CALL TO ACTION: AQHA and the Reichert Celebration 2011

I have a huge amount of information and a call to action to pass on from a friend and true advocate of the horse, Lee Earnshaw, on the Blue Tongue Alumni Facebook page, who is working hard to address the issues our Quarter Horses face in their breeding, early training, and the distortion of gaits and frame they are forced to endure in the name of the "Western Pleasure" discipline:

"Please watch this, watch the poor horses, pick out the lame one, count all the draw reins attached to curbs and used as a primary rein...notice no active AQHA stewards there to ensure that rules 104, 401, and 441 were not violated. All you need to do to speak for the horses is send one email to rthompson@AQHA.org and let her know what you think. Please include your country of origin."

Billie adds:
If you find this video and the riding you see in it offensive, inhumane, and/or cruel to the horses involved, below is a link to all sponsors of the Reichert Celebration. Although it takes time to email them to let them know your thoughts on their sponsorship of this kind of event and the treatment of these horses, it DOES make a difference. There is actually a remake of this video being done with an updated list of sponsors who have already responded to concerns of viewers - and those sponsors who haven't responded at all.

A huge effort is underway with regards to this. Please consider adding your voice in every way you can to help the American Quarter Horse. If you've ever known and loved a Quarter Horse, you know how incredible they are.

Our QH Cody came to us as a 2-year old fully trained under saddle. It took years (he's 8 now) to teach him to move like a normal horse. He is a teddy bear and even under our care and encouragement, he still tenses up sometimes and reverts to the tight, constricted gaits and frame he was taught as a baby.

When I look at the horses in the video above, and look out my window and see Cody gallop up the hill with his herd, I see a completely different breed of horse. He moves beautifully, has gorgeous muscling, and he has a regal air to him that is simply not present in the movements of the horses above. How has this come to pass? Go tell these sponsors what the Quarter Horse can be, and should be, and used to be. Tell them you don't like what you see at the Reichert Celebration, and ask them to stop sponsoring that kind of event - which in my opinion is no celebration at all.

http://reichertcelebration.com/2011sponsors.asp  and you can CLICK HERE to go directly to the list.

And read on - here are two articles Lee Earnshaw wrote sharing her research into this issue:

 AQHA'S STATISTICAL NOSEDIVE:

   My curiosity was piqued. I thought most Quarter Horse folks were going to be upset because of my nosing around into what was happening at 'their' shows, in 'their' warm-ups, and fully expected a mail box full of the typical response "You don't understand," and the all encompassing, "Mind your own business." 

     But, I was getting emailed cheers of encouragement from those folks that I thought would like to rip me to shreds, and many of them were telling the same tale as me. "I quit showing WP because of the peanut rolling and four beat lope." And here, I thought I was the only one.

     Being nosy, I just had to find out some statistics. So here we go...about the time the peanut rolling & four beat lope became really fashionable in the early 90's there were 207,286 members like me, renewing their annual membership.

     By the year 2000, annual membership was down to 179, 639. By 2010, it was down to 89,413.

     Total membership (Annual, 3-Year, Life, Youth, and Amateur classifications) dropped about 16% from from 2007 to 2010. Total 345,905 in 2007, and in 2010, down to 300054. Yes, okay, we can blame that on the economy...until we compare the stats from USEF membership decrease in the same length of time to be only about 9.6%

     There are 115,390 owners of registered QH's in Texas in 2010...only 41,186 of them are members of AQHA. That is a measley 36% of all Texan owned Quarter Horses are eligible to compete at AQHA shows or race at the tracks.

     No wonder one of the AQHA goals for the upcoming year is to entice more people into competing. Problem is, a lot of those people used to, but were driven away from it by the whims of judges forgetting what the American Quarter Horse was supposed to do...move like a horse that was a pleasure to ride. Or heck, even just move like a horse was intended to. And a lot of us will not be caught dead in custom-made sequin outfits costing $1000 and up. No way. If I've got a grand to waste, it won't be on clothing that I wouldn't ordinarily be caught dead in except on Hallowe'en.

     And another problem is, now, the expose' of what the horses are actually subjected to, despite AQHA's assurance that their shows are "regulated by some of the most strict rules within the equine industry, designed to ensure the safety and welfare of American Quarter Horses compete,in approved events, are not jeopardized." We know that's not true. We've seen video proof.

     Add on to that, the fact that the judges are still rewarding the non-level toplines, the uncadenced jogs, the staggering slow walks, and the extreme head-nodding at the lope, which is sometimes three-beat, sometimes four, depending on the judge. All against the rules, still. The rules have chnaged and been updated over the past few years, but the judges seem incapable of comprehension or change.

     AQHA likes to impress people with the fact that, in the last 31 years, they have actually reprimanded 52 members for cruelty. Sounds pretty good, right? Until you look at how many hundred thousand members they have now...and through the years, it must be well over a couple of million. Let's be generous, underestimate, and say, 1 million. 52 reprimands? Not even a drop in the bucket.

     The statistics I would really like to hear about are: how many complaints were received, how many were actually even investigated, and how many were reprimanded.  Every year.  Bragging about a vague total from a three decade span just doesn't do it for me.

