Thank you for sharing. It dawned on me a while back that I have never met someone in my local area that rides saddle seat. There is one BIG saddle seat barn not too far away, but I wasn’t aware of it until more recently. It’s always been a bit of a mystery to me!
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Thank you so much 
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The discipline is one I hadn’t had any exposure to either before I went on this journey (actually thanks to COTH, but THAT is a story for another day). There aren’t a ton of saddleseat barns and since so many of the practices and appearances are so foreign to sporthorse eyes they get a lot of flak from sporthorse world.
It’s a shame. While I’m not in love with all the practices, especially the old ones, it was worth understanding and asking questions - took me awhile to get because so many things “look kind of similar” but are not at all the same and I struggled to ask questions without being offensive. I got a LOT of new tools in my toolbelt and am super happy to have had the opportunity to talk to people like Gayle and BNTs in saddlebred land, all who tolerated my dumb questions very kindly.
They are a unique breed and it’s a unique discipline. There’s a TON of history, including a very large contingent of black horsemen who were very prominent in the breed at the time when black people were relegated to grooms in other disciplines, Tom Bass being the most notable.
Anyway - I continue to derail - sorry!
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I had never laid eyes on a show ASB in person until we did a bunch of state horse fairs and participated in the parade of breeds. The ASBs from Heathermoore Farm were spectacular. Every one of them had impeccable ground manners and once mounted, they were ‘on’ but patient and professional. One gelding in particular caught my eye. Big, light sorrel with enough chrome to catch your eye but not splashy. He was almost human in his expression. When the head trainer went over him one last time with a rag and gave him an appreciative smack on the chest, I swear that horse grew taller. He rounded that neck and just grew. He was READY, like a boxer wanting out of his corner. I’ve never forgotten the impression he made on me.
This is likely not him, but it might as well be!
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Was there ever a video on the first thread of the perceived “rear”? Actually seeing what she (the horse) is offering might be really helpful, to discern just how far off the ground she goes and if it is truly an ASB lightness in the front thing or something entirely different.
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What color was he? Just so I can put the last touch on that great imagery you gave!
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They do!! They grow! The first time my main guy did it I thought I was going to die. Another horse had come into the ring and he was in “show mode”. It felt like when a normal horse is about to explode. That took me a LONG time to get used to.
When I have him in the lines and I want him to really work I’ll give him a “Look at you! Pretty boy!” And whoop and whistle (kind of like an appreciative catcall) and he picks up his knees, hunkers down in back, extends his trot, and flies.
These horses are amazing - truly. They want so badly to please their humans. They love hearing how awesome they are and if you tell them often they just bloom.
Once Honey and @AdultEmmy find their stride, if they do, that mare will walk through fire for her. That’s how these horses are with their people. It’s not just me - I’ve seen it at multiple saddlebred barns. These horses love to work, and they love their people.
And if she isn’t the right horse for @AdultEmmy and that kind of passionate relationship isn’t what she wants (they can be a little intense) that’s ok too. No guilt or shame there (even as I extoll their virtues I recognize that they aren’t for everyone).
I had a friend who had one who just wanted to ride for exercise. Wrong matchup. They can trail ride calmly and do all kinds of things but they do them with a serious intensity. Kind of like a border collie - if you expect one to behave like a basset hound you’ll be sorely disappointed. They can do all the same sorts of things but you have to expect them to do them the border collie way. In that case, he ended up getting passed on to someone who wanted a more border collie personality and they are happy now.
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@Alterration I get it, that fire and willingness to please at the same time. I think the TWHs and rackers crossed out to ASBs a lot in the old days for spice and fold 
and certainly they share some genetic prepotency for the rack. I’ve ridden a couple of ‘vibrating’ TWHs and boy they are too much for me, and I’ll ride just about anything LOL (well, I used to say that). My husband and I share two TWHs and he has a little SSH. The two walkers are a lot of upheaded go go go - and at the same time lap-horses on the ground (yeah, you’ll never convince me ground manners are saddle manners! HA!). that kindness on the ground makes these breeds vulnerable to the abuse (I’m talking TWHs now) that is done to them for the sake of the show ring.
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I added a picture! He was gorgeous.
