Country Western Pleasure

[minih]

We have a horse we are getting ready to enter into the country western pleasure classes this year and I think we are headed in the right direction. He is an older horse and has been mainly used for parades and fun driving in the past. I would like to see pictures of your country western pleasure driving horses while driving if you have any, and have a discussion on what the judges are looking for in comparison to the other classes. Thank you all for your help with this, I am just curious to see if we are headed in the right direction or not. We have a show in 2 weeks.

 

[ClickMini]

Terri, I am also showing Ally in Western Country Pleasure in two weeks, for the first time. She has a sweepy type of action, and the girl can move out for sure. We can definitely show a difference in trots, etc. I have dropped her check way down, and have been working her in an ADS training level dressage frame since our last show. She is doing really well. No telling how it will go at the show, however! This is probably the last show I will take her to in the breed show ring, unless she does really well in this class. Her "type" is definitely not what is in style now. She is a kick-butt CDE horse though, and we have plenty of those scheduled this year. I may reconsider the breed ring if she does well in the WCP classes. a

I also do NOT want to wear a cowboy hat! I don't own one, and will not go out and purchase one. I don't think they are specified in the rule book.

Here is my Ally (photo by Pangraf Productions, I have purchased it just waiting for the disk to arrive):

In this photo, she has a very tight overcheck, which has inhibited her to a large degree. Given a choice, she will carry herself with a more level topline. I think even at this point, she would be fairly competitive in the WCP ring.

 

[hobbyhorse23]

I also do NOT want to wear a cowboy hat! I don't own one, and will not go out and purchase one. I don't think they are specified in the rule book.

I'm going to be absolutely shameless and gleefully wear a cowboy hat!

I grew up showing huntseat and western and really miss a good cowboy hat.

I don't want to risk my fancy (expensive!) ADS hat in the dust of an indoor arena so it's either go hatless with my complete lack of hairstyling ability or put on a sharp black cowboy hat custom-shaped and fitted to me by our local hat artist Lance at the Beth Western store.

Plus I figure now I can enter Showmanship if I want to, or at least once I find a decent jacket I can.

Kody, like Ally, has a very sweeping stride with good engagement of the hindquarters, suspension, and lots of reach in the shoulder. He's a hunter horse, not a western one, but this class is the closest I can come. I'll dress Western just for kicks but will NOT ask Kody to jog along or do any of the things I see stock horses in harness doing. Yuck! The class description asks for a forward-moving horse and that's what I'll give them; the judge will either like us or not. I fully expect results will be wildly different with each class and under each judge as people are still figuring out what the division is going to be like.

The one thing I do NOT want to see is a class that's all about having the horse's head at the right height and the heck with the form behind it. I've already seen several pictures posted on previous threads trying to show that horses who are winning in these classes are not peanut rolling but I've been dismayed by the complete lack of reach through the lower neck on most of them. These horses have their heads on the vertical but without either the power inherent in the previous country pleasure frame or the foundations of correct check-less training behind them, they're just moseying along no matter what speed they're going.

I hope that our judges can be educated to look for correct reach and drive through the topline rather than just an outline and I still worry that the name of this class will become more important to the expected standard than the actual class description.

I mean heck, I'm wearing a cowboy hat aren't I? OH!

I'll come back later with pix and video of my potential Western horse.

Leia

 

[MinisOutWest]

hummmmmmmmmmmmmmm, thought i'd help. BUT !!!!

 

[minih]

Ok, so if I am reading you right our driving horse should have his head straight up and down, no nose out at all?

 

[Field-of-Dreams]

This is my guy, last year's WCP Reserve Grand B.





No peanut roller, he moves nice and even. Can move out when asked, but don't forget, excessive speed is to be penalized.

He has a bit of a disadvantage, though- he's only 34.5" tall!

Lucy

 

[JourneysEnd]

From the rule book:

ATTIRE

1. Ladies may wear jackets and blouses with slacks and skirts or dresses. (Boy that's written really well, I think it means you may wear jackets or a blouse with slacks or a skirts or a dress)No bare shoulders. Hats are optional.

2. Gentlemen should wear western attire with or without a wester hat.

 

[Katiean]

Well, for us our over check bridle broke during the first show. We also discovered that our bit was way too big for our mare. I was also using a martingale on her which in the first show was great if the bit fit and the over check bridle didn't break. I ended up getting the perfect bit which helped. But then we put her into a side check bridle and forgot to take off the martingale. This poor mare had her nose pulled down to her chest in the second show. Other than that she was flawless. However, if the horses chin is touching her chest it kind of takes away points with your judges.

 

[macy--red carpet minis]

I showed an excellent Western Country Pleasure horse this year at Nationals, "Oak Views Triple Crown Rebel" owned by Alison King.

I took home Youth Western Country Pleasure National Champion and I really hope that she will post pictures of him in the cart so that you can see the movement that they picked at Nationals.

I want to say though, a lot of people have the impression that these "Western" horses should go extremely slow. While a steady pace needs to kept throughout the class and they will, of course, not be going as fast as the Country or Single Pleasure horses I still feel as though they should mantain a pretty decent pace. From what I saw at Nationals and at shows this Spring it looks like the judges are not loving the very slow and "pokey" horses. Of course every judge is different but this is just what I have seen.

I wore a black long skirt, a regular black collared show shirt, and a black cowboy hat.

Hope this helps!!

 

[minih]

hummmmmmmmmmmmmmm, thought i'd help. BUT !!!!

Angela I don't know what happened, but I read your post earlier at work and it is gone? I work at a school district and the youtube videos are off limits to our system at work, so I wait until I get home to my snail pace dial up and wait for the things to download before I watch them. I have the link you emailed me downloading now to watch later after it is finished. I would like to have seen the videos you had posted earlier.

 

[hobbyhorse23]

hummmmmmmmmmmmmmm, thought i'd help. BUT !!!!

Angela I don't know what happened, but I read your post earlier at work and it is gone? I work at a school district and the youtube videos are off limits to our system at work, so I wait until I get home to my snail pace dial up and wait for the things to download before I watch them. I have the link you emailed me downloading now to watch later after it is finished. I would like to have seen the videos you had posted earlier.

Ditto! Thankfully the post was still there when I came home from work so I was able to see the videos you posted but I'm confused why your post has been removed. No one had responded to it yet so we can't possibly have said anything offensive, could we?

It's too bad, your Beau is a nice horse and I enjoyed his video. The QH stallion, well, let's just say he's the style I would hate to see the minis emulate.

The poor fellow looked like he was lame half the time!

Ignore me, I grew up an Arab nut.

I finally threw together a brief video of my horse that I think shows why he should be in Western. I'm hoping to keep the new power and elevation he's got this year but have him reach down for the bit so his head is about at the same level as last year, only more draped and reachy. He's been doing very well at it when we practice at home but I haven't gotten any pictures of that yet.



Leia

 

[whitney]

Leia you saved the best IMO western pleasure picture for LAST.

Your video was TOO COOL. I wish the breed judges would encourage movement like that he was BOUNCING OOOOOHHHHHHHH!

 

[hobbyhorse23]

Leia you saved the best IMO western pleasure picture for LAST.

If you mean the last picture on the video, that was taken at a dressage lesson last week while we were doing some experiments to see what level of contact would keep his mouth quiet. I'm not actually happy with that frame (he was on his forehand a little and had his lips pulled back) but I figured it looked like what most people would consider Western so I threw it in. At least he's flexing the correct muscles in his neck even if he isn't reaching for the bit!

Leia