How Slow Can You Go?

Suns Eternal FlameHorses in slow-motion. Did someone find one of those magical TV remotes from a creepy old guy and hit the “slow” button?

While some riders, with sore arms from trying to hold back Speedy the Wonder Pony, might wish for their own magical TV remote with reality-altering capabilities, there is another sport in the western horse industry that involves slow-motion horses, and like barrel racing, it’s a sport full of glitz, glamour, and sparkle. Lots of sparkle.

Western Pleasure.

“The horse should look like a pleasure to ride,” states several rulebooks. In other words, the rider should NOT be flapping around at the end of guitar-string tight reins behind a snickering racehorse-wannabe, or bouncing like a jackhammer on caffeine.

The sport originates from the ideal of a smooth, graceful, ground-covering ranch horse who could ride with a consistent pace and be highly responsive to their rider. The AQHA, APHA, ApHC, NSBA and many other associations— including those with non-stock breeds such as Arabians, Morgans, Saddlebreds, pony breeds and even Draft Horses— all offer Western Pleasure classes for all ages and levels of rider.

The class is judged in a typical rectangular riding arena of about 100ftx200ft. The horse-and-rider combinations are required to show in classes of up to 20 riders at the gaits of: a walk at a leisurely pace; a slow-paced trot known as a “jog”; a slow-paced canter known as a “lope”; something slower than a normal trot with a noticeable lengthening of stride, known as an “extended jog”; and a rein-back, also known as a “back up.” The rider is supposed to sit deep and tall in the saddle with proper equitation position through all gaits.

Riding one-handed with a curb. On a horse aged 5 and under, they may ride two-handed with either a snaffle bit or a type of hackamore known as a bosal. On a horse aged 6 and up, riders must be riding one-handed with a shank/curb bit. The free hand must be either positioned in front of the rider with the elbow at a 90-degree angle, or the arm must hang straight down along the rider’s hip.

Over the years, the style of horse for Western Pleasure has gone through a few rather dramatic changes. It is quite possibly one of the disciplines that shows the most change, aside from the Hunter Under Saddle and Halter industries.

In the beginning (sometime shortly after the creation of the AQHA in 1940), a champion Western Pleasure horse was a normally-moving, well-trained working horse. They were expected to be moving at a consistant pace and “on the bit” with contact through the reins between the bit in the mouth and the rider’s hand(s). The horse’s head and neck were usually well above the level of the back. The style of outfit and tack (saddles and bridles) was clean and nice, and tack was not always fancy, but good quality working tack. Minimal silver, minimal or no glitter.

This style lasted up until about the mid-1980s, when some idiot thought it would be a great idea to place a slower-moving, lower-headed type of horse in the National competitions. Like everything else in the late 1980s, Western Pleasure outfits, colours and saddles began to increase their Sparkle Factor. Silver on saddles and bridles, sequins, bright-coloured shirts and fancy make-up (on the ladies) started showing up, and winning, in the show ring.

Some well-dressed ladies in 2009.

The “slow and low” ideal became more and more exaggerated into the early 1990s. Horses were literally almost crawling, their natural gait and movement totally disrupted. Most people not involved with the sport were outraged and disgusted by what the sport had become. In order to make horses move like that, trainers also began to use some vicious techniques, and some even resorted to outright abuse— bloodying mouths, leaving spur-bruises, purposefully damaging the neck by tying the horse to the ceiling for hours at a time, the head as high up as possible, so that they would “drop their head” under saddle. Tie-downs, draw reins, heavy hands and excessive spurring became very popular even among gentler-minded riders.

They became known as the “peanut rollers” due to the idea of having the horse’s head so low that they could’ve rolled peanuts along the ground with their lips. Quite frankly, these riders were far more nasty than the almost comical nickname implies.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the general public, both within and outside of the horse world, began to gather enough momentum against Western Pleasure, its style and its trainers. The large Associations such as the AQHA, APHA and NSBA began to take action to change the sport back into something that would be respected.

Barb MacFarlane and "Cody's Last Impulse" in 2005, demonstrating an extended jog with ideal form and head carriage.They attempted to rein in and educate their judges to pick horses who don’t look like malfunctioning Barbie High Stepper Horses (“It really walks!! Really!!”) through a series of seminars, articles and videos. They changed wording in rulebooks to say things that riders ought to already know, such as: “Lope with Forward Motion.” (What, so horses can “lope with backward motion” all of a sudden?) They added an “extended jog” to the class procedure. (To anyone outside of the Western Pleasure sector, this is a “normal jog”, and the usual “jog” is often considered a lame horse.)

Suns Eternal Flame is anything but "downhill" at her lope.Luckily, things have improved just as dramatically as they went downhill, and the Boulder of Ideas to have more “naturally” trained and moving horses continues to roll downhill at high speeds.

Nowadays, the ideal Western Pleasure has a slow but normally-gaited jog, a slow but natural, smooth movement at the lope, and rides with a wither-level neck on a loose rein with a bit of drape.

Breeders have made it easier for Western Pleasure horses to maintain this level-neck by breeding a low, horizontal neck angle into their stock. Very often a person can buy a well-bred Western Pleasure prospect, get on and train to a high level with very little effort. The horse is moving the way they want it to as soon as it pops out of the mare. This makes rough techniques and gadgets obsolete in the training world.

The author and "Timely Chex" in 2010, demonstrating a correct and consistant lope.

The saddles and outfits just keep getting brighter and more sparkly. Patterns and colours are limitless, and some wardrobes will cost several thousand dollars, custom-made. And oh, the saddles! Popular saddle makers Phil Harris, Dale Chavez, Blue Ribbon and Circle Y (to name a few) have become jewelers and artists than just talented leather workers. Sterling, bronze, even gold and rose-gold abound; Swarovskis and semi-precious stones on bridles and breast collars… Western Pleasure fashion doesn’t just give Barrel Racing a run for its money, it beats it to finish line by ten lengths!

Sparkle Sparkle! Custom Saddle #18 from Phil Harris Leather!In 2008, Phil Harris designed a western show saddle with a price tag of around $18,000. Yes, I said “eighteen THOUSAND dollars.” It had more silver than leather and even more crystals encrusted onto the silver than are pictured on the left. It was displayed in his booth at the All-American Quarter Horse Congress in 2008.

Let’s just say: “I just about died and added it to my list of frivolous things I will probably never buy on principle, but will always love to drool over.”

Who would spend that much on a saddle? If I ever did, it would be locked away in a bullet-proof display case in my house, guarded by ill-tempered ninjas and would never touch any horse… except perhaps Gooser.

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