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I’m not a Saddlebred person, but I sure do appreciate them! And after growing up watching them show, the number I’ve seen popping up in the front in the showring is a lot over the years! All their riders do is release their hands, bump them forward with their legs and carry on. I so enjoy watching them.
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Feronia is not a “Show Morgan” but I had people watching her go guess her height at 16 hands. She is 15 hands if she stretches. She gets BIG!
One thing to point out: in saddleseat land, no one is hauling on the curb. They ride in long-shanked, thin curb bits but yes, skating on the curb the way everyone is talking about top dressage riders doing right now, would likely result in a rear or an explosion.
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Thanks for the picture! I can fully envision it now!
We only ever had a NSH but I think of him so much with this ASB talk; his poor brain was fried by people before us but he still did a good job for us enough of the time that I still love the good parts of the breeds that were in him. I remember feeling all that good energy in him when he was in “ok” mode.
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Yep, he was bottomless for sure. For better or worse! LOL (you know who I am, right?)
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Not sure if this will work but that was my guy on a big day when he was in saddleseat training.
But he can also work like the below two pictures - the bottom is in dressage training and the top is ridden solely off the cavesson and training for being ridden in just the cordeo (neck rope).
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Oh yes I do lol Was very careful what I said about him ha ha
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We used to call the alive move “up telescope” lol They are really cool horses…
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Yep - we say up periscope!
It is always particularly interesting when you’re going along on a nice long and low light contact and then the head goes up and you are left with 5 miles of rein in your lap and zero ability to do anything with the front end of the horse 
He came off the trailer like that at our first actual show together which made me so nervous I drank more wine than was really prudent to get me into the ring. Pretty sure I followed the ringmaster’s instructions. Maybe. It’s hazy. We won the class so I must have.
But once there, he clocked around with no spooks, shies, or other misbehavior. And it was a scary ring! No LTD or other weirdness. They just know how to keep it together when someone is aboard.
I would not ride my QH or Paint if they were snorting and jigging like that. Nor any of the other breeds I’ve owned. You’d be about to die. Not so with the saddlebreds. They are just getting the party started!
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Funny you say that. I grew up riding Saddleseat and the first time (and pretty much all the rest of times) I rode a non-Saddleseat horse, I keep thinking this horse is going to trip and summersalt over!! I feel like their heads are so far down.
I also used to say, you can’t really fall off a Saddlebred, you might throw yourself off, but that’s how you end up on the ground.
I hope this new thread doesn’t scare Adult Ammy away, hopefully she can discard comments from the non-Saddlebred folks.
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I also have a QH whose default mode is HUS. He’s mostly retired, but I’m always like “where is his head???” when I do hop on. It is NICE to have that head and neck right in front of you. Once you get used to it, it feels very much more steady than just sitting on top of a horse - it’s almost like you sit in the middle of them and they surround you.
I still can’t get used to that saddleseat saddle though. I mostly ride mine in either my baroque or my hunt seat saddle. Old habits die hard.
It’s true! I’ve only come off of mine once, despite the fact that I bought him as a 5 year old and he is a spicy one, and it was my own stupid fault. I let a dressage trainer tell me to ride him on the buckle in a lesson, and I know better than to do that with him - he can’t be ridden in a choke hold, but keeping that neck in front of him is really important. A horse came at him out of the shadows next to the ring, he spun, and I was left in the air kind of like wil-e-coyote. He was pretty upset that I’d come off, and came back over immediately to see what had happened.
I hope so too. I feel like I’ve been excessive and dominated the thread, but only because I feel the need to share how different these guys are. It’s one of the reasons I wanted her to get hooked up into a saddleseat community, even though that’s not her plan for training Honey. It helped me so much to learn that what I was seeing as a little weird and scary was nothing at all.
I’ve been riding for 35 years and I found it really isolating to have my saddlebred in a sporthorse world. People were afraid of him, trainers, barn owners, and riders alike. Because they are so expressive and flamboyant, they get misinterpreted as hot and scary. And they can be spicy in a forward sort of way, but they aren’t scary once you learn that the flamboyance is just that.
Not to make this political, but they are kind of the drag queens of the horse world - over the top in looks and mannerisms - but they have the kindest hearts and are the most fun to work with.
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I’m glad you keep posting in defense of the Horse America Made
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