WEG 2010: Dressage in Jeans

Reining | Not Exactly!

It's intermission time whilst we wait for the Eventing discipline to gather some pace and the horses to arrive at Kentucky and settle in. Today I rode the Great White Charger in jeans and long chaps as I tried out a new brand of French saddle making an appearance on the UK scene, and this got me thinking, one discipline I had absolutely no clue about was Reining, and boy was I surprised to find out what it's all about. I was expecting it to be more cowboys without the cows, more cowboy gymkhana, but....


It's one handed dressage on steroids, where riders can wear jeans, sparkly shirts and 10 gallon hats, and audience etiquette allows for whoops and whistling during the performances! They run set patterns or freestyle, a bit like dressage tests, with dizzy spins and slides stops. I'll bet polo ponies would be great at reining.

Brokeback Mountain gave us a whole new perspective on cowboys, and this rather quirky sport does too. It looks like a lot of fun, but rather than try and explain anymore, here's a video from the NRHA to do just that whilst we wait for the eventing action to start.....




Common Ground / About NRHA from NRHA on Vimeo.


And here's a video of Anky Van Grunsven, the dressage queen who'll be reining at WEG.

I'm up for any horse sport that doesn't require you to wear a silly number bib!