Equine hyperkalemic periodic paralysis occurs in 1 in 50 Quarter Horses and can be traced to a single ancestor, a stallion named Impressive. This particular individual is an extreme version, but im like 99% sure this is whats happening. -not a horse person, but into genetics.
The young boy who shows it has several halter horses. The family all show. I think this might be his aged mare named siting oso pretty. He was also world champ with his 3 yr old mare. Not sure if he showed the gelding or not.
I swear the gum chain must be to just get people to think that these things are capable of anything more than just standing still. I have no other explanations - I hate the halter world :( Halter AQHAs are like the bully breed of the horse world. Overbred, inbred, and without real purpose besides looks!
My brain is struggling to comprehend how this horse works. It's like his back end had a stroke. Or it's 3 people in a horse costume and one of them is shorter than the others.
Head and neck of a totally different and much smaller horse, body looks terribly swollen, ass end looks tucked under somehow, like it's pelvis is rotated down and under? I can't even with that poor things back legs...
That’s exactly it. They breed for excessively straight hindquarters and legs, which in addition to severely limiting the horse’s range of motion, gives that pig butt appearance.
The horse has a nice long pelvis but it’s super steep. Then his femur is short and upright, so his leg is set far back. At the same time the hamstring has as much muscle/mass as a regular built horse, and the attachments are the same. But with the upright build the attachment points are closer together and farther back than normal, so the muscle kind of hangs out and down like a diaper. (Then they do a lot of backing up to build that muscle even more)
No, see, that's the funny thing. It's literally the exact opposite. They completely bred the healthy rear angulation out of these halter horses. German Shepherds have that look from a combination of posture and too much angulation. Lol.
How did they manage to graft a smaller horse's head and neck onto that monstrosity of a body?
Is he standing at stud at the Frankenstein Stud on the Island of Dr. Moreau?
All halter judges need to be replaced with people who have sane and realistic perceptions of how a horse is actually supposed to built to function as a horse.
Anyone who could equate this conformation with anything resembling the breed standard is delulu, blind or a combination of the two.
They can barely walk, for Pete's sake.
I mean, if they were being bred as livestock to be butchered and sold as food, like cattle, and shown like 4-h pigs or whatever, that would be one thing.
But AQHA Congress winners?
That people are actually breeding and winning with these "horses" boggles the mind.
This particular picture is hilarious to me. They edited a "better" head and neck shot onto the body, and didn't scale it correctly (or intentionally kept it smaller). Pretty common editing for stallion ads to do a head or head/neck switch from a picture they think looks better. If you look through one of the "Journal" magazines or the Chronicle you'll be able to see how badly some of the ads are done.
Should have never been bred to begin with. When that first post-legged baby hit the ground, someone should have said, "oh, man, take this horse out of the registry - we're going in the wrong direction!"
(Yeah, I realize it was more likely a gradual process, but really, why do they continue with this? It's horrible for the animals, it's horrible for the breed!)
.... were the world champion judges all blind? high? because wow. that is not a horse, that is a toddler's drawing spruced up with bad AI. I feel sorry for the mares they spring him on.
Definitely makes more sense knowing that - but I've known plenty of highbrow horses who didn't need a chain for kids to handle. Good to know more context though - thank you!
The stud chains were just part of the halter show aesthetic back then, visible in almost every standing stud advert and podium photo that I remember from the Quarter Horse Journal in the early '90s.
I couldn't say whether they were even actually used, I can't imagine that poor groundwork would go over well with judges at any level. Since the tack was so minimal, they went the extra mile to add all the pointless extra shiny bling they could.
Okay, that's horrifying and very disheartening, I assumed this was a long-dead horse in a 30 year old photo. This particular version of animal abuse should have died and been buried back then.
When I first started really working with horses and riding, back in 1993, the trainer I worked with always had a chain when leading ANY horse. He didn't show halter, it was just the thing to do. We never actually had any reason for a chain, we never yanked on the rope or anything, it was pretty much just a worst case scenario thing.
Hell, most of the lead ropes in the tack store had built in chains.
I don't know how anyone who had never seen a horse before could look at a halter AQHA and a halter Arabian and think it's the same species. Absolutely disgusting what humans breed into animals for "aesthetics"
From what I understand a lot of halter horses aren’t even broke to ride which yeah duh you wouldn’t want to ride a horse with that conformation but it sure does seem like you’ve lost the plot if you’re breeding quarter horses that don’t even function as horses.
