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Some horses get neck reining very quickly, some take a while.

If you can steer them using mostly your legs, it should be easier. Just use your legs and neck rein them whenever you are warming up, cooling down, or taking a break, etc. Then go back to 2 hands for the harder work.

Most of the cues are the same as english, squeeze your legs to move forward, outside leg to canter or lope, sit deep with some rein contact to stop or slow down, etc. You'll find you just cue your horse a little differently. For instance, stopping a western horse, you usually sit back more, and put your legs in front of you so all your weight is back, because in western you are "supposed to" have less contact with your horses mouth (loose reins). If you watch a reining stop vs. a Western Pleasure stop, you can see how the WP rider does the same thing as the reiner but FAR less dramatic. However nowadays, may WP riders spur train their horses, so they stop when you squeeze with your spurs. This is so they can keep their perfect position and not use the reins. They then use mainly their voice to move their horse forward, the reins and seat and legs to steer, etc.

Bending : Put your horse in a snaffle, sidepull, or something similar. With my horse, I occasionally use draw reins, but instead of hooking the clip in between the legs to the cinch (to put head down) I put them on the rings where you would attach a breast collar. This helps my horse, who I barrel race - he has a bad habit of dropping his shoulder and counterbending around barrels. +++ But to begin with, use your inside leg to make them bend. Basically in the beginning, you use your leg to bend the body and the reins to bend the neck, at least until they know what they are supposed to do. Once your horse gets the concept, you can put them back in their normal bit and see if you can use your inside leg and slightly lift your inside rein to make them bend. That's all it should take.

Canter : When you are riding western, it's called a lope. So first your horse has to be comfortable doing a trot-lope transition, and a lope-trot transition. First I would just ask them to trot, don't let your horse go too fast, but don't ask for a slow jog either. Then ask for the lope. Once they go into the lope right when you ask, then start slowing down the trot. It doesn't have to be very gradual, but don't ask them to go slower then they are comfortable going.

What I did with my western pleasure horse - is a higher-energy, up beat trot, then ask for the walk, and after just 2-3 steps (since they still have the energy from the trot) ask for the lope. Once they are good at that, increase the time they walk before you ask for the lope, until you can ask for the lope directly from the walk.

To stop from the lope, rollbacks helped my horse. But not perfect, turn on the haunches, typicall rollbacks. I keep my horse about a horse width away from the wall, and trot him down the rail. Then ask for the stop, and if he doesn't stop right away, I asked for a rollback towards the wall, then sidepassed him, backed up, turned on the haunches and then let him stand - he quickly learned that when I ask for a stop, he's better off stopping otherwise he gets to do more work.

Once he stopped well at the trot, it didn't take long before he stopped really nice at the lope too.

Now, he's a western pleasure horse, so our stops are supposed to be quick but smooth and graceful. Sometimes if I ask for too much 'whoa' and I'm not ready for it, I get thrown forward out of the saddle because he stops so hard.

There are a ton of books you can get to help you with all of these things, with drawings of the exercises and pictures to help you.

Charmayne James, Sherry Cervi and Martha Josey all have good books that should help you. Plus a lot more by other, non-barrel racers.

Good luck. :]

Neck reining usually isn't difficult to teach because ideally an English horse is guided just as much be legs and the outside rein as it is the direct inside rein, so the same principles apply in western. The difference is that in a good Western Pleasure (WP) horse, your reins should be very, very drape-y.

I will tell you that it is going to be next to impossible to have a horse that excels in WP and speed events. They require two very different styles. They also tend to be easier for horses with certain conformation; a horse built for speed isn't going to be built for WP. That's not saying you can't ride both and have fun and enter shows, but if you plan to show breed circuit or higher level open shows, you'd be better off picking one.

As for English, how is the mare trained? Was she an AQHA hunter or a regular h/j mount? Most AQHA competitors do all-around, so while the horse may be a little better in HUS as opposed to WP (or vice versa), it's usually pretty well adapted to both. That's because the AQHA style and conformational requirements in terms of performance classes are very similar, English and Western. In contrast, if she's been used for regular h/j shows, she's probably built more upright with a little bit faster gait and a different frame. Again, she'll probably go western and you can enjoy her and have fun, but you may have difficulty showing and being competitive at a higher level.

Some horses are better at doing multiple disciplines than others, though I have to say that integrating speed events and WP will be the hardest task! My AQHA all-around gelding now does both western and english on the AQHA/open circuit but we also jump (hunters). However, he'll never be as good of a WP horse as he is an English horse and he may never be as good at jumping as he is in AQHA HUS (he's still green o/f). I use my other horse for jumpers and I'd get laughed at if I tried to show him in WP. You can see both of them on my youtube channel, which is jumpthemoon15.

But ultimately, it's up to you--if you enjoy it, go for it.

For clarification of what I meant:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0z1puJVWz8 <--Western Pleasure (assuming you want to show AQHA or nicer open shows)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQ83V1Cx3Rk&feature... <--speed events

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6gR6ttL8wQ <---AQHA style Hunter Under Saddle

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9H7QzNhU4m8 <--hunter/jumper flat

Any horse can learn to neck rein, but it will take time. Just start out steering her with plow rein (one hand stationary), like she's used to, but work on giving her a loose rein. Then, start moving both of your hands together, and eventually, you should be able to do it with only one hand!