Ethics or the lack of

A couple of issues have come up over the past couple of weeks that have made me question the ethics of the horse industry. 

I'm only going to slightly touch on the abuse, its there, realize it, and do your best to look after your horse, because the breed associations don't seem to want to.

 And I'm not just talking about starving horses or beating them, I'm talking about the underhanded abuse that is done to get a horse in the show ring.  The bosal rubs, raw mouths, and spur marks.  I am very thankful that my BNT that I trained with wouldn't let anything like that happen to a horse in his care. (Heck we were horrified when one of the kids got new boots that rubbed the hair off on her HUS gelding!  She wasn't allowed to go to the next show as punishment!)

Sure there are accidents, and sometimes tack doesn't fit right, but take the time to let the injury heal, don't cover it with make up to get the horse in the show ring.

Both Oscar and Lucas have had their tails 'done'.  Lucas' was done via injections.  He had most
of his movement back, but couldn't lift his tail up when he was excited. Oscars tail has been broken in multiple places.  Of course its possible that he could have broken it as a youngster (Sophie, my friends foal did come out of the mare with a kink in the bottom of her tail, vets told her that a kink in the bottom is common).  How much do you have to hate a horse to break its tail multiple times?  He can use it a fair bit now, but like Lucas, he doesn't have full use.

The new "Novice" rules for AQHA. 

Personally in 2013 I can enter the show ring again as an amateur ( and a Novice at that!)  Most likely I will show novice in the riding classes if I have a chance to show AQHA again.  I will not show novice in halter.  Been there done that got the T-shirt.

Recently they changed the rules, now only your past 3 years worth of points count to your novice eligibility.  So you could be a youth would champion in western pleasure, sit out your college years and come back as a novice in Amateur.  Sure there is the Rookie division, but you can only stay in that until you get 10 points.

Although nothing has been finalized yet, it seems like AQHA is trying to keep the top layer of exhibitors happy and to hell with the rest of them.  I think what really gets me is the people on the pleasure horse forum who were so excited to go back to novice.  They had 100's or even 1000's of points in the events they wanted to show novice in, but there new horse 'wasn't competitive yet', or 'the new trail patterns are too hard'. 

I've been on the fence myself about showing novice or not, but with only 1.5 points to my name let alone my lack of loping skills at this point makes my arguments almost non relevant when compared to the people who seem to want to "go back novice".

Trainer ethics, or the lack of.

A local trainer has now been though 3 local barns (all within 2 hours of each other) and has left nothing but burnt bridges, used up client credit cards (he was using a clients CC given to him for horse show expenses to purchase feed for his entire barn), abused horses (were talking way worse that what I mentioned above) lawsuits, and illegal horse paper transactions.

This year one of his students won a top 10 at congress and another built him a 15 stall barn.

I don't get it.  How do this people not see the mess and run as fast as they can from him? 


All of this boils down to one thing. 

How much is the blue ribbon worth?