Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

Recently a Yorba Linda friend contacted me about a lone horse on 7 acres in a stall with absolutely no shade.  A horse all by itself is sad on its own.  They are herd animals and need friends, at least human friends, that are near by.  A goat makes a great companion, so do ponies.  But my friend was upset about the zero shade factor and called me to write about it, take pictures and possibly get this horse owner cited or something.  This had to be illegal. 

Well, surprise, surprise!  It is not illegal in Yorba Linda not to provide shade for private live stock!  Boarding and care facilities are required to provide shade but livestock on private property can be shade-less.  This means that even baby animals are not required to be provided with any shade at all on private property.

If you don’t believe me, just call the Orange County Animal Control and ask them.  That is exactly what I did.  I believe that the no shade information is punitive and barbaric and this law definitely needs to be change.  I will contact a member of the City Council and see what steps we need to take to begin to change this primitive law.  After we conquer that we will change the barbed wire enclosure law next.

May I have your thoughts please?

We see a lot of horse owners that think “collecting” a horse means to yank the head behind the vertical.  This is not even close to a horse being collected.  What does “behind the vertical” mean anyway?

Behind the vertical means this:  When a horse is traveling forward put a dot on the front of its forehead close to its ears.  Draw an imaginary straight line from this dot to the ground.  This line is “the vertical line”.  If the horse’s nose is behind the vertical line when traveling, the neck will be arched so drastically that the horse will literally be looking at its own hooves, or knees.  Horses cannot see what is directly in front of them anyway, so a horse that is behind the vertical is literally blind to anything that is directly approaching it.  Also, a horse that is traveling behind the vertical will tend to throw its weight on its front end and pull itself along instead of pushing itself along with its hind end as it should.  It has to pull itself along because its shoulders are tight from being ridden behind the vertical.  Great collection requires a loose, relaxed, shoulder not a tight, weighted down shoulder. 

At the real Quarter Horse shows almost all of the judges will eliminate any horse that is traveling behind the vertical for more than five strides immediately.  I wish that more judges at the smaller shows would do the same thing.  It is hard for the judges at the smaller shows to do this because almost all of the horses at these smaller shows are traveling behind the vertical, or jogging a four beat jog, instead of the correct two beat jog.  It has to be like judging “the best of the worst”.  That is a quote that I stole directly from a local schooling show judge when I asked him why he pinned a four beater.  He said that he was hot and tired and that this was like judging the best of the worst.  Boy, how he laughed!  But just imagine how well you could do at a small show if your horse was one of the only horses in a class that was actually collecting correctly and its head was not behind the vertical.  This is why the same horses with the same trainers consistently win.  They know correct collection.

This applies to Quarter Horses and all quarter horse breeds, Paint, Appy, etc as well.  I don’t know much about the Arabian circuit but I am thinking that would be fun to research.  If someone does know the rules for head set and movement for Arabs please send us your comments and you can educate the rest of us.

WESTERN PLEASURE – Correct movement according to AQHA rules.
(Also applies to Paints, Buckskins, Palominos, and Appaloosas.)

THE WALK – According to Page 136 of the AQHA Rule Book:  The walk is a natural, flat footed four beat gait.  The horse must move straight and true at the walk.  The walk must be alert, with a stride of reasonable length, in keeping with the size of the horse.

According to page 209 of the AQHA Rule Book:  The horse should carry its head and neck in a relaxed and natural position with its poll (the point between its ears) level, or slightly above the level of the withers. (The central point above the shoulders)  The horse should not carry its head behind the vertical (forehead to ground vertical line) giving the appearance of intimidation, or be excessively nosed out, giving a resistant appearance.

As a “judge-in-training, when a class of 40 horses is judged, one half are eliminated because they cannot walk with a straight, secure, relaxed stride.  Show people that are not with a “real trainer” seem not to spend their time teaching their horse to walk.  Walking correctly is a great base for jogging and loping correctly.

As a mature judge I like to see a ground covering, head hanging, alert, relaxed walk.  I very rarely see this.  So spend time teaching your horse to walk beautifully.  It takes time so be patient and don’t over train. (Taking so much time that your horse no longer enjoys the walk)

May we have your thoughts please?

The U.S. could and should learn a thing or two!

