What's Up with Arabian Halter? Good, Bad, Ugly? Part 3

The video that is in questions has lots of examples of what some believe is proof that the horses in the ring have been abused. I can tell you I no longer jump to conclusions based on what I see just in the arena. I train my own halter horses and I do NOT beat on them with the whip. I use the whip as a tool and yet I get lots of reactions just like those horses in the ring.

Sometimes my whip is an extension of my arm to guide the horse into position. Sometimes it is a target for the horse to reach. My horses are not afraid of the whip. Yet I'm sure that some of those people who think halter is cruel and all halter trainers abusive would look at my horses in the ring and be convinced I did bad things to them.

Mainly that belief comes from the responses of the horse. People think that a horse flicking it's tail, pinning ears, pawing, striking, swinging sideways away from a whip are all clues the horse have been abused. But there are plenty of other reasons for horses to act that way.

Inside the ring on occasion Rhythm didn't want to pay attention. He wanted to check out the other horses. He was really good at walking crooked, swinging almost hysterically over the cue to straighten and pinning his ears because I wasn't listening. He was very animated in his gesture's at me. To someone who didn't know him, they might have read all those things as signs of abuse. If anyone was being abused over halter, it was me. The little snot. Those of you have been reading Rhythm's story can just picture him at this.

The swinging abruptly away from the whip is classic in my horses. Just from cracking (notice I said cracking not smacking the horse) a whip during lunging none of my horses want to be touched with any whip. They are smart horses. They know it's a cue that means move so they move and move quickly sometimes. Even when they learn it's a target to touch, they usually do that quickly too unless they are distracted. Then their response is slowed by the distraction.

That's true of many halter horses. They are well schooled and they understand their cues. But when they get in the ring there's a lot going on. They sure don't get schooled at home with other horses all over the place. The horses have opinions about what's going on around them and having to work in all that commotion. Some what to play like Rhythm and others are, like some of the youngsters in this video, are feeling stressed. All are reasons to protest having to pay attention and do their job. Arabian horses are animated about most everything they do, that includes protesting working when they have something else they would rather be doing.

The annoying thing to me in this video was a trainer that jiggle, jiggle, jiggle on the shank while the two men and two horses were just standing there on the side lines. Holly in the comments thought that was good and I'm going to have to think some about her reasoning and see if I can digest it.

But for now I see it as there was no need to keep bumping that horse like that. But it's not really abuse although there are those who would label it as such. I think it's not really a good tactic either because it desensitizes the horse to the pressure on it's jaw. That's not really how you want a halter horse to be. The goal is a horse that is light on the jaw because a heaviness usually results in not lifting the shoulders and a drop in the back.

The other thing I should mention is these horses are usually trained to follow the hand up. BrownEyedCowGirls is right. The stance is to show off the flatness of the croup, the high set archy shape of the neck and the fine throat latch. Also they want the horses animated to show the tightness of the ears, the expression in the eyes and the flare of the nostril. All are signs of quality and some horses don't show those signs clearly when they are let down.

As for the question about what the point of halter classes might be. They are breeding classes. They are to show what are being produced by particular crosses. Particularly at this Scottsdale shows lots of people come to see what the young up and coming Stallions are siring. Many, many breedings are booked during this show after the youngsters have been seen.

I have one other issue I want to deal with before I get into my tizzy fit, that would be the idea that the horses all hate halter and they have nothing to gain from it. I've known horses who love halter. Legs is one of them and for that matter so are Rhythm and Storm. There is nothing more than any one of those horses wouldn't like more than frolicking in a halter class.

That didn't used to be the case for Legs. He was abused by his first trainer. The fact he could come back from that and still have fun showing halter tells me halter has been good for him.

The other thing I've learned from showing halter is that it teaches my horses much clearer about their space. They learn to be light and stay off the handler and how to behave with lots of horses around. I think that learning how to school my horses for halter has been a big help in teaching me how to have good control of my horse on the ground in all kinds of situations. Anytime I have better control, I think things are safer for both me and my horse. I sure have no more problems with rearing horses on asphalt.

Now for my tizzy fit. There have been an assortment of comments about the very last horse on that video. I have to say I was really fried when I watched my friend, Jesse Saldana, trying to deal with an unruly horse being singled out as an abusive halter trainer. I don't think Jesse has an abusive bone in his body. He has worked his way up the ladder through all kinds of prejudice and never once has he sacrificed a horse along the ways.

So this horse reared up and got its leg over the lead. I have had lots of experience with this kind of wreck and I've learned the hard way how to deal with it. Jesse was doing everything he could to keep the horse from falling but not let the horse loose because there's always the danger of injury with a horse loose in the arena.

When I am confronted with this issue, I handle it the very same way. Since I have been doing this, I have not had any problems. If anyone is interested my rearing horse is none other than Legs.

These people with their point to prove zeroed in on Jesse like he's doing something really terrible. You know if it had been David Boggs or Keith Kricthke or one of those big boys, I would have been tempted to not be so sympathetic, but only tempted. Fair is fair. Jesse didn't cause that horse to rear and he did the best he could to keep the horse safe.

For his troubles some boob singled him out. Added that clip from another class to the end or the yearlings where another handler with a similar colored horse had a problem to make it look like Jesse had caused this situation. Then they posted it on Utube like its some great example of what's wrong with halter in the Arabian horse industry.

I want to add that I am not saying there isn't abuse in Arabian halter. The rules have been changed so that horses with whip marks are excused from the ring. That has helped a lot. More and more judges and stewards are chastising handlers for excessive shanking. That's good too.


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