Instructions
Choose a Riding Discipline
Distinguish between Western riding and English riding styles. Western riding uses "cowboy" style tack, such as a saddle with a saddle horn. There are numerous western disciplines with their own tack sub-styles, types of horses and competitive events, including western pleasure, barrel racing, reining and others.
Recognize the different English disciplines. Hunt-seat riding is the style born of fox hunting. It is also the style of hunter-jumper show competition. Dressage is a non-jumping discipline that emphasizes strength and coordination of the horse and a highly-refined communication between horse and rider. Eventing combines training in dressage and jumping, and includes galloping and jumping on a cross-country course.
Decide what type of English riding you want to learn. Factors to consider are whether or not you intend to own a horse of your own, how many days a week you will be willing and able to train, your age and physical condition, whether you want to compete in an equestrian sport and what generally appeals to you about horses and riding.
Find a Trainer
Ask prospective trainers what style of English riding they do. A hunter-jumper person will train hunt-seat English riding, a dressage enthusiast dressage seat. An eventer will train and teach a combination of hunter seat and dressage, with a slightly different use of seat and legs than the hunt-seat rider. Choose a trainer who rides the style you want to learn.
Research the trainer's experience. This includes who he trained under, and the level at which he rides. A good trainer need not be a middle-aged person who has had horses for decades. He might be a young adult who rides competitively and himself has a good trainer.
Find out if the trainer has school horses available. School horses are well-trained, even-tempered animals who are used to dealing with beginner riders. School horses are the best for beginners to start on.
Learn the Basic English Riding Position
Sit in the saddle on the triangle formed by your hip bones and your pubic bone. This is the basic seat position for any English discipline.
Adjust the stirrup length so that there is a bend in your knee a bit wider than a 45-degree angle. Experienced dressage riders will ride with considerably longer stirrups and experienced jumpers with much shorter ones. Beginners will start in the middle. A common measure is to make the stirrup about the length of your arm, if your fist is over the stirrup bar and the stirrup is in your arm pit.
Look down at your knees. If you see your toes out in front of them, draw your leg back so that the toes disappear under your knees.
Draw your shoulders back and down. Move your upper body so that your shoulders, hips and heels are in alignment.
Let the weight fall down into your heels, so that the heels drop lower than the bar of the stirrup.
Position your hands over and a bit to each side of the horse's withers. Make a straight line from your elbow, to your hand, and to the horse's mouth along the reins. You are now sitting in a basic English riding position.
How to Do English Style Horseback Riding
English riding refers to several horse riding disciplines that originated in Europe. These include hunt-seat riding, dressage and eventing. In America, saddle-seat style riding is often referred to as "English" though it is primarily an American style. Generally, English riding is contrasted with Western riding disciplines.