A short note on reason v. emotion
Jul 14 2007
Emotion is what makes you have an immediate reaction like “What a beautiful horse!” No matter how much you know, you may continue to have this reaction to a horse who appeals to you on some intangible level.
It is also what makes us look at our own horses and think they are beautiful no matter where they would place in a halter class. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and the reason is that we’re all susceptible to falling in love. Other qualities like a good disposition may make us see beauty where another person would not.
Reason is what makes you take a step back, and realize that the object of your affections has ears like a mule, isn’t built to stay sound for anything more strenuous than weekend trail rides, and is so thick-necked that if he tried to set his head properly, he’d suffocate.
Believe me, I have a collection of fugly to rival anybody’s living at my house. But they will not be bred. Ever. They have a good home, they are loved and spoiled, but they are not breeding quality. Fugly horses can be great horses but it is much more of a crap shoot for them. Half of what I own was headed to slaughter when I intervened. Beautiful horses with great conformation may wind up in bad situations, but folks, it just doesn’t happen anywhere near as often. Please go to your local low end horse auction and see for yourself if you doubt me.
If you can’t separate your emotions from your reason, and you are not confident you will remain so wealthy that you can care for every horse you produce until its natural death, then you should not be breeding. If you think I’m just doing this blog merely for the sake of being a big meanie, you totally do not get it. Yes, I’m trying to entertain – but I’m also trying to educate. There is a real problem here, and it exists in most domesticated animals. I could do this blog on dogs just as easily. Plenty of you are willy-nilly breeding those.
Hmm, maybe I’ll do that next.
23 comments to “A short note on reason v. emotion”
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have to say that, not only have I seen the immaturity that the commom “horse person” displays, I have now had the histerical privledge of reading it. Never have I met a group pf people, more shallow, and ignorant than I have since I have been in the horse industry, where all you people see is $$$ and “show quality”. I Don’t believe I have ever started a forum on “Fugly” horse people, and I am entirely sure that none of you would be included in this forum as you appear to be perfect. Furthermore I don’t believe if you happened to find your picture on the “Fugly Horse Person of the Day” forum displaying, pigeon toed, short legged, bottom heavy, walking PMS, with a jealous tendencey, and nast backstabbing personality, you would be very impressed. Horses are animals as much as any other animal. They have many uses contrary to common belief. You might in fact want to assure yourselves a seat when I inform you that the wonderful world of horses does, in fact, breech past the show ring. I’m sorry to have rained on your parade, today, but I thought this opportunity, of all opportunities was the best one to share my chuckles, at all of you who think you’ve somehow redifined the word “PERFECT”
Right on. Those of you who are having a hissy fit about this blog just don’t get it.
Appreciate your blog.
My question to all of you is how would you feel if your beloved horse was not looking his best for whatever reason and ended up being insulted by a bunch of people that clearly have no idea what truly makes a good horse? I have seen horses with beautiful conformation and breeding you would not believe and are complete jerks. On the other hand there are some that are as you call them “fugly” and are the most wonderful animals ever.
I soooo want to send in some photos if you would do a submission-type-thing. I work at a riding, school, so the horses are in no way top end and none will EVER be bred (unless the mares end up belonging to some idiot), but I know bugger all about conformation so would love to see you explain exactly what’s wrong!
For the record – I don’t care if someone’s feelings get hurt.
I care whether or not horses die.
If you honestly think I have criticized a horse here that is just having a bad hair day, please point to which horse you think that is.
I criticize structure, which looks the same whether the horse is fat or thin, shiny or furry, posed properly or not. I may comment if the condition is also poor, but it’s never the main reason a horse is selected.
Grease-Monkey, you have hardly rained on anyone’s parade. You have simply demonstrated your own inability to have a logical argument. People aren’t being slaughtered for others to eat. People who have some imperfection rendering them less desirable or less able to hold a job have various social programs to ensure they have food, shelter and medical care. When horses have the same, I will stop bitching about the breeding of fugly horses.
…”Reason is what makes you take a step back, and realize that the object of your affections has ears like a mule”
She does!!! but it’s O.K because she is!!! – LOL and she is a seriously cool beastie especially in Scotland where you don’t find many others!
Keep up the good work. I have occasionally disagreed with your choice of Fugly horses — although not on the ones offered as breeding prospects. Usually my issue has been photo quality; one bad photo can make a nice horse look awful. But I think anyone who knows a bit about conformation can tell a truly Fugly horse from one who’s having a bad photo day. I should say that I learned to ride on some truly Fugly horses. I loved them dearly, but wondered who had ever had the idea to breed horses that looked like that!
