I am not from the western pleasure world. I grew up barrel racing on a Icelandic. I would laugh with them. Now the horse I am trying to get ready for sale right now is a son of Zips chocolate chip. One of the ones who have amounted to nothing. His owner wanted him to be a barrel horse. He in her opinion moves to slow my job is to get him to be something so when she sells him, so she doesn’t lose money… My goal is to make him into a nice trail horse. He was trained as a two and three year old, and twelve he still remembers his training. And yes I am keeping a good eye one his legs and hoofs. I knew another chip horse growing up who regularly went lame.
You sure about that? Here is a very recent discussion on the AQHA website that has members who clearly feel differently:
http://aqha.ideascale.com/a/dtd/AQHA-Lope/65713-28145
What I love is it’s in a section of the website called:
My AQHA Idea
Share your ideas to help make AQHA a better organization for its members.
A few months ago there was a video going around on FB and it was of some big wig woman from the AQHA talking about how peanut rollers are a thing of the past and natural movement is being rewarded. The reason people thought it was so interesting is because there was a WP class going on in the background and the class was full of zombie, peanut rolling horses. If I can find it, I’ll post it because it was both amusing and sad.
[QUOTE=tinah;7847623]
Um, yes, they are. Ever heard of a tack noseband? Using draw reins to “teach them thru can work correctly”? Heard people brash about moving up to 3" ? Horses don’t START jumping until somewhere around 3’. Less than that is speed bumps.[/QUOTE]
Please feel free to find me numerous videos of horses jumping cross rails in the same manner in which Quarter Horses look half dead as they do the WP crawl, I mean jog.
And btw, there are idiots in every discipline who use poor training methods.
Oh, and I ride an eventer that I brought up slowly starting with poles and cross rails without using draw reins, but gosh, she does wear a bridle that includes a “tack noseband”!
But hey, thanks for setting me straight! :lol:
[QUOTE=Wirt;7848053]
Are those Sr. horses in that video loping correctly for a horse?
If that is correct, well, I have never seen a horse in any other discipline bob there head like that every stride,unless they were lame, because they have to pull their front end back off the ground with their head, because of the slowness. Even the top end of the class still do it. And because the knee action is so flat, they land on the front of their front feet with all their weight for that moment of the stride, which may explain why so many go lame in the front end. They may be “correct” in the insulated world of western pleasure these days, but not correct for anything else, that’s for sure.
I don’t need a judging card to know how a horse moves.
I don’t want to get you defensive. Basically what you are saying is, its a western pleasure thing, you wouldn’t understand. :)[/QUOTE]
Exactly, it is a wp thing, or a gaited thing, or a jumping thing, or a dressage thing, or a bridle horse thing, or an eventer thing, or a rodeo thing, or a racing horse thing, or … you name it, it is what someone else chooses to do.
All we do has some detractors that think they have the world by the tail with a downhill pull and know better and can and should tell others off.
Well, oh enlightened ones, there is diversity in the world, each one of us have our opinions, can point at the fault we see in others.
If we want to have a peaceful world, we have to remember, we are not faultless either, what we may do is not without detractors, because, well, all of us happen to have different opinions of what we want.
The same in all else we do, the dogs we have, how about those not so “natural” dogs we love, the pushed in faces, the too small and too large, the too short legs and long backs, who could possible think that is ok?
Should we demand all have the generic, “natural” small brown dog only, because someone, somewhere doesn’t like any other?
What is lost when some are critics of what others may do is that our rights to like whatever we choose to like ends at the feet of the next person, that also has the right to like what they do.
To keep harping, “but I don’t like it and think you are all wet”, after stating our opinion once, that causes others to become defensive, of course.
I went and watched the APHA World show last night, specifically the Farnam Non-Pro 3&4 Year Old Western Pleasure Sweepstakes and the Farnam 2 Year Old Western Pleasure Sweepstakes.
My non-horsey but learning quickly husband was with me. The first seven years of our relationship the only horses and horse events he was exposed to were my best friends eventers and dressage horses.
