Online learning: Updated Again

Online forums are a curse and a blessing. First they spread a lot of information quickly to a wide range of horse people. Second they spread a lot of information quickly to a wide range of horse people. I have seen some brilliant tips on horse forums, but I've also seen some of the most blatant stupidity imaginable. Since horse show people are found on just about every equine related forum out there it stands to reason that some of the information passed around an cause problems.

I’ve gotten a lot of feedback and got to visit some forums that made my eyebrows leap off my head with the rampant ignorance. It’s a wonder that some of these people’s horses survive a day, much less a lifetime of incompetent care.

I’ll list the top five good forums first. These forums actually provide good solid information and don’t cater to the hearts, flowers and unicorns crowd. They are for the horse, not for the ego.

1) Chronicle of the Horse

Geared mainly toward English but does have some western conversations. Good information on feeding, foot care, veterinary treatments and riding. Has a good reputation for getting “endangered horses” rescued.

2)Dr. Deb Bennett’s Equine Studies Forum

Absolutely the best place to learn about the mechanic’s of the horse. You will rarely see Western or English Pleasure or halter people posting here, because they can’t justify working their horses so young to Dr. Bennett. Also has great sections on bitting, handling and arena exercises.

3)Allbreed pedigree Forum

This is a great place to expand pedigree knowledge for all breeds. There are several prominent equine historians that participate and offer their knowledge for free. Being able to fill in the holes in a horse’s pedigree can help prevent genetic defects from being spread.

4) The Appaloosa Project

There is no equal to the equine color genetics knowledge that this forum provides. They have gone beyond looking at base colors and take you into learning about patterns, modifiers, genetic links to defects and other great stuff that anyone planning to breed horses needs to know.

5) Just Horsin

Normally I avoid anything to do with the pleasure horse industry. But I started reading this forum and was impressed that they were willing to crack down on BNT abuse and people that breed for horses that aren’t sound. Definitely more about riding and showing than the other forums and does have a lot of snark factor, but over all the equine advice is sound.


I got several emails about the collective dipshit equine forums and if I included them all here I would have a list the size of War and Peace. I’ve never seen such a morass of stupidity in my life!

In order to cut down the list to a reasonable size I had to set some criteria:
How harmful was the information being passed around?
How stupid were the majority of members?
How high was the whining level?
How pathetic were the justifications for doing shit wrong?
How fricking psycho I perceive the moderators to be?
How useless the existence of the forum is?
Even with this stringent culling method I still had to pick through quite a list, so I went for the ones that just pissed me off personally.

1)Horse Topia

Who the fuck are these people and what planet did they come from? Seriously do they have real horses or just Breyer Models and a crack pipe to make it all seem real? Why is anyone asking what to feed a baby mini after they already have the horse? Find that shit out before you get a baby. What is with asking if you should breed your grade pintawalkaloosian? Are you fucking kidding? Oh and let’s not forget that the stallion must be either grade too, or a registered horse with a proven genetic defect. My eyes almost bled from the color genetics thread. If these stupid fucks actually succeed in crossing those horses they are going to get something lime green and plaid. Unless you’re into pre-death penance or just a masochist avoid this place. Rating 5 Horse Apples

2)Baywind Farm Horse Forum

Let’s just say I could blog for a year and a day just on the crappy photos I saw posted here. The yellow lines of dooms would look like that big monkey drawing on the plateau in Peru. I could start my own version of the Nazca Lines all over their ass.

