Have you ever heard of Western Pleasure? It’s a western-style competition at horse events that judges horses on practices and appropriateness of the horse for a comfortable but collected and moderately slow speed of gait, ahead with smooth and tender disposition.
Western Pleasure has always been considered a suspicious competition and it has been under examination because of the way the stallions perform. The best horses during these presentations are the ones that are calm, have smooth gaits and controllable movement. For example, just like the horse shown on the video below at All American Quarter Horse Congress in 2011!
Rider Abigail Eaves and his horse The Only Kiss To Envy made a performance that has caused various debates all over the internet. Just recently, this video became viral again and people started raising their concerns and negative comments about it.
Most of the commenters said that this style should be banned because it makes horses uncomfortable and miserable throughout all their performance. They really hope that the judges will soon stop estimating this unnatural movement and after that, even the trainers will stop training this. Only this way The Western pleasure will stop being the “standard”.
It’s a waste of excellent horses because this kind of “Western” is simply not pleasant. AQHA practices state that the poll of the horse is supposed to be in order with the withers, but it appears that no one worries about the rules. Watch the performance shown in the video below and let us know what you think about it.