My husband, who doesn’t know a whole lot about horses, who has never watched a western pleasure class, was able to pick out the true, correct movers, over the ones that were doing…I don’t know what (I wouldn’t call it peanut rolling).
The true, correct movers were placed at the top of their class.
I recently stopped speaking to someone who is a dressage rider who couldn’t keep her mouth shut about the things I do with my horse. She questioned everything, from what blankets I was buying to what bit my trainer was using. Like a lot of people here she is of the school of thought that western pleasure is always unnatural, always cruel. Yet my horse hangs his head and jogs and lopes around and has since the day he was born. The more my trainer teaches him (patiently, without tying his head down or jerking on his mouth or any of the other methods commonly used by trainers looking to churn out horses quickly) to rock back on his hind end and use himself, the more he’s slowing down.
[QUOTE=jenm;7848152]
Please feel free to find me numerous videos of horses jumping cross rails in the same manner in which Quarter Horses look half dead as they do the WP crawl, I mean jog.
And btw, there are idiots in every discipline who use poor training methods.
Oh, and I ride an eventer that I brought up slowly starting with poles and cross rails without using draw reins, but gosh, she does wear a bridle that includes a “tack noseband”!
But hey, thanks for setting me straight! :lol:[/QUOTE]
Do you even know what a tack nose and is? Because to me, they are an extremely cruel invention, along with tack poles and poling.
[QUOTE=Doctracy;7848390]
Do you even know what a tack nose and is? Because to me, they are an extremely cruel invention, along with tack poles and poling.[/QUOTE]
They are, but you can’t reason with people who believe in hurting a horse to get results.
[QUOTE=KIloBright;7848012]
You obviously aren’t in the least qualified to judge when a horse is moving correctly,as per your post!
Impossible for a horse to lope slow, yet correct, if he is not off of his front end, shoulders up, and a great deal of western pleasure focus on having a horse engaged from behind.
What judging card do you hold???
ONCE AGAIN<what is seen in the show ring, is an exhibition of degree of difficulty, as it is quite easy to train any horse to perform three correct gaits while moving on
If you wish to see western pl at that level, go to any open all breed show
Outside of that show ring, as western pl horse can move out like any other horse
If you think a horse can perform a three beat lope, while moving slow, without being very collected, shoulders up, hocks engaged, then please show me a video of you doing so.
Just by stating that these horses at upper end, are on their front ends, shows me the source of knowledge spouting out of your mouth!
Going to tell me that the earth is flat next???[/QUOTE]
Great post!
fWIW, I was a National Champion in the Amatuer judging contest at Pinto Nationals one year. I was also on a world champion judging team from CSU, along with some of the best recognized world show judges from AQHA. Our coaches were also World Show judges from AQHA.
Some of the others that I went to school with are also upper echelon trainers nowadays.
[QUOTE=Bluey;7848201]
Exactly, it is a wp thing, or a gaited thing, or a jumping thing, or a dressage thing, or a bridle horse thing, or an eventer thing, or a rodeo thing, or a racing horse thing, or … you name it, it is what someone else chooses to do.
All we do has some detractors that think they have the world by the tail with a downhill pull and know better and can and should tell others off.
Well, oh enlightened ones, there is diversity in the world, each one of us have our opinions, can point at the fault we see in others.
If we want to have a peaceful world, we have to remember, we are not faultless either, what we may do is not without detractors, because, well, all of us happen to have different opinions of what we want.
The same in all else we do, the dogs we have, how about those not so “natural” dogs we love, the pushed in faces, the too small and too large, the too short legs and long backs, who could possible think that is ok?
Should we demand all have the generic, “natural” small brown dog only, because someone, somewhere doesn’t like any other?
What is lost when some are critics of what others may do is that our rights to like whatever we choose to like ends at the feet of the next person, that also has the right to like what they do.
To keep harping, “but I don’t like it and think you are all wet”, after stating our opinion once, that causes others to become defensive, of course.[/QUOTE]
Well I was told I am not qualified to judge what a “good mover” is.
So I guess a good mover must be a horse that lopes with his head bobbing. Because that is what I am looking at in a western pleasure class. When did this become the norm, and considered good?
