Transcript:

[0:04]

[Music] If you listen to the How Horses See the World podcast, you can put yourself in their hooves, right? So imagine it's December 2017 and you're the horse about to enter the arena. This is a different event. You're looking down the alleyway out into the arena — you're itching to go, you're prancing on your forehooves, your rider's holding you back, holding you back. You've done this over and over again, but your forward binocular vision is looking out into the bright light, and at the very end of that arena ahead of you is a barrel. Your rider's legs tighten, and she lets loose on the reins. You explode in the soft dirt, passing through the dark passageway into the bright lights, and you hear the roar of thousands of people. But you're focused — your rider almost doesn't even have to guide you. You know where you're going — your four feet galloping as fast as they go, exploding towards the first barrel that's coming up on your right.

[1:32]

You ignore the sounds of the crowd, you ignore the smells of the musky soil. As you lean into that turn, you can feel the back of your mouth pulling, but you don't need her to tell you where to go — you know what you're doing. As you finish your circle, you explode down another 70 feet to the second barrel. This time you're going to pass on your left, and you lean in hard again, running as fast as you can, slowing down at the barrel, making that tight turn, then exploding back down another 90 feet to go up to this third barrel that you attack. It's off to your left — you lean in again on the turn. You're almost there; you can feel it. As you round it, you can see the dark passageway, and you know that's where you have to go. You can't even feel your rider urging you on — you know, and you just explode down the arena and scream through that dark passageway, and then the sudden stop of slowing down after going so fast. You feel your rider sit back and turn and listen, and the garbled message comes across the loudspeaker. You don't know what was said, but the excitement with her on your back as she pats your neck and tells you, "Good job." You weren't aware, but you just set a new world record.

[3:19]

[Music] 13.47. Loved them really since I was a little girl. Everybody's in line… and they're off! Secretariat away very well, has good position… The love — I never thought owning a horse could mean so much to me. Secretariat now taking the lead. The madness — what kind of a horse is that? I've never seen a horse like that before. Lightning now… he is moving like a tremendous machine. Their story — Mustangs were more involved in the early development of this breed than I thought they were. Secretariat has opened the 22-length lead. He is going to be the Triple Crown winner. Welcome to Mad About…

[4:11]

[Music] Horses. My name is Dr. Chris Mortons, and for over 20 years I've been, and continue to be, an equine science researcher and educator. In today's Mad About Horses podcast, we're going to talk about performance breeds — what makes them tick, and what conformation or qualities do you look for in those specific disciplines. Now, I opened with a world record-setting Quarter Horse mare named Sis. She was ridden by Hailey Kinsel, who is actually one of the top barrel racers in the world. She's a fantastic rider, she's a fellow Texas A&M Aggie, and she's earned over $1.5 million in winnings in her barrel racing career so far — and she continues to compete at the top levels.

[5:11]

I started with her because Sis, I think, epitomizes what makes horses so incredible and athletic. When I think of barrel racing, and I think of what is asked of these horses — to explode like that and go, and then slow down enough to make a tight, tight circle, and do that three times, and then explode back down into a dark alleyway — where we know they can't quite see well in those shadows — but they do this, and they do it so well. And to set a world record at just under 13 and a half seconds — that's how fast they are, that's how quick they are going through it. So I thought that would be a good start in this podcast to talk about the athleticism.

[6:07]

Now, there's other champions in other disciplines. Valegro is considered one of the top greatest dressage horses of all time. He was a gelding, a Dutch Warmblood. So when we get to dressage, we'll talk about the different breeds and what they're looking for in that sport. And that's, you know, again — dancing of the stars for horses. Dressage is an incredible discipline that really requires a different type of horse. Then we switch to show jumping, which is one of the most popular English disciplines on the planet. And Stroller — I mentioned Stroller in a previous podcast — this was the only pony, standing 14.1 hands, to win gold at the Olympics, and he was a Thoroughbred and Connemara Pony cross. There's also a very famous show jumping horse named Snowman that was actually destined for slaughter in the 1950s — it was a great horse. So, not any particular breed, but went on to become one of the best jumpers in the world. And then there's Sapphire, who is a world champion show jumping mare — she's a Belgian Warmblood. She's won over 4 million U.S. dollars in her career — that's enough to rival Zenyatta, who was over, you know, 7 million winning some of the biggest Thoroughbred races in the world. That just shows you how competitive and lucrative show jumping can be at the top, top levels.

