WALKIN ' IN ARKANSAS
BY JOAN BEASLEY Valhalla, Route 1 FARMINGTON, ARKANSAS 72730
' flic * Contributing Editor from Arkansas is confused. Lately the greater part of my thoughts have been o! the " sore " horse and the controversy of the legislation against the practice. I can ' t think of one good reason why the proposed laws would obliterate a breed of natural Walking Horses. Pacers, yes; Walkers, no! They might not look as showy in the ring, their knees wouldn’ t hit their noses, and the rider wouldn’ t have to think about sliding off the rump because they wouldn ' t be " down under " quite as far, but they would still be walking! Granted, the show * that are predominantly Walking Horse shows might suffer at first, but once we all got " with it " and started working together we could come back with better shows than ever. We don ' t have to prove to the American Saddiebred folk > that we have a show horse. They know it now. A.- as lor them cleaning up their house too- well, that ' s up to them. Wouldn ' t it be a lovely feeling to ride into that ring on a calm, happy, sound horse doing his " thing " in the way he was meant to do. knowing we were on a horse that needed no embellishments to make him do his gait and look beautiful?
One crazy part of all this is that there are many people that laugh when you speak of a " natural.” The majority of them have gotten into the Walking Horse world since ail the " soreing " began, and they honestly believe that if a colt doesn ' t pace, he won ' t walk. They think that if he paces a trainer can, with mechanics, " make " a Walker. I have argued with them in the past; now 1 just feel sad. What do they think all those colts are doing out in the pasture with their little heads going up and down when they are hurrying to keep up with mama?
. About the time the " soreing " problem really became a problem, we moved to Texas and I was out ol touch for a time. 1 remember the first show with a Walking class 1 had seen for several years was in Oklahoma City. When the first horse came into the ring, I really couldn ' t figure out what had happened to him. Then suddenly there was a ring full ol ' gorgeous black horses doing the same gait my pleasure horses did, only in a high-stepping, exaggerated way. How did they do it '/ It was beautiful, exciting and lovely, and the crowd went wild when the judge called for the running walk. My husband-Joe had never seen anything quite like it and neither had I. We were thrilled! When we found out why, we could have cried. Is the thrill worth the agony /
It has been said. " Great strides have been made," but all I can find are a few teensy steps made by a lew. I ' ve spent my life trying to keep the feet of my horses in perfect shape and making sure they didn ' t hurt. 1 cannot understand intentionally hurting them for tiie sake of showiness. It seems to me we have been given a pretty good chance to do this thing ourselves and we haven ' t. It seems too much of our lives is ruled by Federal Laws now and most of it is a barb to us all. As a southerner, I am " agin " federal legislation! But if we won t do it ourselves, how else can it be done? Mr. Spencer, our Editor, says this will kill the Walking Horse business. Now, I am not wanting to argue with Mr. Spencer. He is a fine person, loves Walkers, and is truly interested in what happens to the breed. But in his article in the September / October issue of the VOICE he makes this statement a number of times but fails to explain how it will ruin our business and hurt the breed. All I am asking for is an answer and no one seems to know. Granted, there will be a lot of cheap show horses, but they are the ones that cannot walk without artificial means to start with. There will be a number of show horses whose value will double— the naturals. Due to " improvement of the breed " these are becoming fewer in number all the time. It seems to me the economy of the Walking Horse business will be helped in the long run and the breeding program will be given a long-needed clean-up of far too many stallions that should be in front of a sulky instead of under a saddle. When traveling on a " horse-seeing tour," one begins to wonder if the word " geld " is now obsolete! If it ' s black and pretty it is left a stud regardless of breeding or what the feet can do gait-wise. Getting back to the natural way of going would certainly end this. One." Lallion owner we know has said that less than 5 ",, of all walkers foaled are naturals. The word was out that naturals don ' t make good show horses. Now he says he has a pasture full of naturals. Naturals will be " in” if certain rules are enforced.
I have not written or telegraphed our good senators favoring their legislation... yet! Neither have I written against it, and won’ t until someone can come up with a good, sound answer as to how it will hurt the right man with a good horse. We had all rather " clean up” without Federal legislation, but so far there has been too much dust left under the rug. I don ' t think it can be said we are cleaning up our own mess with much alacrity. Apparently Tennessee’ s Governor Buford Ellington is also becoming impatient with our " fervid " efforts. It makes you feel pretty peculiar when people look at you like you are some king of criminal because you own a Walking Horse. If it takes lesiglation to keep " Walker” from being a dirty word, no one is to blame but us— the people that breed, raise, and train Walkers!
EDITOR’ S NOTE: I would like to thank Mrs.. Joan Beasley for her very perceptive article. To answer her question, federal legislation would " kill the Walking Horse business” because few horse show managers are willing to risk imprisonment or fines for the sake of Walking Horses. They would soon drop our breed from their show, or would find some other means of raising money besides a horse show. As Senator Tydings said in LIFE magazine, and I quote, " If we can close down some shows, we ' ll put a stop to all this.” He ' s right!
We cannot return to the days when the canter was the fastest gait. This would be comparable to returning to the " T-Model Ford” for today ' s travel needs. We can, however, find a middle ground between the show horse gait that we see today and the pure, natural, undeveloped gait of the early days. Somewhere between these two examples is a horse that we can Jive with; a horse that will be exciting and beautilul and that will command top prices; a horse that will do enough naturally in the showring to maintain our status in the horse world. Remember... our horse has progressed 1 aster than we have, and ii we are smart and are given just a little more time, " he will pull us out of the ditch.”
38 Voice of the Tennessee Walking Horse