Maybe the top end are better than that.
But I think it is fair to say that there is a predominance of these horses traveling like three legged dogs in the lope at every AQHA show I have been to. So if this isn’t what is desirable, why is there so much of it?
If you love WP, and want to defend it, then why let this continue?. Unless you are saying that that is what we want to see. That that is a good mover.
The rules read that excessive slowness will be penalized, and that a horses poll should be no lower than his withers. Except those things evidently are not enforced in any meaning full way.
I am saying that after generations of WP getting morphed into what it is now, we have raised a generation to look at what the WP lope has become as an improvement and a good thing.
[QUOTE=KIloBright;7848012]
You obviously aren’t in the least qualified to judge when a horse is moving correctly,as per your post!
Impossible for a horse to lope slow, yet correct, if he is not off of his front end, shoulders up, and a great deal of western pleasure focus on having a horse engaged from behind.
What judging card do you hold???
ONCE AGAIN<what is seen in the show ring, is an exhibition of degree of difficulty, as it is quite easy to train any horse to perform three correct gaits while moving on
If you wish to see western pl at that level, go to any open all breed show
Outside of that show ring, as western pl horse can move out like any other horse
If you think a horse can perform a three beat lope, while moving slow, without being very collected, shoulders up, hocks engaged, then please show me a video of you doing so.
Just by stating that these horses at upper end, are on their front ends, shows me the source of knowledge spouting out of your mouth!
Going to tell me that the earth is flat next???[/QUOTE]
Great post!
fWIW, I was a National Champion in the Amatuer judging contest at Pinto Nationals one year. I was also on a world champion judging team from CSU, along with some of the best recognized world show judges from AQHA. Our coaches were also World Show judges from AQHA.
Some of the others that I went to school with are also upper echelon trainers and/or college equine professors.
Here’s a great horse with a decent, although old,video. One of my paint mares was leased for breeding this year and is in foal to him.
http://www.selectbreeders.com/stallions/1607-radical-rodder#stallions/1607-radical-rodder#videos
[QUOTE=aktill;7848039]
http://horsesforlife.com/content/view/1798/1526/[/QUOTE]
Thanks for the link. I’m always impressed by Dr. Miller’s logic and good sense, which he demonstrates not just in his writing, but also by the fact that he loves mules. 
After reading kilobright’s and doctracy’s posts I have to say that they are absolutely correct…but only within the tiny microcosm that is stock horse WP. And, like Bluey says, there are many other tiny microcosms that exist in the world of horse showing, where people believe and enjoy things that don’t make sense to most people outside those tiny worlds. And, as Bluey also says, to each their own, with my addition of “as long as abuse isn’t involved” (e.g. soring in walking horses).
However, I think it is important, especially on a bulletin board like this that attracts readers with a wide range of backgrounds and experience levels, for people outside those tiny microcosms (which is most of us) to speak up and make it absolutely clear that many (most?) of the things that go on inside those microcosms do NOT apply to the larger world where most people and equines live and operate.
(Is there any kind of COTH award for longest sentence? I might qualify with that one. :lol:)
[QUOTE=NoSuchPerson;7848519]
Thanks for the link. I’m always impressed by Dr. Miller’s logic and good sense, which he demonstrates not just in his writing, but also by the fact that he loves mules. :)[/QUOTE]
You know where he loses credibility, when he puts horses up on the bridle as collected and so exemplar, saying look at the old drawings.
If you look at those older horses working truly “up on the bridle”, stiff like and see the upside down, far from collected old drawings, you can see that, like so many out there, the good Dr also suffers from tunnel vision.
Now, those today are using better tools and techniques and ending up with less extremely stiff horses, but not so long ago, look at the videos out there and some even today, if you really look with an educated eye, you can still see that is where you end, once you ride “up in the bridle” with the big bits.
Decades ago, that was what was wanted, a horse that stood “up”, stiff and proudly under you, as per people that, like some here about wp horses, were calling it like they were seeing it, that Dr. Miller, in his infinite wisdom, maybe was not then aware of.
