I would not buy any horse that has been trained as a Mexican dancing horse. but, that's me. why is it priced so low, if prices are so high normally?

 

I would pass. These "dancing" horses oftentimes have a lot of holes in their training. Sure, they can piaffe all day, but a correct 3 beat canter--forget it. So, unless you wouldn't mind spending the time filling in those holes, starting with the basics all over again, try to find another horse. Also, it's not just they physical you are dealing with, but the mental as well. Andalusians are incredibly sensitive horses and this rough, fast training leaves a horse that can be easily stressed and reactive. Keep looking, the right horse will come along! 🦄

 

Andalusian horses are to me a very pricey breed to begin with because of where many of them are headed in their training regiment...they are flashy and very capable "dancing horses".
I equate them with drum horses, friesian, and many of what I think of as baroque breeds of heavy bone and muscular build, not the lighter boned horses many of us have such as Thoroughbreds, Quarters, Apps, Paints, Arabs and so on and so forth.
Your looking at a breed....try looking for a partner in riding that fits the needs of what you are doing riding level wise would be where I would counsel you to look.
If this "dancing horse" is so fabulously priced....why it is not already gone is a very good question.

Not all trainers are bad and I hesitate to follow "if its Mexican trained to avoid....", to me that is wrong.
But I do question if this is such a great animal why is it so affordable and cheap in a breed that often are near untouchable for most in cost....
Spanish walk and such are part of the dancing....but what else does the horse know and do?
Strikes me as this is not a "backyard horse" who is going to be calm & forgiving but have some fire and spit in its personality....and require a rider of some expertise to bring forth what it has already been trained to do, forget fill in all that it needs to fit what you want it to do....
Can it trail ride?
Can it do w/t/c and jump fences?
Can it do dressage..cause "dancing" is special upper level movements.
Very different kind of training is referred to....make sure you look at a horse you can use, not just have that looks pretty standing in stall or field.
That breed and those animals are out their, but harder to find and very pricey I would imagine.
Good luck in your search.
🐴...

 

Many that dont' want a dancing horse has never seen a dancing horse.

I was fortunate to get to go see some at a fellow's home. The horses carried the President of Mexico's brand! These horses, all Andalusians, were extremely well cared for, well groomed, mannerly, just outstanding in every way. I was amazed when he turned on his barn radio and all 3 of his stallions went to dancing in their stalls. These horses were having a blast at it! There was no torture, no abuse of any kind, they were having fun.

Now to the bit about "Mexican training". I sold a good many horses to the Spanish market. These men worked LONG and HARD to be able to afford their horses. These horses ate before the men did in the mornings, and evenings. I NEVER had a Hispanic man starve his horses, and sure cannot say that about some that other people bought from me.
They put up barrels and filled with water every morning so they could "shower" their horses in the evening after they got off work no matter if they had time to ride or not.

Yes, language is a barrier. I was lucky to have my hay guy that was Hispanic as well. He would translate for me all the time. I would send my 2 year old out to them to have them started. These men were that good. Some of them bought horses from me, and got them ready to ship back to their home in Mexico so that when they retired, they could go home and their horses were there waiting for them. One has a son that is a horse vet in Mexico, and he bought their next stallion from me. Another man that I sold to, the fact that he spends his days bouncing around on a tractor is a crime. He's a chef. Oh MERCY can that man cook! Just because you see someone doing farmwork, does not mean they don't have another life. Many do!

In all the years of being around Mexican people, I never saw any abuse of either animals or people.

Don't judge people by their jobs, it can be misleading.

 

Many that dont' want a dancing horse has never seen a dancing horse.

I was fortunate to get to go see some at a fellow's home. The horses carried the President of Mexico's brand! These horses, all Andalusians, were extremely well cared for, well groomed, mannerly, just outstanding in every way. I was amazed when he turned on his barn radio and all 3 of his stallions went to dancing in their stalls. These horses were having a blast at it! There was no torture, no abuse of any kind, they were having fun.

