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.