There is no one that is beyond some fault, it is the way the world works.
[QUOTE=Bluey;7848540]
You know where he loses credibility, when he puts horses up on the bridle as collected and so exemplar, saying look at the old drawings.[/QUOTE]
I disagree with your interpretation of what Dr. Miller said, which was:
A lady said, “Well, it’s you Californians that started it with your Californian headset”. And I said, what? I said, that’s not a California headset. Go look at some old paintings. California headset is a classically collected horse with the poll way above the withers and the face almost vertical, but not quite. She said, well, that’s what we call it. And I said, that’s completely wrong. That’s not a California headset. I was just shocked to hear that.
By my reading, he’s simply defining “California headset” and expressing shock that anyone would claim that peanut rolling originated as an attempt to copy a “California headset.”
This is what WP looked like in the seventies.
This is the “California head set”
The horses were not stiff.
https://fbcdn-sphotos-e-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xfa1/v/t1.0-9/1779805_744286782320511_7022189206739919701_n.jpg?oh=f246efc9ac8e58cc099387defe0ccd82&oe=54F24C67&gda=1424729911_74bd2db332d975ce7093876edaf1b9cf
[QUOTE=Wirt;7848587]
This is what WP looked like in the seventies.
This is the “California head set”
The horses were not stiff.
https://fbcdn-sphotos-e-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xfa1/v/t1.0-9/1779805_744286782320511_7022189206739919701_n.jpg?oh=f246efc9ac8e58cc099387defe0ccd82&oe=54F24C67&gda=1424729911_74bd2db332d975ce7093876edaf1b9cf
Right:
http://www.hackamore-reinsman.com/
Can you see the difference there.
I also have the books, there is more in there.
I will say, today everyone is learning from everyone else and is much better.
In the old days? Not so much, sorry.
My point was, everyone wants to defend what they do and most want to see only what they want to see.
[QUOTE=Bluey;7848595]
Right:
http://www.hackamore-reinsman.com/
Can you see the difference there.
I also have the books, there is more in there.
I will say, today everyone is learning from everyone else and is much better.
In the old days? Not so much, sorry.
My point was, everyone wants to defend what they do and most want to see only what they want to see.[/QUOTE]
Yes, Bluey.
You are not the sole source of all things, but thank you again for the lessons. I have all those old books. I even knew some of those old guys. I have lived what the difference is. I will take a good working horse trained hackamore through two rein to straight up any day of the week over what passes as pleasure these days.
The difference is, those horses in those photos are in a position to work. In those days, you could take a cow horse in the bridle and put him on the rail, you could do other things with them, including trail and western riding, and they darn sure didn’t bob there heads when they loped. I don’t know how things got morphed from what the QH was all about, a working horse, into the caricature of a working horse you see today on the rail.
You seem to imply that a horse up in the poll will be stiff. and all those old techniques produced stiff horses. You couldn’t be more wrong.
I find it humorous that many people on this thread are decrying the “peanut roller” when they obviously don’t know what a true peanut roller is.
I also find it humorous that dozens of people on these types of threads rake western pleasure over the coals when the vast majority of them have never sat on a western pleasure horse in their lives.
[QUOTE=Wirt;7848625]
Yes, Bluey.
You are not the sole source of all things, but thank you again for the lessons. I have all those old books. I even knew some of those old guys. I have lived what the difference is. I will take a good working horse trained hackamore through two rein to straight up any day of the week over what passes as pleasure these days.
The difference is, those horses in those photos are in a position to work. In those days, you could take a cow horse in the bridle and put him on the rail, you could do other things with them, including trail and western riding, and they darn sure didn’t bob there heads when they loped. I don’t know how things got morphed from what the QH was all about, a working horse, into the caricature of a working horse you see today on the rail.
You seem to imply that a horse up in the poll will be stiff. and all those old techniques produced stiff horses. You couldn’t be more wrong.[/QUOTE]
Nope, it is not about the poll, but the whole horse, that is not muscled over his back, but u-necked and stiff.
If someone publish a book and uses that for illustrations, it shows that they didn’t know about collection and how a horse needs to work, if that is not what we see in the images.