Now to the bit about "Mexican training". I sold a good many horses to the Spanish market. These men worked LONG and HARD to be able to afford their horses. These horses ate before the men did in the mornings, and evenings. I NEVER had a Hispanic man starve his horses, and sure cannot say that about some that other people bought from me.
They put up barrels and filled with water every morning so they could "shower" their horses in the evening after they got off work no matter if they had time to ride or not.

Yes, language is a barrier. I was lucky to have my hay guy that was Hispanic as well. He would translate for me all the time. I would send my 2 year old out to them to have them started. These men were that good. Some of them bought horses from me, and got them ready to ship back to their home in Mexico so that when they retired, they could go home and their horses were there waiting for them. One has a son that is a horse vet in Mexico, and he bought their next stallion from me. Another man that I sold to, the fact that he spends his days bouncing around on a tractor is a crime. He's a chef. Oh MERCY can that man cook! Just because you see someone doing farmwork, does not mean they don't have another life. Many do!

In all the years of being around Mexican people, I never saw any abuse of either animals or people.

Don't judge people by their jobs, it can be misleading.

Just to clarify, my comment is not about Mexican trained horses, but Mexican DANCING horses. It is also not in any way an aspersion on the character or work ethic of Mexicans in general. Mexicans have many very fine horses, well bred and well trained, and well cared for. I have ridden one, and she was incredible.

But, the horses that are trained to dance, and that's all they do is perform at the Charreado (is that the correct word?), often have been trained in a way I would consider cruel. They are tied between two poles and whipped on the legs rythmically to make them 'dance'. They are ridden with huge spurs, and the riders often spur and hold them with huge bits. The horses are anxious and desperate to perform fast enough to make the rider happy. They jig incessantly under saddle, and yes, that 'brillo' looks amazing and makes the rider feel proud. But, if the rider is not that strong or authoritarian, the horse can find an opening to 'take over'.

I have a friend who bought a Mexican dancing horse . He is , as I am told, fun to ride, but aggressive and dangerous on the ground.

IT's unfair of me to generalize on such a small base of experience, I know, but the OP of this thread did not strike me as a person of the experience level to bring a horse of that background in training back to just a pleasure riding horse.
I know I would not feel capable of that.

 

I have to say I fall with @Zimalia22 on this. I haven’t seen the horse though. If done well, it seems to me that a dancing horse would be extremely capable. I’m not saying just a hot horse trained poorly for a single thing, which is possible, but a real dancing horse? Those guys look spectacular to me.

I also wouldn’t pigeon hole a person by what their race is or what they are training. I’ve heard a lot of people say things like, “cowboys are rough on horses,” when we are particularly kind to our horses on the whole. Sure, a few are rough. A few bad apples give a whole a bad name. Just as in any discipline or any culture.

I personally would judge the horse by the horse. If you wanted to try him out you could get a feel for him, and that would be how you would know, not preconceived notions about what might be.

My father is a spectacular trainer. One day I went and looked at a pen of started colts and geldings. I bought a younger colt with just 30 days that had a lightness to him I wasn’t feeling in the others. There was a palomino 4 year old that I turned my nose up at. He was already in a spade and not as light as I would have liked. The kid riding him slid him down the road probably 30 feet. That’s massively good, but he kind of was scaring him into it and the road was gravel and the way he stopped was just kind of cheap. The horse’s head was in the air as well.

Anyways, I was talking to my father about it later and he kind of put me in my place. He said obviously the horse was capable of sliding, and I had overlooked something that would have been likely a very good horse with a little work.

I feel that about your dancing horse, maybe. If you liked him and got along with him, to me it would be evident that he was an athlete (if he is what I’m imagining) and trainable. He probably isn’t a lazy or gentle type of a horse, but that would be for you to know what type of horse you are after.

 

@horselovinguy
thank you for your feedback, if you are curious he is priced at 6000 which I understand is rather low for an Andalusian. But we are in a rather small area with not many people too. This morning my mom and I decided we'd go look at him, however we're bringing along an very experience handler who has seen the worst of the worst and knows what we can handle and what we cant. He'll probably try him out first, see what he can do and judge the horses behavior before we even think of hopping on. If things look good up until that point, we'll make sure to get a vet out there to make sure there are no problems with the horse considering the price he is. I understand the risk of just straight up buying this horse with no extra precaution, but I dont imagine it'll hurt to look at him. The man also sent us a video of him loading into a trailer with no issues, and unloading as well, which seemed intriguing since we've been warned this horse wont have a sound mind and will be crazy.

