Vaquero again: The right horse for the job?

[mvp]

That’s it, I want to make my own damned bridle horse from nuthin’.

I rode the old, unsound hunter last night after I came home from watching a Buck Brannaman clinic to see if he and I could do that stuff. Sure enough, the sucker could… too bad he’s too lame for a lot of it.

Because it costs as much to feed a good horse as a bad one, I want to know what ingredients should be there in a young horse who can eventually do this job.

Specifically:

1. Does it actually need to have a good mind?

It seems to me that making a bridle horse is so much about giving each horse a ride that’s very, very observant of his mind. So… can’t you just start with any horse out there and give him a great mental ride every day until he’s trainable?

The one exception might be the cold-blooded horse who challenges his rider by becoming dull.

2. I assume it needs to be uphill.

To me, this is a basic requirement for any job. I don’t understand any part of Western World that looks for the down hill ones. Do cutters actually believe that works?

3. But do I want some kind of Andalusian thing that’s build for collection but not extension?

I think that’s not my personal taste. I’m used to Dressage World where people believe a horse should be able to extend his gaits and also stretch to long and low, not just crunch up and collect.

4. Can I please have one with suspension and flat-kneed movement?

I basically want a show hunter who happens to have his PhD in Western. Is there anything about how this horse is built or how he’ll move that will work against him in the bridle horse job?

I would be happy with a small horse, mainly because I think they stay sounder longer. But I assume that an intelligent rider can ride a mammoth horse to the softness he wants, even if he’s using the very curvy, tight exercises associated with Western World?

[Bluey]

You can find any kind of horse you want, but the more you ask it be, the pricier it may be also.

On some of what you want, you may just have to compromise a bit when you find the horse you really like.

There are not that many almost perfect horses out there.

I say, one horse, well, sorry, you can’t learn much, can not ride it that much.
To really learn, a human needs to ride many horses, several a day, all kinds of them.
Try finding some good trainer to ride with and help starting colts and/or training for any one task, jumping, working cattle, whatever you fancy to do.

If you come from a dressage tradition, would you think it makes sense for someone that just trail rode all their lives to buy a young horse and now teach it dressage and to the higher levels, when they themselves really don’t know what they are doing?

Why try to reinvent the wheel?
Find a great trainer for what you are aiming to do, have that trainer help you find the horse for those goals and teach you on other horses also.
Then, with good instruction, you can go onto your goal with the best tools for the job.

That is if I got right what your purpose is, according to what I understood from the post above.

[mvp]

Great advice on riding lots and lots of 'em. That’s how I grew up and now, even with a pretty deep base in several English disciplines, I think I could learn a lot riding colts with someone good in Western World.

I do agree that you can’t have it all— mind, body and pretty— for a low price. You have to compromise. I’m used to Modern Hunter World’s incredible beauty contest were a good 80% of winning comes from the horse’s innate qualities-- a great athlete with an equally great mind.

I was wondering if trainers who make bridle horse and seem to get so much deeper into the horse’s mind also must start with such a mentally-ideal animal.

[Bluey]

[QUOTE=mvp;7070198]
Great advice on riding lots and lots of 'em. That’s how I grew up and now, even with a pretty deep base in several English disciplines, I think I could learn a lot riding colts with someone good in Western World.

I do agree that you can’t have it all— mind, body and pretty— for a low price. You have to compromise. I’m used to Modern Hunter World’s incredible beauty contest were a good 80% of winning comes from the horse’s innate qualities-- a great athlete with an equally great mind.

I was wondering if trainers who make bridle horse and seem to get so much deeper into the horse’s mind also must start with such a mentally-ideal animal.[/QUOTE]

Well, the old vaquero tradition trainers used to say that from many horses they trained, only a few would ever be the kind that would go up on the bridle, many others just were not suitable.
There lays your answer.

[mvp]

[QUOTE=Bluey;7070228]
Well, the old vaquero tradition trainers used to say that from many horses they trained, only a few would ever be the kind that would go up on the bridle, many others just were not suitable.
There lays your answer.[/QUOTE]

Well, yeah, but the point is to identify the three-year-old who at least has a fighting chance of getting to the bridle.

I think I could learn a ton riding lots of horses who will never get there-- because of their age, build or unsoundness. They can still be improved and made into very, very nice snaffle horses. Maybe some get to the hackamore stage, too, though I don’t know why you’d bother with that except as a transition to the bridle.

But to feed one for all that time… that’s another proposition.

[Fillabeana]

There’s a guy I work with a lot here locally. He has helped Buck with his clinics, he rode with Ray Hunt (not ‘attended a few clinics’, but drove Ray in his Cadillac to a clinic in Canada once besides all the colt starting and clinic riding he did with Ray), he’s the real deal.

Anyway, he was once telling me about how Ray Hunt could take a poorly made, not-good-minded, not athletic horse and make it look fabulous, to the point where onlookers consistently admired Ray’s horse. My friend said some of those horses weren’t worth a plug nickel, and anyone else was not going to enjoy riding such a horse.

