Arabian showing

cobalobM said:
can someone explain to me why they hold the whip up above their heads? it looks like they are threatening to smack the horse one?
also do judges want to see miss behaving horses? as they all seemed to do it infront of the judges?!
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I used to work with showing Arabs as a teenager (almost 30yrs ago) and it was most definitely NOT like this. What's happened?
In answer to quote - back then when I was a teen, the horse was taught to reach toward whip or high held hand with lead; as the showing stance is a high held head reaching out; in training sometimes horse was touched gently on the nose to gain attention; but whips were never used with bags on or to chase or as threats and to hit etc. The horses were well behaved including at shows, and especially the stallions! No chain yanking or galloping in circles. As for why now, who knows! I was shocked to see the vid, didn't realise this went on!

Lovely old vid ester!
 
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That's interesting to read Braidedtail.

I went to Malvern when I was shortly out of uni so 10/12 years ago and definitely saw some good and some bad handling. I think the more these things have become 'international' it has just become more acceptable/everyone does it so we have to do it this way. I don't think it in anyway shows the horses to the best of their ability though, sometimes I think they just can't be bothered to run fast enough- maybe they need to borrow some of the welshie boys :p.
 
Poor things... it's started creeping into the lots of showing breed shows.. I saw some awful sights at the andalusian breed show.
 
minkymoo said:
Look how much nicer their faces are! None of this horrid seahorse face!
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The grey I pointed out has a pretty dished head, sorry, horrid seahorse head. ;) You still get straight profiles today like the brown horse shown just before the grey. People always seem to forget that there is a huge variety in the breed. If you don't like dished heads, but like arabs, go for bloodlines with plainer heads (so definitely not a straight Egyptian! LOL :D).

For example this arab is a mix of French and Iraqi lines. Look at his clonking almost convex noggin. :) Not a seahorse in sight.

HILALALZAMAN400.jpg
 
Faracat said:
The grey I pointed out has a pretty dished head, sorry, horrid seahorse head. ;) You still get straight profiles today like the brown horse shown just before the grey. People always seem to forget that there is a huge variety in the breed. If you don't like dished heads, but like arabs, go for bloodlines with plainer heads (so definitely not a straight Egyptian! LOL :D).

For example this arab is a mix of French and Iraqi lines. Look at his clonking almost convex noggin. :) Not a seahorse in sight.

HILALALZAMAN400.jpg
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Haha, can always rely on Faracat for a good quote! My new boy is a straight Egyptian but he hasn't got a full seahorse look going on. I don't understand why I see photos of them shaved around the eyes?!
 
Just been to Malvern to see the stallion classes, today it was tannoyed no outside assistance allowed (so no plastic bags and people running the fence lines at all! ) Again can say saw nothing like the original video, yes some of the stallions were on their toes and some high jinx but to be honest nothing more than you see in the Welsh rings. I do have to add I do not own /show arabs myself so I'm no way biased on my views (in fact only show SHP and lead rein! )
 
Velvet82 said:
Haha, can always rely on Faracat for a good quote! My new boy is a straight Egyptian but he hasn't got a full seahorse look going on. I don't understand why I see photos of them shaved around the eyes?!
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I hate the shaved show horse look too.

You have to post photos of your non-dishy Egyptian now. :)

jennieF said:
Not sure I would call that a 'real' Arab Faracat - esp if its French bred - they had a bit of an 'open' stud book for a while !!!
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He raced in purebred races, so he meets the criteria for racing.

Pedigree here - http://stallions-alnujaifi-farm.com/hilal-al-zaman/

Is No Risk Al Maury pure enough to be counted as a non-dishy arab? ;) :D

http://www.racestreet.com/noriskalmaury.html
 
Faracat said:
I hate the shaved show horse look too.

You have to post photos of your non-dishy Egyptian now. :)


He raced in purebred races, so he meets the criteria for racing.

