Western horseriding and aqha

Western horseriding directly results from the cattle work in the US open ranches in the 19th century, which consisted in supervising and sorting out the cattle in a quick and rational way.

From this work a suitable breaking in method was born, emphasizing the qualities of availability, ease and handiness of the western parties horse.

Thus, to refine taming, several tests were founded, ruled by quite precise laws which define what western
Horseriding is nowadays in the USA, as well as in Canada and in Europe.

Reining

The test takes place on a compulsory round which allows to judge the balance, the suppleness, the coolness, the availability and the wilful temper of the horse. He has to make figures of eights, foot changes, stop, sliding stops, spins, roll backs and right and fast backwards.

 Cutting

It is a test which evaluates the ability of the horse in sorting out cattle in a bull-ring.
The horse must act by itself, as soon as the calf has left the cattle, to prevent it from getting back into it.
Any order of the rider on the bit is penalized.

The AQHA

The American Quarter Horse Association was created on March 15th 1940, the first horse to be registered was called Wimpi.
Since then, hundreds of remarkable horses have left their names in the history of quarter horses. In the US
Quarter horses are the most popular ones and it is the country of the world where they are the most numerous.
3,045,563 quarter horses were registered in 2001 with an increase of 150,956 horses a year.
The AQHA counts 332,000 members.
Quarter Horses are the most universal horses to be found. They take part to about 20 different sorts of disciplins: handling, jumping, American riding, polo, pace in western or English style, harnessing, racing, calf-catching with a lasso sorting cattle...
The head office of the AQHA in Amarillo, Texas employs more than 450 people who work in ultramodern
buildings to transact recordings, owners' tranfers (more than 1 million a year) to file and records subscriptions, results of the races, competitions, shows and other data concerning quarter horse industry.
The AQHA publishes the most important monthly horse magazine in the world with a number of pages varying from 600 to 1,400: The Quarter Horse Journal.
In addiction to promoting the breed the AQHA contributed to horse research too, through a very important
financial support.
Today the AQHA head-office is a hundred of a million dollars business centre, symbol of the dynamic popularity of quarter horses and of the industry which serves the breed.