Butt Hi Ho Hi Ho
Aug 29 2011
Now this guy should be light on the front end!
I get it. I really do. Many of you think Quarter Horse breeders either deliberately breed them downhill or don’t care if they end up that way.
Um, no we don’t.
It does show up. It comes from breeding for huge, powerful butts that can push off with blinding speed and support the horse through lightening fast turns to the left and right as it cuts or holds a cow.
The big butts on QH’s are there for the work they do and no other breed can do it better.
An old rancher and breeder once defined the perfect QH for me. “The horse needs to have the speed of a drag racer, the butt of a washerwoman and the face of an angel.”
Sexist? You betcha! Got a point? I think so.
When folks attack the build of a butt high yearling and accuse us of deliberately creating horses heavy on the front end it’s clear to me you don’t understand the breed.
Have you ever heard the phrase, “Look at the conformation of your colt at three days, three months and three years, ignore everything else in between?”
There is a lot of validity to that comment.
Our good QH’s do grow out of their butt high issues. The not-so-good ones don’t. It’s no different from the terrifying cowhocks I’ve seen on some of the young warmbloods. They seem to grow out of them. I’m guessing the bad ones don’t.
The high knee action of many of the breeds used for dressage makes them unable to move in a way that could box a cow and then power along with it down the fence only to turn it a few more times.
Our low level look began as movement like a dart, an arrow, a spear. The heavy hind end is for rocking back on and supporting the front end as it turns. It works.
I am not condoning an adult horse with a butt three inches above the withers. I’ve rode a butt high mare to national levels and the reining was absolute torture. She was hard to sit and heavy through her spins. She had to work incredibly hard to lighten her front end enough to create a solid frame. She had beautiful straight legs, short cannon bones and low-set hocks, and naturally rode dead level, it made up for a bunch.
She also had the ideal QH work ethic, tried her downhill little heart out and won quite a bit. Would I buy a horse built like her again? Probably not. Would I own that mare again? In a heartbeat.
A QH is meant 
to do this…
Not this….
If I want my horse to do a piaffe I’ll get a high withered horse with a German Shepherd hind end and get somebody to teach me not only how to do it, but why I might want to do it.
In the meantime, I researched some yearlings of various breeds, just to compare them to our God awful butt high QH’s and guess what?
Here is a very cute arab yearling…
Wait a minute, I think she’s…BUTT HIGH!
Oops, can’t get busted on the half arab thing…how about this one?
Purebred this time…but still BUTT HIGH!!!!
Here’s a fancy dancy Belgian Warmblood…
Wait! Could it be? Yep, BUTT HIGH!
Then I found this:
A BUTT HIGH Andalusian! How can this be happening? The horror!
I kept searching and what did I find?
A living dream for every female member of the Society for Creativde Anachronism’s, a yearling Friesian filly….but wait….she’s BUTT HIGH!
Here’s a Morgan waiting to be the coolest thing in the world….except, well,
Ding Ding Ding! BUTT HIGH!!!!
I couldn’t take it anymore, so I searched and searched until I finally found a horse that wasn’t butt high.
It’s an American Quarter Horse. Imagine that.
236 comments to “Butt Hi Ho Hi Ho”
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Well, that’s a very SIMPLISTIC and primitive.. even biased approach to ‘what is piaffe’
yes, one might say it’s a form of ‘idling’… that’s what Wikipedia says about it.. but not in the dressage entry. ( Someone who is very well versed in the history of dressage seems to have written the dressage entry.. but NOT the piaffe entry)
Piaffe was, duing times of combat on horseback, a way to keep the horse moving and attentive, ready to charge lightly at any moment. Such charges were nothing like what we see in american westerns, in which horses charge willy nilly, kicking and spurring and yee-hawing.
Today, piaffe is shown in higher levels and is supposed to present the horse’s ability to be soft and light, collected, and very responsive yet willing to be obedient to the rider. More importantly, to those of us who ride ‘dressage trAILs’, it is an exercise we use to strenghthen and supple the horse. Even a moment of correct piaffe helps a horse lean to bend those stifles and hocks, drop that behind and lift that belly… and THAT is what makes a nice, soft trot you can sit…. same thing a western trainer strives for, but via a different path, using different terms and different equipment if equipment (often sadly as a short cut) is used.
Regardless of the ‘trappings’ of terminology and tack, excellent riding is excellent riding, whether that riding is done in a saddle with a horn and lots of silver, with a rider in sequins and fancy cowboy boots ….. or in a plain black saddle with white breeches, tall boots, and black jacket!
I hope it is noted that I am not in any way ‘dissing’ western riding.
However, some here, out of ignorance or snottiness, seem to get a big kick out of dissing dressage.
