TWH horses, cruel or not?

Yeah the walking horse show world can be interesting.

I started out on Walkers, bought from someone who had world champions. They seemed like nice people, but I never really enjoyed their training methods. Chains and stuff, I don't know why that is necessary. When I got the horse (I was 12) they told me to use a harsh bit and yank on his face until I got the correct headset. Oh and NEVER canter a walker..

I didn't listen. I moved him from his 6 inch shanks to a hackamore, on a loose rein, bareback, cantering across open fields and gaiting, naturally, with or without shoes.

So much for the "perfect" Tennessee Walker. :roll:

If you want to crack down on it you have to change the way the way they are judged.
I quickly canceled my membership and affiliation with the VA TWH associations. I wanted no part of the soring and bs methods they use.
Yes I know they pay lip service to being against it. But then they judge events specifically on how well a horse performs methods obtained by chemical and physical abuse.
If you are against soring, get rid of open , stack shoes, and awarding points for the unnatural high stepping gaits. Like many so called "Shows" they are only succeeding in ruining the breeds for what they were originally intended. Just like the dog world.

What often isn't thought of is what the huge overstride is doing to the back end. Their hocks and stifles wear out. I was interested in a 4 yr old that was stacked as the trainer definitely had ideas of winning but when I watched him move from behind, his joints were wobbling badly. I would have had him gradually lowered but no one could have convinced me the damage wasn't already done. A friend bo't a 7 yr old ex show mare for trail riding but her joints were already arthritic, thus the end of not only a show career but as a trail horse as well.

There is no question that what happened to my TWH was inhumane. The people who owned him before me wern't getting the reaction they wanted with pads or light chains so they decided to put bigger heavier chains on. The TWH industry has gone too far.

Iv heard that! Why would you never canter a walker?

Some people have convinced themselves that if you canter a walker, they will lose their gait and always canter or pace.

It's baloney if you ask me. My walker actually gaited better after letting off some steam at a canter.

Walkers are just like any other horse, they should be worked at all the gaits. If you want to gait, you must first teach them to walk out good. If you want to canter, you must teach them to gait well. If you do it right, they can be cantered easily and be brought back to a very smooth, ground covering gait.

Oh and their canters are usually very comfortable! They call it the "rocking chair" canter and they aren't kidding!

I COMPLETLY agree.

Very inhumane.

I used to own a TWH gelding that was padded for a long period of time. We had to teach him how to walk like a normal horse again. This was a long and expensive process consisting of multiple shoeings with the shoe's weight decreasing each time until he could walk like a normal horse again. He was not ridden during this time period because of the stress.

Most people that do that don't care about their horse's health. They just care about how much money they can win off of them. Once the horse becomes so lame that he can no longer be shown, the owner throws him away and gets another horse to screw up. Padding messes up several muscles, tendons, and joints. Padding makes perfectly sound horses lame quick.

IMO, padding is just making a crap horse that doesn't have any good showing potential "better". I have seen and know of some TWH that have that high knee action naturally; my gelding and his sire being perfect examples. If a horse can't naturally perform well, "trainers" and owners will do anything possible to make money off of the horse. This can range from padding, soring, or using chains that are tightened to cause pain and make the horse more flashy and showy. I don't agree with any of it. If your horse can't perform well enough to win, don't attempt to make it "better" by using extreme forms of cruelty and abuse.

My mom, whom used to be on the board for a local horse rescue, wrote a pamplet about this not too long ago. One of the things that she put in there that really stuck with me is this:
"Padded horses are kept in inhumane conditions. They are stuck living in cramped stalls without the ability to just be a horse. They don't get turned out in a field like other horses; they are confined to a stall year round. Imagine if you had to stand in a phone booth wearing one high-heeled shoe all day everyday. That is how a padded TWH lives."

Just wanted to point out that the pads and weight on a saddlebred is NOTHING like the stacks the TWH's use. Our pads are about a 1/2 inch ( at most), the stacks are Inches! Please don't lump us all together. As time went by the TWH people bred for a specific gait and lost motion. Saddlebreds were bred for motion, so they don't need nearly as much.....stacks, chains, etc. All the asb stuff is very light in comparrison.
Not all TWH show horses wear them either.
TWH's Cruel? No. Some trainers, in any breed, yep. Bad apples anywhere you look.

I don't think any horses need any of it more than a pad or she to protect feet from the terrain.
And early poster mentioned, "Not perform enough to win"
That is the whole problem, the win part. The TWH organizations that judge the events that reward this type of behavior. Knowing exactly how the horse got that way, but claiming to be against it. Hypocrites if you ask me.