Update on my "Oppertunity of a Lifetime", not what I expected

Ok, please explain further. I don't show, so dont' know much about "futurity". What exactly is a futurity? Just assume I know nothing about it.

There is futurities in most horse events. Horse racing, western pleasure, reining to name a few. The stallion owners offer a incentive to breed to their horse. Any offspring can enter these shows (prize money can be very good, title is even better for the owner of sire). You decide to enter your foal, you start making payments until the show, so kind of a jackpot type thing too I believe. Horses in a snaffle bit western pleasure futurity look dead broke to me, wanna bet they were started as yearlings?

What? You are paying into a jackpot? Can you only enter if your horse is get of that certain sire? What kind of money? Why must they be so young?

If all that you are describing is true, then it is animal abuse punishable by the association. Think Cleve Wells. You can anonymously report what is going on--document with photos, if possible, and send them to the governing body of the association, or file a cruelty complaint with local law enforcement or animal control. Bloodying horses up with spurs, I'm pretty sure, falls under the legal definition of abuse.

Not really a jackpot Tiny. Only the offspring of nominated stallions. Could be many, many stallions. The more stallions nominated, the higher the payout I think. To enter, your foal has to be out of an incentive fund stallion, then you make futurity payments well in advance of the show, which would be the late fall of the horse's two year old year. I was hope someone else would jump in & help me out here, like NHreiner, they have 2 yr old reing futuries.

Basically they want the horses to show as young as possible, so that they can win as much money and titles as possible, which is why they start them so young. That's how they have 2 and 3 year olds that are dead broke and can perform advanced moves, they've been doing them a longtime. It's also possible because of their breeding, these horses really do the moves on their own he just refines their movement and puts a cue with it. If he had to deal with a REAL horse that wasn't literally born for it it would be a whole different ball game.
Posted via Mobile Device

Bubba, I did document as much as I could. I have pictures and a few videos. I will definitely look into reporting him, I just didn't know how to go about it. It's not that I don't want to report him in the least, just didn't know how and such. Most people flip out and want me to call the humane society *eye roll*.
Posted via Mobile Device

Triple post!
I don't have any videos of him riding like that though (no opportunity, no cell service so no good excuse for being caught with my phone...) maybe I could either post the pictures on here or send them to you to see if they would be enough?
Posted via Mobile Device

All other issues aside, a 12-16 hour day (more if you're at a show) is 100% common throughout this industry. In the summer, you get to find out what it's like to have all the riding done between midnight & 6am, then you do as many chores as possible before you die of heatstroke, sleep the afternoon and get up in the evening to do it all over again.

I think you just got a hard lesson on the difference between an assistant trainer and a trainer's assistant. I hope it didn't sour you on the cow-horse business as a whole. Remember there are always bad apples. There are quite a few cutters looking for lopers, so you could attempt that avenue instead, but the hours will suck just as much.
Posted via Mobile Device

I'm not against doing lungeing groundwork and respect work on baby horses and yearlings. But for christ's sake you don't lunge them into the ground. You teach them to yield and give you their attention, desensitize, start teaching them to move off of pressure, etc. I've shown two year olds before, won some ribbons, and never once had to get on their back before they were of riding age and I never worked them into the ground either. You can accomplish SOOO much just going slow, without even breaking into a trot with young'ns. You could be teaching them softness, and how to move off gentle pressure and become responsive. There is never a reason to ride a young horse into the ground.

I'm so sorry you had to go through that. I hope you find a better situation than that soon...With a good trainer who actually knows how to train.