I am just getting home from our State 4-H horse show that my daughter qualified for this spring. We are VERY DISAPPOINTED. In our county for the past few years our horse council has selected Judges for Western Pleasure that judge horses with a natural movement and gate and a level headset.

At the State Show we were APPALLED at all of the Western Pleasure kids HOPPING AROUND on horse Loping in the front and trotting in the back with their heads down around their knees.

Half those horses had a lope that made them appear LAME. All the while in the practice ring those kids were jerking their hands up to lower the head and spurring the horses forward. It was disgusting.

Yet those were the kids that were REWARDED with placings and State Medals. Thank God our kids don't have to try to make their horses go like that for a stinking ribbon.

It was my understanding that because it is un-natural movement and frankly dangerous to have a horse with it's head dragging on the ground, that in the big Western Pleasure Circuits actually fine Judges that place horses with a lower than their shoulders head set and that are trotting in the back.

Is this true? Or are they still doing "Peanut Pushing"?

Watching these Western Pleasure kids have a SLOW and LOW contest ticks me off. There is nothing "pleasurable" for those horses. They look defeated and miserable.

I would also like to know what cowboy could ride with a horse moving like that? I have shown all my life, on a small local level, for FUN. The older I get though, with all this extreme crap, the more I just want to go trail riding.

Well im sorry to inform you but, When you enter a ring you are being judged on CONTROL of the horse and how well it is trained. So there for if a horse is loping , trotting etc. slow ,controlled and with its head down. That is a well trained animal. However a horse running around the ring almost running into people, wide eyed with its nose in the air is by far NOT a well trained animal. In which case that horse will not place. not disagreeing that some trainers take it too far. But, I have been to a lot of 4h shows and I have seen the quality. And it is really frustrating to me when parents complain that there kid didnt place, and the harsh reality is.. if you want to compete get a trainer or a new horse.

Yeah, well that is a pretty elitist thing to say. 4-H is SUPPOSED to be children working with their own project animals. Not whose parents can afford the most expensive horse, trainer and tack. It is disgusting in my opinion.

My daughter is now with a trainer that gets $100/hour and her horse is doing much better, but she still does not naturally gait like she is LAME.

Western Pleasure is still a disgusting "sport" to watch-- and it actually has little to do with how cowboys ride in the west.

I rode western most of my younger years since it is the predominent discipline in the area but did take English lessons and hosted an English riding foreign exchange student which we exchanged lessons. I will say that the English discipline is a lot more about a more fluid and natural horse/rider relationship. I could see the natural head carriage being much more comfortable for the horse and actual way of moving is judged regardless of the speed being faster or slower, just depends on the horse. A well traveling horse is a well traveling horse at any speed of walk, trot or canter. Now that I am involved in showing dogs and minus the extreme's of some of the other breeds, GSD's, Peke's but a majority of the breeds are judged on quality of movement rather than the pace or control of the movement. I look back at my years of showing horses and feel like a lot of equine events, western pleasure in particular have totally missed the point of quality movement. When I see a well made dog on the down and back, I often think to my self, now if that were a horse, he'd make a great riding horse. I've learned so much more about correct and sound conformation working with dogs than I ever did horses.

Sound structure applies to most all 4 legged animals, even cows. Dogs are just a great example because they come in so many shapes and sizes but the basic principles remain much the same. My better understanding of dogs has given me a better understanding of horses. Even a better understanding of other breeds of dogs has given me a better understanding of my own breed.

I made this post just last fall and even though the rules are "supposed" to be changed, the judges are not following through with it. Horses were hopping around, looking LAME. Heads were not at all level they were down around the knees, just like they were 18 years ago when I was showing Western.