History of Western Riding in Finland

Finland is perhaps best known for its beautiful nature: vast forests, unique archipelago and thousands of lakes. Finland is also a modern Nordic country with a high standard of living and advanced technology. The main economic phenomenon of the last two decades has been the rise of telecommunications giant Nokia and the industrial cluster surrounding the IT business.

Western riding took first big step in Finland in the year 1990. An American rodeo show visited Finland. Some people fascinated by the cowboy romance bought some of their horses and started to ride cowboy way. Same year Western Riders Finland was founded. They started to publish a magazine called Western Rider. First western clinics were organized same year and ever since foreign trainers from Germany, Sweden, Belgium, Poland, etc have visited Finland regularly. Since 1994 western riding has been one of the formal disciplines acknowledged by the Equestrian Federation of Finland. Finnish Quarter Horse Association was founded 1997 and Finnish Paint Horse Association was founded 2004.

Riverside Western Weekend in Hyvinkää 12. - 13.8.2006

Competitions in Western riding has been very modest and on national level only. 2005 were the first AQHA and NRHA shows in Finland. The shows were warmly welcomed and in 2006 the Finnish western riders could compete in AQHA, APHA and NRHA shows. The first national championship were held in 1999. The disciplines were Western Pleasure, Western Horsemanship and Trail. Other disciplines in Finnish western shows are Reining, Western Riding, Versatile Horse, Ranch Trail and Halter classes. There have even been Pole Bending and Barrel Racing competitions. Reining has become more and more popular in recent years. People have started to import good reining horses. Equestrian Federation of Finland has decided to organize national championship in Reining in the year 2007.

Oliver Salzmann in Elimäki 13. - 14.1.2007 (-2 degrees of Celsius)

In Finland there are over 200 western horses at the moment (quarters, paints, appaloosas) plus quite many horses of mixed breed which are western trained. The amount of quarter horses, Paint and Appaloosas has rapidly grown thanks to Finnish breeders and the possibility to import from Germany and Sweden. We have about 500 western riders in Finland.

Western Show in Hyvinkää 14.8.2004

In wintertime western riders have to meet new challenges: snow, icy and hard grounds, low temperatures and freezing winds. Because ground is very often slippery, you must have studs on horseshoes. With studs you can ride outside in snowy forest and icy lakesides. But reiners can’t practice sliding stops because of the studs. Some reiners are using studs with normal sliding shoes. Then you can unscrew them whenever you want to practice your stops. And that’s not a big job if you do it for example once a week.

Outdoor arenas are good for training if there is enough snow to make it soft. But you must limit your exercise to basic things: walk, jog and lope. Without snow outdoor arenas are too hard to ride and then you need access to a indoor arena. Otherwise your winter season (from 4 to 5 months) is limited to trail riding. But normally there is enough snow at least 3 months and with a little luck your outdoor arena in unusable only few weeks in a year. But there are a lot of indoor arenas in Finland so that’s not a big problem. If temperature is below -15 C, you can only walk and jog.

Winter riding in northern Finland

Western riding in Finland has started to developed faster in recent years. It seems that we have a good future and specially reining is becoming more and more popular sport. On few occasions western riding has been in our national TV and number of riders is growing all the time.

Coming to get his ribbon ...

In Finland:        Western Ranches