[7:40]

And then, you know, we go into one of our top reining horses of all time — Patriot, a Quarter Horse stallion — lifetime earnings of $840,000. There are champions in all these different disciplines, but all these different breeds. And that's kind of the gist of what we're going to talk about this week, because when you're talking dressage, show jumping, barrel racing, endurance riding, polo, Thoroughbred racing, Quarter Horse racing, eventing — all of these different sports have different types of breeds and different types of body conformation and characteristics that make them good at what they do to become the top, top competitors.

[8:33]

I mean, we've talked about all the different races — the Kentucky Derby, Preakness, Breeders' Cup, all of that; the Royal Windsor Horse Show — that is one of the UK's largest and most prestigious equestrian events; show jumping, carriage driving, more. I mean, the Grand Prix, you have the Rolex Grand Slam of Show Jumping. Then we talk about the National Finals Rodeo, reining, cutting competitions, and then the Olympic Games. Obviously, some of the top equestrian athletes compete there, and that kind of shows you all those different types of events and competitions are some of the reasons we have so many different breeds — and still breeds being developed today. Some of the breeds I'm going to talk about in this podcast have just recently, in the last 50 years or less, been established because of some of the crossbreeding going on and then becoming their own breed.

[9:35]

Now, in a lot of our podcasts, we've talked about different things — Western disciplines, English disciplines. I haven't really defined that, and in today's podcast we're going to start with the Western disciplines. And there is crossover — so if you're a show jumper or a dressage rider or an eventer or a polo player — we're going to talk about polo today, actually — but there is crossover as far as what makes certain horses athletic in certain disciplines. You may go, "Huh, you know, that is something I can put in my hat," and that's a little bit of knowledge that you may be able to leverage in your own disciplines. So definitely worthwhile to stick with this podcast, and then stay tuned for the second half of this as we go to distinguish between a Western or English discipline.

[10:31]

Yes, the breeds kind of do gravitate towards one of those disciplines, but there is crossover. Thoroughbreds cross over all the time, Arabians can cross over all the time. So some of these breeds do both, but a lot of times it just comes down to the equipment and the tack that we use to ride these horses. And the most obvious is the Western saddle versus the English saddle. The Western saddle — that was my preference, that’s what I grew up riding until I was able to ride some English saddles — but they’re much larger, they have attachments, it has the horn in the front. And the whole idea was this saddle was designed to be more comfortable so the rider could sit in it all day, because you’re — think of ranching work — you’re out working cattle, so you’re on the back of your horse for most of the day. So you wanted a saddle that was more comfortable just to sit in. That’s why we have that deep seat that I talked about in the previous podcast, but also a horn so if you lasso a cow you can tie it to the horn, and we see that in calf roping as a rodeo event.

[11:40]

So that is kind of the difference there, where the English saddle is much lighter and doesn’t have the horn. Disciplines in Western riding — we talked about it with barrel racing — but that’s the reining, the cutting, the roping. And typically you see breeds like the American Quarter Horse — that’s the prototypical Western horse — but then you have Paints, Appaloosas, and more that we’re going to talk about. So the English disciplines — again, the saddle is smaller, lighter, and that’s more ideal for show jumping or eventing or dressage, and even polo. English saddles also tend to give you a little bit more of an intimate ride with the horse; you can feel them a little bit better. So in these disciplines, a Western saddle just wouldn’t work — it just would not work, it’s too much. Where in an English saddle, the rider and horse connection is probably a little bit tighter compared to a Western saddle. And the breeds that we’re going to be talking about in these disciplines obviously are the Warmbloods — those are the big ones — the Thoroughbreds, Hanoverians, and more. We’re going to kind of talk about Warmbloods in the next podcast, break that down a little bit more, what that means. Those horses are being bred specifically for these events, so that’s why their characteristics probably wouldn’t transfer over very well into some of the Western disciplines.