 

I really appreciate your advice @Zimalia22, I wont lie I was skeptical because of his race and the kind of training they do. But I recognize that is very unfair to the seller who may treat his animals with plenty of respect and care. We intend to go and see him for ourselves, but we will still do so with caution simply because we don't know the horse nor the person who owns it that well.

 

@Palfrey Thank you for responding to my question, if you are curious we are going to go look at him which some may consider a bad choice. However we are bringing along a very experienced horse rider and trainer who will get on the gelding first. This way he can let us know if he thinks it'd suit us and if it'd be safe for us to test the horse ourselves.

 

I would think of lots of ways besides that method to teach a horse to dance @tinyliny. In fact, the mare I rode in high school that I often talked about, loved to stand in place and jig. Not impressive I know, but she was an uber hot horse who just liked to move. She was broke though too, and if I added slight pressure from one side to the other while holding her head (lightly) she would try and dance like a Mexican horse. Granted I didn’t play around with it much.

A horse can learn to swap leads at a stand still just by learning first to swap leads and then getting good enough to swap from side to side while being asked to stand still. I don’t see why most training would be to any extreme that you mention. I don’t doubt someone has done it. We’ve all seen bad training one time or another.

It’s like saying pleasure horses have their heads tied up in the stall. Maybe some do, but I doubt that’s any large majority. All my horses can put their heads down to the ground and move slowly. Trust me that I have never done anything like that.

Sometimes I wonder if most of these examples are wives tales… if I tied up a horse and beat his legs I doubt I could get anywhere near him for a long time. I don’t think it would result in any sort of good training.

 

I rescued a Paso Fino that was trained by tying him between posts and beating him to get him to dance. Mentally he was a nervous wreck. After 3 years of working with him, I found him a retirement home where he will never be ridden again. He rode fine for me, but if he panicked over something he was gone, gone, gone.

If the neighbors shot a gun, he would run the fence and pour sweat from nerves. If you tied him up, and he became nervous, he would prance in place while flinging his head up and down. He was a bundle of nerves and anxiety. He would pace his stall and pulverize the manure. He would run trenches by the fenceline.

My decision was between rehoming him and euthanasia. I found him the perfect home after many months of searching and talking to friends of friends. He had ptsd- and no amount of training would ever overcome the mental anguish he was in.

He is out in a pasture now with a big percheron- and no one will ride him again. Hopefully he is happy there- they have a quiet property without neighbors that shoot guns.

He was only 7 years old and he was pretty much ruined as a riding horse.

I took him camping and he ran a ditch into the ground, refused to eat, and paced the weight off his body.

I had hoped he could overcome what was done with him- he wasn't a bad riding horse- he didn't spook at much. Traffic, dogs, and deer didn't bother him. His phobias were all human created.

Spanish training makes me nervous - a bad trainer can wreck a horse and make it unmanageable.

 

the use of pillars to train a horse is an age old practice, but it's usually used to teach levade and other 'airs about the ground', not piaffe. A quality piaffe demonstrates natural collected and balance stance having the horse move more of its weigh onto its hind quarters. Consequently, the front legs should lift more than the rear legs.
Mexican dancing horses are often forced onto the front legs and made to lift the rear vigorously. the following video shows some of the worst practices used. It's right up there with training TWH's to move with stacks and chains, and being sored.

 

While there are definitely non abusive ways to train a horse to "dance" I live in Southern California and here, sadly, it is most often the quick, cruel abusive ways. My sister in law took in an emaciated Arabian mare about 6 years ago....the first thing the vet asked was if she had been "charro" owned. She had extensive thickening, scarring in her front pasterns. She has always had issues with her left fore....I have no idea if it's related to that or not.