But Ray Hunt I am not.

So what I want is an athletic, good minded horse. I want some combination of the ability to GET uphill, with the ability to cover ground with a long stride (a square mile pasture in a long trot will take longer on a nice, uphill Andalusion than on a leggy TB that isn’t made downhill.) I would like a horse with a natural lead change, and a horse with a good bunch of cow sense, and the moxy to want to boss the cows. (No shriveling daisies.) I want a bit of hot/sensitive/forward without too much reactivity, and a big dose of mentally tough, and properly put on legs with quality feet.

Dr. Deb Bennett said once in her writings that Ray Hunts preferred horse was a Thoroughbred, if I remember right. Buck seems to like a big, leggy QH that has plenty of TB in it, though he’s riding some smaller, more downhill horses lately. My friend that helps me out would much rather ride an un-screwed-up TB than a heavy built QH.

Basically, don’t start with something that has had its brain fried somewhere else, or has been ridden a lot in a tie-down, draw reins, or running martingale, or otherwise inappropriately overbent and ducking its chin to its chest in evading too-strong hands.

And if you’re at Buck’s clinic now, you are ‘in range’ to work with this fellow who has helped me out so tremendously, so I’ll pm you with contact information if you like. He will NOT blow smoke up your butt, or have you doing anything that will mess up a properly ridden dressage horse, hunter, or anything else.

[Bluey]

Chrystal balls are overrated when it comes to pick young horses for any one task.

You can help your odds if you study bloodlines and find those and their crosses that produce what you are after.

[mvp]

[QUOTE=Fillabeana;7070241]

And if you’re at Buck’s clinic now, you are ‘in range’ to work with this fellow who has helped me out so tremendously, so I’ll pm you with contact information if you like. He will NOT blow smoke up your butt, or have you doing anything that will mess up a properly ridden dressage horse, hunter, or anything else.[/QUOTE]

Thank you very much for that PM. I’ll look forward to it.

I’m taking what Bluey said about riding lots and lots of them to heart. Also, that raises an additional topic which I’ll put into another thread.

It’s kind of exciting and refreshing to be looking around for someone from whom to take lessons. Once you get higher up in your discipline of choice (and don’t get mo’ money), you run out of great places to learn. You can’t find people who know enough to help you move along. Or if you do find that person, you can’t afford the horse to do it on. Or they don’t keep that level of school horse around.

[mvp]

[QUOTE=Bluey;7070245]
Chrystal balls are overrated when it comes to pick young horses for any one task.

You can help your odds if you study bloodlines and find those and their crosses that produce what you are after.[/QUOTE]

Oy! I’m somewhere in between here.

I’m not smart enough to breed one. BTDT and got a useful, great-minded amateur hunter horse who filled the bill. But that was a humbling experience and it took years for me to figure out how to create that “just average” show hunter. To start over in the research it would take to know how to produce a purpose-bred horse for a different discipline whose biomechanics requirements I don’t even understand yet? I should just light my 20 dollar bills on fire while I watch tv on the couch.

I will say that I’m riding one now who is badly built for any kind up hind-end-pushing job. He’s not downhill, but he has a series of other problems that make everything harder for him. Bless his heart, he can be improved but it will be slow. He’s just playing catch-up to the better-put-together horse. He has made me a believer of finding good conformation.

[Bluey]

Ok, staying on topic but a bit out there, I tell you that my neighbor was starting cutting colts he had raised and called me one evening to watch them work.

He brought four really nice colts out, from one to two months under saddle he was starting to show them cattle in the round pen.
Some were better than others, some very good, then he brought this one filly, that he said only had a handful of saddles, he started her later than the colts and you could tell from the first time she laid eyes on those cattle in the pen, it was all over, she was a good 100 times more talented than all the other put together.

My neighbor was not the kind of rider for that level, so he sold her to a top trainer, that did very well with her over the years.

A reining trainer I know had the same situation, ended up with one colt that was correct and extremely talented, he said, since he rode him the first time, heads above all other colts.
One of the top trainers took the colt and he ended in the top five at the Snaffle Bit Futurity, where any of those could have won it, they are all the best that get there.

Now, to have and train and ride such horses, while it sounds so appealing, the reality is that most of us don’t have any business with that caliber horse, they really need to be in the best top professional hands to do them right.
Talent alone is not enough, it takes years to have learned how to bring that talent up and with it perform credibly at the top.

My point, don’t get too hung up on a great, talented horse, but try to find the kind that will suit you at each stage of your learning curve.
That would really be the best for you and being fair to the horse also.
You don’t only want “the best horse for the job”, but the best horse for you also, to learn that job.

A good, experienced trainer in the field you want to participate in is your best bet to do what you want to do best, if that makes sense.

