Thursday, January 18, 2018
A Brief Overview of Western Pleasure Competition
An Illinois-based veterinarian focused on diagnosing and treating lameness in horses, Dr. Phillip Kapraun oversees an equine veterinary practice in Harvard. He specializes in treating Standardbred racehorses and racing quarter horses. Over the course of his nearly 40-year career, Dr. Phillip Kapraun also has treated a variety of other performance horses, including those used for Western Pleasure competitions.
Unlike racing competitions that emphasize a horse’s speed, Western Pleasure events evaluate a horse’s ability to move in an easy and collected manner. For horses that compete in the Western Pleasure class, a calm and relaxed gait and demeanor that support an overall pleasurable ride are of the utmost importance.
With proper movement and a horse’s manners at the top of a Western Pleasure judge’s evaluation list, any breed can do well in a pleasure competition. That being said, there are some horses that perform better than others do. Quarter horses are perhaps the most common, but other stock horse breeds such as Appaloosas and American paint horses also do well in the Western Pleasure class.
Sunday, January 7, 2018
AAEP Starts Disaster Fund for Wildfire-Affected Horses
An equine veterinarian in private practice since 1984, Dr. Phillip Kapraun primarily treats lameness in performance horses. In addition to his everyday work with horses, Dr. Phillip Kapraun is a member of the American Association of Equine Practitioners (AAEP).
Between hundreds of acres of scorched land and the loss of homes, the cost of the 2017 California wildfires has been extremely high. What can sometimes get lost in the shuffle, however, are the urgent equine community needs that can arise in the wake of such a disaster. That is why the AAEP’s charitable arm has an Equine Disaster Relief Fund.
The fund is seeking to help horses that the wildfires in California have adversely impacted. The money from the fund will go to organizations and programs involved in recovery efforts as well as rebuilding efforts and to those working on dealing with future disaster situations. To learn more about the fund, visit aaep.org.
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