21/03/2024
With all the recent abuse and deaths surfacing in horse shows and event; this from Carson James.
The horse shows have ruined more good horses than it ever made”. -Tom Dorrance
Below are some things to be aware of that will help head that off before it starts happening:
This is especially true for performance horses of any kind, but should apply to any horse, all the same.
Generally, what happens is we basically have them curling 5 pound weights during the week, mentally and physically, and then at the shows we asked them to curl 100 pounds.
There’s too much of a gap there. Both mentally and physically.
Start doing these things to lower your vet bills and keep them from getting hot and blown up at shows.
Start working towards loping 10 or 15 foot circles where generally they’re 60 ft.
Do more straight lines, especially at a lope. In an arena this could mean loping squares.
On a straightaway, especially and much more obvious, but they do it in turns as well …every horse will either carry their hip to the right or the left, because every horse is naturally crooked. Start feeling for that and try to keep the withers in front of the tail so they learn to strengthen and carry properly.
And this one may be the most important for mental soundness….
A horse freely opening up their run, and just as freely coming back down, is something most horses know little to nothing about….
Start working towards getting to where opening them up to at least a medium fast run and coming back down is just as familiar to them as walking around.
Start putting some thought into keeping them mentally balanced. As an example —-The biggest mistake you could make with a barrel horse is to stop exhibitioning them once they start working good.
Example with a rope horse….. the worst mistake you could make is not ever spend time roping some slow steers at a trot, or going in a pen and spending some time roping branding style, basically at a walk.
Sorry if the grammar is bad, I do these by talking while I’m driving.
