This makes me so angry!!!

[Paint Me Proud]

watch the video below and wait until the end when he poses the stallion. Then imagine the stallion doing that pose with front feet on much higher ground and you can clearly see why the photos look like they do...

[youtube]hemZNQQ5cpA[/youtube]

 

[Meowy Catkin]

it obviously does have terrible conformation from breeding as well

It is possible to cause a sway back (slipped back). Read this page 11 and 12.

http://www.equinestudies.org/ranger_2008/ranger_piece_2008_pdf1.pdf

 

[somethingorother]

Second photo is certainly photoshopped and not just the background. After seeing a before and after of a 'plain' Arabian horse into an exotic creation... I wouldn't trust photos from breeders of these extreme show horses, it is so easy to exaggerate features.

 

[Deseado]

Hello, these are American Saddlebred horses and i doubt that they are photoshopped actually. They are very prone to sway backs because of the posture they are trained to adopt (as shown in these photos). I am no expert, but I have lived in America in the past and have had several Saddlebred horses to retrain. They are lovely, willing chaps - they have to be to put up with the treatment they are subjected to. The hobbles shown in the ridden pics are rubber bungees and are used to develop the muscles of the forelimbs. They also use wooden "rattles" which bang their shins at every step making them snap up their legs, and so on - not nice stuff.

 

[black_horse]

The photos and more can be viewed here

 

[Fii]

The ridden picture is a gaited horse, it may be a Tennessee walking horse, it is shod and "hobbled to make its paces more extreme they also blister the legs and feet to give the horse pain, and make it lift its feet higher!!!,
Its called soreing and they also put chains on after to make the pain worse, they also do this in full view at shows apparently!!

 

[Deseado]

The ridden picture is a gaited horse, it may be a Tennessee walking horse, it is shod and "hobbled to make its paces more extreme they also blister the legs and feet to give the horse pain, and make it lift its feet higher!!!,
Its called soreing and they also put chains on after to make the pain worse, they also do this in full view at shows apparently!!

NOT a Tennesee Walker, it's a Saddlebred, and may or may not be "five gaited" - there are "normal" 3-gaited (walk-trot-canter) and 5-gaited (W-T-C-slow gait and racking) Saddlers. ALL are artificially trained, but they are bred to have a "peacocky" head and neck set and tend to dip the back naturally.

 

[jaquelin]

This is in South Africa, which explains a lot!

 

[Jesstickle]

The photos and more can be viewed here

Well, I actually feel slightly better about the photos having seen them all. What I mostly see are well cared for horses and young stock. Agreed that one particular mare is very poor but the rest seem to be in good nick and the youngsters all seem in fine fettle too. I know it shouldn't ever happen that a mare gives that much to a foal and isn't looked after but we all make mistakes sometimes.

FWIW I am no way on board with the horrible practises used on big lick horses. Totally barbaric.

 

[PapaFrita]

Sorry but i still think its photoshopped. Its the same horse as photo one but looks totally different to me!! my opinion.

I've enlarged it on Photoshop. Background IS altered (very badly as well) and there is evidence of PSing around the withers and tail, but not back or hindquarters. Other photos on FB of the same horse show awful conformation, not enhanced by the posture.
I can't imagine WHY you would photoshop your horse to look this dreadful? Photo came from what I believe is the stud's page and has lots of favourable comments.

 

[Fii]

I said it "may be"
I have seen this photo before on a sight dedicated to stopping the horror that some showing people do to their gaited horses to get a more exaggerated performance!!
There aint nothing natural about it !!!

 

[Oberon]

Photoshop or not - it's the representation that it's desirable in the first place that upsets me.

 

[Paint Me Proud]

just reading about Saddlebreds and found the photo below.

Apparently the unusually high tail carriage is obtained by cutting the tendons in the horses tail than binding it up in a harness while the tendons repair into the upright position. Seems a little unnecessary to me.

 

[Deseado]

Yes, it is bemusing that people think this is "beautiful", but some people think dressage horses look tortured (including me sometimes, when it is rollkur), or western pleasure horses, etc., etc..............

 

[Fuzznugget]

The first two MUST be photoshopped. It would take decades and decades of breeding to produce something like that and I've never seen or heard of a breed that's even remotely like that.

There is a lot of line breeding in Saddlebreds, which results in what you see in the pics

It looks like a Tennesse walking horse and yes they are bred to look like that although that first picture might be an extreme.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkyC1Fq6Msg

It's sickening.

Saddlebred, not TWH

This is in South Africa, which explains a lot!

Same thing in the US as far as training and shoeing go, and the pics on FB are nowhere near as extreme as what goes on behind closed doors. It was one helluva eye opener to have worked with gaited horses!

 

[Deseado]

just reading about Saddlebreds and found the photo below.

