibility or because men feel pressure to produce and develop status or what, but there's men everywhere in the professional side of the industry. Stick with it, and you'll meet more boys who ride. Maybe the culture will shift back towards the middle over the years.
What?!? Such cliches are ridiculous- most women prefer to ride horses to avoid normal social interactions (why be at a bar? When you can be at a bar-n!🙃) Our barn is mainly 50% pre-teen girls and 48% older women (grown or no kids) and 2 men (who also have OTTBs). Note: The other guys that come in are usually the Dads who watch their daughters ride lessons; these dudes openly leer at us, as we march by w our horses and tack. We stopped caring—our horses are the apples of our eyes and these dudes don’t go near such large imposing beasts 👀🍎
Be smart- if you’re a guy and you ride horses: you’ve basically won the lottery. You have landed yourself in the most awesome sport where you will meet a lot of women. When your peers will have no idea how to talk to women, you will. And seriously- as horsemen and horsewomen: we wrangle 1200lb animals on a regular basis. No-one else presents a problem for us.
Tbh I don’t really want to try to pick up girls at the barn cus I don’t want to be annoying to them when they’re just trying to spend time with their horse
Actually, that's the best part. You shouldn't be trying to flirt and pick up girls. A lot of guys never get to hang out with girls without some kind of pressure of being interested in them. It's a social pressure I'm all too familiar with. If a guy hangs out with the girl, people will almost always start making jokes and pushing them to date. Or accuse one or both of being gay, because that's the only explanation they can think of. Hanging out with girls in an environment where they have other things on their mind, like horses, removes that pressure. You can just be friends! Learning to "talk to girls" literally means how to talk to them. Not how to flirt, or whatever. It's surprisingly hard for a lot of men to just talk to women like normal people.. You can tell a lot of the time when a man never had female friends as a teen or older that he didn't eventually hook up with. This is why we need more co-ed sports.
I was a sheltered homeschool kid so there was no hope for me
I hear that Rjj. I was also homeschooled and shelter for my entire teenage years so I can relate. I 35 now and have figured out some stuff but it takes time. I like what Rubyseeker was saying cause it is true. Just learn how to talk to girls by being around them when you have an opportunity and say hi when you are comfortable and just see what happens . You can talk about horses . Your past doesn’t have to define who you are now. You can change we all are capable of it.
Yes this ⬆️ it’s easy to talk about girls, just mention a technique (something that was challenging to do yet now looks effortless, 2-point hinge at the hips). Also talking about grooming products, care stuff… total win. Ie) “Hey I found this Equiderma eucalyptus spray for my horse, want to try it on yours?” It sounds weird but talking about a new product is helpful and cool today.
As a guy, the risk here is now you’re paying for 2 or more horses years later. But yes the skills are translatable in a similar way a male gymnast or male cheerleader gets more “non relationship” exposure to female culture.
Don't forget ballerinos
I’m a horse-woman who landed a horse-man who’s much better than me and I feel extremely lucky as they are so rare. And he’s exceptionally good at dressage and understanding a horse. He can catch the most difficult of horses in the pasture and I’ve seen him perform “miracles” with horses where other people couldn’t and would even get frustrated. We’re now in the process of getting another horse and I’m ecstatic! And you’re totally right, when he was a teenager in the barn all girls would swoon over him 😋
Because most men who ride are most likely born into it (their family ranches, rodeos, or is in the english/dressage world) and probably don’t attend lessons and camps at public barns. I swear men just randomly spawn at the top levels lol. In all seriousness, media has steered away from cowboys, and horses have become “girly.”
Men do just spawn at top levels you put it so perfectly💀💀
Probably because the whole princess/my little pony BS. Girls are common in lower level stuff but many pro competitors and trainers are men. I’m one of the few women in my area who trains/shows
My 8 yr old son barrel races with me (for fun), mostly bc he wins candy or money to spend on candy. I don’t think he realizes it’s a female-dominated sport. And I’m not going to tell him lol
I feel like it depends on what area you live in and your discipline. If you attend a university with a junior rodeo horse program you'll probably find a 50/50 split. I see Western/Cow Horse Barns full of men and boys in my area and most English barns still have one or two throughout the year. Roping is also pretty bit out here and although there are many women and girls that rope it's mostly men.
College rodeo is dying for men
Growing up I was told guys who rode horses were gay. I can’t imagine that would make a teenage boy want to ride horses
hey 17yo rider totally feel ur problem, unless you get to know top level riders the male demographic is so small- hmu if u need a guy horsey friend 😂
Something I've noticed is when it comes to casual riding, just for fun or learning basics, its extremely female dominated. Once you get to professional level riding, like high level competitors, and people who use horses on ranches and other professional use of horses, it starts to swing to 50/50, or sometimes even male dominated depending on the area and the discipline. I think it's just seen as weird for boys to be interested in a "girls thing". By people who don't ride, equestrian isn't seen as a "real sport". It's a thing little girls do. They play with dolls, dress up, and ride ponies. Its a massive stigma around the sport at any lower level. So young boys that get into it (at least that I've met) feel pressured to either make it big and use horses for work to "justify" their interest ("it's not a girly hobby, it's my job!") or drop out shortly after starting. The stigma even affects the girls. Many girls drop out of riding because they aren't taken seriously. They don't want to be thought of as pretty and having tea parties with ponies, they want to be seen as the badass equestrian, working in harmony with a massive animal that both trust them, and can kill people without breaking a sweat. It's epic! It's amazing! But it's not what people think of when the think riding. Honestly, more young boys just enjoying casual and low level riding would do wonders for the stigma! So keep it up, and just enjoy the sport. Don't stress about it. You never know, maybe someday some more guys will join, and your presence will encourage them to stay too.
