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Ah, but how many times can you look at a successful cow-bred horse, or a halter horse, or a western pleasure horse and really CRITIQUE them?


1000s of times, if you are worried about people not being completely objective if they know who they are you just have to camouflage them a little bit. Sometimes just flipping the photo to the opposite side and changing the colors is enough. The horse's structure is the same whether its looking right/left and its color is green.

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No, I'm not interested in critiqueing horses that are already highly successful in their fields. Because, despite whatever flaws they are showing, they managed to overcome them and do well.


Yes but they could've overcome them because their positive qualities out gained their flaws, or their flaws not being bad enough to handicap them. So the discussion could turn to which flaws have a bigger effect on a horse's performance and which have a minor effect. Also would be interesting to talk about soundness, i.e. the critiqued horse was very successful but he retired young due to unsoundness and/or his offspring are showing the same problem. There are many things to talk about when looking at those horses. And there wouldn't be anyone offended, specially if the horse has been dead for years.

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I like to look at REALITY, myself. What's out there, what's being bred, and what's selling for what. I don't mind looking at the already successful ones sometimes, don't get me wrong. I just like to look at the BIG PICTURE... not the small one.


Yes, but I think you get a pretty good idea just by looking at websites and sale catalogs, you can discuss about it without posting the pictures. Remember people get attached to their horses and not everyone is too keen on receiving critiques they didn't ask for. Just look how FTFOTB took as bashing when I mentioned I thought her stallion being too heavy for a horse expected to produce saddle horses, and I only got into it because she posted about it in that same thread. I bet she would've disliked it even more if I got it from a website and randomly opened a thread about it.

And I'm all about freedom of speech, and I agree that if the pictures are already public there shouldn't be a reason to not to post them. But still, I think it's possible to find ways to make a point without offending or hurting people's feelings.

I totally support posting about abuse or incompetent ownership cases though.