ASHA Competitions, with standardized judging and scoring, serve as a medium to measure progress and provide an incentive for further improvement. Riders compare specific maneuver scores from one competition to the next as they strive for improvement. Exhibitors feel as if they are competing against themselves from one evaluation to the next. Participants tend to encourage each other and celebrate their victories. With this program, both rider and horses eventually become very versatile.

The scoring system is a positive one rather than a negative one which leads to many disqualifications. In some years, there have been less than 10 horses disqualified in all of the classes – this is by design. We believe that a horse should be given credit for what they accomplish rather than disqualified with no score.

These points may not seem significant, but if you look at the many different rules that are being offered today, you will appreciate these ASHA rules. ASHA is firmly committed to a positive scoring system and the four classes of stock horse pleasure, reining, trail and working cow horse. We recognize that there are many more fun and good classes in which to show a stock horse. However, in view of time required to conduct a show, we doubt they would measure any feature of a versatile stock horse that is not measured in the four classes that we offer.