[13:04]

Now, when we go look at barrel racing — think about it, and that’s why I tried to describe in the beginning what it’s like for that horse and what we’re asking that horse to do. We’re asking that horse to go full bore, top speed, slow down and make a super tight turn, explode again, sprint down to the next barrel, slow down, make that turn, explode again going 90 feet down the arena, slow down at top speed, make that final turn, and then explode back down. And it depends on where you’re at — and what I described was the National Finals Rodeo that’s held every year in Vegas — and you’re in this big arena and you’re going into this tunnel. Now, the tunnel, if you look at the videos and stuff, is brightly lit so the horse can see down it, but there are still some dark spots. That horse has a lot of trust in the rider because they’re going full speed into that narrow space, and then they’ve got to slow down enough to stop safely without hurting themselves. So talk about incredible athleticism.

[14:22]

And looking at the top competitors in barrel racing — again, you’re starting with the American Quarter Horse. And you go back to talking about breeds, and then we talked about what makes them athletic. Quarter Horses have been developed to have that sprinter speed, right? We talked about stride frequency or stride rate, and then stride length — how does that all fit in? Well, Quarter Horses have been bred for so long to be quick. And if you think about it, not just, “Oh, let’s have a race through the middle of town,” but out on the prairie where you’re herding cows — cows are pretty quick, they’re pretty fast, and you need a horse that doesn’t just kind of canter down like, “Oh, okay, there goes a calf running away, we’re just going to kind of trot over there.” I mean, they do trot, but then if they need to move quick, they explode and they get down there. They’re quick on their feet, they’re very agile on their feet, to where — like, you know, we’re going to talk about cutting competitions here in a second — so that’s where the horse was bred and selected for. So when we transfer that into barrel racing, they’ve got that explosive speed, boom, they go, they go quick, and then they’re able to cut on a dime, make tight turns, because again, if you’re working cows or cattle and you’ve got to be agile, and then they explode again, slow down, explode again, and then all the way home.

[16:12]

So if you really think about it from the horse’s perspective, you’re asking a lot of them. And that’s why Quarter Horses do it well. Paint Horses — again, another Western horse. These are cow stock horses; these are the ones with the paint patterns — the pinto spotting on horses that you see — so the dark and white, like you’ve got overos and tobianos and different types of color patterns. Beautiful horses — again, that explosive ability and cow sense and agility. The other one is the Appaloosa — one of my favorites. I love Appaloosas — just the colorful spotted patterns of an Appy. When you see an Appaloosa and you get to work with them, they’re just beautiful horses. I love their history — they were developed by the Nez Perce Indians up in modern-day Idaho, and these were horses that they bred and selected. And it’s a very popular breed in the United States and around the world. You see Appaloosas — again, another one of those cow horses that do well in barrel racing. So really your top three — American Quarter Horse, Paint Horses, and Appaloosas. Doesn’t mean there’s not other breeds — you do have some other types of breeds that do barrel racing and do it well, and one of those is the Thoroughbred.

[17:35]

Our Thoroughbred is a multifaceted, multi-utility horse that does so much for us. I just — oh, it’s just, I don’t know, one of my personal favorite breeds. I love my Quarter Horses, but Thoroughbreds you just have to appreciate — their athletic ability, their ability to go over in the English disciplines and compete at some of the top levels, then come over to the Western disciplines and compete at some of the top levels. About 20 years ago, looking at the top 50 barrel racing racers, three were actually Thoroughbreds, and so they were producing some barrel racing horses. Now some of that might have been crosses — and we’re going to talk about this more in a minute — is Appendix Quarter Horses. So you would breed a Thoroughbred sire with a Quarter Horse mare and produce some Appendix horses. You know, you see that with Quarter Horse racing and others. But Thoroughbreds do have some of the conformational traits that are ideal for a sport like barrel racing. They have balanced necks, sloping shoulders, powerful hindquarters — that’s very important for that explosive speed — and a compact, athletic frame.

