Western pleasure??! Whaaaat??

[Jellymoon]

Western pleasure's gonna Western pleasure. It's as contentious in American horsey-land (more so) as it is here.

But reining and working cow horse and other Western disciplines can produce amazing riders/trainers. Great Western riders (Stacy Westfall, Buck Brannaman) achieve collection and lightness with virtually no contact, and the horses are so relaxed, uphill, working through their backs. I've seen Stacy riding a demo in real life at a horse expo in Denver, and I was in awe. She did a whole reining test with a neck rope! A lot of English riding is so handsy, trying to pull the horse together from the front end, and I think there's a lot to be learned from the great Western riders.

Not so much pleasure, though. It's just weird and over-exaggerated and there are probably a lot of drugs involved.

What she said !

 

[brighteyes]

The idea is that the horses must appear to be completely switched off to the cattle they are herding, so as not to razz them up. So I was told.

Swap 'cattle they are herding' to 'riders they are carrying' and you have it.

 

[Winters100]

I did not see the video, but the way I view things is that there is good and bad in pretty much every discipline, including recreational and non-ridden horses. I know nothing about Western, but there is one horse at our yard who is used for this, and I can say that he is cared for beautifully, and certainly I have never seen anything in his training which would cause me to be concerned.

 

[Orangehorse]

From a very good source I heard that some Western show people had a deaf horse, but they thought it was a good thing as it wouldn't be distracted by loud noises at shows.

Seems a bit warped to me.