CBC has been all over it.
Still haven’t seen it on TV. Maybe just bad timing on my part. Those look like the same links posted earlier.
Western events are growing like mad, rodeo events, from Little Britches to the big ones, team roping and barrel racing have so many entries, reining and working cow horse and team penning and others have more participants every year.
Is that an extinction burst, or really so many more, many in the junior ranks, are happy to work hard and participate, even international groups are expanding?
For what I hear, cutting is the only one not that prosperous, the insane cost a main reason, why many cutters have been moving to working cow horse.
Don’t know what the numbers are for racing or other English riding disciplines, compared with western ones.
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Thanks everyone for the discussion. Some great points raised.
My sense is that for the general public, a horse story is a horse story, whether it’s racing or show jumping or dancing horses in the Olympics, and that that creates a broad brush that paints all of us, to some degree, with the sins of the others.
Agree with the poster above who thought their grandkids were going to experience a very different horse scene than they have- as we Baby Boomers age out, and all our horses age out, the next few generations of horses and their people I suspect will be quite a bit smaller than what I knew growing up and all the way into my retirement.
The allure of horses is timeless but it seems it’s getting harder and harder for those with the bug to actually get their hands on a horse. And as our society rethinks its relationships with animals, things we took for granted- such as training horses for specific sports to satisfy our human desire to compete- may be examined much more closely by those outside the sports.
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No, I googled them because I knew I had heard items about them on my evening drive to the barn.
I googled to find what I knew existed, not to see if anything existed.
I grew up in the age of when a parent could order a pony complete with tack from Sears/Montgomery Wards and I guess other places getting the newly purchased equine delivered to front door of their home.
Times have always been a’change n
Purina Mills sold off its equine feed lines back in the 1980s after they determined the horses industry was dead
My family has been showing Morgans for three decades now, the Morgans Nationals seems to always be packed to the max. As Bluey noted uses had just changed. The Fancy Classes of Park Horse have very few entries while the poor man’s working horse classes are packed.
But I do remember the days back in Kentucky in the 1960s when Anchorage’s St Luke one day hunter show would draw 600 entries mostly from the locals who often rode their horse to the show as there were numerous bridle paths …and WAITING at the 1973 Kentucky State Fair for the junior exhibitor equitation class to finally be called as it had nearly 500 entered so was broken into 20 horse rounds…and then it was always a Helen Crabtree’s students who won anyway (and her students got most of the ribbons as they were very good riders who moat all went on to be very successful in life)
But my grankids… really little interest in horses as none of their friends even know what a horse is
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Western participants are often more “country kids”. Not always, but 4H is active in rural areas and works very hard to keep entry level riding lessons affordable and inclusive. Borrowing tack and show clothes is quite normal.
Barrel racing jackpots can often just be a one day, haul in, do your runs and haul out affair. Rodeos are social events and as they can actually get spectators, they have sponsors, so entry fees are reasonable.
Community arenas are deemed just fine for western and “open” shows, but wouldn’t pass for hunter/jumper or dressage shows (arena size, footing, lack of stabling), but those community arenas are cheap or free to use.
Western riders for the most part aren’t looking to compete nationally or internationally. (obviously exceptions), and their coaches are often just community members with some skills.
So I guess my summary is that the improvements to safety and international competitiveness that English disciplines have taken, have come at a cost to the grass roots levels as EC and USEF wants to be involved at all levels to make riders ready to represent their country…while western disciplines do their own thing.
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Not exactly. Purina Mills is now owned by Land o Lakes; the original company was split, not dissolved. Nestle now owns the rights to the checkerboard logo and Purina name for pet food. All other species are still manufactured by Purina Mills (and, actually, Purina Mills also still makes pet food - it just can’t be sold under the Purina name or use the checkerboard logo). In Canada, Cargill owns the rights to the Purina brand and logo.
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I had someone ask me this Monday morning. I answered much the same way. I have ridden two year olds but did not push them. Most of the ones at the track are quite often 18 months or less and being galloped, there is a long term affect.
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Again, there is a reason for this, confirmed in repeated studies.
Every single country in the world starts their flat racing horses at the same age. If they do not work at racing speed at a young age while the bone is still remodeling, they do not develop the bone density needed for racing.
In all of our safety metrics, horses who did not race as young horses are at a higher risk of a breakdown.