The talk is deceptive without them, because what someone may consider a nicely handling horse, someone else may see plenty in there that is not quite so.
A cowboy comes along and is talking about this so good horse, how he can spin a hole in the ground and goes ahead spurring and pulling on it, the horse making some kind of coke bottle spin, front end one way, hind end the other, head somewhere between high up in the air and crooked over to the side.
Well, the talk was great, what we both thought a good handling, spinning horse is by far not the same.
I have friends that barrel race and win their share, one is going to the NFR this year and you know, they may be watching a run and talk a storm about the run in detail, how the horse went, how it approached a barrel and turned and did this and that right and how to correct where it could be better.
To me, all that is really not quite there, because what I think they are saying and I see, well, I really don’t know beans about it all.
I think there are many here the same when it comes to wp.
They are adding a spin to make what they see make sense to them, but are like a blind person describing an elephant by touch, really don’t know, just know it looks different than we think it ought to, for what we do.
Now, there are some very basics and I will say, many people just don’t have the educated eye for that, not yet, but the information is out there, more and more and it is time we use it to learn more, like how a horse is muscled properly and moving properly to be the most efficient for the task at hand.
We can’t today bring a horse we have been ranching on right out of the pasture, without months/years of very good training and beat anyone with a horse bred and trained carefully for that, be it arena roping, cutting, racing or most anything such, as people could do when showing started many decades ago.
I would like to see some that pick at wp get on one of those horses and try to make any kind of decent show on them, without instruction.
We really can’t do good at what we don’t know, that others work hard to do, so we can’t really say.
We really have come a long way and I think we will still keep going a long way and some of that may indeed be self correcting as we get better and better, have better horses and training, fads and extremes eventually becoming less so, the more we learn.
All the talk about collection and light horses and in the front of that book what do you see?
An inverted horse, stiffly standing there, not at all what you think someone that knows better, as most do today, would want to put out there to show the correct horse, if we really knew what that is supposed to be.
We really have come a long way in all we do with horses, most of us, cross pollination from one to another discipline and going back to some basics some didn’t have, or were not correct as we know today to be.
As for which horse anyone prefers to watch or ride, of course we will like what we like.
That doesn’t make what we don’t like bad in itself, be it WP or five gaited or cross country jumping or racing or …
[QUOTE=Wirt;7848587]
This is what WP looked like in the seventies.
This is the “California head set”
The horses were not stiff.
https://fbcdn-sphotos-e-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xfa1/v/t1.0-9/1779805_744286782320511_7022189206739919701_n.jpg?oh=f246efc9ac8e58cc099387defe0ccd82&oe=54F24C67&gda=1424729911_74bd2db332d975ce7093876edaf1b9cf
I have plenty of photos of my family’s horses that look just like this. What’s your point?
As Bluey mentioned, there were plenty of problems with this style of riding. One is not better or worse than the other. They are just different.
Horse sports evolve. That’s true of every discipline. Just because you don’t like it doesn’t mean the rest of a particular discipline has to lock step in line.
[QUOTE=Charliemyheart;7848106]
Now the horse I am trying to get ready for sale right now is a son of Zips chocolate chip. One of the ones who have amounted to nothing. His owner wanted him to be a barrel horse. [/QUOTE]
ok, Charliemyheart this comment is in NO way directed at you!!!
but
Who the H*** expects a Zip’s Chocolate Chip bred horse to be a barrel horse? Is there now a 10D? LOLOLOL!!!
My filly’s father is by ZCC. She’s 5/8ths TB, and I can tell you right now, a three legged dog with a full bladder could beat her. In fact, she would WANT it to beat her because, well… the only thing running fast ever got you was sweaty and out of breath! I have yet to meet a ZCC that WASN’T of this opinion! ROFL!!
Oddly enough, to go back to a statement made a while ago by someone talking about QH HUS stallions, I bred to this stallion because, even though he was western pleasure through and through, he STILL had better freedom of the shoulder than most of the HUS stallions out there, and a nicer canter stride. (when shown at liberty…)
