I have just recently started to watch Yellowstone, which obviously is fiction, not reality.
But I just saw an episode last night where they took a green horse that needed some work and a green cowboy, and duct taped the cowboy into the saddle and let him just keep going around the ring on the horse until the horse was exhausted enough to be tame.
The part that worries me is if somebody who doesn’t know anything about horses tries that at home. Lol.
Agreed. I used to think they would all hock hobble and the like, until I saw a co-boarder break out 3 purpose-bred WP horses. They showed up with that level-or-lower head, shuffle trot, and four beat lope. I mean, the first time these horses were on the lunge they were doing it. They look super awkward if asked to move out for real - they just aren’t built to do it.
He bought them as halter broke 2 year olds, with no show records.
Have you watched any cutting lately? A cutter will lope around pretty level, and when they’re working a cow their head will can be very low at times, especially when facing a cow.
I have often thought that Quarter Horse and other “western-type” breeds remind me of cattle in their stance and somewhat in their conformation. It makes me wonder if those breeders are trying to have their horses emulate the cattle. 
Yes, but not the whole horse dipping about on their forehand, which was the complaint. Just because their head is low doesn’t mean they are on the forehand. They can’t be to do the turns they need to cut.
Ok, I’m going to devil’s advocate this discussion. A horse with a high head is plugging into adrenalin; a horse with a low head is pluggin into endorphins. It can be very useful with a young horse to teach it to drop it’s head and learn to stretch and to work stretchy circles anytime the horse gets upset about something, because you are plugging into endorphins. To raise the head too soon in the training can encourage tension. A good working cowhorse is relaxed and on endorphins, not adrenaline. A good young warmblood can be trained to work out of tension by using stretchy circles. I always ask a horse to lower it’s head during in hand work; I find it helps relax the horse. Lowering the head does not = on the forehand if the hind legs are engaged.
Not sure where you get this idea. The conformation of the western horse’s hip allows it to be level or the head lower with the weight still being rocked back on the hind end. I would suggest you study just a bit, the conformation of a good western stock horse. A shorter back, the musculature of the hip, gaskin, and lower set of the hocks, allows the horse to nearly drag its head on the ground and still maintain good balance and drive from behind. Quarter horses are a highly specialized breed of horse. It’s always interesting to me to see people on this board make generalized statements about their performance when they have never rode, trained or showed one.
Uh, no. Not sure how you can look at that cow and that horse and make that statement. Maybe it’s because they’re the same color? Quarter horses were originally bred to either race or work cattle. More than a century of breeding has specialized certain pedigrees to “read a cow,” along with the conformation that allows the horse to go down “eye-to-eye” with a cow. Watch a good cutting horse sometime. Pay attention to the hind end. The maneuvers rely heavily on the use of the hip and hind end.
How about this one, then?
Or this one?
Both are from Ellis Quarter Horses.
I could have made the same point using different colored horses and cattle. It has mostly to do with their stance and the way they stand with head low and poked out. They also often give the appearance of being short-legged in front, as do cattle, and can look loaded in the shoulder because of all the muscling. Thankfully they are usually shorter-backed than cattle. LOL.
The Ellis horses seem to be halter horses which are not in any way able to be used as performance horses, especially for cattle. They are not built or bred for it. QH breeding is highly specialized.
Sometimes the name hints to the specialty. For instance, if there’s Jet in the name odds are it’s a running horse, racing or barrels.
It “Boggles” the mind?
It boggles my mind when things go sideways in Dressage Land, somehow Western disciplines and Quarter Horses start getting bashed.
Cattle are VERY loaded in front, they don’t just look it. I always cringed and said a few prayers (and I’m atheist lol) when I had to treat a front foot on a cow. They are very much more heavy on the forehand than horses are. And it’s not just the muscling, it’s the whole structure of a very deep chest, wide shoulders, and low set on neck.
It’s just one of those, “Yeah, well, lookit what they’re doing over there!” type things, usually.
Granted, it’s not bad to be aware of various things across different disciplines and learn where we can, but we just have to make sure not to use it as a distraction.
Sometimes I think it is interesting looking at different disciplines and how it all works when it comes to horse types, “ways of going” and so on, but it can get into apples and oranges territory.
How did this thread go from alleged abuse by a dressage trainer to a comparison of horses to cattle?
Discussion is a wild thing.
I know that. My ex is a cutting horse trainer, spent more time watching them and hearing about what is a good cutting horse than I care to recall. My daughter actually placed third in the NCHA 13 & Under Cutting on a horse she only rode once before the class.
They still go with a lower head carriage.
Right - but not on the forehand. Which is what I was replying to. I know where their heads go LOL
My conspiracy theory was that the powers that be want to derail the discussion. But, the simplest explanation is just because COTH, haha.
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