Which is better: English Riding or Western Riding??  

I'm not entirely sure I agree. There is a difference between being able to ride in the opposite saddle and riding good in the opposite saddle. To say western riders can not ride English is wrong. I know many people, who all their life rode western (did barrels to be specific), they later started doing dressage and hunter jumper. And they were good at it. So to say western riders can not convert while only English riders can is stretching it in my opinion. As for English riders being able to ride bareback, Western riders do too. I for one learned to ride bareback before I rode with a saddle, maybe I am a little backwards in my learning.

I'm sure they didn't just climb out of the Western saddle into dressage or jumping.

And I'm not saying that I could do barrel racing.

I'm just talking someone that had ridden Western all their lives and getting into an English saddle wouldn't do as well on a horse only trained to do English than a person who only had ridden English going into a Western saddle.

When I was a teen I was put on this big horse the owner of the stable bought at auction - he had been a cutting horse until a steer gored him and he couldn't be used with a Western saddle any more.

We were trying to retrain him to be used as a teaching horse (the English saddle fit right around the raised scar on his side.)

He knew NOTHING of the direct rein, so we had to give him strong indirect reining while also teaching him the direct rein - he was also pretty unsure about too much leg work that English used - when I first started riding him right after he came he'd nearly jump out of his skin if you used too much leg direction. He was also clueless as to what to do with anything that beginning jumping required. He'd just trot right through the cavalettes and small jumps. After a while he'd start looking at them and once started his jump so far back he landed in the middle of it.

I was one of the students that was used to help train him because I knew enough not to wreck him, but it was obvious that I was never going to be a great rider - no timing.

Ok, I think I see where you're coming from. Your saying that the training of English horses is totally different than the training of Western horses which I do agree. A friend of mine does Grand Prix Dressage (forgive me if I misspoke on that, I don't know much about it other than it's English) and she let me ride her school master horse. I could get him to walk, trot, and basic stuff like side pass but that was about it. That ties into what you said, I didn't know the commands where because they are very very specific compared to the Western riding I do.

On the same token, reining is a very command specific western training. To get the horse to slide stop and spin is fairly difficult. I would think anybody, western or English, who hasn't had that training would be hard-pressed to get that horse to perform.

This is true. Tho some horses just do these things. One horse I rode would do a sliding stop from a canter (lope) and dump people unless they learned to recognize her "trick".

I like your point that it really depends on what saddle you learned on. It makes sense that someone who has rode for 5 years in a western saddle may not adapt to an english saddle right away and visa versa. I've rode side saddle (in a western saddle) for fun out on trails, feels weird.

Yep, I agree, doing barrels in an English saddle isn't probably the best idea. On the same token, jumping in a Western saddle isn't a good idea either. I've taken a few horns to the stomach, doesn't feel too good.

Can i just say as im from the uk and do english and id like to point out that you can do barrel racing in english but its a mix of different types of mini competions and we call it gymkhana's or other people say pony club games. also english is just as comfortable hence why nearly all endurance is done is sometype of english tack. Also i think it also depend on the enviroment you were brought up in because if you were brought up in a western world were everyone did western it would feel weird to be the only one doing english and vice versa because theres a woman on our yard called jackie and shes from texas and her horse legs does western but she says she finds it harder to do over here as it just dosent feel right so like i said i think the enviroment unusually and as crazy as it sounds haas an effect!!!!!!!