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Post by horseguy on Dec 6, 2015 13:43:23 GMT
This picture looks unnatural to me.  The horse's head is so low. I realize this is considered a good thing in western showing, but it does not make sense to me. When I see this kind of balance in a horse I look for hind reach under the belly. There isn't much hind reach in the picture but there is reach in the forehand. Look at the distances between the two front legs and between the hind legs. I would say the front is reaching noticeably more because the horse must to maintain the oddly low head carriage. Likewise, I think the horse is short striding with the hind because it must keep those legs back to counter balance the front. Someone please explain this. Thanks. |
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Post by jimmy on Dec 6, 2015 14:58:50 GMT
There is no explanation. It's a distorted aberration of horse movement. I compare it to the big lick horses.
I just look the other way, because it is not something I can understand, and see no need to waste my time trying.
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Post by horseguy on Dec 6, 2015 18:53:37 GMT
This too is unnatural, same theme, meaning "head set".  This picture is called Rollkur. The people who started it said it helped develop muscle and flexibility. They had a point, a false point, but still a point. Is there a "point", false as it might be, to the western low hanging head? |
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Post by jimmy on Dec 7, 2015 0:23:23 GMT
I have some photos of what western pleasure looked like in the seventies. I have to figure out how to make them smaller, because they won't attach on account of they are over 1mg. I wanted to show the difference between then and now. The horses then were shown California style, in a ported bit with romel reins, and the horses polls were up. The headset everyone was after was classic California, poll up, face vertical, or slightly in front. They were shown at a normal jog, a walk, and an easy lope. So a rider could take their stock horse and show it in a pleasure class if they wanted. You could put your horse "on the rail" just as a change for them. It was to show how steady and quiet the horse could be. Whatever pace he was in, he stayed, and his head stayed quiet, on a loose rein. Lining up and being asked to back up was a requirement also. Somewhere along the line, it became fashionable to go slower, and with a much lower head set. Then those horses started winning. Pretty soon, everyone was doing it. If slow was good, slower was better. To slow the lope down, trainers started camping in the hip in an extreme way, which caused the horses to do this lunge forward weird trot-a-lope. The heads kept getting lower. They started to call them "peanut pushers", on account of their heads being barely off the floor. AQHA finally changed the rules, stating that excessive slowness and the ears below the withers would be penalized. But so far, I don't see much of a change. It is painful to watch. Especially at the lope Here is a link to a youth class. This is the better end of these kind of horses too. I've seen worse. youtu.be/17YnLlKLa4M |
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Post by grayhorse on Dec 7, 2015 4:08:17 GMT
The picture you posted above is actually better than I've seen. I almost always see a much lower head with a long drape in the reins. This is what wins. The riders will argue with me that their horses are balanced and driving from behind. They truly believe this. I don't think that is actually possible, but what do I know.
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Post by rideanotherday on Dec 7, 2015 12:21:51 GMT
Western Pleasure. Rail classes. Yank and cranks.
I have had the pleasure of riding horses that were bred to go slow and you just let them move and they carried themselves the "right way" to win on the rail. Since not every horse is built that way, people have come up with all kinds of ways to "force" the horse in to frame and way of going. Often, I feel like those horses end up if not lame, the way they move makes them appear unsound. Their lope becomes mechanical, with exaggerated head movement.
I was in a college level riding class with a contemporary of Jack Brainerd as the instructor. He told us at the beginning of class that he would NOT tolerate anyone putting their hands down below their hips and yanking on a horse's mouth to get them to drop their heads. (It's a common method to bang the corners of the mouth to get the horse to drop his head further). Since it was college, and many of the girls in class had already been getting paid as "trainers" before they got to this class, there were some egos involved. One girl decided to ignore the instructor. He stopped the class, rode over, took the reins out of her hands, told her to get off and go watch the class from the stands. He apologized to the horse and spent some time petting on it. We got a lecture on why we don't do that to any horse we want to perform well, as it hardens their mouth and it's a form of abuse.
