a look in my book

So, I forgot to do Ghost it Forward, but it's past Halloween so the fun is kind of sucked out of it. But, instead of doing that meme, I was kind of reminded about something I've been wanting to do for a while by the mastermind behind Now THAT'S a Trot! When she tagged me she said I'd restored her faith in Western Pleasure, and I would love to do that for everyone. It's not an easy thing to restore your faith in it, but I love the ideals for pleasure. If you know the sport like I do, it's obvious that judges DO go by the registry standard. But, if you've got a class full of four-beating peanut rollers, does no one win? No, there has to be a winner in every class (unless the judge is like Cookie who judged all of my 4-H shows and told us we all sucked so there was no winner). Unfortunately, those four-beating peanut rollers have set a bad standard for my discipline of choice, and the horses that are actually good at what they do are branded as "icky" by default.




The video you see above has some awesome example horses who kick ass in the show pen. Are they "icky"? I certainly don't think so. I think that THEY should be the standard for western pleasure, not four-beating peanut rollers. I know, I know. Right now these horses are the exception rather than the norm, and that stinks. But, they win a hell of a lot more than four-beating peanut rollers, and I can contest to that.



One Hot Krymsun can also contest to that. If you don't know who he is, you have been living under a rock. He's a three time AQHA World champion, four time AQHA Congress champion, and has life time earnings of over $65,000. While I don't support the riding of two year olds at all, you can see that this horse is a beautiful natural mover that exemplifies the western pleasure standard set in the AQHA and APHA rulebook. He is also AQHA's leading sire, so from that I'd reckon that people in the pleasure industry do want to recreate that standard.

When I first learned to ride, I got dressage lessons. For over three years I learned to ride without any hands, and it stuck with me. Even when we had to downgrade to western giddy-up lessons and get something less expensive, I really only used my hands to reinforce my whoa or downward transition, and to steer. When you watch people in every discipline in the warm-up ring or at home, about 80% of them have their hands in their face or are stuffing their horse into a frame. I was in training with a very popular Northern California AQHA trainer for a long time as well. She told me that good movement starts from the withers back, and that you can't ride a horse's head and neck. That philosophy has been the basis for my riding techniques since I first heard her say it. Since then I've been successful WITH my western pleasure horses in dressage, jumping (at rated hunter shows), lower-level eventing, western riding, and drill team, among many other things. While I don't have the money to show big time APHA or AQHA, we do pretty well at our local shows, and I've been to the Gold N Grand and done well there. I'm sure many others have the same story as I do, as well. When a horse is a true athlete there are no limits on what they can do.

My question is simple: is it really western pleasure that's so horrible? Take a good, hard look at your discipline of choice. There has to be someone whose methods you don't agree with, and whose horses are not natural or relaxed movers. Well, I'm telling you this. The top dogs in the western pleasure industry (like One Hot Krymsun, or this horse, who I absolutely love) probably think that four-beating peanut rollers are "icky" too. So, next time you watch a western pleasure horse, take off the predispositions to this discipline that you may have worn for years. Truly watch the horse, and ask yourself if he looks like a pleasure to ride, with true gaits, impulsion, and a relaxed, kind expression. If you answer yes, than that is a western pleasure horse that fits the description in the rulebooks. A horse should be judged by that, and not by what discipline they do, for just as with breeds, there are exceptional representatives and some not so good. I ask you to remember this with every discipline, also, not just mine.

There are always going to be bad seeds in every equine sport. Please don't let the ones in mine bias you to the horses who are awesome at what they do.