1.) Clydesdale vs Arabian……each breed has an expected set of conformation traits and what is acceptable in a Clyde, nay EXPECTED would be horrific in the Arabian halter class
I have to pipe in just for fun. Don’t hate on me naughty but the funny thing is, I have a half clydesdale, half arab. Whats even funnier(well not at the time), I showed her ONCE in sport horse at an arabian show and got the words ROMAN NOSE written just like that on the paper. She has excellent confirmation but her face got a 4. Ahh who gives a heck.
For the record, I love friesians and have a cross, think German Shepherds are incredibly smart. Love watching reining but would get dizzy if I tried. I would love to ride a piaffe and that might come in pretty handy here in az, stepping around a rattlesnake:). I also don’t take this blog to heart all that much. Whats a good blog without a little jabbing? We can take it right? What I would hate to see happen from this post is for someone to overlook a very special yearling
because it may be butt high. Look at the parents and do your homework. Have fun with your not so perfect horse. I know I do!
I’d love to see a picture of your Clydesdale/Arabian if you’ve got one handy!
Me too!!!!!
Fkybynight, my email is azdolly@cox.net, email me and then I will email you her pic. I don’t have a “this years” but I have her as a five year old. She is six now. She looks like a modified clyde. Not much arab took. Especially in the head.
BUT she has the kindest heart and the best mind you could ever want in a horse.
If you want a horse that can piaffe you might want to start with one that has an uphill build and strong hind end, not one that has high withers and/or a low croup. The relationship between the croup and the withers determines croup high/high butt, and has nothing to do with performance. -.- And a horse with a sway back is going to look “butt high”.
Your Andalusian looks “butt high” because it’s hind end is further away from the camera than the front end, creating an optical illusion. The Belgian Warmblood is built downhill and the butt is almost the same as the withers. The Friesian picture you posted is very young as well. Iron Spring Farm (http://www.ironspringfarm.com/) breeds Dressage horses, including Dutch Warmbloods and Friesians. If you look at the pictures of the stallions most of them appear to be “butt high”.
The way a horse uses its body in Dressage (the engine is in the hind end) is VERY similar to how a western horses uses its body. Have you ridden dressage? Are you trying to alienate your readers that prefer and love Dressage? I’m talking about real dressage, not the Anky van Grusven bullshit. I’m talking about what Reiner Klimke did with Ahlrich. He looked “butt high” too.
OK, I just went through most of the comments (they got a little repetitive after a while and I’m pretty tired) and I just have to get this out of my chest:
Most of the people that posted here desperately need to GET A SENSE OF HUMOR!
What part of snarky and sarcasm don’t you get? GEEEZ!
Also this is Mugly‘s blog now – she may not own it but she is the appointed writer – and she can write about whatever the hell she feels like. Deal with it.
I know i dont know a lot about horses, but at the barn i rode at and everywhere else iv heard a lot of back and forth, one way of riding is better then another, blah, blah. i (personally) think take the good of both, and i enjoy a horse that can do almost anything she and i want.
So Mugly please keep it up, i really learned a lot from this post because i still dont understand everything about how a horse is built.
But i did get a kick outta this, chuckling
Actually the picture of the QH posted is bum high. When people talk about bum high horses, its actually referring to the structure of the vertebrae. When the vertebrae of a horse is straight (level), the withers will be higher or at least level. It is not referring to the musculature of the horse. There aren’t that many horses out there that have a level spine. When a horse has this conformation, then they engage better from behind. I have been around quarter horses, and I worked at a performance Arabian farm. Most Arabs/quarter horses are actually downhill built per say. I have a quarter horse mare, and when you look at her, you would say she has a level back, but when you actually follow her spine structure, the spine is actually downhill. Do quarter horses have a hard time learning to engage? You betcha! Its been that way from the beginning of the breed, look at the foundation horses, downhill built. Could the get the job at hand done? Heck yea they could! Thats what is so great about the versatility of a quarter horse. 98% of quarter horses are downhill built, its just how they have been bred for the 60+ years the breed has been around.
Most people don’t teach proper engagement, and the horses just “fake” it. I used to ride a AWS gelding that looked level, he too was downhill built and would fake engagement. He also faked being on the bit. He faked alot of things until you actually forced him to do anything.
As for the piaffe, it was actually used in battle, and shows collection and obedience.
I know a little Paint mare who is just *terrible* for faking being on the bit. She’ll arch her neck, drop her nose…and trail her hindquarters. I suspect somebody who didn’t know what they were doing rewarded her for it, because she does it *very* consistently.
The butt high-ness comes from the way horses grow and develop. All four legs don’t grow at the same rates and the same times. The hind legs are what is developing around the yearling stage and usually the front legs catch up after the hind legs are done growing. It’s a natural part of equine development and anyone breeding horses should know that…