Would someone ADMIT to a 2% success rate and still think they are a successful breeder!
Many of you have already commented on the ridiculous comment of AQHA breeder Betty Coulthard Fucktard that you have to “breed 100 horses a year to get two good horses.” The article is here. Betty blames the economy for the fact that her horses aren’t selling. She somehow thinks we will feel sorry for her if she cries and plays the victim: “Tears welled up in Betty Coulthard’s eyes as she described the day she delivered two loads of young mares to a slaughter plant.”
Oh, give me a fucking break, you see-you-next-Tuesday. YOU weren’t the one DYING. YOU were the KILLER!
Her comments are even more ridiculous when compared to her nonsense on her web site about the great value of her horses. Go read it. You’ll puke.
Now, Betty, Bob, Colleen, let’s talk about why your horses aren’t selling – the real reasons.
1. You have FIVE stallions. ONE has a performance record!
2. You make TOO MANY FOALS. Even the best breeders are smart enough to know demand is down and production needs to keep pace with that. It does not take a genius to see that when you have high unemployment, you have less demand for luxuries like horses.
3. You do not seem to be the least bit interested in competing with your horses, which WOULD put value on them. You think that is someone else’s job to do, AFTER of course they give you a couple grand for a baby. Not gonna happen in the AQHA world.
You know, I often try to defend the QH people here. After all, I have QH’s myself and I like the breed and there are many good people involved who are anti-slaughter. But it’s awfully hard when I see people like Fucktard Farms here taking their own horses to slaughter and daring to act like THEY are the victims. I will think YOU are a victim when YOU get hit in the head with a captive bolt and get YOUR throat cut in a slaughter plant. Stop crying and stop breeding horses you can’t afford that are going to wind up dying a horrible death. My only tears are for your horses!
FYI: I have decided I am not allowing criticism of equitation on adoption videos. My guess is most of those snarking are not riding horses from the auction for free to be kind, and those who do that should not have to feel like George Morris is up their ass.
I’m gonna give it to you! Besides, I figure we all need a laugh in the middle of the work/school week. What the… ??? I honestly don’t know enough about how hay balers work to know if this is fake or real, but either way, you gotta see it!
(Edited to add: My farmer readers have now filled me in: No way is this real and absolutely don’t try it at home! – I assume most of my readers are smarter than that but like I always say, you have to remember anyone at all can read what you write online, so if you do think this looks like a good idea, you’re wrong and will probably kill yourself.)
After the whole discussion the past two days about the aggressive stallion who has hurt his owner pretty significantly, I thought today was a good day for a discussion about boundaries.
If I think about it, the lack of boundaries is probably at the root of my dislike for a lot of natural horsemanship training that I see being practiced. The horse simply doesn’t ever get a clear, concise signal that something he did was wrong. Therefore, being a horse, he starts to expand the range of his behavior. He says, hey, if I barged into him and that was okay, maybe I can smack him with my head the next time. And there was that day when I was fidgety and she didn’t ride me because Pat says it’s ok not to ride on a day when they don’t feel like being ridden, so maybe this time I will strike at her in the cross-ties. I bet that will get me put back. It does, too. The problem is, within months the horse is at the auction and by now he’s behaving so badly, no one but Mr. Kill Buyer wants him. I call it killing with kindness. People try to form this sweet, punishment-free bond of love with their horse, and they end up creating a rank, out of control horse they are scared of – and then the magical bond of love breaks and they dump him at the sale. Amazing how that happens.
Horses are pretty much exactly like kids in this respect. No, you don’t have to – nor should you – beat them. But you do have to set boundaries they can’t ever cross without consequences they don’t like, and the consequences have to be simple and immediate. And believe it or not, they will still love you when you do this! They’ll actually love you more. Love is strengthened by respect in both human and human-animal relationships, and horses are actually the easier ones to set boundaries with so they are a good place to practice.
For example, if a horse is trying to barge along, I don’t just run alongside like a kite on a string. I take the time to stop, growl, back the horse up a few steps and then ask him to proceed at the speed I was wanting to walk. Yes, this takes time. Part of the reason bad habits get created is that people are in a hurry. A groom may have fifty horses to put out into individual turnouts, so the last thing he wants to do is mess with teaching yours not to drag people. Or you yourself may be in a hurry and not think it’s a big deal – but it really is a big deal. Those little incidents where the horse lacks respect blossom into bigger and bigger incidents until you’re the one with the broken nose, or worse.
One of the most important things you can teach a horse is plain old “whoa” aka “ho.” Whoa means that you plant your feet on the ground and that is where they stay. It is not a suggestion. I have seen people ho-ho-ho’ing like Santa Claus and the horse still isn’t listening. When you realize you’re doing that, you know that your horse isn’t taking your command seriously at all. It is time to escalate to something he takes seriously. It is not abusive to lead a horse who barges with a whip and give him pop on the chest if he doesn’t stop on the voice command. Just walk right next to him with that whip in front of his chest and ask him to stay at your shoulder where he belongs. And when he does stop on the voice command only, politely, make sure you pet him and tell him he’s good. Make simple rules and make sure good behavior is always rewarded and bad behavior is always corrected. It should go without saying that nothing works if you aren’t consistent. The same bad behavior needs to result in the same response on a consistent basis. It can be a whip or the flat of your hand. If you’re leaving welts for anything less serious than striking at you or charging at you, you’re overdoing it in my book. The point of the correction is a quick sting that says “that was the wrong thing to do.” The goal is not to create an injury because you are angry. I’ve said it before here, and so has every good trainer in the world – never discipline in anger. All discipline should be is you saying to the horse that what he did was totally unacceptable and should not be repeated. It is never about revenge, anger, or putting on a show because people are watching and you think you look like a cowboy/cowgirl. (P.S. You never do if you’re doing that. You just look like a douchebag!)
