I can see that they are different from one another, but haven’t been able to find any resources explaining exactly what that difference is. From a non-reiner (or charro) perspective, it appears as though the sliding stop in reining involves more of the hindquarters as a whole (activated, “tucked” hind end) than the charro sliding stop which looks like their hind legs are locked. Again, I don’t really know much about either sports so any information is appreciated!
Thanks!
The charro slide comes from the ground. It is much flatter and more “slippery”. That particular slide is going for length only. While reiners like a good length, they appreciate the ‘wave’ more. It indicates the horse is appropriately coming up under themselves and using their hind end to really follow through the stop. The dirt is also much deeper which is why they don’t seemed “locked”. If you were to put a reiner on charro ground you’d get the same look after awhile. Charro horses know they are going to have to maintain balance which is why they aren’t going to dig deep and are going to, in a sense, protect themselves. If you watch wrecks in the sport, you’ll see it’s when the charro horse has too much bend in the hocks and ends up going up and over.
There’s also a difference between a Reining slide and Working or Reined Cow Horse stop. The Reining has continued to get more stylized, the R/WCH more reflective of what’s needed to actually stop when working a cow. They are both draw an 11 and are incredible when correctly executed, just a little different.
Know it’s a spell wreck typo but Churros are deep fat fried dough typically rolled in cinnamon and sugar. Charros judge sliding stop by distance traveled.
Thanks for pointing that out. Went back and edited. Not sure why I spelled it right once then changed it. Also agree with the differences between the reined cow horses and reiners. I do prefer the WCH stop as it seems much more natural and effective. Nice and pretty but the horse can snap out of it in a second.
Not everyone agrees with that pogo sticking old type working cow horse stop is really what dry work demands.
Is like the old working cow horse deciding they didn’t want the sweeping of real cutting horses because that is not what you do out in the open, where cattle will just take off.
Today, after Boyd Rice kept winning with really sweet sweeping cutting horses, now they score them like cutters, even if their performance is rarely that good, they are not cutters.
The same seems to be happening with dry work in working cow horse, the more those trainers learn, the more reining trainers are participating, the more technical it is becoming, the more like Reiners gets the higher scores, as it really should be, being dry work.
Reiners stop is about lightness and lack of resistances and that you can use anywhere, in an arena and with high technical demands and outside in a more free working style.
You only ask Reiners to put the bigger effort in an arena with the proper footing, otherwise you train and practice with the basics only, that keeps a horse sharp for the more demanding show efforts.
Asking a Reiner to perform outside as in groomed footing would get you very sore hocks and injuries.
Their hind legs would get stuck, not slide or turn as they can with the right ground.
Not taking anything from working cow horses, they are a special group.
The best cutter or Reiner may not be able to do what most working cow horses do, much less do it well.
Different training and show requirements, all to be shown in arenas, so to a point not really what you ask on a horse you are using outside, that again a different kind of effort.
Hope that makes sense.
Don’t know anything about charro stops, didn’t even knew there was such, interesting information.
Yes it makes sense. Especially in light of the fact the Reining stop has evolved greatly and continues to change from what it was as more, better trainers learned how to perfect it. Personally don’t care for the current desired head position but appreciate the skills. The sequence of footfall in the spin has changed as well, used to be cantered but now is trotted but maybe it’s the other way around, can’t remember at the moment and it’s not of great importance to me these days but love to watch it.
On the charros, oral tradition says they used to water down a dirt road in So Cal, back when it was rural, specifically La Cienega ( pretty name that means swamp or marsh IIRC) and Leo Carrillo and his friends would ride and slide. Today, of course, it’s by LAX and those artists with horses are long gone from those roads.
The difference is the style and the ground.
Charros use slide plates but their surface is much different and faster. It can be a smooth cement slab with a thin layer of sand. Much like putting salt on a shuffle board table.
The Charros tend to hold their horses up in their hand while modern reiners have a rounder frame and dropped head on a looser rein. But even the Charro style is evolving to more of the cowhorse look.
Cowhorses aren’t as “stylish” in the dry work as the reiners. If you tried to show a cow horse like a reiner you dont have much air left to box and take your cow down the fence. You have to be correct but save your horse. On the stops it’s about stopping hard, if you had the distance like a Reiner you risk sliding past a cow.
It used to be painful to watch working cow horse, they were rough around the edges, unfinished in their training, compared with other western disciplines.
Today, the past few years, they are infinitely better, smoother, under more control, which in the end means also finer control on their cattle and it shows.