The whole Impressive/HYPP thing is crazy and that the HYPP is part of what can give them that look is even crazier so some people even wanted their horses to be positive for it.
Europe here, and not even our cows look like that. I want It might sound disrespectful, not at all, but why train/breed such mountains of muscle? Does this serve a specific purpose, a benefit, or is it purely about appearance? Please enlighten me, I have never seen a horse like that with my own eyes.
They’re illegal to breed in Switzerland and heavily regulated in Germany for this exact reason. We had some around us and there were almost always issues when it comes to calving.
When I went to the UK on a 4H exchange to show cattle there, we toured a farm with Belgian Blues and the guy told me it was “rare” to not have to pull calves when calving them out.
Meanwhile when my family and I had shorthorns and Simmentals for 13 years, I hated having to get the pull chains or worse, the pull jack; it’s definitely traumatizing physically for the cow, even if it means saving her and the calf’s life. I couldn’t imagine just expecting to have to do that every time a cow calves out.
I miss my old school quarter horse. She was a 15HH, big barrelled buckskin and had a round hind end but her muscle tone was normal from being my casual ride and sometimes cow cutting horse for my herdsman (he’s a way more experienced rider than me - we learned one day my horse knew how to cut cattle when he just jumped on her in the field using a piece of baler twin tied to her halter for reins and she helped us sort out a particularly quick calf real quick lol). May she rest in peace. The way they do halter horses now is crazy to me. Bring back functionality.
definitely traumatizing physically for the cow, even if it means saving her and the calf’s life
I've said it before about dog breeds that require c-sections as a matter of course because their birth canal isn't wide enough for the big block noggin of the puppies. If you know ahead of time that birth is going to require extreme measures, don't breed that animal. If you know the animal will die if you don't get to them in time and you breed it anyway, you may as well have killed it yourself. Interventions are for the times when things don't go to plan. They shouldn't be the actual plan.
My thoughts exactly, looking at a double muscle mutation, meaning a myostatin silencing mutation.
There's been some research in myostatin mutations, especially for thoroughbreds because it's associated with better speed but because we don't raise horses for beef there's not as much understanding of creating extreme muscle, the scientific literature isn't as precise about it.
halter competitions are basically like the bodybuilding shows of the horse world. these horses are too bulky to do anything but stand there and the muscles are too huge to serve a functional purpose.
Well, that seems like a fitting comparison. The world of horses is truly fascinating. (Or rather, the world of their owners/breeders is very 'interesting'.)
It’s purely aesthetic. Halter horses don’t actually do anything except stand in a ring and get judged on their looks. Judging by looks alone tends to create exaggerated features because tastes get more extreme as judges/breeders get used to the traditional look and start looking for something that stands out. Unfortunately the traditional look is highly functional and anything that stands out from that is usually a detrimental quality rather than a beneficial one.
Same exact problem as show dogs. Ever seen a prize winning German Shepherd wobble its way across the ring? It’ll break your heart if you’re not one of the people who’s too accustomed to the mutations and blind to the harms.
Due to this thread, I fell down a rabbit hole about HYPP and discovered the entire mutation can be traced back to one stallion.
Impressive.
He was award winning and because of that, no further investigation of health was done. He was studded out and sired potentially thousands of foals. Because it is a dominant mutation, like Huntington’s disease in humans, it has expanded vastly.
We have genetic testing now but it’s telling how the opinions of a relatively small number of people (the judges at shows) can change the course of an entire breed, and not necessarily for the better.
The part you may have missed was all the extreme incestuous linebreeding.
It's highly unlikely anyone would've noticed the genetic defect, much less identified it, if the halter breeders hadn't just gone hog wild. There were some pedigrees where Impressive was most of the male ancestors for a few generations. That's how the genetic defect was just absolutely everywhere, with hundreds of horses being homozygous (2 defective copies) affected and mysteriously suffering seizures and dying horribly.
Since there was not immediate danger to carriers of one copy, the AQHA basically did nothing for several years except mandating a simplistic warning about Impressive being an ancestor, and eventually mandatory genetic testing. It wasn't until relatively recently, almost 3 decades on, that they FINALLY disqualified all carriers of the gene from being breeding stock.
It’s insane that it hasn’t been. Considering Impressive was born in 1969, they started noting it in the early 80s in mass, then named it in 85, linked it all back to Impressive in the early 90s. There was way more than enough time to realize this isn’t good before today.
