Ended up going to the local aqha show with my best friend on very short notice. We had a good time but I'm still not happy with the way the wp horses move or the politics involved even in our small area. There were less than 50 horses, the biggest classes had 8 where as when I showed in 2010 most classes had 10 +. Money is the biggest issue. For my friend to show one class ( with halter being free) was over 250. That didn't include gas, or food for the weekend. Because the show was so small and it went from 4 days to two, which is why we went.
Edited to add:
The horses in the WP did not even look fun to ride for the most part. And extremely unnatural. I was happy as usual with the HUS classes but the WP still looks like its out in left field. But what do you do? My friend was upset that her nice moving (natural) mare would be passing horses left and right but I made her go in her class anyways. Her mare has a gorgeous stride (and is slow legged) but covers a fair amount of ground with each step. Until the mechanical horse gets tossed by the judges she'll stick out, however she'll still have a sound horse in 10 years unlike most of the horses that beat her on the weekend that for the most part have had multiple joint injections before the age of 5.
Speaking of that I'm off to get my own fetlock injected tomorrow, wish me luck!
2 comments:
Western pleasure makes me so angry. It just seems the most artificial one wins. The ranch horse classes I've seen are much better.
The judges need to buck up and start placing the real pleasure horses. The ones who move soft, slow, and comfortable. And that are actually sound. If they would stop placing the artificial horses this problem would stop. It didn't used to be this bad.
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