[QUOTE=Flash44;8040002]
Are you wirt, who I quote in post 7? Wirt is surrounded by bad wp “trainers” and has only “witnessed” what they are doing (and not actually tried riding that discipline) so has decided to use that very narrow experience to paint all who compete in wp as useless. You are welcome to come and ride my happy horses anytime you like. I stand behind my product.[/QUOTE]
your horse is a product? did you birth her? I don’t desire to ride your horse. I offered an opportunity to showcase your poster-child of a happy WP horse, I mean your product, and you predictably declined. You doth protest too much- and have nothing to offer to counter our collective ignorance. Got it.
Tom has nothing to lose as he’s too crippled up to ride- he’s an authority, and i’ve seen some good moving RR horses- but WP encourages and celebrates an excess akin to those gaited horses from Tennessee. And this same song and dance has been going on my entire life.
[QUOTE=PeanutButterPony;8040551]
your horse is a product? did you birth her? I don’t desire to ride your horse. I offered an opportunity to showcase your poster-child of a happy WP horse, I mean your product, and you predictably declined. You doth protest too much- and have nothing to offer to counter our collective ignorance. Got it.[/QUOTE]
If I had a video, I would post it. Good Lord you are really taking things out of context and going on a personal rant.
Flash, you’ve made a name here for dismissing anyone who doesn’t think the WP way of going is desirable or good for horses. You just declare they don’t know what they are talking about. You cannot allow that there could be disagreement. You make it personal when you declare you own the ideal happy WP horse- but you won’t make it real and step up and show the ignorant masses. I don’t think I’ve taken a single thing out of context. Pretty factual assessment right there.
[QUOTE=Flash44;8041000]
If I had a video, I would post it. Good Lord you are really taking things out of context and going on a personal rant.[/QUOTE]
I think some don’t think you are feeling properly demeaned quite yet, expect you to hold your head hanging low, exit the discussion quietly and go home to ponder your misguided ways.
We get it, wp is the lowest of the low, some have explained that several times now.
I would change your demands others show their wp you so despise to why don’t you show us how wonderful your training and riding is, so we have something to go by, can see what you mean?
Nevermind, that was a rhetorical question.
No need to be the one in the hot seat and suffer again and again personal, unwarranted criticism for your chosen discipline.
I don’t think anyone would truly want to then be ugly about what they don’t like that you or any other chooses to do.
I don’t like wp, don’t like gaited horses, don’t like stiff, resistant horses, which are 99.9 of the horses out there, some at times, some the way they are ridden.
Still, I don’t go around telling those with horses I don’t like how they are bred, or move, or are trained that it is wrong because I don’t like it.
It is really not anyone one’s place to keep insisting that is so thru the same as browbeating them with our opinion, time and again.
Expressing an opinion and explaining why, that is fine.
Carrying on about it, maybe we ought to consider why we would do so?
Then, others seem to think that is fine, different strokes and all that …
[QUOTE=Plumcreek;8040547]
Give it a rest.
The thing about Western Pleasure is that it is simple. No Piaffe, triple combination off the water, drop jumps or intricate obstacles. Once horses can jog and lope slowly with uphill collection, what else is there to do to distinguish yourself as the winner and Supreme Trainer? Wretched Excess. Slower, more hesitation, bigger hock split (really, this is the hot term for sale videos).
Add to that the fact that, unlike a few Ammy Owners riding megabuck A/O hunters at Wellington, who at least have to be able look OK over 3’6" despite iffy riding skills, the current objectionable style of WP allows anyone who can write the big check to show at a very high level because they just have to sit there and keep their spurs on. (This is not too big an exaggeration)
So all in all, it is a hard event to change for the better of the horse, as the business interests run counter to a happy horse. [/QUOTE]
I agree with the “How do you separate the great from the good when the job is so dang easy” problem. It really is one. In fact, it’s becoming one in HunterWorld, too.