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Not just bone, but also connective tissue. There is a balance to be had, and why young horses usually race shorter races.
There is also some science to support that a reason horses started young break down, isn’t so much the training as much as the being stabled day and night. Young horses should have freedom to move on uneven surfaces.
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Exactly.
If you ask why racehorses are prone to breakdowns, the answer is “d) all of the above.” It’s a complex issue compounded by a variety of practices involving management, training, and pharmaceuticals. There isn’t one thing to point to that will fix the problem, otherwise we would have fixed it by now.
But… racing at 2 has been proven time and time again to NOT be the root of injuries. To the contrary- horses who race at 2 statistically have longer careers than those who wait until they are older. Horses need movement, specifically speedwork, at a young age if they are going to hold up to the rigors of racing.
When debating whether or not horses should race at 2, sport horse people love to point to the Europeans. “But they wait until warmbloods are 5 to back them!” (Which isn’t even true, but still gets thrown around a lot) But every single European country backs their thoroughbred racehorses just before their 2nd birthday and have them in training as 2yos, just like we do. There are 2 year old races in every European country with racing.
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What worries me is that (as we know, but the general public does not) horses are much more fragile than they look, and there is no equestrian discipline which is 100% safe for either the horse or the rider. A horse can just as easily suffer a fatal injury or have a freak rotational fall in a barrel race as in a showjumping round or on the track. If in the eyes of the public the standard for acceptable use of horses means NO equine injuries under saddle, NO risk to the rider, and NO “painful” discipline of the animal at any time (as in use of a bit, or a whip, or a spur), then all equestrian events are ultimately doomed. That’s simply an impossible standard to meet.
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CHT, you raise some good points here, about western horse sports perhaps being more accessible/affordable, at least at the entry level, than English sports… and with western being more inclusive and focusing on local to regional competition and kids, versus that Olympic Dream (I’m kind of fudging what you said) dangling over the English side of things.
Hang on, I’m going to ramble a bit here:
The American Quarter Horse Association (AQHA) has long been the big daddy of US equestrian groups as both a studbook and competition organizer, with about 232,000 current members and more than 3 million registered horses competing in more than 2,000 shows and special events each year. Quarter horses do all kinds of stuff, including racing, but I think we generally could consider them a stock breed with the western feel you wrote about.
To compare, US Equestrian has less than half that membership, about 105,000, and about 300,000 registered horses. US Equestrian of course is the umbrella for many smaller affiliate groups that are part of that membership total, everything from Arabians, Friesians, and American Saddlebreds to dressage, hunter/jumper, driving, and eventing. (For an idea of how fragmented the generally English side of things is, US Dressage Federation, a component of US Equestrian, has about 30,000 members, or only about 13% as many members as AQHA.)
Unfortunately, there’s obviously no umbrella organization for horse sports in the US, nothing akin to the British Horse Society that could harness (excuse me) the full power of our world. That’s too bad because the combined voice of most US equestrians would be quite a bit more powerful than the current schisms that seem to canibalize each other and market to each other, not to the greater public (“Our sport is the only one that’s really respected internationally” or “They are just a bunch of tee-haws” thinking…) A combined equestrian voice could realize realize economies of scale, especially in advertising and promotion of the generic concept of horses are beautiful and here’s ways to enjoy them. Such a group could also help educate the public as to what we all know: horses are wonderful, fragile, magical, wonderful creatures that are oh, so good for our souls.
An analogy I think of here is RVIA, the Recreation Vehicle Industry Association which claims to represent more than 500 manufacturers of RV’s and components who produce more than 98% of RV’s made in the US. Member dues go towards certification, education, and marketing programs that tell the world how much fun it is to go RVing.
Their three core concepts are:
-focus on ensuring RVing is here for future generations by prioritizing sustainable practices
-collaborate with individuals of all backgrounds to help make RVing accessible to everyone
-promote ethical and safe business practices and invest in our employees and communities
Imagine a comparable organization with similar goals in the horse world- I’d be a lot less worried about the future viability of riding if we had such a group!
I think racing is generally it’s own separate thing to insiders, but again, a horse is a horse to the public and they seem to be demanding that ALL horses shouldn’t be abused (whatever that means!) for entertainment’s sake. Rodeo too may be it’s own animal but again… wouldn’t we have a mighty marketing machine if all these horse-centric sports could ever work together, and realize that, as Ben Franklin is rumored to have said at the signing of the Declaration of Independence “We must all hang together, or most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.”