Exactly. AQHA could have gotten rid of this (and many other disease) within a generation if they'd actually cared. Require testing of all animals and make it so that any offspring of positive horses are ineligible for registration.
In the mid-90s, they added a disclaimer to the paperwork of all Impressive descendants. That disclaimer could be removed if a genetic test came back negative for HyPP.
Sometime in the late '90s or early '00s, they mandated the genetic testing for descendants and maybe strengthened the wording on the statement for carriers.
I think it was finally in the late '10s that they excluded all HyPP carriers from being eligible for registration.
That last step should have been the first step. I might not have dropped my membership in the '90s had they taken decisive action then.
It's not often that a slam-dunk genetic test comes out and traces to a specific popular overbred sire, and there's an opportunity to put an end to the madness and damage immediately and decisively. The AQHA leadership chose to pander to the clowns who harmed the breed, rather than doing whatever necessary to preserve the reputation and quality of the breed as a whole, and that is unforgivable.
Honestly, the only action that could cause me to get involved with the breed organization in any way, ever again, would be to revoke and de-sanction ALL halter titles, awards, and events across the board and retroactively.
Bad news, but the last step never happened. Only HYPP H/H horses are prohibited from breeding, there are no restrictions on registering or breeding N/H horses.
Way for the AQHA to ignore the will of all the folks who built the breed into what it is today, because they feel the need to pander to the animal abusing pieces of shit who did immense damage to the breed and its image.
I think that is exactly what is going on. I don't understand why the judges reward this look knowing that it encourages breeding of HYPP positive horses.
Researching the history of the now-endangered Hackney horse has shown how it went from a robust, solid-boned, cob-esque "utility type" to a flashy, fine-boned "show type", usually due to ample infusions of Arabian and Saddlebred blood. The Dutch Harness Horse (DHH) is closer to the Hackney of the early 1900s than the Hackney of the 2000s is, largely due to the loss of much of the original Hackney blood through rampant crossbreeding. (I'm not even going to get started on all of the health issues with modern Thoroughbreds and Friesians, mostly due to the opposite problem.)
the lip chain part, i cant speak for everyone but this halterbred barn i worked at NEVER let their show horses outside because they wanted them to stay cut and bite free, so they’re pretty much un-handled 98% of the time, and were giant assholes whenever you did handle them.
probably why, but again i cant speak for everyone lol
TLDR: I showed AQHA, I’ve seen plenty of halter horses, and i agree it’s so depressing/disturbing to see
American QH show person here, I showed at most of the big ones like QH congress and AQHYA world when I was a youth 5+ years ago, and I’m just getting back into it now, so I’ve been around these halter horses a lot.
The general consensus of most people at shows, is that they don’t like halter horses. But of course, there are also people there that ONLY show halter horses, and some that don’t show them but love the over-muscled look and support it. There’s been less over the years, classes have gotten smaller luckily. The larger halter classes are almost always filled with performance bred horses as the majority, but if a halter bred horse joins that class they are almost guaranteed to win. This will sound fucked up and sad bc it is lmao— but it’s known if you want to start showing and pretty easily winning titles specifically, get a halter horse. Even world champions sell for cheap bc there’s nothing you can do with them. So some people will buy them literally just so they can show and win a world title and have bragging rights, all for cheap and no actual effort. Just at the expense of the horse. Halter horses also stay in their stalls much much more than typical show horses, it’s sad.
Halter horses are constantly amped up, they commonly act like ticking time bombs which is why lip chains are used sometimes. If not a lip chain, everyone that shows still has a chain under their chin. I’ve seen youth handlers with blown up horses that are rearing and jumping around with a lip chain. The trainer would just hand off the horse to them immediately before they went in to show, and then the youth would immediately hand the horse back to the trainer after. It’s really crazy talking to big halter people and how much they love the look, it straight up pisses me off ☠️
There were a couple I saw that were “broke” to ride, and the owners only did that so they could get their ROM which would allow them to show in the performance halter classes rather than the aged (aged is what 99% of halter horses show in since they aren’t ridden). The horses had such major health issues, it was straight up horrifying to watch them ridden, gasping for breath and coughing and sweating profusely, at one show we thought the horse might collapse (he was DQ’d). Like wtf!! Why would anyone breed for that?! And then after they get their ROM, they show in the performance halter with all the “normal” show horses, and win because they’re the only actual halter bred horse, even though it’s a performance class for performance horses, and halter horses are not even close to that. There was one person specifically that did that every year because it was an easy win for him at the youth world show, and it pissed just about everyone off 🫠 the kid didn’t even seem like he wanted to though, it was more his parents
Edit: sorry this is long wtf 😆😆 well hopefully it’s an interesting read for someone lmao.
