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Is this the norm in western pleasure?

13K views 115 replies 36 participants last post by  bsms 
#1 ·
So I don't watch western pleasure much at all. I'm more of an English person. I went to an open show this past weekend and got there while western pleasure was warming up. It's an open fun show so of course a lot of people are avid trail riders looking to have a bit of showing fun. Then there are people who do compete higher and are showing in the open fun show for practice. I saw quite a few of the more serious western pleasure competitions pulling their horses into completely false frames. The people who were there for fun were just riding and their horses were actually really collected and relaxed but still could move out. Anyways what some of the people were doing hurt me to watch. They would sit there and yank on their horses bits every time the horses head came up even a little. And by yank I mean hard with the entire hand. They stopped yanking when their horses heads were behind the vertical. Most of the horses had their mouths open of course. But man that yanking made MY mouth hurt! But I noticed it was mostly the more serious western pleasure people doing it. Is that really a major method in western pleasure training?? I sure hope not. It was painful to watch. And one of the girls was teaching a child to do it to her sweet horse too. She had her really pulling on the bit. And these bits had pretty big shanks o_O
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