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That is what animal rights extremists don’t understand, that life is risky itself, for horses if they are in someone’s backyard, performance program or running wild.
There is a basic risk to anything alive.
Recognizing this is the main difference between extremist animal rights proponents that want us to assure NO risk for the animals in our care, as stated above an impossible requirement to meet and why they then want NO animals in human hands, and animal welfare and husbandry, that means insuring how we care for and what we do with and to our animals is following as ethical, humane and caring principles as we may, considering the animal first and our goals for them, as our diverse symbiotic partnerships indicate.
As one past poster told us once, on a horse training board no less, reflecting animal rights extremist views, “she would be glad if there were no humans left on earth so no animals were abused”.
Talk about throwing the baby out with the bathwater, that never solved anything.
Racing and eventually all other uses we make of horses may fade away.
Imagine barely 100+ years ago horses were everywhere, still our main power source to get around and do so much we did with them, until displaced by mechanical inventions doing their work better.
Soon we may be manipulating matter itself and then so many uses of natural products, plants and animals, will become obsolete, when we can make what we want by pushing a few buttons.
Brave new world ahead, interesting to think how humans and our domestic animals, for us horses and what we do with them, will fare in those possible futures. 
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I think there is one big difference between the pentathlon and horse racing however–no one wagers on the pentathlon. The wagering industry is huge, including many, many people who have no interest in horses, but are into the betting side of things. A much bigger industry than, say, greyhound racing, or carriage horses, or even the “animal” side of the circus.
So I don’t think horse racing is going away–at least not in the “short long-term.” I enjoy watching racing and have friends who have worked as exercise riders. But I do have a question for those who are deep in the industry–what more can be done to prevent incidents like when 42 horses died at the Santa Anita track during the 2019 season?
Even though starting at 2 may be protective in terms of conditioning, it would seem there is a big incentive to breed for speed but not long-term soundness, given the typical length of a racehorse’s career. (There might be some selection bias, in that the horses that seem soundest will be developed, versus those that fail out early on.) Would banning Lasix help to encourage more of a focus on soundness? More of a focus on turf racing? Different treatment of surfaces?
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I have no recent info but when I worked for the largest share holder of Churchill Downs Corp the Derby weekend was a quarter of billion dollar event in itself …but that was fifteen years ago however I suspect it is greater now rather lessor
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I live near a racetrack and it’s always packed all summer, when there is live racing. I don’t know if that will change, again, in the far future. It’s even a big industry for the businesses adjacent to the track (restaurants, shops, and such).
BlockquoteSoon we may be manipulating matter itself and then so many uses of natural products, plants and animals, will become obsolete, when we can make what we want by pushing a few buttons.
And that worries me, because from the perspective of the average person, there is a huge difference between a world where they see and can occasionally even interact with horses (and dogs, cattle, chickens, etc.) and a world where they do not.
But from the perspective of the average person, there is very little difference between a world where they never interact directly with domestic animals because we no longer “exploit” them as “slaves,” and a world where domestic animals have become extinct. Out of sight, out of mind!
And that is a huge issue because domestic animals are about the only ones on this planet which are doing well from a population standpoint. We notice what is present, not what is absent. How often do people look up at the sky and notice the hole up there that was once filled with a billion passenger pigeons?
We are wiping out non-human animal life at a furious rate. Domestic animals help remind us that non-human animal lives have an intrinsic value, independent of how we see them. They also remind us that we do not stand separate and apart from Nature, but are a part of it.
(A cool aside: I don’t know if it’s available online, but see if you can search out The Lost Bird Project. It’s a movie about a sculptor who created large statues of all 7 North American extinct birds, and his efforts to place each statue in the place where the last member of each species was sighted. At heart, the movie is about noticing absence.)
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Can I just say thank you to those on this thread making this point. You and Bluey both.
I know myself that all this has been debunked and racing at 2 is NOT the problem (at least not entirely - my understanding is most trainers that have morals and aren’t stupid know not EVERY horse can race at 2 or early 3 YO year) but as someone not in racing as an industry and who just knows this is debunked but can’t explain it all as well as someone else can, I appreciate seeing this.
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