Don't Take the Easy Route

It is often rumored that Engish riding is more difficult than Western riding. English riding requires a new rider to coordinate multiple skills (reins, balance, legs) in order to successfully control the horse. This can be quite complicated for a new rider and will likely take a great deal of practice and lessons to master. In Western riding, however, it is a lot easier to get started without as much intensive instruction. If you want to learn to ride but are not sure what style you are more interested in, it's a good idea to take English lessons. Once you have gotten used to the multiple skills involved with English riding and you can tolerate the considerably smaller saddle (English saddles are noticeably smaller than Western ones) switching to Western will be a fairly simple process. On the other hand, if you try to go from Western to English you will basically have to learn from scratch.