Pedigree here - http://stallions-alnujaifi-farm.com/hilal-al-zaman/

Is No Risk Al Maury pure enough to be counted as a non-dishy arab? ;) :D

http://www.racestreet.com/noriskalmaury.html
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Here's a straight Egyptian without the seahorse look (I know it's an oldie but it's a good one) - http://www.straightegyptians.com/database/pictures/a95536b3b36d357e9f8126f9d62ab197.jpg
Yes let's see yours' Velvet82!
 
Thank you GemG - 1364 signatures including a listed ECAHO judge -I think this IS going to make a difference....
 
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I didn't think I liked straight Egyptians but then I met the ones that Spud & Felixs breeder has. One is with some other friends of ours, he's a traditional straight Egyptian with very old lines, and not extreme in any way (other than being extremely laid back....). This is him passing the vet after his first 65km:
10384212_10201937046528568_2408967117089690008_n.jpg


Remember that most of the crabbets were Egyptian originally ;)

Petition signed.
 
I own a pure bred arab. She is a mix of straight egyptian, spanish and crabbett lines. The great Aliha was her grandmother so she comes from very very successful show lines. She herself won at county level as a yearling. Apart from that she has never been shown as neither I nor her owner before me were interested in it.

She is 24 years old now and still looks like a 10 year old horse. She has been super successful at showjumping, has done well at a few events and has BD points to boot too. She doesn't have a typey head, she has a nice subtle dish, a wonderful neck, great paces and a really good strong back.

She is the kindest, bravest, most gentle and sensible horse that you are ever likely to meet. She looks after you when you are riding her and has taught my 5 year old niece to ride. Today my 2 year old niece is going to ride her.

I really don't like the showing world as they make these wonderful kind, gentle and noble horses just look spooky and good-for-nothing but in-hand showing. They are amazing all rounders and deserve far better.

Petition signed.
 
Can anyone explain what they are actually doing in the first video, why they are doing it and what it's called. Sorry I am completely ignorant! Looks horrible!
 
For some reason someone has decided that Arabian Horses look at their best with their heads held up high and basically looking like a scared giraffe ..... I think it hides a lot of conformation faults - the horses are hyped up as that also seems to be desirable - you can see that when some of the handlers touch the horses nose they jump backwards - this is because they have had electric cattle prods used on them - sad but true ...
 
ktj1891 said:
Can anyone explain what they are actually doing in the first video, why they are doing it and what it's called. Sorry I am completely ignorant! Looks horrible!
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They're trying to achieve the 'frozen pose'.

In the regular horse world, there's a pretty standard way of standing up a show horse in a relaxed manner so that you can assess its conformation. However, with Arabs, there are ways of making them stand which a) highlights some of the criteria in the breed standard and b) hides conformation faults.

They're aiming to flatten out the topline, and raise the head to make the shoulder look better. Also, if the horse has big wide scared eyes and big snorty nostrils it makes their dished head look 'better'.

To achieve the pose you want the horse to reach towards you with an arched neck whilst holding the pose, which can be achieved by bribery but can also also be achieved by scaring/alarming the horse and then getting the horse to return to your hand. So the handlers 'shank' the horse to cause alarm and then try and get the horse to return to them. But to get a horse that wired and tense to hold that pose, it will boil over. And as they generally don't want to seem like abusers in the ring, the horse will often be conditioned to react to a small shank in the ring by using much harsher methods at home.

Continued use of the pose has also meant that people breed horses that look good in the pose, rather than horses with genuinely good conformation.

Personally, there's no reason why a normal relaxed pose, akin to the one that is used for conformation assessment in most other breeds, and which is used for crabbet showing, wouldn't work in mainstream Arab classes. It would allow for more accurate assessment of conformation and would,cut down on the amount of abuse that some trainers use to achieve the pose.
 
Faracat said:
So you don't care if they are treated badly because you don't find them attractive?

Thanks for the link BT. :)
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No quite the opposite, i don't like the look of them so the fact people do this to make them look like that is even MORE horrific. That look does not look nice to me. I like a nice neck to show a topline but only if the face is relaxed and happy, i don't like the scared to death look.

There is a massive want for miniatures to look like arabs at the moment. I don't like it at all, they look deformed and starved.
 
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