Cutting Comments

[hackneylass2]

Further to reading the post and youtube link re barrel racing, which for the life of me I cant find now

I wondered what you made of this...to be honest I find it absolutely fascinating

Cutting

 

[only_me]

i think its pretty cool - the horses seem to do it all themselves and the riders just seem to sit there.

some very fancy footwork going on there!!

 

[RunToEarth]

I don't really understand it, but to me it looks pretty amazing. My coloured horse sometimes does the same kind of thing in the field with the heifers, although he always chickens out

 

[hackneylass2]

Yeah, I was trying very hard to look for signals, looked at a good few other cutting horse vids and even saw one doing it at liberty.

I wonder if its sort of bred into them, a bit like Border Collies...well probably a bad comparison but the horses' body language reminded me of that.

Maybe an American member can enlighten us? I have no clue how the riders stay on either!

 

[Syrah]

Blimey! It is fascinating.

Those riders have got some balance and the horses just seem to do it all themselves.

 

[mintaka04]

Fascinating!

I saw a western riding demo once ( Bob Mayhew, I think? ) and he did this.
After a short demo he said "I'll just switch him off now" and gave a short signal to the horse who went from a fierce cow-hating machine to a completely relaxed, dopey, couldn't care-less-about-cows horse in a micro-second.

This rapid change brought gasps of admiration from the audience, causing to Bob to comment "this horse has a lot of cow in him"
I think in effect that yes, some horses are born with that natural cow cutting aptitude.
But doesn't it look fantastic?!

 

[Ezme]

Its defiantly an example of how good breeding used to be, only the horses with the best "cow sense" got bred. Still i'm sure theres alot of skill in it but definatly one of the disciplnes where its a more 50-50 relationship!

Can't wait untill I take the riding club western gona be a laugh!

 

[Silverspring]

The horse's in the main do it themselves but I think the cowboys do spent time training them to their aids. They ride through their seat and the slightest weight movement can send the pony flying left or right or put them into a spin. The top cutting horses just know and the rider can literally sit there and do nothing

Monty Robert talks about it in his book as Jonny Tivo was a champion cutting horse that just knew his job so well, he died right under Monty while cutting froma heart attack

so sad.

 

[Tia]

Generally AQHA's come into a few different types and the working-bred ones are then put into sub-types depending on what they are bred for. Cutting horses are bred, using the bloodlines of successful cutting horses. (The analogy of the border collie was actually pretty spot-on). Obviously some make the grade whilst others don't, just in the same way as not all border collies will make good sheepdogs or cattle dogs, however as with the border collie, some QH's bred to be cutters, just won't make the grade.

I have a cutting horse and he is amazing to ride. Training obviously plays a large part too, however you'll never have a terrific cutter, regardless of the training, if he does not have the aptitude to do it - this is where "cow-sense", "cowy" comes in. You can generally see whether they are cowy when they are just babies. I have a couple of yearlings who, on paper, were bred to be cutters, however I can see in them that they won't make top-notch cutters, for one reason or another, they would be best suited to a different job. But then I have another 3 or 4 who most definitely would!

I love to watch a good cutter at work, almost as much as I enjoy riding them.

 

[bexandspooky]

Wow, they know their jobs well, dont they!!

 

[blackcob]

I'm most impressed by how little the riders are influencing what the horse does - would a horse do the same job without a rider, do you think?

 

[Booosh]

I need one here for our wild Limousin steers! Our Jack russell terrier also pretty good lol!

Love the expression on some of those cutting horses faces - just like a collie with a sheep!