There’s been a fair amount of requests and debate over the years regarding adding a forum for Western disciplines to the site. Since we no longer have the same tech concerns we did re: bandwidth usage, server size, etc. in order to keep the site running smoothly…and we already housed the content in Off Course for those interested…and various forms of Western riding have made their way into the FEI, IHSA and now even USPC…and a fair number of posters seem interested in having it, we’ve added this forum.
Ta-DA!
We realize “Western” is very much a catch-all term for a whole lotta very different disciplines, but it’s a pretty safe bet we’re not going to be offering individual Team Penning and Western Pleasure forums anytime soon. 
We figure the new forum will organize threads that would probably otherwise fall into Off Course into one space and maybe help form a new little sub-community that can help COTHers with common interests (or side interests) get together.
We do have the option to exclude this forum’s threads/posts from the New Posts search, like we do for Off Topic and The Menagerie, but since any of the content that would go in this new forum could have gone in Off Course, we don’t think that’ll be a necessary step. The horses all still do tend to have four hooves and a tail, though the saddles might have horns. 
Feel free to provide any feedback about the forum here on this thread, or directly/privately to me via private message.
Thanks and enjoy!
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