19/10/2025
Cleaning Up a Dirty Industry
My friends, it is a low bar we are setting. I take an extremist view on community. Which means that I believe all horse people are connected, whether you like it or not. And that we are only as advanced as our "slowest" members.
This morning I was interviewing a potential candidate for my Internship Program here on my farm. She mentioned being at a clinic of one of the best horsepeople in the industry, a leader in our field for over 40 years. This leader advised against breathing techniques, calling them "...breathing s**t..." and their compatriots and hosts kept advising to "...kick the horse more."
This is disgusting behaviour. And an extremely low standard of work for horses and people.
As an occasionally overworked and impatient professional myself, I admit there are times things flew out of my mouth I regret saying due to over work and exhaustion. But I am seeking to rectify that because the horses and my community deserve the best of me, not my worst.
Earlier this week, on a Group Call, about 55 out of 178 people were in attendance. Someone unmuted and shared a story. A local leader to their region, competitive, boarding barn, lessons, a thriving local business and competitor. My client was riding this professionals horse in a lesson setting when the horse failed a canter lead change when asked. This pro had my client dismount, and then they allegedly "... proceeded to beat this horse up for 40 minutes." If you are shocked enough to believe it cannot be true, I would stand with you. I can hardly believe this is true myself.
My horse Caleb, pictured, has a 3/4 inch wide, horizontal scar across his tongue, after bit use early in his life almost caused his tongue to sever in two. His nose, is calcified after a Serraton (Serrated metal noseband popular in Classical Iberian Training) caused his nose to be turned to raw meat. I have had commentators step into my DM's as recently as last year when I spoke about these tools, seeking to justify them. Using the rhetoric of But Your Hands, Not The Tool, Are The Problem. They are correct. But also, why on gods green earth do you need to attach bread knives to your horses face to stay safe and create lightness? Get the F outta here.
These are things that happened recently.
There are horses held by clients in my community, that as recent as 2022, were hard tied to an old sturdy tree, blindfolded, and then beat with a piece of 2x4 wood until the horse quit fighting for their life. Then, ridden in an ill-fitting saddle across rocky ground working stock afterwards.
This is a low bar.
Though this doesn't at all speak for everyone in the community, I have to say that these abusers are part of our community, and we need to take responsibility for them, because they are apparently incapable. We also need to take a sharp eye towards "Gentler versions" of the same attitude to horses. Extreme violence, as an example, is born from a single seed. That single seed believes that we are entitled, justified, to justify the means if the outcome is an outcome that WE want. Selfishness, exploitation doesn't always look like a 2x4. Sometimes it looks very elegant, very refined. But it is the same attitude, just watered down into a less easily called out form.
Call it out.
We are only as fast as our slowest person.
Stop justifying. Accept where we are. We have colleagues whom would be in jail if they acted the same way to a child that they do to a horse. Criminals.
Outside looking in, non-horse people are waking up. AND WE LOOK TOTALLY WACKY to them.
Lighter versions of abuse just do not fly anymore. It won't do. We have to clean it up.
Wait until organised legislation moves out against us, in organised countries. It has begun. It has happened to other animals in human care. Circus animals. SeaWorld. Zoo's. It can happen to horse people too. I think it should. I hope it will.
Which side will you be on? Justifying the means because the result gave you what you wanted? Or disavowing systems that ask the horse to eat a s**t sandwich so that you can ride and train them?
Yes, I am furious.
But I am also focused. And working really hard to carve another category out, where we firmly step over that extremely low bar.
Said my prospective intern this morning:
"I feel like if I learn from you on your farm I will definitely not be in a place where I will be asked to kick the horse more."
She is correct. But I also am aware of Ethical Ego's and the pitfalls there, and seek to avoid those too. It is possible to balance this.
The fact most people that come to my clinics, go home thinking "Well, I think I will use more force than that at home..." is a counter point to the tired storyline of clinics, where people learn from the clinician, but go home thinking "I will try that, but I will use less force at home when the clinician is not watching me."
It is my opinion that the horse world, which should be a place of study, practice, and joyful exploration of one of the most beautiful crafts and skills known to human and horse-kind, is still drastically held in the mud by extremely dirty practices, unscrupulous personalities, mean streaks, cruelty and a fundamental lack of kindness, that is all dressed up and sold to us as Competency and Legitimacy. That you are not a real horse person unless you're willing to get pretty mean every now and then. Then, they set up situations where horses become mean, and use that circumstantial "evidence" to uphold their low standards.
Because god forbid we decide we don't want violence, and horses.
God forbid we seek to understand technique that is free from inappropriate levels of pressure and leverage.
It is a sad, sad situation that I am deemed the problem by my colleagues for choosing to speak this way. But if I came online and gave y'all permission to use whatever means necessary sometimes, I would be warmly embraced by many people who are currently ghosting me out. F**k them. I am not here for them.
I am here for you. Your horses. Period.