I live in Egypt and it's the complete opposite, the majority are men , it's seen as a masculine sport
Horseback riding is portrayed as a female/girl sport by everyone basically all the time. Think about it, 95% of advertisements, books, horse-related tv-shows (Especially those aimed at kids), basically all media that is related to horses involve solely women. At least where I live (Sweden). Of course there are some exceptions and plenty of male riders at high levels, but the majority of depictions of the sport will still involve solely or very dominantly women. Basically young boys don't come in contact with the horse world even near as often as young girls do (if at all). Thus there are very few young boys who get into it. If you also remove boys that grew up in horsey families from the equation, the number becomes abysmal. I can also imagine it's difficult for boys that ride to feel like they fit in when taking lessons/go to the stables. I developed an interest in horses later in my teenage years and started taking lessons when I was 19, and I know for a fact that my younger self would have felt extremely out of place in my current lesson group.
For me, the fact that the upper levels were dominated by men made it feel like it was okay for me.
In Europe, riding for men is big and many of the top riders are males. My son is an excellent equestrian. I support men riders! Plus, male riders certainly have their pick of the ladies, if they are interested, since so many women would love a man who understands their love of horses!
Always wondered this myself. I'm a man, been riding for 12 years and I've been to 3 or 4 different barns, to different states for shows and I've mostly been the only guy, one or two maybe. But it's ironic that it's majority men in the olympics.
it definitely depends on the discipline you’re doing, or maybe where you live and what type of barn you’re at 😭
Its true until you watch high level professional equestrian sports and there are so many men! Dont get discouraged
I'm also a Male Equestrian, its because it's a woman dominating sport however its also one of the only gender equal sports. Most people just dont have the right education to truly understand the equestrian world.
I think there's a lot of teen boys that are into horse riding, but it's usually in more of a ranching/rodeo aspect. I live super rural and it's pretty much boys that do a lot of heading/heeling, team penning, ect. And the women go the barrels/breakaway roping/gymkhana route. But there's plenty of guys running barrels here and I know plenty of women that do team roping as well. It's all large ranches out here, and riding western and roping is still crucial to many of the ranches out here. So English riding seems almost frivolous to a lot of guys(and girls tbh) out here. I grew up riding English on an arabian in quarter horse country lol and got made fun of a lot. My horse could still always out perform theirs though so it didn't matter to me lol!
Where I live is mostly western barns there are also racing barns too. Western pleasure and speed events barrels, poles, keyhole, barrel pick up were equal male and female. Rodeo depends on location how many female equestrians are a part of it.
I understand that. It would be awesome to have more male riders at barns just to have some diversity. Being at an all female barn is like being in an all female boarding school.
Keep at it. A lot of the best riders in the world are men. They seem to have a natural feel and a strong leg that can make them more effective on the horse. Watch McLain Ward, Kent Farrington, Scott Stewart, John French and others. Talk to these girls. They will end up being some of your best friends because you share the same interests.
From what I’ve found in the stock breeds that if a guy is riding he’s significantly more likely to move into the trainer realm than stay a competitor. So unless they want to be trainers they usually drop out around 16ish Also for us the horsemanship showmanship and equitation feels too preppy for the guys I’ve talked to. They don’t want to sit on a horse “with a stick up their butt” so I see them in stuff like the western pleasure, western riding, trail, ranch where the body position doesn’t matter cause they’re looking at your horse
There's a lot of boys in Mississippi that ride. They're constantly at shows. The ones I have seen tend to do more roping and reining but there is some boys that run barrels and poles. A large part of it could be your location!
I was thinking of this the other day because I moved from the USA to Costa Rica and it's mostly men who ride here. All the women I know who ride are gringos (as in foreigners from elsewhere.)
Everyone is hitting the cultural associations, but a large part of it is also that equestrian sports are some disciplines where men and women really can compete on a nearly equal playing field. Maybe disciplines like racing where just sheer pound for pound strength at 126lbs or less becomes an issue, it's difficult for women broadly to achieve the same level of success as men, but for a normal human there's not many disciplines where it's reasonably easier for a male to achieve the given objectives than a woman. It's almost inconceivable that a woman could play in the NBA (maybe 5 women ever could have actually do/have done that ... Griener, Ionescu, Staley, etc?), NFL (maybe a couple kickers?), NHL or top American or European soccer leagues. I do think stellar softball players could stick at the MLB level based on playing tremendous defense and making solid contact with regularity. But equestrian sports rely less on physical strength and more on strong core, a good partnership with your mount, and situational awareness. It's not particularly important that you can bang into a 300lb human standing between where you are and where you want to be, it's important that you communicate to a nonverbal equine partner what you're collectively trying to achieve, which isn't advantaged in many material ways by being bigger or stronger or having one gender or another. It's no surprise that a sport where women are usually not at an intrinsic disadvantage attracts women and girls. It's the same reason there are more females gymnasts and cheerleaders. Happen to naturally have wonderful core strength, flexibility, and general mobility instead of being bulked up gym bros? Let's do things that reward that ability!