[18:59]

I’ve worked at the racetrack, I’ve seen really tall and lanky Thoroughbreds, I’ve seen really compact Thoroughbreds. When I used to bet a few dollars on a race, I’d go, “Oh, that one looks very tall and athletic — I’m going to bet on that one.” The short, stocky one wins, and I just… oh, you know, I could tell stories about betting on horses. I only bet like $5, and then it’s fun when you win 20 bucks — you’re like, “Woohoo!” Especially when you were a poor college student. But it’s sometimes hard to select them just looking at their size. And Thoroughbreds come in different shapes and sizes.

[19:35]

Conformation is another two podcasts to really go through it thoroughly, but just to give some insight — when I say “sloping shoulder,” those are one of the conformational traits that we look for in, say, a barrel racing horse. You want more of a sloping shoulder — it helps them with their speed and agility. Now, you sometimes see two different things — you see shoulder slope and shoulder angle. They are different. The shoulder slope is referencing the slope at which the scapula — which is the shoulder blade — sits in direct relation to the horizon, or the ground.

[20:29]

To measure the shoulder slope, it’s from the highest point of the withers — which is the top of the shoulders of the horse — if you don’t know what the withers are, you have the horse’s mane and then they have like this little bump, it’s like a camel hump — we call that the withers. The top of that, you go to the point of the shoulder, which is kind of near their chest — it’s the front part of the horse — and it makes an angle down. That’s the shoulder slope. Ranges are 40 to 60 degrees — I’ve seen some different data. So again, when we talk about conformation more in depth, we can talk about the differences for that.

[21:13]

Just to give you some differences: a slope of 45 degrees — so again, this is the withers to the point of the shoulder — is considered laid back, and that’s ideal for gaited horses. A more sloping 55 degrees — they call it straight or upright — that is more useful in jumping so horses can have an easier time of getting up and over jumps. So there are two different insights into what we’re going to talk more about in the English disciplines.

[21:39]

The shoulder angle is different — this is where you’re going to add a second line. You take the withers to the point of the shoulder — that’s down angle — and then you’re going to take a second measurement from that point of the shoulder to the point of the elbow, which is more towards the upper part of the horse’s arm, not the knee, which is down; it’s up near, closer to the body. And I think the important point is — shoulder slope and shoulder angle are two different things. But when you create that shoulder angle, the idea is the greater the angle, the longer the stride length. And different disciplines are going to be looking at that and going, “Okay, which angle is more correct for the specific discipline for that horse?”

[22:37]

Other things — other factors looking at the horse: obviously a good barrel racing horse has to have that sudden acceleration, so they should be very muscular — which you tend to see in Quarter Horses. They really have those powerful hindquarters, like I said. Good agility, good coordination, really keen mind — I think that goes for almost any discipline, but being able to train them is key. And then also looking at their legs — you want shorter cannon bones, you want a longer underline but a shorter topline, and you want their hocks to be set a little bit lower. You don’t want that massive — think of a very long, tall Thoroughbred — you want hocks that are lower because they have to be able to stop and turn as quickly as they do.

[23:30]

Now, barrel racers — there was actually a very interesting article I read by Dr. Joe Strickland that was published 20 years ago, but it was at the proceedings of the AAEP, so this is an equine practitioners meeting — talking about barrel racing. And the lifespan of these horses is only about five years in active competition. Again, we talk about Thoroughbred racehorses, show jumpers — the ages at which they compete — but barrel racing horses, really their careers span about five years. And they think it might be due to “trailer kill,” meaning they think it’s these horses spend so much time in the trailers going from show to show to show, rodeo to rodeo to rodeo, that horses spend more time in the trailer than they almost do in their stalls. And so the constant trailering — getting out, warming up, competing, getting back in the trailer, going off to the next rodeo — so on and so forth — it tends to shorten their careers because that pounding as an athlete takes its toll.