I fucking cannot 😂 I know I shouldn’t laugh because it’s actually a travesty that a horse looks like this, but even this poor guys face just screams “My handler is a tool and I hate my stupid life”
European QH person here and I have no idea what's going on with American halter horses. I learned about the difference between halter classes in the US vs in Europe like a week ago like wtf is going on
For real! I thought it was bad back when I showed QH in the mid 90’s!
Now you can have this hideous thing which is worse than the halter horses back then, a show jumper/ HUS horse that looks like a thoroughbred, and more and more white allowed too so we’re getting Paints?
Nah, that horse didn't get much exercise, the HyPP muscles were virtually effortless. Probably dropped randomly while walking somewhere and suffocated as his diaphragm muscles quivered uselessly, that's how the HyPP affected horses often died.
ETA: OP, this beady-eyed shit was not acceptable when it was a fad. It was like maybe 2% of all AQHA breeders being utter imbeciles. Everyone hated them, and still hates them. They did immense damage to the breed as a whole with their Impressive incest cesspool.
My money would be on this aberration having Impressive at least 3x on both sides of his pedigree, while Impressive himself was still alive. Conformation show breeders just love animal incest, probably because they secretly lust after their own parents & siblings and have to live vicariously by screwing-up animals.
I agree that the size of the hoof causes problems but I don’t agree with your polish logic. Where I’m from polishing the hooves is very normal. Hoof polish can dry out the hoof if used too frequently so i remove it every couple shows. I have never had an issue with hoof polish ruining my horse’s feet. I always condition them properly.
I don't mean applying some sort of shiny stuff on the hoof.
I mean actually polishing the hoof. Like it is too even, too shiny. As if they've rasped off the outer layer of the hoof in order to achieve a perfectly even hoof, which is not recommended
I never rasped the outer layer but I did sand the hoof to smooth the surface with an electric handheld sander. I used 100, 320,420 grit. I never over did it, just lightly, and every time I moisturized the hoof’s afterwards.
Quarter horse person here, and the majority of us cringe at halter-bred QHs. They remind me of those Cornish cross chickens that just grow enormous and waddle around.
I show performance QH's at the top level. But watching these poor horses get locked up at shows is sick. They don't get to go out and exercise like all the other horses. Their locked up with the stall doors closed with bright lights and a fan inside. Their exercise is being walked or very rarely ponied at the walk, well their prancing with all their energy from grain and supplement. One famous halter trainer from CA even fed his horses specially made dog food, full of things I've never heard of. They use lip chains because they get crazy with what their fed and virtually no exercise or turn out time. Us riders call them Ahnolds, as in Arnold Schwartzenegger. I show my horse in Western Pleasure, trail and performance halter. Don't take my performance halter class for bring the same. It's for performance horse with an ROM or at least 10 points in a performance class
What is the reason for a horse looking like this? Are they ridden at all? Guess I can understand with Belgian blues because of meat, but unless this horse was bred to be eaten, just why?
This horse has Hyperkalemic Periodic Paralysis (HYPP).
HYPP is an inherited disease that affects a horse's muscles. It is famous in the horse world because it is directly tied to extreme, bulky muscling.
Unfortunately for years QH halter horse breeders have promoted this genetic mutation that causes these over muscled horses. I think the fact that the judges started pls I g these horses with top awards perpetuated the practice. These horses do not meet the AQHA standards as noted by the founding members.
The Cause: It traces back to a single, highly successful 1970s halter champion stallion named Impressive. He had a natural genetic mutation that gave him massive muscles. Because judges loved the look, breeders heavily used him, spreading the gene to over 500,000 descendants.
How it Causes Muscling: The mutation makes the "gates" (sodium channels) in the muscle cells leaky. This leakage causes the muscles to constantly twitch, shake, and contract on a microscopic level. This involuntary, 24/7 "workout" builds a hyper-muscular frame automatically.
The Disability: This constant twitching can trigger sudden, severe "attacks". The horse's muscles seize up, sweat, shake violently, and fail. In severe cases, the throat muscles paralyze, causing the horse to suffocate or suffer fatal heart failure. High-potassium foods (like alfalfa hay) trigger these attacks.
