So, I am going to start showing AQHA. My goal is to show in the ranch riding & the hunter hack.
apples/oranges in a big way.
Are there alternatives to the classic hunter braids that I can do with a long ranch horse mane that are not completely unacceptable in the hunter ring?
BTW, I am doing this for fun, not to sell horses, build a training barn reputation or anything else other than pure enjoyment on my part. I grew up H/J, daughter rides reiners & I think the ranch horse class is great fun. I am competitive enough that I want to have good go rounds & be rewarded accordingly, but I am not necessarily expecting to go in & win all the time on a “jack of all trades” kind of guy. As long as the round is good for us, I will be happy.
I don’t want to insult any judges going in with something other than classic hunter braids, but just don’t like doing them, & am now old enough to be willing to say “don’t want to, not going to.” I am willing to accept the consequences of my decision, if I happen to run into that rare judge that judges appearance rather than the actual go-round. I just want to see if I can manage a nice tidy turnout that doesn’t take away from the round.
You can do perfectly respectable button braids with rubber bands and they are WAY faster/easier than sewn in hunter braids.
But would puling it to look tidy be a problem in the ranch horse class? I can’t imagine there’s not one halter horse doing the ranch horse classes and I remember them being pulled and banded, no?
Me too! Had my first show last weekend, doing a variety of events on the same horse.
His mane is natural, for the purpose of ranch horse. So I did a running braid for Hunter. I skipped the hoof polish b/c showmanship and hunter was the first day and ranch was the second day and there was just no way I was going to risk having any leftover polish on his hooves. Polish is absolutely not allowed in ranch.
I also don’t fully clips his legs or inside the ears. I just make them look as neat as I can for showmanship. I do trim the muzzle hairs though.
It is tricky when you are trying to show in multiple events that have different requirements.
This is from last year, but this is what I do with his mane.
Me too! Just had my first show last weekend, doing a wide variety of events. We did halter, showmanship, HUS, HSE, (first day) and then ranch horse, reining, and barrels and poles (second day).
I skipped the hoof polish the first day b/c I did not want any chance of hoof polish being on there for ranch horse the next day. On the first day, I just did a tight running braid since his mane is totally natural. This is a picture from last year of what I do. Works fine.
I also did not clip inside his ears (just cleaned them up) and then not do a close clip on his legs/feet (just make him look neat). It’s challenging when you are showing different events but still want to look the part for each one.
Probably not, because if that halter horse is also doing Western Pleasure (which they probably are), it is against the rules for the horse to enter in BOTH ranch horse and western pleasure.
I think it’s pretty rare to see a ranch horse with a pulled mane.
Plus as skrgirl posted above, you CANNOT have bands. Against the rules.
Me too! Just had my first show last weekend, doing a wide variety of events. We did halter, showmanship, HUS, HSE, (first day) and then ranch horse, reining, and barrels and poles (second day).
I skipped the hoof polish the first day b/c I did not want any chance of hoof polish being on there for ranch horse the next day. On the first day, I just did a tight running braid since his mane is totally natural. This is a picture from last year of what I do. Works fine.
I also did not clip inside his ears (just cleaned them up) and then not do a close clip on his legs/feet (just make him look neat). It’s challenging when you are showing different events but still want to look the part for each one.
Probably not, because if that halter horse is also doing Western Pleasure (which they probably are), it is against the rules for the horse to enter in BOTH ranch horse and western pleasure.
I think it’s pretty rare to see a ranch horse with a pulled mane.
Plus as skrgirl posted above, you CANNOT have bands. Against the rules.
I’d do the running braid over scalloped, it’s somewhat more traditional looking. Would definitely not do the lattice unless this is a super casual schooling show/playday.
I was definitely one to never follow tradition…lol…but we only did scallops on the ones that were strictly hunter because they take a long time to put in.
In the end, in the QH world, isn’t the long mane going to be non-traditional as it is in a HUS class? So. anything she does is not traditional…go big or go home, right? lol Anyways, We moved more towards the scallops because they stay in better. Screw tradition… Horse drops his head once with a running braid in and, if it’s done tightly, it pulls/loosens and looks terrible. Then again, the Morgans are more up headed, so if you put it in with their head in a natural position and they stretch downward to do horse things, they’ll pull it all out, even with string braided in. I guess on a QH if their head is already down/level, there isn’t much else for it to do…so maybe it’s not as big of a deal.