[24:48]

And it’s like any sport in human performance — their careers are not going to be 10–20 years; it’s rare. Now, the riders — totally different story. You have riders competing into their late 60s in barrel racing. The actual oldest world champion is Mary Burger — she was 68 years old when she won in 2016. The youngest world champion — talk about going the opposite direction — Ann Lewis was 10 years old in 1968, and she was a world champion barrel racer. But Mary Burger — that’s another one — she just had a storied career. Incredible, incredible athletes and riders with these horses.

[25:35]

One of the things with barrel racing is you want to avoid horses with short necks because that lessens their ability to make those tight turns. It’s indicative that a longer-necked horse is going to have greater agility versus a shorter-necked horse. Now that’s for barrel racing — obviously it might be a little bit different in other disciplines. And this leads me to my next point for all horses — and then I’m going to jump into some of the other Western disciplines — is pre-purchase exams and why they’re important.

[26:09]

Another paper produced from the AAEP meeting — but this was recent, just about 10 years ago — “Purchase Examination of the Western Performance Horse.” Pre-purchase exams are important for anybody buying a horse because you want to identify any medical fault or problems. I mean, a lot of these horses are worth quite a bit of money; they’re a huge investment. And you want to be able to make sure there is nothing wrong with the animal that can result in very expensive medical bills. But then, if you’re looking to compete, you need to know — is this horse sound? Is this horse free from pain? Can this horse do the job I’m going to ask of it?

[27:01]

Now, when you do a pre-purchase exam in the Western disciplines, they’re all going to look similar — whether they’re a barrel racer, cutting horse, reining horse. Obviously they have different conformation for the different disciplines, but when you look at a pre-purchase exam, the veterinarian is going to look at all of these different things — let’s just say the hocks of the horse are sound, and they’re going to be able to withstand the things that you’re going to be asking of them.

[27:32]

Just looking at some of the other breeds in Western disciplines — so we’re looking at reining, cutting horses, Western Pleasure. Differences obviously in the three different sports: reining is the one where really the whole idea is the horse is coming out and displaying their athleticism by doing these patterns that mimic working cattle on a ranch. Again, these are Western horses — cow work. But generally the patterns can be doing circles, whether they be big circles, small circles; they go faster, they go slow. They also do things like rollbacks, lead changes, then the sliding stop — that’s pretty iconic of reining horses.

[28:14]

Now, it doesn’t take much to guess what type of horse — Quarter Horse obviously dominates in reining. The Paints are also very, very popular in reining, but again, any breed can compete, so you do see Appaloosas, you do see Arabians. One of the ones that surprised me is Tennessee Walking Horses. So this is one of our gaited horses — I still owe them their own podcast, which is going to come soon — but known for their athleticism, and actually, you know, a warm-blooded horse. They actually do really well in reining because they can do quick turns and stops, so they are agile.

[29:01]

This is a breed that dates back to the 18th century in Tennessee in the eastern United States, where they bred the Canadian Pacers — which is a breed that’s now extinct — and the Narragansett Pacers — so two types of pacing horses that they bred to create the breed. And they also mixed in some Spanish Mustangs from Texas, so maybe that’s where they get some of their reining prowess. And the Tennessee Walking Horse Breeders’ Association was formed just a little less than 100 years ago, in 1935.

[29:28]

Then there’s another horse that you sometimes see in reining, and that’s the Morgan. Again, another horse known for their versatility, athleticism — very quick and agile. I always love talking about the Morgan horse because they trace back to a single sire — a stallion named Figure, who was born in West Springfield, Massachusetts in 1789. He was given to a man named Justin Morgan as a debt payment, and he went on to breed that sire and create the Morgan horse breed.

[30:12]

So you do see those in reining horses, and then every now and then you see a Warmblood, an Andalusian — I’ve said these horses sometimes cross over — that you would see in certain disciplines, and they come out of nowhere and they’re competing. How are reining horses different from barrel racing horses? I mean, barrel racing horses — just boom, gone, explosive. Again, reining horses do have to be quick, but more of a level-headed horse — maybe not as excitable, but willing to learn. Well-muscled, obviously, but again that balance is very important to them. So one-third/one-third/one-third — you want to make sure that there’s balance and similar angles with, say, the slope of the shoulder. We also do slope of the hip and slope of the pasterns. The pasterns — again, from the hoof up to the fetlock joint — that’s the part of the leg that slopes up; you want that about 45 degrees like the shoulder.

