Selecting The Performance Horse

Each year, a group of colts bred for their outstanding bloodlines, conformation, athletic ability and willing dispositions start their training as Clinton Anderson Performance Horses. While each of the colts has been bred for a successful future in the show pen, the reality is that not all of them live up to their potential. By the time the horses reach their 3-year-old year, Clinton has three or four talented individuals selected from the group to campaign as futurity horses. (The others that don’t make the Performance Horse program begin careers as Signature Horses.) 

Clinton just made his first round of cuts to the 2-year-olds. “I’m looking for the colt that says, ‘Pick me! Pick me!’ I want the teacher’s pet – the little boy or girl sitting at the front of the classroom, eyes on the teacher, hands folded, just begging to learn,” Clinton shares.

As he makes cuts, one of the things he keeps in mind is that there are horses for courses. Just like people, horses’ attitudes and abilities vary from one to the other. Some horses are more naturally talented at a certain task than others. Not every horse suits every course. “For example, I breed reining and cow horses, but not every horse I breed wants to be a reining or cow horse. Some of them want to be barrel racers and others want to do team penning,” Clinton explains. “Just because a horse is bred to do a certain job, it doesn’t mean that individual wants to do that job. Your task is to find a course that fits the horse.”

Horses are a million times happier in their partnership with you and performing their job if they like what they’re doing. “A horse that loves the challenge of working cattle on a ranch probably wouldn’t be well-suited at performing a dressage test. A horse that dreams of jumping fences isn’t going to be happy doing a reining pattern,” Clinton says. “People are the same way. If you like crunching numbers and analyzing problems, you wouldn’t be happy working on an assembly line in a factory.”

Read about Clinton Anderson Performance Horses and how Clinton determines which horses make the program on our website by clicking on the articles listed.