Archive for August, 2010

First, a little background on the Paxton Arena in Yorba Linda, CA.  The City of Yorba Linda built and donated an arena so that we could hold horse shows and bring our horses there to ride because we have a lot of horses residing in Yorba Linda.(Over 3000)  It is a nice facility and it is used by a lot of horse people. 

Someone brought up the subject at a City Council meeting that the arena could use more sand to improve the footing.  Before the city spends any more of our Equestrian funds on sand for the Paxton Arena someone please learn something about arena footing.  At the last horse show held there the footing looked great to us the way it is. 

The only discipline that needs really deep footing is for cutters and reiners.  Deep footing is unsafe for the other disciplines.  It figures that the guy who asked for the sand is the only cutter/reiner that rides in the Paxton Arena.  And there are no clues there? DUH.  Would somebody please get on the Internet and read about horse arena footing?

Your comments please?

 

When a baby horse is born it naturally carries its weight like this – 60% on the front end and 40% on the hind end.  When the horse is mature enough to begin to be ridden the goal should be to shift the way the horse carries its body weight to accommodate the weight of a saddle and a rider thus keeping the horse physically sound.  This means that a horse carrying a rider and a saddle should carry 60% of its weight on the hind end and 40% on the front end.  Reversing the horse’s carriage of its own body weight is the goal.  That is where the term “collection” comes into play.  A collected horse carries most of its weight on its hind end, period.

Western pleasure competitions are based on this hind end weight carriage and your horse having a soft mouth.  A horse that is using its hind end correctly will work from its hind end and naturally relax its hind end and neck thus creating a correct “head set”.  If the rider works on the horse using its hind end with their own legs the result is a horse that can be ridden with just a halter and a lead rope, or even without a bridle.  Stacy Westfall did an amazing display of correct hind end work by doing a complete reining pattern at full speed with all the stops and spins without a bridle on the horse.

A horse that is collected does better in every aspect of riding, from trail to barrel racing.  A collected horse will always do better, and will stay sound longer, than an uncollected horse.

The history of the Western Pleasure competitions has put a fog over the term “collection”.  AQHA has come a long way, and has learned a lot, since the 1970’s.  People who did not show would go to watch a Western Pleasure Show and would see horses going so slow that they appeared to be crippled with their heads looking at their own knees.  This was wrong.  Or the horses in the show would be loping sideways along the rail again looking at their own knees.  This began to give Western Pleasure, as well as the term “collection”, a bad name.

Well, all of you non-showers and trail riders and barrel racers, now is the time to give Western Pleasure another chance and to learn from it.  AQHA has learned a lot in the past 40 years and has changed their own rules to make up for the mistakes of the past.  The Western Pleasure Champion of today is not allowed to lope sideways, stare at its own knees or move so slowly. (Except at the small schooling shows.  They haven’t quite caught on yet.)

In our next few Blogs we will quote current AQHA rules regarding Western Pleasure.  This is going to be fun and please feel free to comment or add to this learning journey.

We had only been boarding in Yorba Linda for 3 months.  It was a huge adjustment for us and we had a list of safety stuff that we wanted done.  We are huge fans of avoiding Vet bills through creating a safe barn.

One of the items on our list was tennis balls to cover the two metal bars that hang down off of the back of the automatic bucket waterers.  Those bars looked dangerous.  In the horse world any danger that can happen eventually does happen.  Those bucket waterers are designed to be mounted on a flat surface.  They are not designed to be hung on a rail like ours were.
 

 

Photo of auto-waterer with out tennis balls on the ends of the metal bars hanging downward.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo of auto-waterer with the tennis balls secured on the ends of the metal bars.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well, sure enough, we did not cover them soon enough.  After all, none of the other boarders even considered covering their own.  September of 2008 we were having a barbeque – life was good at the new stables.  Then something spooked the horses.  I think it was a car engine being started.  When one horse spooks the chain reaction begins.  Penny had her head between the pipe rails trying to reach for the scraps of hay in the barn aisle when the spooking chain reaction began.  Penny yanked her head back into her stall and the hanging bar on the waterer gouged into her temple.  Pulling back sharply she flipped over on her back.  I was in the stall before she even flipped over.  She got up, but I had to help her stay up.  It was awful.  The Vet showed up soon and put her on steroids and anti-inflammatory drugs.  During the next three days she improved dramatically.  On the fourth day she died!  She died from internal hemorrhaging in the brain.  All because we put off buying tennis balls, one of the easiest and least expensive items on our list.  WE WERE BAD!
 

 

Photo of Penny with her owner in happier times.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We learned a huge lesson here that we will never, ever unlearn.