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Post by jlynn on Dec 7, 2015 12:37:23 GMT
Having shown on the quarter horse circuit through the seventies, here is my take. For me, the rail class was a starting point. Walk trot lope one direction, turn, do it the other, line up in the middle and back. For a nervous beginner, or a young horse, it was a good thing. Slow was good, relaxed was good. Horses dropped their heads when they were slow and relaxed. Eventually beginners went on to the other disciplines, western riding, reining.... but something happened. "Western Pleasure" became an end in itself and people found other ways to get the horse to drop its head, and to appear to move slower than any other horse in the arena. Horses were then bred for a low head carriage. If you look at where the neck ties in on a modern pleasure bred horse and compare it to a warm blood for example, you can see the difference. I also think it became easier to pick out the low and slow horse from a group, and it was something a beginning rider could see. "Get his head down" is a lot easier for a beginner than "Get his hind leg under him."
It's what you are always railing against HG. Dumbing down horsemanship. Funny thing is - when horses move like that, they are not a pleasure to ride. It is kind of jerky, there isn't any cadence and when they were really low, in the eighties, they tripped a lot and you felt like they were going tail over teacup. But, if that is all you have ridden, you don't know any better and think that is normal.
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Post by horseguy on Dec 7, 2015 15:18:52 GMT
Jimmy, grayhorse, rideanotherday and jlynn all agree it is excessive, impossibly balanced, abusive, jerky, lacking cadence, uncomfortable, yet it is the standard.
here is the problem I see.
The reach in the front is 20% more than in the hind. What you have, essentially, is a 2 legged animal or a front legged horse. The hind is being pulled along like a little red wagon.
The biomechanics in that horse is not correct for a 4 legged animal. It could be argued that the horse in the picture has a conformation issue and cannot reach under with its hind, but I think the conformation is suitable. The issue is balance. When a rider causes a horse to place too much weight either in the hind of the forehand, it effects reach. With rollkur you get artificial hind reach by putting a stopper in the energy that can be released out from the shoulders. In this western pleasure horse, we see artificial placement of too much weight on the fore and artificial reach of the fore to compensate.
Balance must have equilibrium. A beautifully reaching horse swings its shoulders and its hips symmetrically in unified movement. As jlynn says, this disjointed movement cannot be a pleasure to ride. It looks and must feel uncomfortable.
In Germany I cannot imagine the German National Equestrian Federation tolerating this kind of training, showing, and abuse of both horses and the laws of physics. The British Horse Society would put a stop to it, as would all the other true federations and societies governing equestrian pursuit. Rollkur has been banned by several, for example. But here in America we have the United States Equestrian Federation, an organization more dedicated to the corporate industrialization of equestrian pursuit through higher sales of clothing, equipment, etc. than raising standards to a minimum of reasonable, as opposed to impossibly strange as they now are. Our Federation functions as more of a commercial lobbyist than an organization dedicated to horses, their use and education of riders. That's the problem, no leadership, and what you get is like the video Jimmy posted, kids being lead down some stupid path of ignorance. Adults are supposed to look out for children. 
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Post by jimmy on Dec 7, 2015 15:38:19 GMT
Having shown on the quarter horse circuit through the seventies, here is my take. For me, the rail class was a starting point. Walk trot lope one direction, turn, do it the other, line up in the middle and back. For a nervous beginner, or a young horse, it was a good thing. Slow was good, relaxed was good. Horses dropped their heads when they were slow and relaxed. Eventually beginners went on to the other disciplines, western riding, reining.... but something happened. "Western Pleasure" became an end in itself and people found other ways to get the horse to drop its head, and to appear to move slower than any other horse in the arena. Horses were then bred for a low head carriage. If you look at where the neck ties in on a modern pleasure bred horse and compare it to a warm blood for example, you can see the difference. I also think it became easier to pick out the low and slow horse from a group, and it was something a beginning rider could see. "Get his head down" is a lot easier for a beginner than "Get his hind leg under him." It's what you are always railing against HG. Dumbing down horsemanship. Funny thing is - when horses move like that, they are not a pleasure to ride. It is kind of jerky, there isn't any cadence and when they were really low, in the eighties, they tripped a lot and you felt like they were going tail over teacup. But, if that is all you have ridden, you don't know any better and think that is normal. It's generational. Watch a warm up ring for a WP class. Listen to what the instructors are saying. I'm sure you have. I spent three years training my kind of training, out of a stable with three western pleasure trainers. I trained myself to tune it out, and just stayed in my own little world. But there were days it was pretty hard to watch. Almost all the owners, keeping these trainers going, were women in their 40's or older, who couldn't ride a horse outside an arena. Everyone was nice. The horses got the best of care. Expecially since at least half of them were regularily visited by veterinarians, because most of them were lame in the front end. |
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Post by grayhorse on Dec 7, 2015 18:34:55 GMT
I never got to see WP in its earlier stages …all I can go off of is what I have seen in the last 15 years or so. Yank and crank is an accurate description.