You must admit, it’s a problem “tailor made” for a showing industry that caters to breeders via its ruling organization. In other words, the WP problem becomes one of selective breeding (at least when you are splitting hairs at the tippy top). That’s true with or without training.
And that serves the AQHA well. Same goes for the riders. I can’t imagine any of the adults spending big bucks to be on the the WP winner has fallen off in decades. Those horses look incapable of dumping anyone.
Thanks for the interesting perspective.
This came across my Facebook feed today. Great illustrations as well. Although I’m sure this article will be attacked too. Sigh. Why can’t people go after the skeletons in their own disciplines’ closets before going after others? It really is becoming tiresome.
http://horseandrider.com/article/western-pleasure-correct-25716
…because this is NOT what is winning in the ring. I didn’t read the article, but the photos were the least offensive that I’ve seen posted here on the subject.
[QUOTE=mvp;8041072]
I can't imagine any of the adults spending big bucks to be on the *the* WP winner has fallen off in decades. Those horses look incapable of dumping anyone.
Thanks for the interesting perspective.[/QUOTE]
This made me grin, as a rail horse trainer I received coaching from awhile back stated that she had never involuntarily departed from a horse’s back in her career. My jaw hit the ground.
To be fair, many of the riders who do WP have physical issues that would prevent them from doing more athletic events, and WP keeps them in the horse show game. If the judges just had more form to function training education, and had backbones, issues could be solved right quick.
Re the Horse and Rider article linked above,
The “correct” version does win at the AQHA World Show (don’t watch the Paints, so cannot say) where the judges are being watched by people who can pull their cards. That’s about it, with the exception of the very few superstar horses who are built very strong and got lucky with their trainers. However, anyone wanting to get to that level has to think about training for correctness per this article.
David Dellin is another big name speaking out.
Ah…now we get to the bottom of it. I suspected as much.
This subject comes up frequently on the H/J forum where all those dang winners have more money than skill and are just buying their ribbons with expensive imported, illegally shown in the wrong division horses that are dull (LTD) and/or drugged and all those people who can really ride and train aren’t winning because of all the corrupt judges and no one rides TBs anymore, and everyone’s breaking their horses, starting them too early, the good old days were better, blah, blah, blah.
Wash, rinse, repeat.
[QUOTE=Go Fish;8041481]
Ah…now we get to the bottom of it. I suspected as much.
This subject comes up frequently on the H/J forum where all those dang winners have more money than skill and are just buying their ribbons with expensive imported, illegally shown in the wrong division horses that are dull (LTD) and/or drugged and all those people who can really ride and train aren’t winning because of all the corrupt judges and no one rides TBs anymore, and everyone’s breaking their horses, starting them too early, the good old days were better, blah, blah, blah.
Wash, rinse, repeat.[/QUOTE]
Nope, you misunderstood what I was trying to say. There are plenty of talented riders in the top A/O on horses going on quality and training, not drugs. However, I have also spent time watching some of these fabulous non-drugged or LTD horses in the Grand ring at Wellington take more than a few riders around the course in winning style on their own, despite some interesting moves on the rider’s part. That is why they are worth the bucks. Just like the megabuck novice friendly, winning quality WP horses, except their riders only need to walk,jog,lope, so the level of riding skill needed to enter the game is less. Horses from two different disciplines, with the same job. We are only talking about packers here, not the many nice horses under talented riders in both disciplines.
I think that in wp, as in any other we have competitions and competitors, they make it look so easy, “anyone can do it and do it well enough to win”.
If and when some of those doing the talking do try it, it doesn’t seem quite as easy once it is your going around and around and consistently doing what is being judged.
I was thinking the same about reining, heck, I am a trainer myself and of other more challenging than running around in circles, how hard can that be?
Well, let me tell you, the more I learned, the less I knew and am still now just trying to learn more.
Lets just try to keep that in mind when looking down, from our mighty heights, at what others do.
Horses have a way to humble and demand honesty of us.
It is some of what I like about horses.