If there is any chance of a quick change over, of course the running braid is the way to go despite the chances of it looking awful in 5 minutes.
@Mulligan314 I can’t do a running braid worth a darn, but people who do it well (like the people with baroque horses at my barn) don’t seem to have any problem. Their running braids are beautiful and stay in. However it does take practice! I tried it once, and not only did my arms and hands get super tired from holding it the entire time (instead of taking a break between braids), but it looked lumpy and horrible.
I just think between a loose long mane, running braid, scalloped braids, or lattice the running braid is the most conservative.
I can do them, and do them well. We’ve always shown with a long mane, so I learned to braid young and braided for a few barns in my youth…which is probably why I got sick of braiding and entire barn for a morning session and re-braiding for an afternoon session and re-braiding for an evening session… As long as you keep the horse’s head in the position you braided it in, there isn’t an issue…like keeping them in cross ties. If it’s one class, no problem, but trying to keep them neat for an entire day, in and out of the ring and stall, is less likely to happen…no matter how tightly you braid. Just speaking from experience. The nice thing is that, yes, it can be redone quickly.
With the spanish horses, their crests and manes are so thick, it’s hard to get them as tight as you can with a thinner maned horse. The thicker braids have more ‘wiggle’ room because of the fact they aren’t/can’t be braided as tight - not saying they aren’t braided as tight as they can be. I knew a person with a driving horse who would shave the underside his mane to make it thin enough to braid…lol. I would say it also depends on the actual length. If the mane is long enough to have one strand carry down nearly the entire length of the neck, they do tend to stay in a little better because essentially every strand of hair is acting like the yarn you would put in to help stabilize things and is able to be tied off at the end, rather than being ‘loose’ somewhere along the neckline, allowing the ability to pull loose easier. The mare we had that would cross enter hunt/western had a crazy thick mane, but it wasn’t very long in ‘long’ standards(too long for nice button braids, but not spanish long). It didn’t matter how tight you braided her mane, because the strands just weren’t very long, it would typically be loosened by the end of a class/session(about 2 hours from putting in the initial braid through warm up and end of class back to stall). So, if she was shown more than once per day, she would have to be rebraided. As soon as we switched her to only hunt, she got scallops…because work smart, not hard…
And, again, I’ve never been one for tradition and conservativeness. I like to add a little bit of subtle flare if I can. Why not? If the judge is going to throw me out of the rankings because of what type of braid I put in my horses mane rather than its actual performance, that shows more about them than me. Probably also why I stopped competing in subjective classes and moved to objective classes…not really though…but, I do think it’s absurd that a beautifully turned out, well performing horse could/would be thrown out of the ranking in a pleasure class because of the type of braid you decided to put into its mane.
You are right…a tight running braid(any braid, really) takes a ton of practice. It looks so simple, and when efficient at it looks effortless, but it is much harder than it appears. All of my friends ask how I learned to french braid hair(human) so well and they are always flabbergasted when I tell them I learned on horses(most don’t know my past/other life with horses). If you can braid a moving target, and do it well, you can typically braid anything. though I can not do a dutch braid…my hands have NO IDEA what to do. Figured that out at halloween a few years ago. Who knew having your hands cross the strands the opposite way would be so strange.
I think I would decide which class was a bigger focus and adjust the mane for that (unless you just like long or short manes!) So if I were more interested in the hunter class, I would have the mane relatively short and do some larger button braids for that class. You might look less traditional in the ranch class, but I think you are okay as long as you show unbanded or braided.
If I were keeping the mane longer (and I currently have a horse with a long Morgan mane!) I would do a running braid for the hunter class. I cannot do one very tight, but with just a bit of practice, I can do one that is neat and tidy and stays in long enough. I dont mind that it is well below the crest as it goes down the neck, YMMV
They are trying to keep the ranch riding from becoming just another pleasure class. The purpose of the class it to show a horse that could do well working aross a ranch. Would take you a month to check fence or get to a calf at a WP lope.
And although the rules state that the horse is to be shown at a forward gait, they also state that 4beating, peanut rolling, etc are to be penalized in WP. Look where that has gone. They want the hard core WP people coming in & pushing the ranch class that direction. Unfortunately, politics count.
