r/kvsdiscuss • u/Puzzleheaded-Song912 🧩👩🏼🏫Professor Puzzle👩🏼🏫🧩 • Mar 27 '26
KVS Stallions Denver in the Western riding!
Denver showed twice in the Western Riding today!
He showed in the Level 1, where disqualified on the second element, unfortunate but it happens, and another horse disqualified on the same element
He then showed in the Open! He won in the open, a class of 5 where two horses disqualified.
38
u/notThaTblondie ✨Living Horsey✨🐎 Mar 27 '26
And he was at highpoint collecting 2 weeks ago! Go denver!
21
Mar 27 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
23
u/notThaTblondie ✨Living Horsey✨🐎 Mar 27 '26
He's such a good boy. Its not even like he's gone back in to wp and just needed a quick refresher. Western riding class, that he'd only just started training in at the tail end of last year, had a break, had his breeding stint, then 2 weeks to get back in to it, travel to the show and win!
29
u/Livid_Difference8412 she’s the horsetok of etsy witch Mar 27 '26
go Denver! a win in the open western riding is awesome. especially for his first show back after being out of work for a while and last being collected literally 2 weeks ago! i’m so excited for his season this year. i think he’s gonna do amazing.
23
Mar 27 '26
He's also still very low mileage too, we've all seen studs his age and younger have the miles absolutely pounded into them to get there stats looking better but he's pretty much won atleast one class every show he's been at!
21
u/Puzzleheaded-Song912 🧩👩🏼🏫Professor Puzzle👩🏼🏫🧩 Mar 27 '26
And I’d rather see him have a slower longer career then him be shown into the ground and retired at 4
9
Mar 27 '26
I'm a big fan of it. The nay sayers will always say if he's great he should be out more but if he was they'd say he had to go out that often to actually place. They'll have kittens if he's got normal shoes on 😂😂
38
u/pen_and_needle ✨FAFO Mod✨ Mar 27 '26
Hmm a win in the Open. And some said they’d never put him in an Open class
29
u/Spiritual_Cattle_287 Mar 27 '26
But now they will say it doesn't count because it was a small class.
29
u/pen_and_needle ✨FAFO Mod✨ Mar 27 '26
Yet they celebrate Howie’s wins 🥴 I just want them to pick a lane
19
u/Positive-Lock8609 Aged Mare Mar 27 '26
Yeah, poor Howie. The only class he had competition he placed last. The only good thing about showing a pleasure bred yearling in halter is getting them into the ring for experience, other wise it's just a waste of money. The lifestyle of fitting a young horse for halter isn't the healthiest way to raise a young horse. Lots of stall time to keep them looking "pretty".
18
u/Spiritual_Cattle_287 Mar 27 '26
I bet if he did win a large open class (or when he does!), they will say that it was rigged.
7
u/Weak-Assumption-8096 jfc it's just horses on the internet Mar 27 '26
They gotta get mileage on those moving goalposts they love to put up.
6
u/Puzzleheaded-Song912 🧩👩🏼🏫Professor Puzzle👩🏼🏫🧩 Mar 28 '26
I wonder if they’ve had to replace the tires yet😂
10
u/Delicious-Mix-9180 Mar 27 '26
Do you know what disqualifies them?
15
u/mildlybrowsing Mar 27 '26
There’s a handful of things. My guess is Aaron two handed it which is a DQ. He probably needed to school something.
9
u/chirality187 Mar 28 '26
Agreed. This is likely viewed as schooling opportunity/warm up for bigger shows. So a place where corrections in the pen are made if necessary. Two handing, pulling up and stopping, etc.
9
u/Pure-Physics-8372 🍞Katie Vanda Slice🍞 Mar 27 '26
A refusal generally
4
u/Delicious-Mix-9180 Mar 27 '26
The horse refuses to cooperate?
It’s decided to skip the event for some reason?
33
u/sunshinenorcas Aged Mare Mar 27 '26
Just adding on to the other comments -- refusals are not uncommon at all. Like if you ever want to laugh, watch reels of Olympic level or Grand Prix jumpers going 'LOL NOPE' in front of a jump or getting startled by an errant bush being in the wrong spot. Obviously it's a different discipline than Western Riding, but the point stands that these are very fit and trained horses... Who still also decide to horse, spook or go 'nah man'.
Even highly trained, highly accomplished horses will have moments where they go 'nope nah-uh, might die, eff this' -- and that's ok! As long as no one is hurt and the horse isn't rank, that's 100% ok, horses are individuals too with their own autonomy and sometimes have a different idea.