WP doesn’t get criticized because “it’s hard”, nor because “it’s not our style”. Otherwise it would be just one of many different disciplines that has its fans and detractors.
It gets criticized because it’s being won by horses that look just this side of lifeless, moving in “natural” ways that have proven to be damaging to horses. To paraphrase Ray Hunt, it’s because “if I saw my own horse moving like that in the pasture, I’d call the vet”.
[QUOTE=aktill;8041763]
WP doesn’t get criticized because “it’s hard”, nor because “it’s not our style”. Otherwise it would be just one of many different disciplines that has it’s fans and detractors.
It gets criticized because it’s being won by horses that look just this side of lifeless. To paraphrase Ray Hunt, it’s because “if I saw my own horse moving like that in the pasture, I’d call the vet”.[/QUOTE]
Do you want me to return the favor and tell you what I think of how Ray Hunt’s horses and his students rode/ride?
Right.
He was no different that wp, just a different flavor of the same, some way people ride their horses, for their own goals.
[QUOTE=Bluey;8041769]
Do you want me to return the favor and tell you what I think of how Ray Hunt’s horses and his students rode/ride?
Right.
He was no different that wp, just a different flavor of the same, some way people ride their horses, for their own goals.[/QUOTE]
Snort, go right ahead. BELIEVE me when I say it won’t affect my opinion of you.
[QUOTE=Plumcreek;8041426]
To be fair, many of the riders who do WP have physical issues that would prevent them from doing more athletic events, and WP keeps them in the horse show game. If the judges just had more form to function training education, and had backbones, issues could be solved right quick.[/QUOTE]
This.
I’ve said many times on here, that I bred my filly with the sole intent of doing AQHA over fences classes. 3 years later, I’m discovering that due to back and ankle problems, that’s becoming increasingly unlikely. I’m beginning to think about orienting myself instead down the showmanship/horsemanship/western riding track instead. Luckily at this point, basic correct training, is basic correct training, so it’s not a decision I have to make say…tomorrow.
I suspect, that if I do choose that route however, my 5/8ths TB, 3/8ths QH will be pretty happy about it, since all she’s ever really wanted to do since birth is drop her head and go slooooow.
Sometimes, I just shake my head at her. Yes, she’s being a little silly here, but this is how she would longe all the time, if it were her choice. (And yes, I know this is nothing more than a baby cruising around on the forehand with its nose in the dirt, and has nothing to do with WP. I’m being a little tongue in cheek here as well…)
[QUOTE=Plumcreek;8040547]
the current objectionable style of WP allows anyone who can write the big check to show at a very high level because they just have to sit there and keep their spurs on. (This is not too big an exaggeration)[/QUOTE]
I have a friend that has been showing WP for a number of years. At a high level - goes to the American Paint Horse Association World Championship etc.
She rides about once a month. Horse is off at the trainer’s, hours away. She gets a lesson about once a month, and then meets the trainer and rides at shows. I can’t think of many horse sports where an hour - once a month - is enough to keep a rider in the ribbons.
That said - She found out her horse is lame. And had been showing lame. And that the trainer was being VERY liberal with unknown injections.
And I commend my friend, she found out. Was furious. Took the horse home to rehab him. Her vet said “his veins look like a junkie’s” - that he had been getting MANY injections (of god knows what). He also had a very significant tear in his suspensory ligament (vet said if had continued to be “shot up” and shown - he would have been done).
Lame horse - once a month rider - yet they had been taking home a significant number of blue ribbons.
[QUOTE=Bluey;8041769]
Do you want me to return the favor and tell you what I think of how Ray Hunt’s horses and his students rode/ride?
Right.
[B]He was no different that wp, just a different flavor of the same, some way people ride their horses, for their own goals.[/QUOTE]
[/B]
That is a bit of stretch.
But you are still upset at Ray for things you saw him do 30 years ago.
Well, my BFF is headed to Fort Worth for the AQHA Convention this coming weekend, and will sit in on the Show and Professional Horsemen Western Performance committee deliberations. Will be interested to hear her report.