[31:11]

One of the things with reining horses is a lower neck carriage. And what do I mean by that? When I described Arabians — going back to the breeds podcast — Arabians are known for having this high head carriage. They carry their heads up high, almost like they’re telescoping all the time — think of a horse always alert, their heads up high, always looking around, right? That’s hot-blooded. Arabians are known for it. Your reining horses — you want them to carry their head low, so usually at the height of the withers or just a little bit lower. So when they’re in the arena competing, you’ll notice with reiners that their heads are just down low on the ground — their heads are carried low compared to, say, a gaited horse. If you’ve ever seen a gaited horse come by, their heads are really up high to be able to perform those special ambling gaits that they do.

[32:13]

Also, one aspect we haven’t talked about is the hocks — and those are on the hind legs of the horse. Good reining horses — those hocks are slightly pushed in, and it’s like we call it “cow hocks.” When you look at a cow from behind, their two hocks kind of push in towards each other. So with the reiner, you want that a little bit — not too much, because then it becomes a conformational fault that can lead to injury — but it is one of those things they look for that helps them do those long slides. Because if you watch reining horses sprint down the arena and they do the slides and the dirt’s spitting up everywhere — those iconic photos — those horses that tend to have a little bit more cow hocks on them are the ones that can do that better.

[33:04]

Now, going to cutting horses — cutting is like a competition, almost like a barrel race with live cows and live horses with riders. In general, in a cutting competition, the horse and riders have about two and a half minutes to work a couple of cows, maybe up to three, and try to prevent them from returning to the herd. They are judged — so this is a judging competition — whereas, say, barrel racing is a timed event, reining is a judged competition where judges are evaluating the horse and rider. Cutting is so fun to watch because cows are very gregarious — they want to be with their herd. Back on the range, or even in today’s modern ranching, sometimes you need to cut a cow out — meaning you go and the horse maneuvers the animal away from the herd so they can rope it to give it any medication it might need or any other type of management that they’re doing.

[34:12]

But from the horse’s perspective — watching the horse and their minds — this is where that cow sense comes in, where these horses have to be incredibly intelligent and able to read the cow. The horse is almost doing all the work — anticipating. Obviously the rider is too, but that horse has to be able to be super quick, super agile, go side to side, and prevent that cow from returning to the herd. And that’s what they’re being evaluated on in cutting horse competitions.

[34:53]

Now, when we look at certain breeds — we go back to our Quarter Horses, Paint Horses, Appaloosas. Cutting horse competitions are very popular around the world. You have the National Cutting Horse Association in Australia; here in New Zealand we have the New Zealand Cutting Horse Association Incorporated. You see this all around the world — in South America, obviously United States, Canada, Mexico, and in Europe. One of the different breeds is the Australian Stock Horse — it’s a very popular horse down in this side of the world for cutting horse competitions.

[35:25]

When you look at the physical characteristics of a cutting horse — very similar to reining horses, even some crossover with barrel racing horses, where they have that athletic ability. All the physical characteristics are going to be very similar. Cutting horses need a low center of gravity — meaning they can go back and forth really quick. Again, very muscular, powerful hindquarters, and those shorter backs that you see with Quarter Horses — or you’re looking for in a Quarter Horse — help them with that springy side-to-side movement. If they’re too long-backed, they’re going to have difficulty being that quick and agile.

[36:04]

Now, there are other Western disciplines — don’t have time to go through them all. Like I said, Western Pleasure, but then you have your roping or rodeo competitions, mounted shooting — I know I talked about mounted archery, but mounted shooting is a thing. They have a lot of competitions doing that. Pole bending — and the breeds are going to be very similar: your Quarter Horse, Paint, Appaloosa, your Thoroughbreds, Arabians, Morgans — but more so those all kind of capture the Western disciplines.