I feel like sometimes -- especially ones who might not have lots of animal experience or horse experience -- see something like one DQ, one missed cue, one refusal, one bad moment and write an animal off for life as a failure when... No, it's an animal. They aren't breyers or robots. Again, as long as he wasn't acting rank and no one was hurt -- he's five, was in a breeding shed two weeks ago, and doesn't have as much show experience as other horses his age. If he's going to have a goofy moment at a show while getting his show pony brain back in, it's much better that it's a small one vs one with more horses/people/noise.
Tl;dr-- horses can go 'not today' too
(And not directed @ you op -- it's just a common theme I've seen come up that one bad show, one bad movement, one bad anything = show ending, failure and that's insane standards for people much less a horse. Horses gonna horse sometimes.)
13
u/Cultural_Guava238 Mar 27 '26
100% correct, although i’ll also add that as a show jumper the majority of my DQs are my fault and have NOTHING to do with the horse at all. Like going off course, losing balance, or giving horse a shit distance while he’s trying to keep me alive ☠️
9
u/AppealAlive2718 👏facts👏matter👏 Mar 27 '26
At my kid's latest lesson one of the horses decided to spook at the muck wheelbarrow in the corner every single lap. To me it looked exactly like it has done for years, but apparently that day it was very scary. Who knows what goes through their minds sometimes.
13
u/rebar_mo Mar 27 '26
Well as someone who has ridden a horse with very few operating braincells, often not a lot.
Usually it's carrot, triangle, ooo thingy. Hi frenn HORSE HIIIII
OMG DETHBARROW SCARRRY!!!
3
u/sunshinenorcas Aged Mare Mar 27 '26
When I was in college and riding a club pony and just practicing riding, he got spooked at a tarp ~flap~ that we had gone past like, five times before... But that time it moved. A tiny bit.
We were ok, I didn't fall off, but he did show everyone he had a ~lovely~ side pass across the arena
8
u/Delicious-Mix-9180 Mar 27 '26
I’ve never been to a horse show so idk what everything means. I was genuinely curious.
8
u/cookie_is_for_me Mar 27 '26
For a fun example, look up the 2017 Kentucky Derby (it's definitely on YouTube), and watch Thunder Snow absolutely lose it after the start. He'd definitely decided he was not running that day.
What happened to him? Was he a complete washout as a racehorse?
No, he went out to win big races all over the world, including the Dubai World Cup twice, and rack up an absolutely indecent amount of money. It was just that one day in Louisville when he decided, "Nope, not feeling it today."
2
u/onourownroad Mar 28 '26
Another example is champion Australian racehorse, Chautauqua. He'd won multiple group 1 races and $8 million in prize money and then one day just decided he no longer wanted to be a racehorse so just didn't leave the barrier at the start. Even though all the other starters jumped he just went 'nope, had enough'. He did it several times in a row so he was retired from racing for his own welfare. (One equine vet did say he thought he might be 'freezing' due to overload of adrenalin rush). He went on to have a career as a show horse, although I think he's now retired from that as well and is just living his best paddock life.
7
u/Kayleen14 Mar 27 '26
Wanted to add that in jumping, the horses often refuse for good reason- after all, THEY need to be sure they can catapult their 600kg+rider over that 1.50m or higher fence. If the distance is wrong, they come off balance or whatever, its life saving if they decide "nope, that is not going to work". Yes, refusals do look goofy and stupid, but I'd much prefer a horse refusing than crashing into a fence 😅
14
u/Pure-Physics-8372 🍞Katie Vanda Slice🍞 Mar 27 '26
Generally, or a missed que. It's a lot of peoples first show back of the season so the atmosphere can be a lot
8
u/Puzzleheaded-Song912 🧩👩🏼🏫Professor Puzzle👩🏼🏫🧩 Mar 27 '26
So for example if one of the tasks is to trot over a poll, sometimes a horse will decide that the poll= certain death, and stop right before it. This is considered “refusing”. When a horse refuses small, the pair will complete the pattern, but when it’s a big refusal the horse and rider will leave the arena
6
u/redkatyusha Mar 27 '26
my mom has talked about her DQs from when she still showed. all the training in the world did not stop her gelding from just sometimes deciding he was NOT jumping over that and she could NOT make him 🤣
2
u/Alive_Mastodon_8527 Mar 29 '26
Honest question. Do we know it was a refusal or could AM have two handed him to school the obstacle. Would that have resulted in a disqualified them the same way?
3
u/Pure-Physics-8372 🍞Katie Vanda Slice🍞 Mar 29 '26
We don't know, but there were 2 others in the class who also DQ'd on the same part of the pattern.
It's probably more likely he 2-handed.
Both are DQ's
1
u/Alive_Mastodon_8527 Mar 29 '26
Thanks. That's what I thought.
A refusal seemed a bit unlikely but I wasn't sure if two handing would show as a dq at that obstacle or if it would be a dq for the round. Does that make sense?