First of all, every single horse in England has to be micro-chipped and also has to have a passport.  The passport contains information regarding the horse as well as the owner.  Age of the horse, medical information, name and phone number of the Vet, any medications the horse is on, etc.  This is a great idea that the U.S. should adopt. 

On “Fugly’s Blog” the other day she showed a starving old mare that was literally dumped on a street in Southern California and left to die.  If this mare had been micro-chipped we would be able to find the owner and prosecute faster.  They will find the owner and prosecute eventually, but micro-chipping would stop a lot of this type of horse abuse.  The mare died right there on the street.  Rescue could not get her up.  She was too weak and therefore euthanized on the spot.  Americans are great horse owners aren’t we?

Another subject that England is avid about is what it takes to become a riding instructor and a trainer.  They police this profession with a vengeance.  We don’t police this profession at all.  Anyone in the U.S. can become a horse trainer if they have the money to buy the costume and print the business cards.  Shame, shame, shame on us!

I quit training horses because of this exact scenario.  The only way an honest riding instructor/trainer with proper education is going to make $$$ today is to own their own ranch or stable.  If you don’t, the only way you are going to get ahead is to be as dishonest and uncaring and negligent as the rest of these frauds.  I just could not do it.  I didn’t have my own place and I’m not an evil, abusive, backstabbing liar.  So I quit.  I don’t miss the U.S. training horse world whatsoever. Now I just enjoy my own horses and help out my local friends with their horses, and of course write these blogs.

Tonight I found my British Riding Instructor Book and I am going to read it from cover to cover and write about it.  Also my English horse owner friend is going to email me more on English horsy law and I will share it with all of you.  If someone from a different country can tell us how much more their horse industry is regulated compared to the U.S. we would greatly appreciate the knowledge.  Is anyone from the United Arab Emirates reading this?  They police the Arab horse industry.  We would also like to know if anyone is getting Parelli or John Lyons certified in any foreign countries.  Somehow we doubt it.

Epiphany, a sudden realization as to the meaning of something.

My Dad is almost 75 years old and has been “around” horses most of his life. He has owned three.  Because of my training experience he decided that horses want and need a job in order to be happy.  When he purchased his most recent one, Hoss,  a four year old Paint Horse, he soon discovered that this one was just a little too much for him to keep up with if he expected to ride him on the trail.  He was just green broke.  My Dad soon became discouraged to the point where he decided that he should sell Hoss because Hoss was not happy without a job to do, like barrel racing, showing western pleasure, etc.

This is where the “epiphany” comes in.  I had a long talk with my Dad about Hoss and my Dad soon realized that Hoss already has a big job to do…to keep my Dad happy!  Hoss doesn’t care if he only gets ridden once or twice a week.  My Dad really loves this horse and Hoss really likes being fussed over and not shown or worked hard daily.

Believe me when I say that Hoss is one of the happiest horses in Southern California with one of the easiest horse jobs on earth.  Hoss gets out every day.  He either gets longed, or lightly ridden and he always gets at least an hour or two hours turn-out with his favorite toy.  He also gets taken for walks and is groomed every day.

So I guess what I am trying to say is that a loved horse is a happy horse.  He gets lots of positive attention and care.  You shouldn’t feel bad if you don’t ride every day or show once a month.  As long as you spend quality time with your horse it will be happy.

Oh crap!!  How on earth does this stuff always end up on my desk? 

These are lovely pictures of beautiful, healthy horses.  They have a gorgeous green pasture with lots of trees for shade.  This is a perfect setting, right?  We wish that we had a place like this.  We could call it “Safe Haven Ranch”.  We will build an arena and turn-out completely out of metal posts where horses can get impaled and fence it in with flesh-tearing barbed wire.  In fact, why build a barn?  Metal impalement posts and flesh tearing barbed wire are much cheaper and could be the wave of the future because we are fast becoming more educated horse owners these days.
 

Gee, imagine how much $$$ that zoos and dog parks could save with this safe, modern method of fencing in the animals.  We think we are on to something here.  Just make the flesh ripping barbed wire and impalement posts closer together and your children will be safe in this park as well.  Think of all the money we could save, of course not counting the Doctor and Vet bills, but oh well, what is one dead horse every so often.  After all look at all the money we saved on fencing. 

Give us a break people and use some common sense.
 

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.