quarter and stock horse: So now I am an idiot.... tell me something I don't know!

Apparently my blog about Arabians didn't go over so well, imagine being offended by my humble ramblings? So now I am an "idiot", a troll and apparently someone "died and made me the brain of what is the best breed" (sic) . Look I keep telling people, you don't have to come here, but one of the more "unamused" decided to copy my entire blog on Arabs and paste it on Horse City. Now I stepped in it, I am now a pariah in the Arab world, -darn? Well today to show how equal opportunity offensive I can be I am going to talk about what I consider the harbinger of doom to all that is wonderful in the stock horse show world, the evil, senseless event called "reining".

Reining, as I have discussed before, is horrible. It has now become the "sport" of the backyard yahoo. I swear they only like it because they can fly around like idiots and wear ugly clothes. Let me start by listing everything I hate about reining:

-I hate the clothes: they are ugly, "ranchy" and did I mention ugly? example:

-I hate the tack: there is WAY too much going on with the tack, skid boots, breast collars (my fave), ugly saddle pads, ugly saddles, the possibility of Romel Reins (ug, shudder), and browband headstalls. mmmmm such a lovely picture.

- the horses, 14hh little palomino turds with long manes, are all reiners palomino? I think they have to be by law.

the people: AQHA rule #5099-b (NRHA rule # 1) states that you must be "at least 6'4" tall and weigh no more than 100lbs if you are a man. If you are a woman, you must have scraggly trailer park hair that sproings out from under your hat and flaps offensively in the air" that is a direct quote from the rule book, mmm so pretty....

-the event itself: it is graceless and boring as hell, I think dressage is more interesting, and I think you all know how much I hate dressage - I hate dressage A LOT.

Now I am sure that there are some super-fantastical reiners out there that make the saints weep with their grace and beauty. I'm just saying that I have never seen one. The only ones I have ever seen never stick their spins, their "slides" consist of jamming thier back legs in the ground, and their lead changes suck ass. The pattern is stupid big fast circle. small slow circle, crappy lead change.... it is about now that I wander off to get a pretzel and shuffle around going "Christ! how long is this going to take?".

'But Exes,' you say, 'I know reining is a hideous boil on the backside of the stockhorse industry, but how is it the harbinger of doom?' Well let me 'splain:

It wasn't long ago that every back yard quarter horse owner thought that Flash could do western pleasure, they were damn sure and some even insisted on showing in it. When they found out that they had to actually clean their horse and train it, they decided that western pleasure was boring anyway and went on a search for a new event.

Cutting, and roping requires some skill, and cows, and since we can't even bother to clean our horse for a show, there is no way we are gonna try an find some cows, or some skill. And so reining was invented. Hey its half the fun of horsemanship and you don't have to groom! 'thats for me!' . (be patient I am getting to the "doom").

And so with the rise of reining and the 'beautiful' long manes that backyarders love so much, a marriage was made in hell. Spring is trumpeted no longer by the song of migratory birds, but by the postings on bulletin boards about long manes.

They usually start off something like

'Here is a picture of Dusty (insert picture of thick-necked ugly-headed long maned horror here) I am so NOT cutting his beautiful mane. What should I do with it for showmanship, halter, horsemanship and western pleasure' .

Then someone says "cut it"

and then some other sympathetic yahoo comes on and says, "Oh no! you don't have to cut it, blahbitty blah showed at the Worlds with a long mane and won!"

and then someone (o.k., Me) says "cut it anyway, long manes are not a trend"

and so it goes on and on....