[QUOTE=shawneeAcres;3555205]
There is this barn in our area, we pretty much only see the riders at our district and state 4-H shows. WE call them the “scary riders”. They ALL ride with protective vests (over their jackets) which is fine, but trust me they are there FOR A REASON. These kids are taught NOT to release and NOT to get in two point over the fence, I mean HONESTLY they sit STRAIGHT UP over top of the fence and the POOR POOR HORSES constantly get hit in the mouth. These aren’t little kids, some of them are 16, 17, 18 years old. THey also GUN their horses at the fences, as fast as they can possibly get them. It is absolutely frightening to see. And all the while in warmup their trainer is gushing praise “Oh that was PEERRFFECT!!! Love on your pony for that” while we are CRINGING! So at the state show this past, one of the kids is on this REALLY adorable pony, that unfortuantely is absolutely close to being ruined by this, AND on top of it he is SUPER green, at district they stated he had been jumping like TWO WEEKS total and is doing the 2’9". Anyways, the kid goes in, pony has a stop or two I think, comes to a fence and jumps it STRAIGHT UP and STRAIGHT down, of course, becuase he gets NO release and rider is sitting perfectly verticle. The kid comes off. So the trainer is walking out of the ring with the kid, leading the pony (kid was fine) and says to the Mom “Well good, she fell off, she ALWAYS rides SO MUCH BETTER after falling off” I KID YOU NOT!! Wouldn’t this be a red flag to a parent (and the fact that another kid of hers wasn’t able to ride and was in a cast at the show)???[/QUOTE]
Oooh, this gives me flashbacks to the fair last weekend. I went up to watch the western events (only events they have 
) and was stunned by the entrants. These people look like someone just sat them on a horse, gave them a “cool cowboy hat” and said “go! take a deathgrip on the horn if you need to!”
There was a semi-horsey couple sitting behind me in the bleachers and the husband said to his wife: “Aren’t they supposed to practice for this?”
Now, there were a few good ones. one older man clearly knew his riding well, and a little girl was on a seasoned gamer/lesson type that did well, and the kid was a good little rider… But omg… talk about terrible riders otherwise! They were practically sitting on top of the cantle, death grip on the horn, bouncing around all over the place, holding onto the cantle, ripping around on their horse’s mouth (with huge shanked bits, of course). There were quite a few gasps from the crowd as a few of the riders nearly kept going when the horse turned around the barrel.
Its sad, because this fair used to bring some very good riders, now it seems to just be the idiots that would be featured on FHOTD.
