21/365 Horses of many colors

I took the afternoon off from work on Friday, really felt like I was playing hooky, and went to the Hoosier Horse Fair & Expo at the state fairgrounds. We had a l-o-n-g list of items we needed to look for and didn't buy a single one of them!

Every vendor you could imagine, from both in- and out-of-state, was there selling clothes, boots, saddles, leather items, water buckets, trailers, signs... you name it. It was kind of like being at a flea market, where after a while all of it starts to look the same.

Nonetheless, we had a lot of fun touching and feeling everything, writing down items we wanted to come back and shop around for online and elsewhere, learning why in the world you might want tail extensions... It could be pretty overwhelming.

I didn't get to see as much demonstration as I'd hoped, because we spent so much time with our group walking around shopping and chatting, but as we were on our way back to the car, Mom and I stopped briefly to watch a demonstration happening in one of the arenas.

*Now, I'll insert a caveat here -- keep in mind that I am very inexperienced (as I've only been doing this for 3/4 of a year), have a lot to learn, and have my own opinions and ideas about what I like and want to do.

This demonstration: we think it was of the Western Pleasure style, but I'm not sure. (We ride following the John Lyons training method.) I have heard of Western Pleasure but have never seen it for myself. Well, my initial impression of this is that it's ... wrong. These horses actually looked depressed, forced, and like they had no life in their eyes any longer.

The style mandates that they keep their chins down near the level of their knees in all gaits we saw -- walk, trot and lope. The lope was the most awkward-looking. The horse's back and front legs looked like they were off rhythm and moving independently of each other. The back legs actually looked like they were limping and dragging their feet, and their heads were forced to bob in a beat that was jerky and unnatural. I actually found it disturbing to watch, especially when I think about how they must have been taught to do this.

I've heard a few stories from various people about ways horses are "taught" to do certain things. Apparently one way to "teach" the horse to lope like this, with their head down so far, their chin into their chest, is to tie a rope from their chin to their back feet while they're loping. The thought of it just makes my stomach turn.

I took a quick video with my camera of this demonstration. One rider was a little girl who looked like she was about 4 or 5 years old, cute as could be with her turquoise chaps and blue fingernail polish. She's seen here loping her horse. It's a lope but is a little closer to a trot, so it doesn't show as pronounced a head-bobbing as some of the others and doesn't appear as exaggerated.



It just makes me thankful that we found this particular natural horsemanship method when we did. The people who practice the Western Pleasure style probably see us and think we look sloppy -- but call me what you may, I like it!

Camera: Canon PowerShot SD1000, indoors.