Why so faffy handling at Royal Welsh?

[rara007]

We have had three that were all shown at the royal welsh and placed (and in pictures weren't particularly fat). One is a fantastic teaching pony and has been doing four in hand internationals this year and pair advance nationals, one was at the para world championships and one is doing open nationals as a pair. All none have ever had a days lameness or lami eta. They are all slightly quirky on the ground though.

 

[minesadouble]

Although the adult have evidently made it to over 8 in the ring the youngsters often don't get passed their fourth birthday before succumbing to laminitis and being pts. You rarely see an in hand pony champion winning a ridden class in the welsh d classes and in many of the other classes too I had hope it was starting to improve but evidently not in Wales at our local county I was pleasantly surprised to see fit not fat in hand ponies being shown

That's because most of the in hand classes are for breeding stock or potential breeding stock. Most winners of the Royal Welsh are never broken, let alone come out under saddle as the win ups their value as breeding animals, whether mare or colt/stallion.
The laminitis statement you have made is surely not strictly true as it is rare (whilst not impossible) for an animal under four years, and still growing rapidly, to succumb to laminitis. I know many welsh breeders and have never heard of them losing youngstock to laminitis yet.

 

[minesadouble]

I am pleased to hear that as in the past it was never heard of as most of the in hand winners were dead by the time they were ridden age due to laminitis and joint problems if they did make it to adulthood their lives were shortened by arthritis and cushings

Sorry but now you are really talking out of something other than your mouth and correct me if I'm wrong but Cushings is caused by pituitary tumour not overfeeding!!

 

[windand rain]

Cushings is appearing younger and younger in horses as are a multitude of other metabolic conditions mostly brought about by overweight and high sugar diets in a very similar way to type 2 diabetes in humans. Breeding stock is often the result of the in hand youngstock champions I will agree but even there a lot don't make it have a foal. I can think of some very high profile stallions that have been dead before they reached their teens. It is not a criticism of the welsh producers they have taken the obesity problem on board and have moved on producing over bulked but fit horses and a lot of those are stud stallions now I have seen a huge improvement over the last few years. A lot of in hand horses are never sent to stud but are produced as riding ponies, hunters and other working horses yes the bulk of welsh ponies and possibly most of the British natives do but watch a hunter yearling class the classes are for geldings a mare and foal class will only have a few entries but the yearling class will have dozens It is not just natives that are shown in hand

 

[minesadouble]

Whilst EMS can be attributed to overfeeding I'm not sure there is any evidence that Cushing's can be.
I think the WPCS does little or nothing to encourage the in hand showing of non breeding stock. Geldings tend to do notoriously badly in Welsh youngstock classes for this very reason.
Whilst most of the Welsh breeders I know are breeders of Bs I do know quite a few D breeders and do not know of any of their top showing stock being lost to overfeeding. Incidentally a B of my mum's that was third at RWAS as a yearling is currently out under saddle and doing very well.
Apologies if I came across as a bit intolerant but these kind of threads tend to really get my goat.
I've been in showing at County levelsince I was dragged round on the LR from the age of 3 and been brought up with the breeding of RPs and Welsh Bs. I'm now in my 40s and still involved in showing.
I think if most people on here (and I include myself in this) were asked to run flat out round the ring at the Royal Welsh leading a D stallion they would run for the hills!! The least of their worries would be a bit of 'faffing'!

 

[sparkeyhorse02]

They all look like they're on speed! I hate at the end how that guy drags it out of the line up when he's placed first. How would he like it if I tied rope round his little fat neck and yanked him forwards!! No need for all the build up and getting them tense. They do look stunning when they move but that just looks dangerous.