Now what....

I'm not quite sure where I want to go now.  I know that financially I need to wait a year or two before buying another horse (and with the market in the state that it is in, investing in horses is a bad idea right now!).  I read though a lot of my old posts tonight from before I got Lucas.  I'm kind of in the same spot now, and I don't want to rush into anything.

I love riding and teaching horses new things.  I dont like riding when I need to be 'perfect' all the time.  But the riding events that I like to do focus on being 'perfect'.  Western Pleasure, Hunter under saddle, showmanship, and the pattern classes are all about who can be the most 'perfect'.

While I enjoy trying to reach those goals, I'm not so sure that the pressure that it places on the horses, and the riders is a good thing.

I enjoy the challenge of the lungline classes (which only require perfection for a very short period of time) and the halter classes.  However with lungline you only have the yearling year to do it (sometimes shows offer it for 2 year old but not very often.)  And halter is great, but it leads to a very long day of sitting around a show done way before your friends are, and I think it can be very boring for the horses.

So that's where my mind is as now... I'm starting into the Law course next week which will hopefully get me to focus on something.  I'm also having thoughts about changing some of the layout and pictures of the blog... anyone have any idea?

The western pleasure industry (or 'my beef with AQHA')

So recently a video was posted on the Fugly blog of a western pleasure horse (which actually may be APHA not AQHA) I stumbled upon it via a forum that I frequent based in Ont. All of you know who read this blog know that I have done the WP thing but that I also struggle with what people are doing to horses to show them. I wanted to defend the WP/stock breed industry but I agreed with what everyone was saying.

I go onto the pleasure horse forum and people are defending the person. No one should be bullied, but the video was awful.

I was disguised with the video. Poll well below the withers, behind the bridle, cantering almost sideways down the rail. The horse had potential, but will never stay sound enough now to preform the way it could have. How do I know that? Well recently a girl I know found out her horse will never be sound again.

He's 3

And he was sound 3 months ago, before he went to the final trainer...And his trainer rode him the same way that this horse was being ridden.

We see the horses that come out for a season then are never shown again, the ones that 'disappear' only to be buried on the trainers farm. The horses burnt up in a season of showing and can never be ridden again. I hate what we are doing to our horses.

And no one stops it.

I'd like to say that I'm better than that, but I'm not, I still do stuff that some people would think inappropriate. I ride my English horse in western spurs. I often ride him in shank bits. I do make him preform hip in at the canter occasionally. But hes happy, sound, and acting like a horse for the first time in his life.

Its the trainers getting caught, charged, fined, kicked out of the association but still allowed to attend shows and coach clients. Its trainers and riders breaking rules and still getting there picture on the cover of a magazine. Its a Professional Horseman regaining his PH status only a couple of years after getting caught drugging horses at a show. Its a trainer getting charged by one association for crulity only to be welcomed with open arms into others...

AQHA, NSBA, APHA, ApHC please get your act together, before some animal rights group does it for you.

Roxy

Oh I also got the go ahead from Pony kids mom that shes ok with me showing her horse and I can take her to the local clinic that my new coach is doing closer to home. Im really excited :) We had been talking about this from the time that she was bought that I might do some stuff with her if I was ok. Then the PM got hurt at work and will more than likely be out for the summer following surgery. She is still going to show halter and showmanship but the mare is mine for the rest of the classes. So plans for sure include the local stuff.

Here comes the intresting stuff. I have seen the videos when the horse got bought but they bought her basicly sight unseen from about 2000km away. We knew she had some futurity placings and they had showed her AQHA but that was about it.

So I looked up the futurity that she was in. Its a 50/50 where the only horses elegibale are entered as weanlings into a sale. 1/2 the purchase price goes into the pot the rest goes back to the owner. The money kept by the club goes into a futurity when the horses are 2, with a pleasure, halter, and pattern classes (2 goes each)

Roxy aparently placed 3rd over all. 'Great' your thinking.... Yeah she ended up wining 4500. Now the reason I really looked into it is that for AQHA green western pleasure you cant have won over 1000 in that class.... Now im trying to figure out how much she won in the pleasure but were waiting for the offical report on her from aqha which should clear that up. :)