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Starting Member
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Last Login: 11/2/2009 5:02:34 PM
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| she's awesome i would have loved to see her this summer! did any of you did?
GO HORSES AND BFFLS!!! MUSIC ROCKS 
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Starting Member
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Last Login: 11/10/2009 3:27:54 PM
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| I love Stacy Westfall and reading all about her in any articles I can! I thinkg she's simply amazing, coming out of nowhere and making such a huge impact on the reining world, as well as a really great statement for horsewomen!!! For those who don't know, Stacy Westfall was the first woman/person to ever do a reining pattern bridleless and bareback! She shocked everyone!
Here's one girl who'd rather clean out a stall then go to the mall!
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Advanced Member
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Last Login: Yesterday @ 10:42:17 PM
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Stacy is okay, and I do have a measure of respect and admiration for her, but I think that people don't look at her (or any other horsey celebrity) with a grain of salt and all the facts.
1. She's a good rider, but she's not a very good teacher. Her articles are nearly always written in conjunction with a professional writer, but even so they frequently lack clarity, or when they have clarity, they are very formulaic, like a recipe: Do A, then B, then C and your horse should respond by doing x, then y, then z. That's fine in some cases, but if your horse doesn't react by doing x,y, and z what then? Though to be fair, to some extent this is the same problem you get with any article in print, or on the internet - it's an article, not a live person - it's a limited format. The problem with that is I've also read some of her books and they read much the same way. She basically makes a lot of assumptions about the riders in her "audience" as well as assumptions about their horses, which I think shows some limits to her teaching ability. I've also watched her show on RFD-TV pretty extensively, and I was consistently unimpressed by the level of the instruction. Her primary teaching method seems to consist of making a quick diagnosis of the problem after observing the horse and rider working together, then giving them an exercise or task, followed by leaving the rider to simply practice and drill the horse without supervision or continued coaching, and then coming back after awhile to check on them and talk about any progress (or lack thereof). When I've watched her teach by working her own horses, she spends a lot of time talking about the hows, relatively little time talking about the "why" or the theory behind it, or what to do if things don't go as planned. None of this is particularly bad teaching, but it does show a lack of maturity in her teaching style.
2. She didn't "Come out of no where". She went to college for horsemanship, then apprenticed at a couple of barns, got some horses put in training with her, got some sponsors, campaigned the horses she was riding, and worked her way up through the ranks like anyone else, She got better horses, better sponsors, and better venues as she went, but she did it a little quicker than most people. Then she had the right horse and the right venue to take herself to the next level and did the bareback and bridle-less thing at the '06 NRCHA. The video got on youtube and went viral - THAT was what made her famous. If someone had done what she had done 10 years ago, before there was such a thing as Youtube, it would have been noteworthy, but it wouldn't have made the rider a celebrity, let alone on a scale that transcended her discipline.
3. While riding a freestyle reining pattern completely tack-less in national competition was a first, Stacy was not the first person to complete a pattern, nor the first person to win a major competition without a bridle. Reining freestyles are much like dressage freestyles - you get to choose what maneuvers you do and how you put them together, and you get to pick some music to go along with it. Part of designing a freestyle is "upping the ante" by trying to increase the level of difficulty. If your level of difficulty is greater than your opponents' then even if you have some flaws in your maneuvers, you still stand a chance of beating them. If you are at the same level of difficulty and you make more flaws than your opponents then you won't win. So people in reining had been increasing the level of difficulty of their freestyles by competing without bridles for quite a while before Stacy made her (admittedly impressive) run in 2006. It was one step up, for sure, but not unheard of. If it hadn't been her, it would have been someone else.
4. I recently read that she has retired Wizzard's Baby Doll (the mare she went tack less with) and is turning her into a brood mare because she "can't stand the strain of competition any more". The horse is nine years old. If you can have a horse who can't stand up to competition any more at nine, you did one, or all, of the following: started the horse too early, started them too hard, competed them too much/too hard, had a management program that put competitive success first and foremost. Personally, I love reining. I enjoy dabbling in it when and where I can, and I hope to really learn and compete in the sport someday. BUT the sport as it stands currently has some serious flaws - namely the 3 y/o futurities. Horses being broke at 20 months so that they have all of their two year old year to train before heading to competition as 3 year olds is destructive and ludicrous. The argument is that it creates a demand and a supply of young, talented, trained horses which then sell well for good prices. The problem is you have horses like Stacy's famous mare come out the other end - unable to compete before their even 10. Some of those horses get sold to amateur owners (mostly the geldings) while the money-earning stallions and mares are then bred. Sometimes breeders don't show, or even break the fillies of a good stallion to ride, and just let them hang around a pasture until they're old enough to start breeding, so that the breeder can perpetuate money-making stallion lines. I think that this is an industry problem as much as anything else, but it's certainly a reining problem. The reason that it relates to Stacy is because while her mare is now retired, stacy's got a long-yearling colt out of her mare who is due to start training shortly. Stacy is famous, much adored by women and girls all over the country, she's right at the forefront for everyone to see, and she's going to take another undoubtedly amazing young horse, and do the same thing - have success without longevity.
"Quick fixes, by their nature, fix nothing; that's why they're repetitive."
-Dr. Laura
"It's better to ride even if you get thrown, then to wind up just wishing you had."
- Chris LeDoux
My Blog: http://equinesolutions.blogspot.com/
Follow me on twitter: http://twitter.com/woodrowsmommy
For help on posting: http://board.horsechannel.com/Topic188135-4-1.aspx
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Junior Member
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Last Login: Yesterday @ 10:07:49 AM
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^She's already retiring Whizard? That's ridiculous.
While you're killing time, remember time is killing you.
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Advanced Member
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Last Login: Yesterday @ 10:42:17 PM
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Details are in the Breyerfest article in the Oct/Nov issue of Young Rider (one of my students showed it to me because we both collect Breyers).
"Quick fixes, by their nature, fix nothing; that's why they're repetitive."
-Dr. Laura
"It's better to ride even if you get thrown, then to wind up just wishing you had."
- Chris LeDoux
My Blog: http://equinesolutions.blogspot.com/
Follow me on twitter: http://twitter.com/woodrowsmommy
For help on posting: http://board.horsechannel.com/Topic188135-4-1.aspx
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Junior Member
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Last Login: 2 days ago @ 4:15:26 PM
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i luv stacy westfall! but i do agree with woodrows mommy. reinin horses r started 2 early and whizard is a great horse! i don't see why she's retired now! even if she isn't competin anymore doesn't mean she can't be ridden 4 small shows. most show horses still like 2 go 2 small shows even after the stop top competitions. my old hanoverian lesson horse did. anyway, stacey westfall didn't just come out of no where. woodrows mommy is right about that 2. she also isn't the 1st person 2 do freestyle reinin bridleless. there were others except they never won 1sts like her. i actually do use her as a model 4 my bridleless and barebak ridin. she explains good if u go 2 a clinic. but also using steps doesn't work with every horse. it seems a lotta big trainers use steps and the response a horse is supposedly goin 2 do at each step. anyway, she's a really great rider and she focuses r relationships with her horses. i admire her 4 that.
Canny11 A horse is worth more than riches.
Spanish Proverb
There is no secret so close as that between a rider and his horse
Robert Smith Surtees
To be loved by a horse, or by any animal, should fill us with awe-
for we have not deserved it.
Marion Garretty My heart galloped through the skies that night. Spirit:Stallion of the Cimarron Stop Horse Abuse!
 
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