So let’s talk about this today: I want to hear about horses you got that were spoiled and had no boundaries, and how you installed boundaries and good manners and got them back to being productive members of equine society. I’m sure these stories will benefit other readers who are dealing with the same challenges, so bring them on!
The names have not been changed a bit – you can see exactly who is an asshole and who is a decent person in this facebook thread!This dude seems to think it’s okay to dump his apparently aggressive (gee, I can’t imagine why, dealing with your mean, nasty old ass) paint stallion on Facebook for free to “anyone who will take him.” The horse’s name is Wizonbytexas.Leland is apparently a photographer. He looks to be fairly successful. I’ll bet just about anything Leland currently has available the $200 or less it would cost to geld the poor horse and see if, you know, that might actually change his attitude.
‘Course then I read down further and I realized WHY the horse is so fucked up: “Leland Neff: Lounges, bathes, clips, stands for farrier, two years of natural hormanship training, trailers.
“YEP! WHY AM I NOT SURPRISED! Another huge Natural Horsemanship FAIL that is going to result in this horse going to slaughter or hurting more people unless a talented traditional trainer picks him up and is able to fix him – and I wish them luck because I am sure he is even more rank than he was to begin with after two years of being NH’ed by some idiot. (Or maybe it’s the two years of NH that made him rank. Who knows?) So now Leland has gotten hurt a bunch by the horse and is dumping him. Awesome!
Oh, and when someone SUGGESTS gelding him, here’s the response: “I think that it would cool him off some but also think maybe his only saving grace is that he is a beautiful paint stallion so although I’ll never breed anything to him there are paint breeders that might like him in their program. I’m sticking to my “calm” thoroughbreds.”
WHAT A STUPID SONOVABITCH YOU ARE! Why would you WANT a rank horse to breed on? Do you have NO sense of responsibility toward horses at all? Please get out of Thoroughbreds, too. That breed doesn’t need this kind of moronic thinking either.
People like you, Leland, are TOTALLY the problem. TOTALLY the problem. The worst part is, you probably think you’re a victim and will have even more of that attitude when someone tells you about this blog entry.
Finally, I googled the horse’s name and got my first giggle of the morning. You know, using your horse’s name as your dating site alias is not the most discreet way to go about it if you were trying to be discreet. Just a suggestion!
If you don’t know who this is, and I’ll be surprised if you don’t as much as this has been discussed literally for years and years and YEARS on every message board in the horse world, Trina was pretty much the #1 con artist of the equine world. Her specialty was crippled but pretty horses that she sold to naive beginners. I never met Trina, but clearly she is one of those people who has so charming a facade that it was easy for her to make people believe in her and hand over their money. The only really amazing thing to me is that she did not get into “rescue” and start scamming all the people on ABR!
From the news article: “In the agreement, Kenney admitted that she lied about some horses being safe for children and beginning riders, and that she delivered starved horses that were covered in sores and cuts, had strangles, or had hooves that had been untrimmed for so long the horses couldn’t walk.”
Kenney also did things like dye horses different colors, switch papers around on horses, and all the usual scummy-horse-dealer tricks. I have no doubt she sent horses to kill. Everything she did showed that she had no conscience whatsoever, not for horses and not for humans. Her entire goal was to make money without really working, and I have no doubt she made a lot of it. Let’s hope they lock her up for a long, long time and send a clear message that fraud will not be tolerated in the horse world. It also sounds like they should be able to get her on neglect/cruelty – I hope that does not get overlooked merely because fraud is a more significant charge. I’m going to keep looking for more information on this and I’ll post it when I know it.
A shout-out to two horses I’ve previously featured for Shiloh Horse Rescue — both Beau and Calamity have pending adopters. Awesome! Now let’s see if we can get a home for this guy. This is Quick Suggestion, rescued from the feedlot in February. He is off the track and needs an experienced, quiet rider but I really like him! This could be a very cute horse with the right person. He’s not naughty, it’s just that he’s still track-y and needs work.
Here’s an idea – why don’t you learn to ride without a death grip on the horse’s mouth, and then people will respect your skills and not talk shit about you on the Internet? I mean, it’s just an idea. It’s not like anyone photoshopped all those pictures of you cranking on horses in double bridles. The truth is a defense to defamation. That’s why Lindsey Lohan can’t sue everybody who says she’s on drugs on the Internet. Lindsey realizes she would be made to look really foolish if she did that. Sadly, Anky, you apparently don’t have that level of self-knowledge.
Leland is apparently a photographer. He looks to be fairly successful. I’ll bet just about anything Leland currently has available the $200 or less it would cost to geld the poor horse and see if, you know, that might actually change his attitude.
