Tennessee Walking Horse
Tennessee Walking Horse
"These babies are smooth! If you EVER get a chance to ride a Tennessee Walker, you will have one of the most enjoyable horseback riding experiences of you life!"
The sturdy Tennessee Walking Horse with its distinctive gaits,
can be ridden comfortably for hours!
The Tennessee Walking Horse is a breed which originated in the Southeast United States. Wealthy southern plantation owners had a need for tractable, comfortable, and hardy horses that could stand up to the rigors of hours of daily riding while out inspecting the operations of their enormous plantation properties. The Tennessee Walking Horse served this purpose.
The Tennessee Walker has distinctive gaits which make it easy to ride over long distances at a comfortable and efficient rate of speed. Today they are used for pleasure and trail riding. Pleasure bred, or flat shod walking horses make excellent family and children’s trail horses. They are an excellent choice for riders with physical limitations because of their smooth way of going. Tennessee Walking Horses are also bred for the show arena for shows designed to exhibit the special talents of the gaited breed.
In 1935 the Tennessee Walking Horse Breeders Association was formed with ‘Black Allan’ as the foundation sire of the breed. In 1947 the name changed to the Tennessee Walking Horse Breeders’ and Exhibitors’ Association, or TWHBEA. Since then, over 450,000 Tennessee Walking Horses have been registered in all 50 states.
The walking horses look mistreated to me. It’s not natural for a horse to walk with such high steps. Just an opinion. I can’t stand watching them. They don’t look like they are having a good time to me. To me it’s animal cruelty.
I guess it takes more of an involvement with a particular breed of horse to know why they ‘look’, ‘walk’, or otherwise perform the way they do. Just like domestic cats and dogs, there are all sorts of breeds that have been developed for all sorts of reasons.
Lets look at examples from the cat world. We have a lot of basic generalizations when we think of cats, ie furry (long or short), stand up ears, long tails, like being petted and cuddled, purr a lot, don’t like water, like being held, and so on… Well, if we delve into the various breeds, many of these generalization don’t fit that breed. Not all are furry, not all have tails, on some the ears don’t stand up, some love to swim, not all like to be held, and so on.
Take the Sphynx Cats or the Cornish Rex Cats for example. One breed has extremely short wavy hair, and a very athletic type body. The other breed is a very strange one that is nearly hairless and has a thin whip-like tail.
So the best thing to do is to familiarize ourselves with each type of animal and their history, then we can understand better why they look, behave, and perform the way they do.