Nothing new about using another horse to get a horse to pose and stretch his neck to charmingly say hello there!, but this new thing bothers me because it portrays the horse in a violent moment.
All of these horses are on a lead line, just some have been edited out.
The conformation forum recently talked about the image below, saying it is EPIC.
It doesn't make me want to breed my mare to him, if he lacks manners, and in my mind he's saying, "Look at my club foot. Look at it!"
The discussion continued to surprise me, where some believe that a stallion who does not strike out is not virile enough to be a breeding horse. I know libido is critical in the business, but I know stallions who behave themselves and still reproduce.
I hate this river, it's so wet!
I agree with the comment that he can strike all he wants out in his paddock, but on the line, he should control himself. Also, this rearing up in the show ring always pleases the crowd, but I wonder how many handlers are hurt. They are not being asked to rear, I've been there, they just do it because they're having fun (and I see many more horses having fun in the halter ring than behaving fearfully).
These images are impressive; the stallions are showing off and trying to look intimidating, and the effect is powerful. That was my first reaction to them, but then I realized that in all of them, they are not just pawing the air playfully, they're threatening another horse. I've even seen it in the show ring when handlers let their boys say hi to each other.
Arabians have a bad reputation already, and now they're working on getting "aggressive" on the list. Giacomo, I liked you, how could you set so many of your horses up to do this?
Although if it were pure aggression, the ears would look different.
In most of the images, the horses are squealing, which isn't pretty.
Oh dear. Here's Giacomo again. What is going on here?
I laughed so hard at this next one - wish I'd thought of it:
6 comments:
Well, that's...special.
I taught Fee to lift each foot on command as a trick, but it looks dorky, not aggressive.
Love the BAMM caption!
In the 6th photo, the horse has his leg over his lead. Why court injury for the sake of a photo?
That is all about what is wrong with the show world.....
And why I'm a big fan of things like Cowboy Dressage and the foundation quarter horse movement, where common sense is more rewarded than flashiness.
If my stallion did that he'd get "told" to behave himself. He isn't a wild horse and he has to behave in hand.
The BAM one is perfect!
Aarene, my donkey can shake hands too!
Terry, I didn't think that was possible.
Shirley, Arabians were made to be working horses. 100 miles in one day. I'm happy to see any breeder who clings to this philosophy. Varian Arabians do, Shelia won the Reined Cow Horse at the Cow Palace in Colorado in 1961, even though her horse fell down working a cow - she stayed on, and won. I respect her ideal of only having working horses on her farm, including the broodmares which must all be trained under saddle. She died in 2016, and I keep my eye on her farm, to see what will happen now. I also enjoy the wealth of information her YouTube videos provide about her style of training, including Vaquero. I agree with you that horses should be bred to perform, and that includes willingness/trainability.
Teresa, you must hate spiders like I do.
I have a Western Horseman magazine that featured Sheila Varian. The Cowboy Dressage people that I know are big fans of her and her horses. My friend Shayla when she was in Arizona got to see and work around horses that she bred.
I like Arabians as an endurance horse. Doing what they were bred to do is always good for horses.
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