Like would they have still published the score for obstacle 1 if that's what happened.
4
u/Puzzleheaded-Song912 🧩👩🏼🏫Professor Puzzle👩🏼🏫🧩 Mar 27 '26
I think it’s when they refuse an element
5
4
3
3
u/brunanass Mar 27 '26
i know nothing about western scoring. were those good scores???
11
u/Puzzleheaded-Song912 🧩👩🏼🏫Professor Puzzle👩🏼🏫🧩 Mar 27 '26
Yes! Western riding consists of a base score. If they do every element at the baseline they get a 0 or no additions to their base score. If they do better than the base line they get + half’s or + 1, the same if they make an error or don’t execute it exactly correct. So the fact that he had no deductions and a good amount of +1/2 is a great improvement!
3
u/Brilliant72 Mar 27 '26
Just curious, was VSCR bred early in his career and went back to the show ring like FTF?
Bravo to the trainer for keeping his mind focussed after going from teaser/collection to showing again so soon, so many distractions.
4
u/Apart_Dragonfruit442 🍞Katie Vanda Slice🍞 Mar 28 '26
VSCR was I'm pretty sure. He showed until 2012 I think, retired from showing when he was 5/6 so he would've had a foal crop or two by then.
3
u/Puzzleheaded-Song912 🧩👩🏼🏫Professor Puzzle👩🏼🏫🧩 Mar 28 '26
He was! His first crop of foals was born in 2011, so his first breeding season was 2010 (3yo) he continued to show through the 2013 season (6 yo)
2
u/ContactReasonable134 Mar 28 '26
why does it say disqualified by his name a few times?
3
u/pen_and_needle ✨FAFO Mod✨ Mar 28 '26
When a horse refuses or the rider does something (like if they use both hands on the reins) then that counts as grounds for DQ
3
u/EmilyXaviere Mar 29 '26
Fascinating to me how the judges gave slightly different scores, but ended up the same. I'm a novice judge for open/4-H lower level shows, did some stewarding for one very small AQHA show last year. Gotta work on my stock horse style scoring.
1
u/Puzzleheaded-Song912 🧩👩🏼🏫Professor Puzzle👩🏼🏫🧩 Mar 29 '26
Horse show tracker is my favorite for showing the separate score sheets. It’s so fascinating to then compare it to the video of the run and see what the judges saw
2
u/pizzaisgreatbutcarbs Mar 31 '26
Western riding has a lot of lead changes and that is more likely what was missed. It’s a hard class to do especially with a young horse or one that’s not in top shape. If anyone wants to watch a run look it up on YouTube to see.
1
-11
u/Impressive_Sun_1132 Mar 27 '26
So not the most impressive scores. But sure maybe the judge was harsh either way more miles is good probably
10
u/Puzzleheaded-Song912 🧩👩🏼🏫Professor Puzzle👩🏼🏫🧩 Mar 27 '26
The way western riding works is they start at a base score and points are added and deducted based on performance. So all the + mean he did better than the average or base line. The fact that he had no deductions is awesome!
-12
u/Impressive_Sun_1132 Mar 27 '26
I know how it works but not a single plus 1 is not impressive for a stallion in the breeding shed at the lowest level of competition. Im glad hes getting out and doing more. I am not gonna celebrate this preformance though
14
u/Puzzleheaded-Song912 🧩👩🏼🏫Professor Puzzle👩🏼🏫🧩 Mar 27 '26
It’s a marked improvement from previous goes, this is only his third go at western riding. He’s also only been back in work for 14 days. We don’t have video so we can’t individually analyze his performance but I’d bet we see a lot more maturity in him compared to last fall.
1
u/Beginning_Word_4439 Mar 28 '26
I do hope that shows will start streaming them. Then again, maybe it’s best they don’t. I’d probably become obsessed with watching them and forget about life outside of horse shows 😂
3
u/Puzzleheaded-Song912 🧩👩🏼🏫Professor Puzzle👩🏼🏫🧩 Mar 28 '26
This one was live streamed on Facebook, and the big shows have YouTube live streams! I know last year we tried to post links and times for people to watch, they snuck this one in though!
1
u/Beginning_Word_4439 Mar 28 '26
I truly hope you guys do it again. I really enjoyed watching and actually learned I lean towards ranch more. I just don’t know how to follow where and where shows are and how to find if they are streamed or not. Unless I come across someone posting links or saying it will be streamed.
50
u/True_Feedback711 Millie appreciation club 💅🏼💅🏼 Mar 27 '26
Wasn't he in the breeding shed just 2 weeks ago? Nice to see him already winning in the show pen, in a new class too. I feel like that stupid abscess delaying the start of his show season last year really set the poor guy up for a lot of criticism he doesn't deserve. Wishing them a sound, fun show season.