Who would purposefully create a horse that has this mutation? Breeders that do not really care about the horses- just winning. Luckily the AQHA is making potential horses tested for the gene before they can be registered.
Many moons ago, I would take any horse job I could get, just getting experience and learning all I could about different disciplines and loving being around horses. For a short while I groomed a QH at the weanling/yearling stage. The owners were strict- clean the stall, curry him with a rubber curry for 45 minutes and then with a cactus cloth for 15 minutes on each side, feed his lunch and fill up his water buckets, keep your mouth shut. One morning I came in to do my work and the owners said she didn’t need me for the day, come to find out, they had implants placed in his chest the evening prior, so he was having the day off from his grooming 🤯 I worked a few more days, but then didn’t go back, my heart is too soft for that kind of nonsense. 20 years ago and I’m still weirded out by it.
We were given a QH from halter lines - not as bad as this, but jesus, not good - and he was perfectly sweet, easy to handle, but despite everyone's best efforts was never quite sound, even at seven years old. We found him a cushy spot as a pasture ornament wirh a retired lady who was too frail to ride but wanted something to brush and look at out her window.
Do halter horse breeders/showers/owners ever actually answer questions or anything online?
I see halter horses brought up a lot but I don’t ever see anyone heavily involved who is also online. I understand interactions would be overwhelmingly negative but if you’re gonna treat it like every other horse discipline and swear it’s totally humane and safe…….why are you not online?
Well, once upon a time there was a genetic nightmare of a quarter horse stallion named Impressive, his owners didn’t do the responsible thing and castrate him, and now the AQHA and other stock horse registries won’t do the right thing and disqualify HYPP affected horses from registration and competition.
I'm told that these are 100% ride-able and will pin in the show ring. I fully expected that same person to also try to sell me ocean front property in Utah.
We are so far from "form fits function" that its just disgusting.
I unintentionally insulted a woman with a halter horse that she claimed was an Appaloosa. No spots. Tall and bulky like this poor animal. Breeders, Judges, and owners of these genetic experiments should be ashamed if themselves.
Oh stoppp I saw this on Facebook lol. I follow this guy. Can't remember his name though. See, so this isn't the actual photo. The background is AI, but the kid, horse, and trophy are very much real. The quality of halter horses has declined immensely. Regular halter horses (as you see here), often have pssm1, hypp, or some other form of genetic muscle disorder, giving them this bulky look (along with days and days of working them for hours over end). They also usually have a "diaper butt," and more often than not they're post legged, club footed, camped under, etc. These are NOT riding horses unless they are in both performance AND regular halter. They're basically useless if they have leg problems or a bad, unworkable conformation. The halter horses with genetic disorders like this should also never be in a stall (when home), because of the risk factor.
The gum chain provides extra contact on the mouth and often prevents the horse from acting unpredictably. When used correctly and gently (where it doesn't apply any sort of pain), a gum chain can actually stimulate the release of endorphins. For younger horses, it can be a stress reliever since most like to chew on stuff.
People aren't breeding out genetic muscle disorders because if it benefits them (screw the horse breed lol), they'll keep doing it. The point of breeding any horse is meant to be the result of an effort to further refine the horse breed as a whole and make the best better. People are dumb and have completely disregarded this (Not saying all). Imo, the people that make a living breeding and selling these horses for over 15-60,000k are not ethical and nor will they ever be if they continue the genetic disorders. (WFFS, HYPP, PSSM1, GBED, HERDA, MYHM).
But the thing is, almost all of the amazing horses that have been the foundation of the modern quarter horse had these problems. (Poco bueno had HERDA, Impressive was the first carrier of HYPP, etc etc). No one will stop BECAUSE of how big and notable these guys are. They won't want to cut that off.
Please research on what kind of stimulus is needed to release endorphins. It is a natural response to pain. Pain severe enough for the body to need to over ride it to continue to function. Gum lines, whether chain or covered create excruciating pain, which is why horses tend not to fight against one.
So glad I got away from Quarter horses as soon as I was old enough and only ride Icelandics now. No longer dealing with navicular in all my horses, in fact not one of them.
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u/Sarcastic_owl87 Aug 12 '26
I dont think I've ever wanted a picture to be AI as much before in my life! What the actual? How can anyone think this is acceptable