Hello All,
BNT has told me that it is nearly impossible to find a great trail horse that will also be great in horsemanship.
Does this sound right? Seems that many top riders take one horse in both events and are successful in both rings.
What are your thoughts?
Is your kid a top rider? Top riders can do all sorts of things the rest of us can’t.
A move-up horse that is a seeing eye dog in trail and horsemanship is, again, a rare and expensive beast.
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Are you talking about competing on an average level on both or winning at both at the top?
Yes, related skill sets, you can include Western Riding in there too, tne pattern class, not Horsemanship. You do see some crossover in the Youth and with those looking for an All Around title. BUT anything except a huge superstar of a horse with exceptional rider isn’t going to do them equally well. That horse is not likely to be a Junior horse but a veteran with years of training and many shows, you see more older horses in these divisions, That experience adds zeros to price tags.
If course you could try to make one and spread the cost over several years of full service training and 30 shows a year.
Man I showed Trail with QH, Ayrab and Paint for at Breed shows in 4 states and the old AHSA open circuits out on the west coast years ago (Del Mar at the track, Indio, Santa Barbara, etc.) Those Trail courses today are TOUGH and intricate, not going to teach a horse to navigate them overnight.
So does said trainer want you to buy TWO $200,000 horses then?
Seems to me that if a horse does well in trail, it should easily be well-trained enough to go nicely in horsemanship. Might be harder to go the other way, if you find a horsemanship horse that has never done trail because you’ll have to teach them to navigate all those obstacles.
Now I don’t show at the world level nor have I ever done a breed show (I might someday), so take my thoughts with a grain of salt. But remember that horsemanship is how well the rider rides. I was just at a show on Saturday, and my main barrel horse and I took 2nd place in horsemanship and 4th place in trail out of about 15 competitors, several of who do go to the AQHA breed shows and show seriously. My horse may not have the WP gait, but he’s well trained and responsive and makes me look good! We also took 4th in showmanship (little bobble on setting up) and just barely out of the placings (I talked to the judge) on the ranch horse pleasure class that had almost 30 entries. Not bad for a rodeo horse.
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@beau159 That’s great, way to go! Barrel horses tend to get a bad rap as being crazy (okay some actually are…) so it’s nice to hear of one being so well-rounded.
@Training Cupid I do say I pride myself on having well-rounded horses. I like to barrel race at a highly competitive level, but I also expect my horses to go into that arena calmly like a show horse if I ask them. I like a brain between their ears and a good broke horse.
I use my horses for many different events … so circling back to the OP’s question, if you take the time to work with a horse, I don’t see why they couldn’t be competitive at both trail and horsemanship so long as they have the talent to compete at the level you desire.
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The classes are very similar so not sure why trainer would say that. After hearing some of the advice given kinda curious who this trainer is…
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My horse does both and does them well. I’ve been to Congress and Select World and have seen many horses that do both AND western riding as well. That said, a horse like that isn’t cheap
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