In the area I live I would be very unlikely to consider a "Mexican trained horse" unless I knew the person that trained them.
I'm glad you're having him evaluated by a trainer and a vet. I hope it works out and you get the horse of your dreams

 

How did it go today OP?

 

We're going to go see the horse on Friday, I'll make sure to update the thread and tell everyone how it went @Dutch_Juniper

 

There may be some that are wondering why I haven't commented on this post. I use Mexican saddles. After using western, Aussie and English saddles, I rode a charro saddle and haven't looked back. I never felt so well balanced. IMO, they're the best from the ones I've used. I don't use the heavy, ornate charros saddles. I use the "working man" type, or 'cola de pato', as they call it. But I know nothing about the way charros train their horses. I used to managed a ranch where all the help was Mexican. All their horses were well behaved and I never saw any abuse. But as to how those horses were trained, I can't say anything. I will add that IF charros abuse their horses when training, they aren't the only ones. I consider the methods used by some famous trainers to be abusive.

 

I wasn't saying that all charros use abusive training methods....I know they don't...unfortunately in the area I live in the majority seem to....

 

@charrorider I'd love to see a photo of your saddle.

 

I don't have a photo of one of my charro saddles by itself. They are all on the horses. The seat is fairly flat and close to the horse's back. I think is this flatness and this proximity to the horse's body that made me feel so balanced the first time I used one of these. I felt I had more freedom of movement. Other things I like: the position of the stirrups is more natural and they are easy to completely disassemble for cleaning and oiling. The one Amal is wearing has what the Mexicans call an orthopedic seat, which is a seat with slightly more padding and shape.

 

I once spent 3 weeks on an Andalusian horse farm in Spain, Rancho de Paz. Their horses were wonderful and fabulous. All stallions were kept intact. Each stallion was more beautiful than the one before. I could never decide which stallion I liked the best because they were all magnificent. All their horses were super well-trained, calm, and well-behaved. It was an amazing 3 weeks of delight.

One day, the group of us staying there said we wanted to do an all-day ride where we would stop and have lunch. They took us on a ride to another Andalusian horse farm. The horses at that farm were cruelly treated. All the horses in training had grotesquely swollen noses from tacks in their nosebands. Their heads hung with exhaustion. We "dudes" were horrified. Nobody much wanted lunch because the treatment of the horses was so upsetting. We asked the ride managers if treatment of this kind was normal, and they just shrugged and said, "It happens." They were not horrified as we were. But they never treated their own horses in that way, ever. By the way, many of the horses at Rancho de Paz knew piaffe, Spanish walk, and other higher level movements. It was easy to cue the horses and they did them happily and gracefully.

 

so I guess it just varies on the trainers and owners of the barn, some treat their animals cruelly while others treat them fairly. Its interesting really, lets hope the guy we're going to go see is the latter rather than the former @knightrider

 

It 'dance' all depends on what the horse has been 'trained' to do. If it has been beaten or caned into dancing you will need to restart the horse. The ones around here that 'dance' the horses cane them, tie them up all day with their head in the air. The horse stand with its neck and back hollowed out all day. no access to water while tied . The horses are messes. The hooves are not trimmed correctly. This is not the spanish training . This is forced training, by beating.

 

does anyone ever report them? to humane society?

 

