Are there any disadvantages to owning a Paint (horse)?
admin on February 17th, 2010
I know with Thoroughbreds they can be high strung and other things. What are the negatives with Paints? If any…
We’re looking for a horse suitable for all disciplines of riders (novice through experienced) and to be ridden on trails. Horse would be kept in the pasture with our herd of nine.
There’s good horses and bad horses in every breed and regardless of color. My question though is if you have 9 all ready shouldn’t you know a little bit about them and others? And whats wrong with the ones you have?
In my own experience, there is nothing negative about them that regards the breed. I’ve noticed they are very talented jumpers, and seem to get noticed by judges in shows a lot. The paints that I have had were wonderful all-around horses/ponies.
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Being a horse owner for many years.
Each horse is different. You can do research, but you would need to go see/ride a specific horse to know. Not all TBs are high strung…
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Thoroughbreds aren’t necessarily high strung, they’re just energetic, and they’re smarter than their owners in some ways. I have one and she’s the calmest horse ever (that horse NEVER spooks), but if you give her the opportunity she will take advantage of you and do what she wants. She needs a boss, and if she doesn’t have a boss she becomes the boss.
Paints tend to be very calm and easy-going. As for disadvantages, sometimes if they have pink skin on the nose they get severe sunburns so they need sunscreen and a flymask that covers the nose. They can also be prone to eye issues if they have pink skin around the eyes… but the vet can usually take care of that!
They can be pretty lazy, but that’s just a generalization, some are really spooky, depending on how they were raised. I was riding a paint for a little girl looking for her first horse once. The horse was stubborn as a mule when I was bringing it in and tacking it up. Then I took it out to the ring and picked up the mounting block- the second the block moved, the mare flipped out and reared. So I spent 20 minutes on the ground trying to get her over her fear (the kid’s mom wanted to see me ride it…). Finally I got her close to the block (but I mounted from the ground anyway)… then she was spooking all over the ring. I can’t fault the breed for that though, later we found out that the horse’s owner had a reputation for lousy training on her horses… she apparently almost never rode them but when she did, she’d just gallop them around smacking them to get them to go faster.
However, my trainer’s 2 best lesson horses are paints. Those horses are calm, easygoing, and great with kids. They do a little of every discipline, from hunters to jumpers to barrel racing to western pleasure. They put up with little kids and are also good enough for the more advanced riders to hop on and ride. They aren’t fantastic at everything but they do it as best they can.
The only thing is, they would not be suitable for an experienced rider in all disciplines. No horse is. No horse exists that would be good for an experienced dressage rider AND an experienced barrel racer… those types are just too dissimilar to be the same horse!
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i have had a lot of horses and paints are good horses but each horse does have different personalities and an all around good horse for everything is usally quarter horse but paints are a good horse to hope that helps
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I don’t think there are any downs
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In my experience, Paints can be a little more stubborn than other breeds. For some people, this is enough to keep them from riding Paints, but for me, Paints are my first choice breed (and yes, the APHA is a breed registry, not a color registry, so it is a breed). In some disciplines, especially english, there is some discrimination because of their color, and occasionally their markings can make them appear to move oddly or be tilting their head.
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There’s good horses and bad horses in every breed and regardless of color. My question though is if you have 9 all ready shouldn’t you know a little bit about them and others? And whats wrong with the ones you have?
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Well if you are looking for a nice clean easy to care for horse… I would avoid a Paint. My paint mare is over 75% White which makes keeping her clean enough to be acceptable quite a chore. If you want to show it’s even worse since you will be keeping it in the pasture. They seem to be good family horses in my experience.I have rode and cared for 3 different paints 1 mare (My own) and 2 geldings (Lesson horses). I can put my non-horsey friends, little cousins, or non- horsey dad on my mare and she will be as gentle as can be but as soon as I ride her she just wants to go-go-go! One thing about my paint mare that I find a problem is that she doesn’t know her own strength and bumps into me and is a bit pushy but I have a feeling that was because of how she was brought up not the breed…
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