Overview of the Tenessee Walking Horse

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"Number 278 Your Honor!!!” This is what I hear as I ride my horse, Ranger, along the perimeter of the huge ring that holds all my fears, worries, hopes, dreams, and accomplishments. As the announcer yells into the loud speaker “Riders the judges say ride on at a Running Walk!” I pick up speed flying past my competition, so many World Champions and World Grand Champions on one fair ground, it can be over whelming at times. As the riders sit in the ring patiently anticipating the results all I can think is how lucky I am to be part of such an amazing breed of horse, and to feel blessed that the Tennessee Walking Horse Association was so great. But after I leave the ring collecting my 1st place ribbon, there is a commotion by the inspection table, someone just got a ticket for scars on their horse’s ankles, and now they don’t get to show their “injured” horse. The problem with this? There is nothing wrong with their horse, yes he had scars on his ankles but he was not in pain. You see this particular horse was not well taken care of in his previous home, he was abused. Then his current trainer saved him from that bad place, and now because of his past he is not able to show. I and many others personally know this trainer and she would never do anything to hurt her horse, he is her prized possession. Abuse to the Tennessee Walking horse was a huge problem in the past, but not so much anymore.
You see in any breed there is abuse, in my opinion Race Horses being the worst of them all. But when this breed was first established and nationally recognized trainers did not try to hide it, so everyone was aware of it. Just as many issues, if no. more, are happening in all the other breeds they are just better at covering it up than t...

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...asn't right. Every so often he would buck and act as if something was hurting him. So I got off and inspected every inch of this huge horses body only to find he had stepped on a rock and it was lodged in his foot. He was in a little pain and it was clear as day something was wrong. Wouldn't you think that if all these horses were in pain you would be able to notice? I am not by any means say that none of these horses are abused but do not punish everyone for one mans mistake! There is no more abuse in the Walking Horse world than in any other breed, it's only that the trainers in TWHBEA did a bad job hiding what they were doing so they got caught. I am by no means excusing any of the things that happened but, when someone is trying to destroy the one thing I love I will stand up for it. This is 100% my opinion based on life experiences, none of this is factual data.

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