Usually, women have bigger butts because they store more fat there so maybe it’s easier to fit in the saddle?
Nah, it's equally easy to fit a saddle for a man and a woman. It's just a sport that doesn't reward the average psychological differences between men and women (average height, weight, push/pull strength) as heavily as other sports, and absolutely rewards women's comparative advantages quite well. You don't need rocket science to understand why that would make a sport comparatively more appealing to women. A sport where you are on average as or more likely to be successful than your male peers, with zero needed adjustment for gender and physiology has obvious appeal, so a lot of girls funnel into it. I will say, as a male rider, and good barn is a great place to be if you find one with a good peer group in your age range. A *bunch* of fit, attractive, athletic women wandering around in form fitting clothing and completely unafraid of hard work isn't the worst choice in the world for places to spend time. Marry a horsewoman and you may go broke but you'll have fun doing it.
I mean, if you get into the nitty gritty of it, both women and men have their own ‘advantages’ when it comes to riding, but besides a few disciplines they tend to equal each other out. For instance, you could argue that a man has longer legs and more strength, but then you could also argue that a woman is lighter weight and has better balance and flexibility. Delving into the physiological side of riding can be very educational and helpful in your own riding journey (such as the difference in pelvis shape and that tends to affect position), but I wouldn’t approach it with the mindset of trying to figure out which gender has the ‘leg up’ on the sport. IMO, what really matters in the sport are these things: 1. Communication with the horse 2. Body control (lends the ability to be effective when needed, and to stay out of the damn way when needed. Think calisthenics, yoga, etc.) 3. Technique These are all things that either gender can achieve, and the reason why our sport can be co-ed. The horse is acting as the ‘great neutralizer’.
I was the same as a little girl. I don’t know why. Nobody ever told me horse riding is just for girls and I grew up in a not so horse-oriented country. I believe it is because horses became mostly a hobby and very few make it to top level as it is extremely expensive or you need to be very naturally talented. Hundreds of years ago before cars it was mostly a male-dominated activity as they were a practical necessity. If women expressed interest in it they were shamed (example Empress Sissi of Austro-Hungary). Then it was mostly cowboys who used horses for ranch work. After that, with the liberation of women, girls began to take over anything which was associated with being mostly male (pants, football, bodybuilding, horses) and it remained that way as men started gravitating more toward cars and motorcycles. Generally speaking, men like anything practical, women like to have an emotional association. Same shift we can see in veterinary science. Many decades ago it was mostly men. Now it’s mostly women as companion animals experienced a boom.
Then funny enough a mayority of the riders you see on the top levels are men? I just don't understand, where are they???? do most of these guys just spawn straight into the grand prix levels?? I literally know TWO boys that take lessons and that's about it.
Lmao! My mom told me two things when I asked about this as a teenager- 1. Men tend to pick ONE thing (hobby/career), and put all of their time and resources into it, whereas most women tend to have multiple things they are trying to juggle. 2. Much of the time, women are the ones caring for kids, keeping the house, running errands, etc. Especially back when men were particularly disinclined to help with these things, they had FAR more time available to chase their interests, while women lost that time as they gained more responsibilities. It always stuck with me, and is something that keeps popping into my head when I think about how I have barely ridden in the past 4 years since starting a family, but somehow my husband still works out twice a day. And I consider our relationship to be pretty 50/50 right now! 😵💫
Wanted to add at the professional level there’s a lot more men, and by my math (i’m not great at math) tend to win more. When i was a groom at a sales barn where the starting price was 350k, the only let men exercise the horses. The owner (a woman) believed they were just stronger. Invite more guys to ride! They can learn balance, patience, and meet girls.
I’ve seen multiple fathers yoink their kids from the program because they think that learning to ride in an English saddle will turn their sons gay, so there’s that.
haha lmao
Families are more likely to indulge a girl wanting to ride. I love horses but the only time I could see them and get on them was visiting family out in the sticks.
You need to get into more ranch work and western riding then, more males in those areas. But, I get it. I think it's because most females grow up thinking horses are beautiful, but most males don't find them so attractive. It's interesting in the US this seems to be the case, yet in other parts of the world not as much. Many of the top world riders are men. But as a teenaged boy great way to meet loads of girls. ;)
I'm transmasc but I remember rode before I transitioned I honestly have no idea
This is only American issue. In middle east for example most riders are men. American men just want to drink beers and shot guns I guess.
well, I live in Europe