World Show Blog

[maestoso]

Thanks for taking care of Magic! And no, I am not saying that a halter win doesn't mean as much. I am saying that there seems to be a lot less respect(not from everyone, but a general statement) for performance classes than halter. Which is completely bogus, because to win in a performance class or to place, you are competing against 30 to 50 other competitors. As you know, it takes tons of training at home and you pretty much have to have a flawless round to even get 10th place, or in the case of jumpers, be able to get your horse through 3 or 4 clean rounds, sometimes more. What I am saying is that the performance exhibitors work just as hard, and sometimes have to work harder, because they have to train there horses to do several things, not just stand and look pretty, and they still have to condition just like the halter horses, performance wins take just as much work, and mean just as much, and usually have to jump through a few more hoops(pun intended

to get there.....

Don't get me wrong, I love showing at halter, and I would be just as happy with a top ten there. But speaking for myself, I had to work much harder to ready my horses for the performance classes than the halter classes. And as I learned this past week, with 50 horses in a class, one tiny mistake and your done for.

 

[maestoso]

Oh, and I consider driving a performance class. And the people who can win those are amazing, as some of those country pleasure classes had 3 splits, and unlike in a class like hunter, you have to stand out when there are 16 or so other drivers in the ring and only 3 sets of eyes.

And I think that the skill level it takes to show a horse at halter obstacle or hunter equals that of showing at halter. I show in all of it, and when showing in halter obstacle in hunter against 50 strong competitors, it is not about just pulling your horse through the course, every horse there is good at it. It comes down to navigation, precision, and finesse. It is a lot to think about and you are in there by yourself, every tiny mistake will be noticed.

And for the record, I am not really interested in levels for performance, or size splits. Size may not always affect conformation, but it does affect the overall picture, which matters in halter. I suppose in jumper it is tough to have a 30 inch horse compete with a 34 inch horse, but I think it's different. And besides that, there was a tiny little black horse at worlds who out jumped most of the other horses, it was amazing to watch.

 

[lilstars]

CONGRATULATIONS!!! to chris padula and vermylia farms boomerang on 9th in liberty and also kristina slobody and dukey on their 6th place in liberty out of 46 entries you guys are doing a great job kristina you are doing new england proud!!!!!!

 

[Carrie12]

Not all of the driving classes are big and not all of the halter classes are small. There was Single Pleasure Driving yesterday with 6 entries and Weanling Mares 26-30 had 43 entries and had to be split.