Variety Please!

[lantairvlea]

So I decided to try and see what type of variety the lovely, hot state of Arizona has as far as horses. I have sadly been proven pretty much right in my assumptions and mourn the fact that there is not a wide variety of horses in the state and think it would be really cool to live in a place where there was a large variety of breeds to see and

Comments

[onehorsefarms]

I live in Western Oregon and our horse demographics are the same as yours, which SUCKS because for the pathetically few tack shops we have in town they don't have anything remotely big enough for a warmblood, 1/2 draft or draft.

:|

On a side rant... it is so annoying to go into a supposed "tack shop" and have 3/4th of the store be clothes for humans. Grrrrr... Why don't they call it "Wranglers and western clothes for humans" instead of Equine Addiction because the equine part is pathetically small.

[lantairvlea]

We have an awesome little tack shop here, if the owner doesn't have it in stock it can be ordered (we got our Big Horn draft saddle from him as well as much of our other tack). Indeed, with stagnant demographics you tend to lack in variety in tack as well.

I entirely agree! There's another shop closer to home, but the majority of it is clothing and home decor, blech.

[penella22]

hm. apparently we live in the same state! I drove by the morgan horse headquarters just the other day...

There are a ton of morgans here and they dominate the fairs, some shows, college teams...everything. There's still some warmbloods, TB's, arabs, paints, appys, ponies, mustangs, and appendix quarterhorses around too. No dominating discipline really. There's some driving, some trail riding, lots of dressage, some saddle seat, some jumping. It's pretty mixed I think. More english stuff than western, but a lot of both. Our tack stores stock the clothes and tack etc. for both which is nice.

Of course, I have to buck the trend by owning a dun Curly...

[athystle]

I thinkk maybe we have vast differences in which end of the state you live in. I have been in the far north of the state for 48 yrs. Up here we just barely got a tack shop and the most of it is western. The riders mostly trail ride. If you say dressage, they say, "whats that?" I see no jumping, no saddle seat, a little bit of driving, and lots of sugaring and logging with horses. I see more work horses in the fields than anything else.And we are such a small state, it amazes me how different it can be from one area to another. OF course this area is also one of the poorest in the state so maybe that is part of it. Even so we too have a ton of morgans for which I am very glad.

[penella22]

yeah...the bits of horse community that I come into contact with up in your neck of the woods are more western, definitely. But here in the Burlington area it's alll about dressage!! Madeleine Austin is Big news! Loads of warmbloods running around in a gazillion blankets and being boarded close to their rich college student owners...but there's still jumping in good numbers too, along with a sprinkling of western folk. And down in the middle of the state there's quite a lot of 4-H, dressage, little jumper shows, then in the south there's GMHA etc. with driving classes and trails, CTR. It's pretty varied...

I LOVE the old style Morgans...sane and sound and easy keppers. the newer ones that are very typey and hot-blooded drive me nuts, simply because they look more like saddlebreds to me, and I think Morgans should look like Morgans!

[candysgirl]

I'm in Indiana. It greatly depends where you're looking. I grew up riding Saddlebreds. In college I played polo on TBs and owned one. My current horse is an Arab colt.

QHs are extremely popular. There is a lot of contesting and just WP shows.

There's a fairly sizable H/J following in some parts so you've got WBs and TBs there.

We've also got standard bred racing so you've got a bunch of them around the track.

You've also got the gaited people. Mainly you see Walkers, but there are some Rocky Mountain horses and some other breeds around too.

[lantairvlea]

*Nodding.* We do have our spots and the occasional barn that has H/J, Saddleseat, and other such things, but they are greatly outweighed by the emphasis on Western, a lot of Roping and other rodeo stuff in my area specifically, but broader you get the reining WP and the like.

The gaited horses around here vary a bit, but you see a lot of the two Spanish breeds and the TWH.

[spirithorse21]

We do have a lot of paints and quarter horses here, but we also have a lot of thoroughbreds. Down here in southern Indiana, the predominate horses are the stock types and the gaited types because so many people trail ride. Up in Indy and northern Indiana, you see a lot more TBs and warmbloods, as that group does a lot of showing.

[suchcuriousity]

I've lived in a couple different horsey areas now, but not one where QH/Paints or English/Dressage dominate (much to my dismay, having a Paint and working on training for dressage).

In the area of Florida that I lived in, it was a mix of backyard breeders of a huge variety of things, including Arabians, various Warmbloods, Thoroughbreds and some QHs.

In Western North Carolina, it was primarily Tennessee Walkers and other gaiteds. Part of that was just the fact that it happened to be the barn I was boarding at, so that's all I really met.

Here in Kentucky, on the east side of Louisville, it's 90% Saddlebreds, and a couple Thoroughbred and Quarter Horse breeding farms. Most of the Thoroughbred folk are on the other side of Louisville or closer to Lexington from what I gather.