luckierthanhelooks wrote:
I have two major beefs with 4-H... They dont have a good solid teaching program in place for horses. Most of the material is extremely out dated.. (I cant even count the number of kids who shorted stock breeds tails because the 4-H book said so) What is really taught, depends on what club a kid is in... With pony club atleast they have the levels and tests. I would love to see pony club form a western branch or 4-H step up to the plate.

number 2...They distort reality... in washington state they arent allowed to wear chaps because someone "might not be able to afford them" I guess im cold hearted, but thats just life, plus the parents could work out a good handmedown system, and the older kids could get a job...just bugs me chaps are traditional western show attire.

I guess I have 3 beefs.. The parents.. where I can from, the parents were the whinest ever... the show kids won showing because they were rich... the gaming kids ran around like mad in the show classes and pissed everyone off... of course the show parents didnt cry that they needed two sections of gaming so the show kids could slow lope the patterns and still win. Seriously.. is it good to teach your kids that you cant win because we arent rich? How about encouraging the kids to pick a focus, and work hard at it and stick to it.

OK, 4 beefs.. the people in charge should know what they are doing!



The 4-H program in your area is ONLY as good as who volunteers to help run it and/or be Project Leaders. Sometimes theres a few dozen kids wanting to learn this stuff and no experienced horseperson to be the project leader, so some parent volunteers to do it. The local 4-H offices have literature to help educate but in some instances THAT literature is extremely outdated too. I remember going in to get project info on how to sheer th sheep and all i could find was old stuff on clipping & carding the wool (our sheep are required to be 'slick sheared' to enter int he fair. Clipping and carding went out many years ago)

Some programs are luck enough to have a local trainer offer to lead a Horse Project. And then yes, they have the advantage over the group who has 'Back-Yard-Horsemom' leading their group from an outdated book. As far as things like the 'chaps issue', these are things that can be VOTED ON at county horse leaders meetings. Can't change anything unless people are willing to speak up.

I agree 100% with your post, lucky.