[Fillabeana]

A couple more thoughts:
An appendix QH, or a half-TB/Paint, with some cowhorse lines, can make a great bridle horse.
Martin Black owns a TB son of Gone West, and breeds good ranch mares to him. You would be able to buy a two or three year old, raised in a group out on pasture- that’s where I’d look. He sells them at the ‘colt starting’ gathering at Paso Robles, CA in the spring, usually just started. And started well. But you might be able to start one yourself if you wanted to.

I would prefer that the mare be TB, rather than the sire, because the large heart gene that gives stamina and ease of wind-conditioning is on the X-chromosome. So a half-TB would have to have the TB large-heart-gene on the X chromosome come from a TB mama. Unless the ‘QH’ mama is really a half TB with a TB mama.
But if you aren’t usually going to be riding 8 hours at a stretch in 3+ square mile pastures, a regular appendix QH would be fine.

I also like Appy/TBs. They have opinions, usually, and the ones that aren’t spotted AQHA halter horses are usually built really well for an all-purpose horse. And those smarts, if your horse is loyal and loves you, well, you’re really going to enjoy whatever you do.

I would probably stay away from a draft cross. I like them, I’ve had one, but they are often SO heavy muscled and not designed to canter. You could make one into a bridle horse, but it would just be more difficult. Mine was really cowy, and had a fabulous gallop and jump, but it was sooooo hard to get him fit, and really hard to get a beautiful canter from him.

As for those really downhill QH types, well, they’re great for rodeo. But not so much for a big circle looking for cattle, gathering, etc. That downhill build gives them blinding speed in a sprint, so you can get a winning time roping. But I find riding them rather like riding a rockjack.

Morgan? Saddlebred? Iberian (Andalusian/Lusitano)? Arab? Maybe, and especially combined with some QH or TB blood.

But you REALLY, REALLY want a great set of withers if you think you might want to rope…and you won’t ever make a ‘real’ bridle horse without learning to rope.

[mvp]

Thanks for the detailed look at the variety of stock breeds and builds as they give good or bad odds for making up into a bridle horse.

I do love me some Appendix QH. But having been spoiled by the Warmblood Invasion in Hunter World, can’t I have something with some suspension? Or would that be a detriment?

I don’t mean draft cross. Yes, it should have an uphill, 3-beat canter with a moment of suspension in between the strides, and a natural lead change.

I should confess that I won’t every do anything with cattle, except as the horse needs it for his education or some R & R. Then again, my KWPN hunter gelding thought it was the cat’s pajamas when he could boss a cow around. The cutting dude who lets us play with his cattle said that WBs do have cow.

[Fillabeana]

Sure, you can have a Warmblood. I do want to caution you , though, about having a horse with a ‘dumblood’ personality. I fully realize that Warmbloods aren’t dumb, and many of them have a keener personality. But watch out for those really tolerant, compliant types that seem a bit distant. This personality isn’t uncommon for a QH, either. They sort of shut out stuff, tolerate it without being bothered/reacting on the surface. But when something happens that is really too much for them, you have a HUGE rodeo.
If you want to follow this type of horsemanship, and have a horse that is great to have on a feel, you’d do better to have a horse that tells you when he doesn’t like what’s going on, instead of ‘stuffing’ his feelings.
And of course, this type of personality is NOT exclusive to warmbloods!

[Renae]

You sound like you would like the right Morgan. Look at Brunk and Western Working Morgan lines. This is Flyhawk, one of the most well known stallions from the Brunk breeding program https://www.morganhorse.com/about_morgan/photos/morgan-photo-archive/260/

https://www.facebook.com/TheWesternWorkingMorganHorse

[Fillabeana]

Oh, and I haven’t found suspension in a trot to be a detriment.

But I would do everything I could to spend time with cattle, outside. I’ve seen some beautifully trained Working Cowhorse and cutting horses that, uh, couldn’t really make it work without great footing and a fence to use to position the cattle. Rocks? A cow that wants to come back up the rope and mash you? At that point, you can really see the ‘outside’ horses versus the arena horses. (Of course, take an outside-only horse in the arena, and he’s going to spend so much energy avoiding running into the fence that he won’t take his leads right! So some arena work is useful, too.)
And of course, all of these particular maneuvers you are asking for don’t make sense to the horse until you use them on a cow. If you are moving/herding/working cows all along, the horse doesn’t tend to get frustrated with you.

[mvp]

I agree with you on making a horse that can go outside and do a job. And, yes, horses are much more interested in their daily “workout” if they are doing something with a cow while using their body.

I have tried to make sure my arena horses knew that the same rules applied outside, too. They like it.

[Fillabeana]

I also had some thoughts about Bluey’s post, regarding super-talented horses.

Now, if you have a horse that is too much for you, you’re overhorsed, you should NOT have that horse. Nobody ain’t got no business on a horse that is too much for their skills. Do find him another home where he can excel.

If you raise horses for profit, instead of just fun, and you get something spectacularly talented, again, you should get that talented horse into the hands of someone who will go out and get you some notoriety.

But if you aren’t overmounted, there is no real reason in my book to NOT have a horse whose talents you’ll never get to the bottom of.