OTOH, if someone’s selling a horse, won’t it be more likely to sell if it has a good photo?
thankyou, thankyou, THANKYOU!! i have just found this blog and it confirms everything i have been driven crazy by for years – backyard breeders putting trash to trash to produce, well, TRASH should have their OWN balls damn well removed.
here in australia there is a painful excess of all the problems you have highlighted… blind, ignorant hillbillys producing more useless horses nobody wants, purely because they refuse to hear the word ‘no’. combine that with our delightful anti-educational heritage and most of these people dont even realise their horses are hideous, worthless animals that WILL end up in a kill pen. drives me nuts.. and it wouldnt happen if people would only exercise a little reproductive control.
sadly, they wont do it with themselves either and simply go on to produce the next generation of mindless breeders *LOL*
Once more, one more time, I will say it, grease-monkey.
I sent in my beloved pony to this blog because he is a walking signpost of what not to breed. Yes he was wonderful, yes he and I had some great time trail riding but here’s the issue and the reason she is posting this in the first place.
The breeders who bred my horse were so stupid in his breeding that he HAS BEEN AND WILL BE IN PAIN HIS ENTIRE LIFE. beyond dying early, beyond producing ugly babies, this horse has conformational flaws that are beyond even a chiropractor (believe me, he was out all the time when I owned the horse). His joints were poor, his back too long, and his headset low enough that my beautiful, loving first horse had a constant headache, an aching neck, stiff feet and a sensitive back. This meant he had behavior issues – a little head shy, lunged poorly, stumbled a great deal – which caused him to be bought by a dealer.
THIS IS ALL AVOIDABLE. Careful breeding would have spared him all of the agony that he is still in as he tries to be a normal horse. And it’s not that he’s in pain that means he can’t walk. It just means that he has to be like every other horse, only work harder at it.
And that’s not fair.
And we can change it.
So, more power to Fuglyhorseoftheday.
do you take requests?
I think that the premise of this blog is a good one. To show what a good horse should look like is a good thing, but when tearing apart (critiquing) a poorly structured horse, would be better served for everyone’s education if the curse words were left out. There’s no need to be mean or cruel for any reason. Constructive criticism goes a lot further.
Bad picture angles are bad pictures. It doesn’t mean the horse is necessarily a bad horse, the photo may make the horse look much poorer then what the horse really is.
I can tell you that while looking through your blog, I happen to agree on a good portion of the evaluations, however, I don’t like the way things are stated.
What expertise do you base your evaluations on? Are you a judge? An equine professional of some sort?
Perhaps it would be more professional to not be mean and cruel.
while I’m sure I’m going to be discredited as crazy, I’d like to comment that the solution to mis-bred monstrosities is to mandate the animals always be given away for free.
Speaking specifically of the dog world, every dog I have ever met who was the product of proximity and opportunity was far and away a better animal than anything that comes with a $400 price tag.
Breeding for some vague breeding standard weakens the animals, always. Now, this is different than breeding for a purpose, like killing rats or retrieving downed birds — JRTs and labs were once functional. But unless you’re breeding for temperament, breeding pets will always fail, and those stupid shows, horse, dog, what have you will never favor the best animals, who will regardless of inadequacy become breeding favorites.
The fact that something like a third of the QHs come from one stallion astounds and saddens me — not only because he brought HYPP into wide spread numbers, but because doggonit the stallion down the street is just fine.
Yes yes disagree if you like, but most of the horses I see on this site look fine. They aren’t worth much maybe but I’d rather buy a fugly horse whose temperament ‘clicks’ with me, than a “breed-perfect specimen” that’s stupid or mean.
For that reason, I must support backyard breeding, with the caveat that as little money changes hands at all stages of the animals life as possible. This would be for the animal’s benefit. Really.
A fugly horse with a great disposition that serves a purpose is fine. They exist, so give them a good home and treat them right. They probably shouldn’t be bred if they have conformation faults, though. There’s always a place for such horses that are culls from a breeder’s program. A breeder is one who breeds for the IMPROVEMENT of a breed, not merely add to the numbers of mediocre horses out there. A responsible breeder breeds for a horse that is a superb example of its breed, and nothing less. They don’t have to be perfect, but perfection should be strived for. Otherwise, don’t breed, as you are NOT a responsible breeder. Top quality, show quality horses aren’t always mental nutcases. Usually, it’s the owner, the environment the horse lives in, the feed program, or haphazard breeding practices that create such animals. Just because someone isn’t into showing doesn’t mean they have to breed junk!
I’m not a show person (I hate horse “showing” to tell you the truth) but grease_monkey… a badly-built horse is a badly-built horse, regardless of what purpose it serves.
My mare has faults (for one, I thin she forgot to stand in line when they were handing out withers) but she has a gorgeous head, she’s smarter than most people I interact with, and I can ride her on trails all day without her coming up lame. If I *were* to breed her, I know I’d need to compensate for those withers, and I’d do my research because her foal would have a lifetime home with me, so it would need to be at least as sturdy as her.
