I get a tonne of equine-related e-mail advertisements in my in-box on a daily basis, mostly from the Arab community. So much that it's really borderline spammish, though I should be able to unsubscribe. I don't because every once in a while there's something interesting that comes through. Mostly, I just delete them unread.
This afternoon, the subject line of one caught my eye and, out of curiosity, I opened it. It claimed to be offering a "fantastic" dressage prospect. Now, most of the Arab world wouldn't know what a real dressage horse looks like if one came up and bit them. There are exceptions, though, which is why I opened the e-mail, hoping for just such an exception.
Let me just say that it's really hard to take a horse seriously as a dressage prospect when the sellers can't even be bothered to see to it that it's kitted out in properly fitted tack. Having the second photo of the animal be one where it's in faux-hunter get-up doesn't help either. It just reminded me of why I cannot stand to watch the "hunter" classes at Arab shows.
So, yes, I was disappointed, though not particularly surprised that the dressage prospect was really just another (likely Western Pleasure) horse in fancy-dress, its owners out to try to cash in on the recent popularity of the (Arabian) Sport Horse Nationals.
It's just sad because Arabs can be good little dressage horses. Toad didn't generally care for it, herself. Crosscountry tended to fulfill her need to go and do much better. She could, however, do it pretty well when she'd settle in and concentrate on it.
Concentration is the key, though, and I haven't seen too many Arab trainers/owners/whatever who are willing to concentrate on it. They want to take shortcuts in training. They want to be able to swap out tack and enter their horses in more classes to get more points. They want to have another discipline to list to make their horses more saleable.
Dressage is a discipline of time and patience, not one of 60-day training. It takes years, not months, to work up the training scale. I'm sorry, but if your 20 year-old "dressage horse" is standing there with a swayed back, the likes of which I've only seen before on a 23 year-old Saddlebred, then he has not been trained properly and I will not call him a dressage horse. Proper dressage training would have strengthened that back, not left it sagging and broken-looking. That swayed back tells me that you took shortcuts and don't actually understand the discipline.
(Also, if you want to seriously do dressage, you need to be using at a minimum an all purpose saddle, whether during training or in the ring. A Western saddle is not appropriate. The balance is completely wrong. An effective dressage rider cannot have her feet sticking out in front of her. The Western saddle was designed with a very different task in mind, and you would do well to remember that.)
This all just leads me to my main point...
As shocking as it may seem, if I'm completely honest, I have to say that I think the Arabian Horse Association's Sport Horse Nationals are a terrible idea. At a glance, it seems good, right? Promoting the disciplines I love in the breed I love. How could that be bad?
It's bad, because it's not really encouraging the disciplines I love in the breed I love. It's encouraging the show barns in the breed to play at my disciplines. It does nothing to encourage the Arab people to make a real go at taking up dressage, for instance, because they only have to compete against each other in the end. What does it do for dressage if barn A's poorly trained dressage horse only has to beat barn B & C's Western Pleasure horse in dressage tack? Nothing, that's what. It also doesn't help raise the breed's profile among outsiders.
To the people who claim prejudice against Arabs at open shows, making a need for the breed show in which to compete, I say, grow a pair. Retreating to your own private sand box to play is not going to change anyone's mind. All it does is cement the fact in their minds that obviously Arabs can't compete because they won't.
Want to show how athletic your horse is? Show the world that you breed really can do it all and so should be anyone's first-choice? Then get out there and do it! Get out there and compete at the open Hunter-Jumper and Dressage shows. Take up eventing. Spend time learning the discipline and beat those Warmbloods and Thoroughbreds. Starting your own show because the "other kids" are mean isn't going to accomplish anything. The only way to get the outside horse-world to take your breed seriously is to get out there amongst them and show them that you are serious and your horses are capable of doing serious things.
I could seriously rant about this for ages, as I'm sure anyone who has sat with me at a show can attest. I'm not going to this time, though. Partially because I think I've made my point and don't want to frighten away the few readers I have, and partially because my Arabs (and Welsh ponies) are sure to be staring at the house as I type, wondering where the heck their dinner is.
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