Today fence work is almost like a dance, no more shutting a cow, but almost cradling it into a stop and holding it in a turn, much easier on the horse and cow and takes a higher degree of horsemanship and cowmanship from both, horse and human.
In the dry work, stops were rough, horses very resistant and stopping on the front, hard on them.
Lead changes were hurried, horses falling onto the front end and not changing behind first stride, rushing their circles before they could balance again.
Just not easy to watch.
Sure, not even Reiners are that good in changes.
They are not like western horsemanship ones, they are working with way more impulsion, hard to be that graceful when you are hustling along.
Still, a good basic balanced change should be there if you train right in dry work.
Today watching working cow horse is putting some really nice go rounds together, other than normal mistakes we all make, even the best do, why it is a competition, hard to do it all just right, especially when you add cattle in the mix.
Working cattle should be, not chasing them around, but working with them to get them where you want.
Today you can see the difference at the higher levels of working cow horse, how they are working with the cow, not just chasing it around.
Even commentators are praising the good riding shown by most today, in all disciplines.
Everyone is getting better, as it should be.
I agree bluey. Both the cow horse and reining has evolved in style and plus breeding better horses. When it comes to cowhorses I think it’s always been a bit more about controlled speed with the cowhorses than finesse like the reiners.
Looking at the early pictures of reining, the stops were much different than now, more like the cow horse stops and same with the headset. Bob Loomis has said back before he started his breeding program he was buying whatever trying to make them reiners. I believe he even took horses off the track…lol…
I like to stress that even though reining and reined cow horse both have reining patterns the style is different between the two. Some people seem to think it’s the same.
I think that those still evolving disciplines have a way to go before if ever settling completely in any one way of doing what they do.
I agree the new fad by some reiners of training for what I call the end of the trail/hangdog/whipped dog, unnatural, not very happy look of head around the ankles is not what horsemen would like to see in their discipline, any more than the previous peanut roller in western pleasure was.
Even the most submissive horse rarely will get it’s head below somewhere between withers and knees.
Then, no one is asking me, right?
I do think it is bad PR if not a questionable look some may use to be critical of where reining is going when that is not penalized, much less if it is acceptable and even winning.
All we do has some fads, some that stay, some that mercifully are forgotten.
There is some we like others do, some we don’t, the same when others watch what we do.
The old "different strokes … "
I had heard of some horses sliding flipping over, but really didn’t know why that was.
I now realize they were talking about those charro type horses sliding on hard ground and horses not being able to control their feet under speed on concrete slick ground, even if with a little sand on top.
That sounds like a wreck waiting to happen.
Concrete and a horse doing anything at speed is like ice skating, legs go every which way, scary.
I agree, I can appreciate the amount of training and how broke a reiner is and learned a lot working for a reining trainer but I also don’t find the knocking nostrils on the inside of his knees look favorable. I hope it doesnt become a fad with the cowhorses.
The cow horse trainer I ride with is a NRCHA judge and has judged the SBF. In cow horse fashion, he says doesn’t knock a horse with his head up and nose out. As long as he isn’t running around with his head upside down and when you ask for him to come back he is soft.
I think I saw a video on YouTube of a horse coming over backwards. The horse may have not prepared or the ground was faster than he was trained on and/or asking more of the horse in a show situation. They prepare those horses much like a reiner. Scaring them into the stop doesnt reap any benefits. Like tacking big horse sliders on a baby and asking him to run down and stick his ass in the ground, if he gets scared he isn’t going to try.
The basic difference between Charro horses and Reiners is the way the horses stop. A Charro is what we would call a “skater”…the horse doesn’t go deep to the ground, just hits the ground lightly and then goes a long way. A typical (good) Reiner is a deep hard stopper like a cow horse but with a freer front end which allows them to peddle with their fronts legs and go farther than a cowhorse whose job is to stop the cow, not go 30’.
Ground makes a big difference here. I’ve had some Reiners that skated and they didn’t stop well in deep gritty ground. On the other foot, the hard deep stoppers often got scared in fast ground (light more shallow footing) because the ground wasn’t heavy enough to hold them when they went to the ground so hard.
the charro horses aren’t judged on the style (which is why you see all their heads in the air just balancing themselves) but reiners are…and cow horse to an extent.
I’m not a huge fan of the intimidated over bridled Reiners, I believe if you reach a horse to carry themselves and lift their back, their neck is going to come out of their withers where ever God intended. Anything lower is unnatural although I’ve seen plenty of super low necked Reiners…it all depends where the find their balance.
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