Apparently the unusually high tail carriage is obtained by cutting the tendons in the horses tail than binding it up in a harness while the tendons repair into the upright position. Seems a little unnecessary to me.

Oh dear, I thought that "nicking" had been made illegal, seems not. This horse is wearing a "tail set", which he will have on 24 hours a day. Grim, but there is worse - Tennessee Walkers go through even more. Poor horses.

 

[Fuzznugget]

just reading about Saddlebreds and found the photo below.

Apparently the unusually high tail carriage is obtained by cutting the tendons in the horses tail than binding it up in a harness while the tendons repair into the upright position. Seems a little unnecessary to me.

They live in the bustle for long periods of time, it tends to be kept on over night and sometimes longer, usually gets taken off when horse gets worked or shown.

 

[Deseado]

Hi GingerNut, seems we have had similar experiences of the gaited horse industry.

 

[cambrica]

Its nothing more than a Freak Show. There may be some complimentary comments on the fb page but there are also alot of damning condemnations.
Big men with small d**ks comes to mind.

 

[Fuzznugget]

Hi GingerNut, seems we have had similar experiences of the gaited horse industry.

Seems so! Lived in the US for 20ish years, have worked with Saddlebreds & Morgans, and in the case of their training for the park classes, I'd say ignorance is bliss for all but the horses. Shocking, some of what goes on!

 

[brown tack]

Defo not photo shopped. Used to work with American saddle breds and that pose is encouraged though breeding. The horse would of spent many hours training to stand that way, something that practiced from weanlings.
As for the guy ridding, it's not hobbles, it's an elastic bunggie with causes the horses to snap up there front legs, creating a really high action
The saddle sits on the loins on purpose to cause a lower back end so the front and come up, again creating a higher knee action.
Very common practice in most gaited breed trainers, even the "humane" ones.

 

[brown tack]

Some other practices as one of you have said the tail nipping, again happens more commonly then you think, even if the tendons aren't cut the cradle is still worn 24hours a day.
Other training "aids" are the lovely dummy jockey, bearing reins, shoe wedge shoes, over checks, wire or chain bits (a Waterford would be heaven) bits wrapped in wire. Long shanked curbs used on a Pessoa.
And that's not getting started on the illegal stuff!

 

[Wagtail]

But why would you ride in hobbles??!!

Not hobbles but a bungee cord. They are schooled using them so that when they are shown (without the bungee) their action is much more extravagant.

 

[xxMozlarxx]

I agree thisisn't a Tennesse Walking horse, these pictures seem tame compared to what the walking horses made to do the big lick go through. I have been involved in trying to publicise the suffering of the Big lick TWH, it is shocking in a supposedly civilised society, these horses are lame and crippled but this is the deep south and showing Big Lick walkers is big bucks

 

[JustMe22]

This is in South Africa, which explains a lot!

I wasn't sure, but thought the background in the photos looked very like South Africa - people look South African too. Gives us a bad name.

But, it's not like this is a standard South African thing to do, let's be honest.

As to the horse - pretty sure it's one of the Saddlebred studs in SA, rather than a tennessee walker etc. I hope it's photoshopped. If not, that's a sad state of affairs

 

[SeasonalSituation]

I wasn't sure, but thought the background in the photos looked very like South Africa - people look South African too. Gives us a bad name.

But, it's not like this is a standard South African thing to do, let's be honest.

As to the horse - pretty sure it's one of the Saddlebred studs in SA, rather than a tennessee walker etc. I hope it's photoshopped. If not, that's a sad state of affairs

It is definatly photoshopped, and badly at that.

 

[SeasonalSituation]

i can tell just by looking at the photo. The pixels and image are consistent around the edge of the horse with a non-shopped image. The shadow also matches the horses outline and that too shows no sign of alterations.
Sadly, that is ACTUALLY how they pose their horse.

Give me a photo of your horse and I bet I can do something similar and make it look a lot more convincing then that.

 

[Jesstickle]

I don't want to be grumpy but if you look at the other photos it looks like that in them all. So probably not photo shopped. Just in case anyone can be bothered to take a peek. I think as Faracat has said, it is sway backed.

 

[sakura]

I saw their facebook page last night with consistent images like this and their attempt at justifying it - so no, it's not photoshopped sadly

they're saddlebreds and the photos are disgusting

 

[Goldenstar]

I have a ASB and you can see in him how you can get them into these ridiculous stances ( can't say if they are photoshopped but you can find loads of similar shots by trailing the Internet ).
The showing they do in amercia looks mad to me horses moving in horrible unnatural ways produced you don't want to know how it makes our fuss about thr rolkur issue look tame.
My horse is a KWPN being the offspring of two ASB s brought into holland to help develop driving horses he's a lovely horse gentle sharp loads of energy and stamina it a shame so many of them must have a pretty miserable time.