OK - this is how it finally went. First things first- we arrive there at the barn the same time as the vet; from there we go down to get our first look of the horse. He was tied to a tree, and the halter on him was extremely tight. The poor guy's muzzle had cuts and scars from what was obviously overly tight equipment. To go along with that, small cuts and scars were scattered across his hind quarters and head. He lacked muscle and looked a lot less cared for than in the pictures... And did I mention the owner of the horse wasn't even there? He was at work- so he was gonna have his friend sell us the horse if we decided to go through with it...
SO as you might guess, our first impression was a little poor, but I still wanted to continue with the vet check because in all honesty I wasn't super disappointed. The horse having fully developed muscles was not one of my fears, he just needed a sound mind and no physical issues. Anyhow, the vet looked him over, drew blood, etc.- interestingly enough, they pulled us aside and told us they think he was gelded only six months ago (keep in mind he is 9)! However, he didn't show any stallion like behaviors from what we could see. He was rather meek, but pretty good tempered. He picked up his feet fine, and even let the vet touch his ears a bit. Next, they took him inside the barn to trot him and just see his movements (I'm not exactly sure what else they were doing, just seeing general stuff like if he'd flex his neck). This next part is where I really felt bad for this poor animal though- so we took him to the round pen just to lunge him at a trot for the vets... Well, lets just say that didn't go well. First he tried to lay down as soon as we took the halter off, then when we got him up, he tried doing some sort of trick (lifting one of his legs high up). When he realized that wasn't what we were asking for, he got scared and started galloping as far away from the vet as possible(and even brushed up against the fence a couple times). He was evidently terrified, and when we finally got him to slow down- we realized the lunge whip was the issue, the poor thing was shaking when the vet lightly rubbed it on his side. Anyhow, we scrapped the lunge whip and he was much better about trotting around the pen. The vet said at first they thought he was off in the hindquarters, but the more he worked the better his movements were, so they said he was probably stiff from standing tied all day.
Now came the real test, tacking up and riding (I had the person with the better seat get on first though). Though he definitely stepped away from you while trying to put the saddle on, he was astonishingly well mannered and yielding with someone on his back. But when I eventually hopped on- I honestly really enjoyed his movement, it was very smooth and he picked up all his gaits just fine. The vet even said his hind end didn't look off at all by than point... Then I got a couple X-rays done for safety sake, and there was nothing super alarming so he was all cleared... I knew I wanted him at the end of it all despite his lack of muscle and behavior in the round pen. Now- is he going to need some work? Yes, but I believe it was the right choice. This gelding was at a point where I could handle him, he wasn't scared of people just mistreated in some of his training. His personality was very sweet from what I could see, and to top it off he loaded like a dream. Now all that needed to be done was the payment. Originally he was listed at 6000, but we got him down to 2800 (more with the vet added in and all that but he himself was that price).I was exhausted yesterday as well as today which is why I never posted that same night, but I DO intend to make another discussion asking for some advice.

Until then, enjoy these pictures, I'll get some better ones eventually

 

@Palfrey @tinyliny @Dutch_Juniper @Rainsong @Zimalia22 @horselovinguy @4horses and @Knave IF you are curious about how it went, I have made a post talking about my experience. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to @ you all for this, if not, please ignore me haha

 

Congratulations!

 

Thank you! I think with a bit of attention and a lot of exercise he'll be a great animal

 

I'm glad you got him out of that home. Having taken on several that came from not so good homes I have found that more often than not those animals will appreciate a new home where they are well cared for and more important cared about. They show their appreciation by trying hard to be a good horse. Sure it takes some time and a lot of work, sometimes a few bucks if there are health issues but well worth it. The only one that I never could get to come around was a mini mare and I don't know if it was because I wasn't the right person for her or because minis have such a different mind set even under normal circumstances.

 

Congratulations! Hope he makes a full recovery and works out well for you. Just might be in for some surprises along the way. Many of these horses have some anxiety but with time and patience they generally improve. I would probably do some clicker training and reward based training. He probably was like "get me the hell out of here". Avoid heavy bits and start building a new relationship with him.

 

Yes, he is quite nervous. When I went out to feed him tonight he was very reluctant to eat, I actually have him pastured with our other horse, so I think they may have had some sort of scuffle. I wanted to wait a bit longer, but everyone suggested we do it today. He was a bit shaky while I put ointment on his cuts (which is to be expected), but other than that I haven't seen any red flags yet. Out of curiosity, when is the soonest do you think I'll be able to ride him again? Or do you think that's something I should determine since I've seen his behavior first hand.

 

Personally I’d keep riding him starting tomorrow, but that’s just because he’s hotter and he might be used to a lot of work.

 

I did originally intend to ride him around the property and in the arena a bit, just to get a feel for how he is. Today I just saddled him up but didn't ride, I want to make grooming and tacking up something positive so he'll eventually stop dancing around- but to fix that is gonna take a lot more than what I did today I imagine. So depending on how I feel and he feels, I may ride, and I wont lie that's what I WANT to do.