I added this photo because the forum evidently didn't understand what lining a photo means. Yellow is bad, blue is correct.
Can these people not ride? Is it something in the water? It’s obvious the moderator has her panties in a twist because she’s never going to be anything but some backyard local show fixture, but seriously, when did hosting a forum mean that zero common sense was required? This forum alone would make me avoid buying anything from Baywind Farm. It's like if Exxon used pictures of the Exxon Valdez spewing oil in order to sell gas shares.
One thing I saw here that pissed me off was the mention of this blog, but given under another person’s name. Hey you stupid fucks, this is my blog, my name is all over it and I don’t appreciate you giving my hard work to someone else just because you’re too stupid or lazy to read the big words posted here. I think most of us here appreciate humor and sarcasm, but people trying to be funny and snarky, while just coming off lame and ignorant, give me a pain in my ass. Rating 4 ¾ Horse Apples


3)Lil Beginnings Miniature Horse Forum

There literally are no words to describe this bunch, although complete stupid fucks would work in a pinch. Breeding and getting dwarves is just part of the business, right? Dwarf Threads, You can't post replies on the dwarfism threads. They don't want discussion, they want their "experts" to have the last words. Dwarves are to be accepted and expected. Promoting smaller horses over quality horses is okay. And let's not forget that breeding for color as the most important trait is just sooooo the right thing to do. Having photos of some tiny mini hauling around a fricking moose in a flowered dress is just wrong. Get a bigger horse or carry the mini. He is not supposed to be hauling around twice his weight. And the feeding misinformation! How there is a single mini out there that isn’t foundered I’ll never know. This is another group that sets the whine level to ten and feels that others “owe” them respect instead of them earning it. They also can’t read for shit. They assigned my blog to another author because my fucking name on the front page is just a joke, right? I type my fingers to the bone so these no-reading asswipes can give someone else credit? I don’t think so! It’s obvious that this bunch sits around all day with nothing better to do but post about their whines, grips and frustrations, while denouncing anyone that offers a differing opinion. Their attack on a newbie for telling them something they did was fucked up was priceless. Driving people out of the horse industry is just what we need to be doing. Rating 4 ½ Horses Apples


4)Free Speech Horse Forum

I hate to add this one, because I really enjoy the parent blog. However, the desire to be associated with a straight talking, controversial blog has attracted a myriad of dumbasses, dweebs and dorks. I've traveled over there in the past and a few of the uppity bad asses tried to get tough until they found themselves featured here and at that point they whined, pulled their hair and threatened me. Big whoop! A forum member sent me nasty emails. Like I’ve never dealt with that before. They also seem inclined to bite the hand that feeds them and criticize the creator of the forum, although never to her face on her blog. I hate chickenshits. I really hate ignorant chickenshits. Despite the attachment to a blog that denounces irresponsible breeding there seems to be a plethora of morons on here asking if they should breed their grade mare to Joe Bob’s grade stallion. I don’t get it. Rating 4 Horse Apples.

5)Horse Dopia

The name says it all. This place is populated by the people too dumb to make it on the Horse Topia or Free Speech forums. Scary thought huh? Believe me, that isn’t teen spirit you’re smelling. This place should almost be mandatory as a test in order to own a horse. If you get accepted to post here then you don’t get to have one! Only when you’re regarded as too smart to be on this forum can you again apply to get a horse, and only then if you’re not a member of any of the other top five piece of shit forums. Rating 3 Horse Apples.


Ironically, when you read the above bad forums you will almost always find a thread bitching about the Fugly Horse forum, or this one, or any other forum where the bullshit gets called out and the "pretty princess pony" people get told to get their heads out of their asses and back into reality. I don't know about Fugs, but I consider it an honor when the dipshits hate this blog, it means I'm doing something right. And I also love it when I google search their sites and this blog pops up as the first listing under their name. That way people can get the information on the stupid aspects of these sites first, before wading into the cesspools of stupidity they share.

I also like this blog Horse Common Sense by Sue, that features some of the dumbest damn forum posts I’ve ever read. If horses really had access to computers, and could read the stupid shit their owners think, they would all gather together and run off the edge of the Grand Canyon, with the gaited horses leading the way.

From the stat tacker it's easy to see the Baywind and Miniature Horse Forum have found my blog and are having a fit. Too fricking bad. If they'd shown any sense in the first place and not posted bullshit about who owns this blog, as well as the stupid posts that endanger horses then they wouldn't be here.

Leaving threads up that people can find when they search the name of this blog just leads me right to the places where the stupidity festers in the horse world. It's easy to see why I got so many emails about these forums as being bad places.



T Jean Maus, blog owner