Oooh hello everyone this is my first post on Studio Veena!!! I was interested in your equine thighs post…I ride, not much now as I have 3 kids, but I used to event here in the UK which is dressage, X country and show jumping. I now ride my daughters pony to keep it fit and train it for her to compete on, but I cannot afford to own a horse for myself at the moment plus I am so busy with my children and all the things that THEY do (pah!!!) I find pole dancing is ALOT cheaper, and sort of gives me a little of the adrenalin rush that I miss from eventing! I know quite alot of poledancers here in the UK that also pole and do it very well. We seem to have good core strength to start with, but interestingly just last night a group of us got together to practise pole and do stretching and we noticed that us horsey girls had pretty poor flexibility when it came to box splits…I reckon it is because when we ride we turn every thing in and grip around the horse, totally opposite to say ballet or other dance. One suggestion to improve our flexibility was to ride fatter horses!!!!…mmm not sure this is going to do much good lol, I'm sticking to Veena's stretches! I think riders especially pro 3 day event riders are seriously bad at thinking about their own fitness and flexibility, They are brilliant at getting the horses in first class condition, but the riders barely even bother to stretch or warm up, let alone do any kind of physical training (other than the riding) Here in the UK pilates is starting to get popular amongst eventers as a way of keeping in condition, but I think pole is also really excellent and really complements the muscles you use when riding too. I wonder if the British 3 Day Event team will start using pole as their official rider fitness training?!!!!!!