[36:43]

Now, to start the crossover to our English-type riding, I felt this fit here — polo. It’s one of those sports that is different — there are different types of horses for polo, but similar to, I would say, barrel racing because riding a polo horse — gosh, they’ve got to cut on a dime. And you better have a good seat because I fell a couple of times, especially early on riding polo horses. When they cut to chase that ball, the horse went right, I felt like I was going to go left — luckily I hung on. But they are very athletic, very agile, so there is some crossover there. But they do ride English saddles — so that’s where I really learned to ride well. I didn’t have that horn or that deep seat that was kind of my crutch in my early days of riding. But that English saddle, riding a polo horse, taught me a lot about my own ability to ride and how to relax and trust the horse.

[37:48]

So in the history of equitation sport, I do talk a little bit about polo. Very ancient sport, played all around the world for over 2,000 years. And again, the primary objective of a polo match is to score goals by hitting the small ball with a mallet through the opposing team’s goal posts. Each team consists of four players, generally, and the game is played in a period called chukkas, or “chukkers,” depending on where you are. There’s up to six chukkas in a match. And again, each player has a mallet — which is a long wooden stick with a head at the end — and that’s how we strike the ball. You come up and around and hit it.

[38:43]

Polo’s played on a large field, and players do ride certain horses throughout the match, but usually between chukkas you will switch horses because it is so intense. The horse is just back and forth, back and forth, over seven minutes — so you can imagine the horses do get tired. So you will have a string of polo ponies — you hear that all the time. Some of the top riders have an incredible string of horses — these are… it’s hard to describe, they’re amazing. And again, like I said, in Argentina, the United States, throughout the world — India, Europe — polo is an incredibly popular sport.

[39:25]

Now, the horses have to be quick, very agile — like I said, turning on a dime — and then they need the stamina to be able to do this over seven minutes. Now, if you look at the specific breeds in polo horses, Thoroughbreds are highly popular. They have the speed, they have the stamina, they’re highly intelligent so they can learn quickly. The mare I rode, Sunday Special — she was just something else. She was aggressive and she wanted to compete. Anytime we were chasing the ball, she would push other horses off and the geldings didn’t stand a chance. That’s why mares are just… just have that drive and that competition, and just taking that bit in her mouth and going, “Let’s go, let’s go score.” It’s just something special about these horses.

[40:27]

Another very popular horse breed is the Argentinian polo pony. It’s now a recognized breed and has been for close to 40 years. Now, they call them Argentinian polo ponies, but again “pony” is kind of a catch-all term — it doesn’t mean all of them are 14.2 or shorter. The average height of this breed is 61 inches, or 15.1 hands, but they still call them polo ponies. This is a cross between the Thoroughbred and the Argentinian Criollo horse, which weren’t as athletic but were very, very hardy.

[40:59]

Very interesting history in the Criollo horses — they’re very popular in South America, dating back all the way to 1535 when hundreds of purebred Spanish Andalusian stallions came over from Spain. In 1540, the Spanish still weren’t established in South America, so they let these — up to 45 horses — go, and they developed into these feral horses called Criollos. These horses are extremely hardy — heat, cold, whatever — they’re just incredible horses with incredible history. So they are part of this Argentinian polo horse breed, and now they have a horse that has great endurance, very agile, and can recover quickly.

[41:43]

The other ones I wanted to talk about were the Appendix Quarter Horses. You see some of those playing polo — so again, half Quarter Horse, half Thoroughbred. They are really good horses because you can see where the Quarter Horse might not have that endurance that a Thoroughbred has — with the barrel racing horses or that quick cow work — they really weren’t bred or selected to run long, long distances. I mean, they can if they have to, but compared to a Thoroughbred? So when you cross them, you get some of that endurance and you get some of that lankiness that you see in Thoroughbreds.