I’m sure I could share her picture and have someone tell me that they think her shoulder is too angled or her pasterns are too short, but what matters is that she is able to do what I ask her to do, and in my opinion she looks darn good doing it.
My feelings weren’t hurt, so we can forget that crap. But how are any of you making this issue of backyard breeders and “POOR QUALITY” horses, any better. Making fun of the issue is doing nothing but labelling yourselves as the common errogant horse person. I understand the point behind the forum and I agree to most of it, but where does th immaturity end, why don’t we focus our energy on trying to fix this issue??? Why not start a forum on getting peoples ideas on how to solve this issue, because this forum comes off as extremely nasty. I totally agree with your reasoning, but why must it be presented in sucha way that it sounds mean. there are MANY things that must be taken into consideration, and yes I will admit I am not educated on many of these things I will humble myself in saying I don’t know jack all about the issue, but I do know that its not right to breed these decrepid animals to make them suffer, but lets try to help fix this problem and maybe try to educate the people who do this to these creatures.
It wouldn’t matter what you did to put education out there. The backyard breeder in 98% of the cases will never come around. Always breeding the same junk to junk. Even if someone tried to help them along the way, they would never see why and would still be putting the same conformation mistakes out there. Most of them can’t get past the fact that their horse just shouldn’t reproduce no matter how well they like them.
I agree with Starr.
The whole reason backyard breeders get attacked is because they simply don’t care. If you try to educate them, a very small percentage will listen and do what’s best for their animals. The rest blow you off with a list of selfish reasons like, “I can do what I want with my animals!” and “It’s just a damn horse!”
The best you can do is educate the people who would be supporting the practice. Yet again, for every person that you reach, there are multiples that you don’t.
Grease-monkey, the point of this blog is to prevent FURTHER backyard breeders. The new ones don’t learn.
I have a lady who breeds half drafts and comes by my property everyday. YES, everyday, to see what percherons I have at the moment. She wants to see her competition. Lady… if people are looking for a drafty trail horse… I’ll send ‘em your way.
And I hate to say it, but this is the real world. Things of this measure don’t get taken care of by being “nice”. Not sure if you’re still in the “sharing mode” of school, but it doesn’t always help in the real world.
lifelike001…cool another aussie and yes l agree way toooooo many backyarders in AU not giving thought to the future of these animals they breed so long as they make a quick buck, but on the other hand its time for buyers to start to be made aware of what goes into breeding a quality animal in regard to costs, it amazes me the amount of people who want an animal for less that the gelding and you can forget about the service price as they dont realise that exists, then you have feeding the mare, vet costs, raising the foal and so on…Another gripe l have about backyard breeders…they RARELY swab their animals for infections and as l wont take unswabbed/vaccinated animals on my property l look like the bad guy but l’m sticking to my rule:D catch up soon
LOL, pretty amusing bunch of comments.
This is a BLOG people, not a forum. As such, the blogger gets to use all the curse word he or she may want, and doesn’t have to have any official certification to ‘prove’ they know what they are talking about.
Stop reading it if your offended. I’m rather enjoying it, including the snarky, but right on, commentary. Curse away fuglyhorse, tell everyone how you really feel. Better than all the prettied up ‘politeness’ people seem so found of these days.
Sometimes the truth hurts people. Sometimes it SHOULD hurt.
I love this blog!! Yep, curse words and all. I have been preaching this stuff for years and not many listens. I think the OP is dead on in 98% of the time. I have rescued many horses, fixed them up to be resold (yes, MONEY) and have never bred a one of them. I have raised a few, even 8 orphans from the kill pens when mama went to her reward but the ones that were intentionally bred were meant to improve the breed. Personally, I don’t find the comments so offensive cuz I prefer to speak and read the unvarnished truth. Keep on keeping on! You have a loyal reader here!
Right on, Dawn. Grease-monkey, again, this is a BLOG, and fuglyhorse can publish whatever she likes. This is one of the beauties of the Internet, and if you don’t like it, quit reading. I have not seen a single person here state that they are breeding ONLY for conformation. Just like breeding for any other ONE particular trait, like color, that would be irresponsible. The point is, responsible, professional breeders breed for improvement in all respects, from conformation and athletic ability to temperament. Yes it’s true that there are some beautiful high dollar animals out there with poor temperaments, but I believe you have to start with correct physical characteristics first, then temperament and trainability are CLOSE SECONDS. If an animal is conformationally flawed, a lot of times it won’t matter how big a heart or smart it is. It won’t be able to perform – sometimes not even as a trail horse. So, while there are some bad temperaments out there on the big, bad, mean, shallow show circuits (and I don’t necessarily think we should keep breeding those either – even with Grand Prix ability, when there are so many options now), it is indefensible to promote the breeding of structurally unsound animals just because you like their personality.