Showing & slightly lame/off horses

Meowy Catkin

Meowy Catkin

Meow!
Joined
19 July 2010
Messages
22,635
Visit site
I went to a show yesterday and in one class the winning horse was definately off/lame in walk. He would take short strides with one hind leg about 25% of the time. He trotted fine, the strides were even in length all the time in trot.

He was a tiny bit nicer confromationally than the horse that came second, but that one had beautiful sound, floaty movement.

I would have given the win to the sound horse, myself.

Thoughts?
 
I have more experience regarding dog showing. I was once in a class where a hopping (literally) dog got placed third. A lame horse/dog should not be presented, let alone placed and if I was judging it would be slung out of the ring.
 
All I can say is I have seen "unlevel" horses get reasonable marks at BD on more than one occasion. My daughter withdrew one of ours in a test as she said he felt "off" -judge thought he looked fine:rolleyes: He was not lame as such but was not completely level on one rein. Prob less than 1/10 but I would expect a judge to question it/drop marks. She was surprised at our decision to stop the test and said how nice he looked:eek:
So I am not in the least surprised this happens in showing. The state of some (not all but some) show cobs makes me amazed they can move at all they are so obese.
 
RE the BD comment - I was writing for a BD listed judge at an affiliated competition a few months ago where one of the horses looked lame. It was maybe 1/10 lame in trot and nodding. The judge said that generally she wouldn't disqualify a lame horse unless it was really lame (what does that mean? crippled?) as she's not a vet and it seems she has had bad experiences in the past with competitors arguing with her about whether or not their horse is actually lame. Also she said it could be bridle lame in which case she would need to penalise its movement but not disqualify it.
I'm not saying I agree with this, quite the opposite, I don't think lame horses should be competing. I'm just trying to offer some perspective on where the judge, rightly or wrongly, might be coming from.
 
I once did some writing for a Dressage judge and she once stopped a test because the horse was lame. She did it in a very kind way and said that she looked forward to seeing the horse in the future and what a shame it was that he wasn't quite right today.
 
I agree, unbalanced, that it may be hard to pull up a slightly unlevel horse but I have to say I have seen horses with distinctly iffy paces on one rein, or a slightly uneven rhythm get good marks and nothing said on the sheet either.
I am sometimes amazed though, at peoples inability to see/feel their horses lameness/unlevelness and I think judges could help in educating people in this, though, no doubt they would get some abuse sometimes from some people.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top