I do have to agree with Riverdance that there is no such thing as an "easy" top ten in either association, and all wins are something to take pride in. As far as not taking a world or national title in youth seriously, that is ludicrous, think about it, that is a horse with the talent and disposition to take a child to the top, in big horses that is the highest dollar critter you can produce! There is a reason they offer all these classes, color, performance, youth and halter. These are all very important components when it comes to buying or selling a horse, it IS up to the buyer to know enough to buy the individual that meet their needs and criteria. If there is one area that I disregard above all others ( and this is just from observing both associations) it would be the open classes. If there is any politics out there, those are the classes you will find it in, not youth, not amateur. At the Nationals this year, there were some beautiful individuals in amateur that were not shown in open! Hmmm, where did they go? If I had to guess I'd say it's because the owner didn't make it to a "flavor of the Year" with their checkbook in time. Now I'm sure this will get a few folks going, but let me finish. I do concede that the flavor of the year folks for the most part do lead in outstanding individuals, but it's when they lead in mediocre or uhg and still take the top spot, that you start to get the impression that maybe it really doesn't matter WHAT they lead in. This has nothing really to do with this thread, but just responding with unsolicited two cents!
Unfortunatly politics comes to play in all of the open classes, and I will have to agree with icspots that the top open halter places go to the "flavor of the year", and so therefore do not mean as much to me. Nor did the Best of Breed or Best in Show in the dog show world mean much to me as it usuallly went to the people who had the most money and could buy the "flavor of the month" trainer. Don't get me wrong, they were still nice animals, but perhaps not as nice as some that did not win.
I too have seen some pretty mediocre horses lead in that have won or placed pretty high. There where a couple in 2007 year in AMHA with such obvious cow hocks, yet they placed in the top 5? A whole buch of people were sitting ring side and if you could have heard the comments about those horses. This happens in both AMHA and AMHR. When judges start looking at the horses and less at who handles them, then--- but that is something that will never happen.
So, many people who show their own horses tend to show in AOTE and Amateur only. Or venture into open classes like color, obstaclel or jumping where they may have a chance to win something. But with any open class, there are trainers, and trainers win. So winning an open color class where conformation matters, it is a big deal. This past year with AMHA, there where 20 horses in the class with 11 trainers. One of the trainers was the one who won top horse last year. For the most part, pretty horses with beautiful conformation. Winning that class was special.
Still you will find some things not quite so fair. Like the person who buys an AMHA World Champion Single Pleasure horse, then shows it the next year as an AOTE horse, same goes for the halter horses. Or the Amateur who has their own trainer working on their farm conditioning and training their horse, or any professionally trained horse being shown Amateur. Often I Would see trainers stand by ring side with the horse and catch the judges eyes, making sure the judges saw that that horse was professionaly trained by that trainer, as soon as the trainer caught the judges eyes, he would make a point of handing the horse off to the amateur. Is that fair?
Anyway, there are thousands of AMHA and AMHR Miniautre Horses being shown every year, to be placed in the to 10 in either show in any class, IS A BIG DEAL!! That means the judges consider your horse to be one of the top 10 horses in the Wolrd in that class.
Boy did we get off the subject of tiny horses.....