I feel a rant coming on…
I’ve gone and watched the big shows and have gotten to watch the riders and trainers in the warm up rings at length. What I see is abusive, it is a constant banging of the bit all the while spurring the heck out of the horse. And let me tell you, rollkur is alive and well in the training of a WP horse. Almost all of the horses were ridden extremely behind the vertical for extended periods of time, in huge bits and martingales and were spurred like hell but asked to go super slow. Most of them are trained with a spur stop, too.
English pleasure isn’t much better, as a lot of the same WP riders show in English as well. At home they ride “wenglish”…with a English bridle in a western saddle because they don’t really have the balance to ride in an English saddle and would fall off if the horse were to spook or something. So they practice in a western saddle for English classes. I’m not making this stuff up, I have seen it over and over again. When they go to a show, the trainer rides the heck out of the horse first and then an English saddle gets slapped on and the owner gets plopped on top.
Several years ago I boarded at a barn and a big name WP trainer moved in with 50 training and lesson horses. His clients had a nickname for him, they called him “The Puppet Master”….this is because when he rode he would bump the reins so extremely (arms straight out, wrists bent, bump bump bump) he looked like a marionette. I watched this guy ride one horse after the other and when he was done there would be blood in the corners of the horse’s mouths and at their sides too, from all the excessive spurring and bumping. This was the NORM, not an isolated case it was normal…it made me sick to my stomach.
I remember I was loading up my horse to go ride somewhere…one of the WP gals was saddling up her horse. She looked over at me and says “Trail ride, huh? My idea of a trail ride is going from the barn to the arena”…and then she laughed. Hysterically. It was weird and sad, all at the same time.
I realize there are bad trainers and riders in every discipline, and that not every trainer and rider uses cruel methods as I described above. This is just what I have seen with my own two eyes.
Rant over…
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Post by rideanotherday on Dec 7, 2015 19:34:59 GMT
 Now, the rider's position is....not athletic. But we'll ignore that for the moment. This is a much older picture, probably early 80s. What we have going on with the horse is a much more pleasant, level way of going. The nose is slightly in front of the vertical, but it allows the horse to adequately balance as it trots along. (also note that the length of the stride in the front is close to equal to that of the stride in the rear). Personally, I'd like a little more lift through the ribs and shoulders to allow better/deeper drive with the hindquarters, but at least this horse is moving relatively balanced, despite how the rider is positioned. |
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Post by horseguy on Dec 7, 2015 19:56:15 GMT
 Now, the rider's position is....not athletic. " Not athletic" I'll say. A person could not ride a mile in that stiff leaning back position. It hurts my back to look at that picture. |
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Post by jlynn on Dec 7, 2015 20:16:56 GMT
I would bet the rider has been told to ride like that and she thinks she is driving the hind end and maybe even allowing the horse to lift his front end. Pretty soon, that will seem normal and when she does ride upright, she will feel like she is leaning forward.
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Post by rideanotherday on Dec 7, 2015 20:27:09 GMT
Now, the rider's position is....not athletic. " Not athletic" I'll say. A person could not ride a mile in that stiff leaning back position. It hurts my back to look at that picture. At least the horse is better. Look, there's a lot to pick apart here, I've had horrible days on a horse too and some of it has been documented in either pictures or video. Someday, when I'm feeling brave, I'll post the video of me riding a cutting horse just working a flag. |
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Post by jimmy on Dec 8, 2015 1:22:16 GMT
Horseguy. This is why my first response is, you can't explain it. Don't try.
It is all the things listed above, and worse. It's like trying to explain body piercing or goth or something. OR maybe Islam extremism. It's just a thing, and it's bad, and apparently nothing we can do about it.
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