AQHA Pleasure Driving...

[War_Admiral]

[QUOTE=LostFarmer;4422539]
I have not even commented on this post and my name gets taken in vain. :lol:[/QUOTE]

:lol::lol::lol:

I’m another one who lives on both Planet ASB and Planet ADS. I still haven’t decided which direction to point my new young’un toward, to be honest - it really depends what HE ends up wanting to do. But I definitely feel free to opine that there is Scary Stuff in both disciplines.

[KellyS]

@Drive NJ;4422275

MyPaintWattie - you wouldn’t be derailing the thread, but bringing it back to its original supposed point - “talk to me about QH driving classes”

For the CDE defenders (and I am often one of them) - Lots more fun picking on QHs than having someone poke at CDEs isn’t it? And, unfortunately some of those changes over the past 20 years haven’t always been in the best interest of the horses or the sport.

20 years ago you could drive Training and low level prelim in a roadcart or Meadowbrook, now you need a purpose built many thousand dollar marathon carriage or its nearly impossible to play the game - not very encouraging to beginners.

20 years ago marathon was also about pace - not very much any more - its all hazard speed - judges will bend over backward to find out what’s wrong if someone actually has time penalties on course. Competitors think pacing the horse over the course is going so fast you almost have to walk in to make the minimum time etc.

20 years ago cones was about the horses ability to recover after the marathon and do a test of accuracy on Day 3 (actually most were Dressage, Cones then marathon even then) Someone decided it was ‘boring’ and that even though cones was never intended to be an equallizer it should be more important. Now we have a giant hazard with measured short courses and super tight cones for advanced so the average non-involved spectator can’t figure out why those drivers are called advanced cause they seem to be bowling rather than driving through the cones. And yes I have heard spectators make those sorts of comments.

20 years ago we had many fantastic drivers and some bad eggs - same now

Still love much about the sport, but I don’t think some of the directions we are going in lead to better driving in all cases.

I don’t think anyone really needs to “defend” CDEs on this thread. The one example given was 20+ years old and that’s the only thing that was pointed out. Same as if an example of AQHA from 20 years ago was given. So many things have changed in both worlds. :yes:

I think the points above merit their own discussion. It goes back to the question–how do you keep the 3 phases weighted correctly? As competitors become more and more competitive, it is all to easy for it to become a “dressage” show…where marathon and cones have no bearing on the end result. Not saying changes are right or wrong…somewhere in between…

Anyway, this is fun! Love the discussion.