[42:26]

One of the breeds that I wanted to talk about is the Manipuri Pony. This is from India — this breed dates back to the 1500s. They think it might have been a cross between an Arabian and a Mongolian horse, and this is one of the original polo horses. It’s one of the most prestigious horses in that part of India. They were cavalry horses but later became a very popular breed for polo. And remember, in the 1800s when the British Empire was in India, in Kolkata and other parts, polo was a big sport that they played. But India was playing polo way before the British showed up — they’d been playing it for a long time. The Manipuri Pony breed is actually endangered — less than 2,000, maybe as low as 1,000 of these horses are left — so they are highly prized in that part of the world, but again another great polo horse.

[43:24]

Generally, polo ponies are pony-sized — 14.2 up to 15.2. You don’t really want tall, tall horses in polo because, you know, imagine you’re swinging that mallet, and if you have a long mallet, it’s very difficult. So you want to be a little bit closer to the ground, so they tend not to be too big. Older polo horses are more preferred because they’re more intelligent, they’ve had more experience — and that means if you’re starting off in the sport, you probably want to go with an older horse. Like I said, the mare I was riding — she was so intelligent. She knew polo. When she saw the ball, she sprinted off, and she edged — because I was riding against my friends and we had a couple of geldings in there — she would always push them off, just like, “Stay away.” Oh, she was something else. It was a fun experience.

[44:21]

But again, polo horses — speed, stamina, that quickness, that quick agility — very similar to our Western horses. So there is some crossover, right? They have that aggressive confidence, they want to compete. But just to tie all this up — what makes a horse a champion? When I go back to DM Heyday or Sis and thinking of her hooves, and I watch the video and I see her prancing and she’s just ready to go, she’s excited, she knows — and she explodes down that alleyway out into the bright lights of the arena, thousands of people at the rodeo finals. How did she do it? Not only is she an incredible athlete and you have an incredible rider on top of her — no doubt, I mean, it takes a good rider, and hats off to all of you that ride and compete with horses — you are a major reason for their success too. But this horse had something that others didn’t — not only desire for her to complete her pattern to the best of her ability, but it’s her heart. That’s something you can’t train in a horse — they either have it or they don’t.

[45:42]

[Music] That was an interesting podcast to research, and I actually had to take some extra time on that one because looking at all these different disciplines and what makes a champion a champion — there are so many factors, but breeds are a big one. So that’s the big takeaway. Then, looking at conformation — some of these differences — and again, that’s a whole three or four hours we could spend just talking about feet, and then the shoulders, and then the muscles, and the back, and the head, and all of that. So we will definitely continue on the story there, and in the next podcast we’re going to jump into the English disciplines — what breeds, what are some of the conformational traits or some of the other characteristics of their champions.

[46:31]

If you haven’t yet, if you don’t mind subscribing — whatever podcasting app you’re catching this on, or go to Spotify and subscribe there. If you’re listening to this point, thank you from the bottom of my heart. If you don’t mind giving back just a little bit and going in and — on either Spotify or iTunes, if you haven’t clicked on five stars — do you mind doing that real quick? It means the world to me. It’s going to help circulate this podcast. And the other big ask is if you could share this on your social media or to your friends, wherever you ride or whoever you ride with — say, “Hey, I’m really enjoying this podcast, check it out.”

[47:18]

Mad About Horses — week in, week out, we’re going to be talking about the horse, everything about it, and there are so many different things we need to talk about, and we’re going to get there and develop this live library of free knowledge that we want to do here at Mad Barn. You know, it’s not just the podcast — it’s our social media out there, so you can follow us at Mad Barn on Facebook, TikTok, Instagram — keep apprised of all the things going on there. And then you can always go to the website, madbarn.com — under the “Learn” tab — videos, all the articles, the hundreds of articles on all the breeds and gaits and physical characteristics of horses, diet, reproduction — you name it, it’s in there, and we’re going to keep building that database.

[48:04]

And then finally, if you have any comments or any episodes you want to see on the podcast or see an article about or learn more about, please email me — podcast@madbarn.com. Thank you for listening. Stay tuned — this discussion is going to continue in a few days. Another great podcast coming your way. Take care.