     AQHA is probably regretting now that in their endeavor to have the most silver and sequins, the grassroots membership faded away. I'm pretty sure they knew all along that was happening--if I can tell, just by reading their published statistics, surely they could tell--yet did nothing about it. It might be time for AQHA to take a good hard look at the ground--they are diving for it, anyway.


AND


REICHERT CELEBRATION HODGEPODGE:

Since the video was found and posted on our group wall, we have been following multiple leads...who, on Earth, is responsible for allowing inhumane treatment of horses in warm-up? Draw reins on so many horses, and attached to curbs? What organization failed the American horses so badly? Well, after looking into it for over two weeks...no one seems to know anything. Definitely, they "ain't sayin' nuthin'"...I feel like we might have stumbled on the Mafia of the Western Pleasure world.

Reichert Celebration offers 1.5 million USD in prize money. The Reichert family raise Quarter Horses.

AQHA rules are to be followed, or maybe NSBA's unless they conflict with AQHA's, then those take precedence. The other breed organizations (PHBA, APHA, POA, ApHC) have their own rules, but AQHA's, again, would take precedence if in conflict; or at least, they think so. They allow show points to be accrued, but the ones who have responded stress that, beyond that, they have nothing to with the Reichert Celebration. It is ''altogether different," apparently.

Horses are supposed to be treated with dignity and humanely at all times, though...that's pretty much the standard rule for horse welfare with all the involved organizations. The video proves that everyone left it up to someone else to figure out what to do and how to do it, and it appears that no one did, and no one could figure out the difference between humane and inhumane. Sadly, there were even vets on site. Vets that yes, will profit from this kind of inhumane treatment. Money talks, and money even shuts one up.

USEF and FEI are not affiliated with any of the national organizations invited into the hodgepodge of Reichert Celebration show and sale.

The NSBA, AQHA, and the organizers themselves have not responded to the obvious rule violations. When they do, the questions I will be asking is:
-exactly how many of the horses were tested for drugs, and is fluphenazine on their list of drugs to be tested for;
-how many actual disqualifications were there in the Western Pleasure classes that state horses to have level topline (AQHA) and no head-nodding at lope (NSBA)
-who provided/paid for stewards and was each ring, including warm-ups, monitored by at least one, at all times;
-how did they not notice draw reins attached to curbs, or draw reins in use, when training devices are banned in warm-up
-why were none of the horses marked with identifiable numbers in warm-up, and do they feel this impairs the safety of the horses by overlooking this basic requirement at events with more than a handful of horses (let alone 2500). How are they going to identify all the riders caught on film violating their own rules?
-do they feel it is ethical to hire their major sponsors (like vets) and have other sponsors also be competitors? This is like bribing the boss to hire you, or buying your placings before you ever saddle up, imo.

AHC and HSUS and the majority of sponsors and involved breed associations have all avoided reponding to concerned thus far...

Update: October 15: NSBA has responded and do agree that their were violations of their rules in that video. They state they had a monitor, a steward, and a drug tester available at the show. They are launcing their own investigation and review. They also state it is not the norm for numbers to be displayed when outside the stall, but they feel that this is a valid point and will be suggested at their next meeting. I think they realized they could see violations but can't correctly identify the violaters since they were all anonymous without any identification.

October 25: RC responded last week and don't see anything wrong with draw reins, and they thought their stewards did a great job pf reprimanding people for using draw reins. Yep. I kid you not. We have a problem here. I think the media man who wrote this has difficulty keeping a train of thought, maybe adult onset ADHD or something can be blamed.
Sponsors who have now responded after me telling them we were going to remake the video for national TV to ensure their names were included if they didn't respond: Western Haulers and Show Girl Show Clothes.
APHA and AQHA sent me their usual generic "we will get back to you" crap email.
USEF has formally denied having anything to do with Recihert Celebration at all/whatsoever/no way, uh-uh.
One guy said he didn't want to be involved when I asked him to pass on a ''heads up'' to his client who also happens to be a major sponsor of the show.

Oct 27:Another sponsor forwarded my email to AQHA and APHA, and guess what? Both organizations responded yesterday. APHA said they have pro-welfare rules.(I asked if they were aware those rules were violated when I emailed her back.)
AQHA rep emailed me like I was a retard and said she'd ensure my concerns about gaits of QHs and use of draw reins would be addressed in 2012. (Obviously, I let her know I am not waiting that long, and surely someone there knows how to call an urgent board meeting.) She also said USEF decides when to drug test, not them...very interesting...since USEF claims they have nothing to do with AQHA drug testing...I will bet money that no horses at this Reichert Celebration were tested, since no one knew who should decide when and who to test...which is why they all looked doped up on fluphenazine in the classes I saw before they made their videos private...


AND

a link to a speech given by Dr. Jim Heird, an AQHA judge, in 2009, advocating for change in their system:

http://media.equisearch.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/G59-Do-Right-by-the-Horse.pdf

AND

There is more information forthcoming. Stay tuned here and feel free to join the Blue Tongue Alumni group on Facebook if you want to be part of the ongoing conversation there.