OPENING UP A CAN OF WORMS (halter horses)

Sorry, a little off topic but when I first read that, I saw it as "have produced transvestites" . It still works though, with mares looking like this.





I am another that agrees wholeheartedly with the OP. I can remember back in the day when many of the winning halter horses were also performance horses.

Heck, this guy was halter champion quite a few times at many AQHA shows...he was also superior heading and heeling horse.




This mare set Appaloosa history as a 3 year old at the '78 national show by winning at halter, get of sire, and WP.


This is the best picture I have of her without tack and it makes her look much more downhill than what she was.


And this horse was a multiple time champion in halter, WP, and calf roping


This guy was also halter and WP champion but he had the ability to do anything else you asked of him.



I think the best example of what a proper halter horse should look like in current times was posted in another thread just a few days ago. I mean, halter, WP, HUS, trail, reining, some jumping, and speed events like poles? How much more versatile can you get. The only thing he's lacking is some form of cattle event like working cow horse or roping.
NewGallery

OMG.....That first mare is gross, to me.

I couldn't agree more. I've heard AQHA is trying to change the standards for more correctness, and hopefully weed out the posty-legged, over-muscled guys. Sure hope it's true.

Halter should be about horses with perfect, PERFORMANCE conformation.

Wow, some of those halter/performance horses are beautiful.

I agree that change is slow. Look how long it took for changes to start in WP. It will HAVE to come from new standards being made and adherence mandated. It was just a case of....like a little muscle? Let's selectively breed for so much muscle, we produce unusable, unattractive (to many horsemen) horses.

Couple more who I believe are a bit over the top........

This is a QH to me!

Hendricks Reining Horses-Starlights Wrangler

I agree with OP, especially where it comes to Quarter Horses. When I was growing up, a Quarterhorse was supposed to be the ultimate in versatility.... the horse that could do it all. I think that a QH, and the other QH types should be judged on their ability to be versatile. Big bulldog horses with tons of muscle and spindly delicate legs probably can't do much of anything easily, and I think it's really kind of sad...

What's sad is there a breeder not to far from my house and his foals come out looking like that top photo the second they are born.....

:faint: Sweet baby Buddha on a pogo stick....way to overbreed. Unreal.

What is even sadder to me than people thinking this looks good and breeding for this look is how because they breed their bodies so big and their feet so small just standing around can give them such horrible foot problems. We use to board with a lady who owned a nationally known halter horse, never been ridden a day in her life, never had any bad injuries but just her weight on such small feet caused laminitis. Goodness and I always thought she was prettier out of condition.

IMO, Some of these overly muscled QHs look more like beef cattle (on steroids).
They look 'all pumped up' Not pretty, nor functional