Fugly Horse of the Day

I don’t normally go to things like this, because the horse expos I’ve attended in the past have been so lame…often literally!  It never seems like the creme de la creme of a discipline show up.  Instead, it is Suzy BYB, trying desperately to sell breedings by showing off her fabulous horse, who wouldn’t even win at an open show much less in breed or A circuit competition.   You see it all – reiners who can’t rein, jumpers who take down a 2 foot vertical, and gaited horses who can’t hold gait.  For that reason, I had pretty much figured there was no point attending these things, except to shop, and normally I’m trying not to do too much of that!

But this year, a friend invited me to join her at Equine Affaire in Pomona, and I have to say that it was much better than I expected.  First of all, they had Stacy Westfall, known to most of you as the girl who does the bridleless reining.  Stacy was funny, accurate and informative and she’s the kind of person you can and will learn something from even if you’re experienced.  She’s not just speaking to the wide-eyed “OMG-you-can-ride-without-the-bridle” crowd.  I watched her presentation on bridleless training and it was great.  She explained how she did it, emphasized the number of riding hours it took to get a horse from unbroke to broke for bridleless reining (800), and very sensibly pointed out that you should not take your bridle off until you know you have real control (that means you can control the hip and shoulder, not just stop and start) with your legs alone.  She said that she rides with the bridle most of the time and certainly rides with one on the trail.  The bridleless thing is for exhibitions – it’s a cool thing to be able to do and that’s all, but it’ s all based upon actually having control with your seat and your legs, which you should have whether or not you ever take off the bridle.  Amen. Oh, and while she believes you can have a special bond with your horse, she does not believe you get that kind of performance without riding those 800 hours. THANK YOU.

I had to giggle at her mare though. Roxy has done this demo a time or two and was listening to what Stacy said, doing things like stopping when she said the word “stop.”   She is very, very well trained and appeared relaxed but somewhat bored.  :)

Because I wanted to watch Stacy, I did not see most of Richard Winters’ presentation but I really liked what he was saying as I was leaving. He was pointing out that most people expect to get a nice lope on a horse without doing a lot of loping.  Ha.  So true.  How many people do you know who canter twice around the arena and stop?  They do not get broke and consistent that way, and it doesn’t matter what your discipline is.  They need to actually do the gait for extended periods of time to get fit.  You can’t get consistency without fitness.   It is not physically possible for the horse. So I’d be interested to see more from Mr. Winters, because he was definitely on target with that, and it’s the sort of thing people need to hear — not “buy my magic stick and develop a special bond with your horse,” because that for a FACT is not going to get your horse to stop loping like a runaway freight train!

In looking for a place to sit and eat terribly unhealthy horse-expo food, we ended up watching a hobbling demonstration. I’m not a trail rider, as I’ve observed many times, but it looked like a lot of work to me when you can buy four panels for about $250 on sale and make a stall wherever it is you might be.  *shrug*  The mare being used for the demo looked really sick of it.

The people I was with wanted to stay for the Extreme Cowboy Race, so even though I knew that the jumping was going to make me cringe (true in some cases), I hung around to watch it and it did look like fun.  It started out with galloping around a bit at Mach 10.  Then you had to slow down, pick up a “sword,” and spear a ring.  Next you had to pick up a jump pole that was leaning on the wall and walk in a circle all the way around it while holding one end of it, then reverse and do likewise.  That looked extremely difficult.  The next maneuver was kind of an S-curve with 3 low jumps.  All the women did well over the jumps and almost all the men sucked at it (Only one of them looked like he actually knew how to jump).  I was trying to figure out how come all the girls could get off the horse’s back and not get left behind even in the western saddle, but the guys were hanging on the horn and getting left behind every time?   Wondering if it’s anatomically impossible for a guy to jump properly in a western saddle without pain.  ;)    Anyway, after that it was stop and do some reining spins both directions, then pick up a full pail of water and walk through one of those things with hanging strips like a car wash and put the pail down on the other side.  I think there was more galloping after that and then they had to stop with just their back feet in a pile of packing peanuts.  A LOT of horses snorked at that, but they all did it once they realized it wasn’t anything scary.  (I may be mixing up the order here, I’m trying to remember)  Then you had to drag a “log” through an s-curve between hay bales.   Next, jump off, take off your saddle, crawl through a hole cut in hay bales (without your horse but the horse had to ground tie and wait for you – get back on bareback, jump a hay bale and then run like hell around the arena again.   Again, it was obvious the girls had a lot easier time of the bareback, though the last guy who went seemed just as comfy up there and wasn’t hanging on.

The one I enjoyed watching the most was Wylene Wilson, who apparently is well known for reforming naughty ponies.  She had a black mare there that she got because it kept flipping over.  The mare went great for her, although she hit a slick spot during the bareback run, hit the panels and Wylene came off.  She stung herself pretty good and was out of breath and had a hell of a time getting back on, but she managed it.  I believe she came in fourth.  I’d really have wanted to give her first just for getting back on, since you could tell she’d hurt herself even though she denied it.

I was also really impressed with Corinne Lindquist. Her horse isn’t as finished as some of these, but I’d say she was one of the best riders out of the bunch.  Her equitation even looked pretty doing this stuff.

They made a big deal out of the third place horse being a grade horse, and that kind of made me laugh because if that horse isn’t 100% Paint horse, I’d be shocked. He is a big old, probably halter bred, Paint horse gelding and I think if he’d had his lead changes, she might have won it. But she said she just had him adjusted and it was obvious he had something mild going on…he was sound but he just couldn’t get a clean change last night. I know she’s won it before and she’ll probably win it again when he’s 100%.

The winner was another woman, Robin Bond, and she absolutely deserved it.  She and the aptly-named Jose’s Perfection had the most controlled ride of anyone.   Her ride through the s-curve of jumps was beautiful – she hit the 2nd one right in the middle, whereas everybody else was almost losing a knee on the standard.

Very fun thing to watch!  I can’t say I love seeing horses have to jump in a western saddle, but other than that, I thought it was a cool event and the horses seemed to be having a blast, particularly when they got to gallop! They apparently have a novice level that is not this difficult, and who knows, if I ever manage to acquire that fun horse for me that I keep talking about – you know, a nice broke teenaged Appendix mare who can do a little gaming, a little chasing cows, a little miscellaneous silly stuff – I may even give it a try.

Other than that, of course I did shop…the Dale Chavez booth sucked me in and now the VLC has a brand new headstall and bosal for the shows.  The nice thing about those guys is that they are experts.  They can tell you what’s going to be in style this year (apparently the horsehair reins are out and the black thin ones are in), what looks good on what kind of face, etc.  They managed to assemble exactly the headstall I wanted, by adding extra silver pieces, for much less than I’d almost paid for it already-assembled online.  I also hit the Kensington booth – if you go, they have some amazing deals in there, including those bug-eye fly masks for just $12 and super nice padded hunt seat pads that are normally $44 for $19.99.

Have you gone to Equine Affaire, either here or at its other locations?  What did you think?  Who were your favorite presenters?  Who didn’t you like?  I kind of have to like these guys just because I heard they threw Pat Parelli out for that picnic-table-jumping crap and that to me is a big win. They seem like they chose people who really would give good information without teaching beginners just enough to be dangerous and putting crazy ideas in their heads.  Your thoughts?

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