03/01/2024
There’s a growing disconnect right now that is pitting relationship against horsemanship. As though we would somehow be wrong to want both, rather than wholly one, or the other.
For the first time, we are being told that traditional skills and values are erroneous, scientifically and ethically. We are told that if we aim to be evolved horse(wo)men, we must ‘unlearn’ what we thought we knew for sure.
We are to go that place where we exist in energy and not prior experience. This means getting into our bodies and entirely out of our heads. This is a place where we are not learning mundane equitation skills, like ‘heads up, heels down’, nor are we asking our horses to struggle or serve.
This new mindset is reflected in my own page and the pages of countless other ‘traditional’ horse(wo)men, people who are involved in the business of teaching people how to ride and how to look after their horses, as a matter of husbandry. Any post that will teach a rider correct equitation or useful horse training techniques, will pale in comparison to the reactions and comments on a post on feelings, love and relationship.
Our followers are telling us, very plainly, that they want to learn about connection—mind melding, observing horse signals and learned empathy—more than they want to learn how to obtain a good leg position, or how to manage pastures, or fly control—indeed, any of the tools that we can learn about more mundane horse-keeping.
Right now, we would rather learn about relationship, than the tools to train our horses, or how to keep ourselves safe. This worries me, to be honest.
We’re wanting the sweet reward over the gritty substance. It has got to the point that a recent share of my pony, Bobby, learning to harrow pens was shared within a social media group that exists to find examples of cruelty to horses. Bobby was shown working willingly with his head low and his ears up… and still, this. I was guilty of asking my horse to do a job.
Many people no longer want to put in the considerable amount of time needed to learn how to ride or drive through difficult situations, let alone on challenging sorts of horses, because they have been told that if they possess the secret to understanding their horses, they will not be faced with bad moments, at all. They and their horses will have bound themselves to each other in such a way that transcends the ordinary moments that once filled a horse(wo)man’s day. They are promised that with enough love and awareness, everyone will stay safe.
I can only scratch my head at this notion and say a little prayer. I wholly agree that if we never ask, our horses will never have to say “NO!” Thing is, if you have ever been in a job, or a lifestyle, where your living is made with your horse, you know there will come a day when you, your horse and your methods will be tested with your life on the line. There will come a day.
The idea about learning to ride well was born in the military, to keep our ancestors alive in battle. This meant training war horses to understand clear aids, to ignore everything else and for us to somehow become ‘pleasant burdens’ whilst in the saddle. While modern life is far removed from this reality, I am leery of throwing out the model that created traditional horsemanship. Not just riding, either. It meant that one knew how to look after horses through feeding, care, exercise and preventing illness.
Many of these old manuals of equitation also included the method of humanely putting one’s horse down!
It meant being open to having our feelings hurt and our bodies challenged, in order to be worthy of the horse. Now, admittedly, much of the old military/traditional model of teaching was abusive to both the human and equine students. This is not what I’m suggesting we keep going, before anyone points out the error of my thinking.
I am wanting to stay alive because I have an obedient and useful horse; I want you to stay alive, too. Right now, the way horsemanship is headed, I am having my doubts about the future. We are dividing into two very separate camps: those who crave feeling and those who are somewhat proud of avoiding feeling.
It brings to mind the chasm between trained musicians and those who can play by ear. Each group makes the other somewhat uncomfortable, without an inclusive mindset.
For example, let’s take the ‘new’ information available on pain signals shown by ridden horses. We’re being somewhat misled here because this is not new! No, it has been taught by traditional teachers for decades, as a guide for schooling horses in an ethical manner. The ignoring of these signs of pain and discomfort—failing to note the posture, desperate eyes, ears, mouths, nostrils and swishing tails—particularly in the competitive realm, is perhaps what is modern? Though I suspect we’ve been ignoring horses’ needs for a very long time.
As someone who hails from a traditional dressage program, this irks me to be told to pay attention to these newly pinpointed signs of abuse. If more people trained their horses in the classical manner, they would know to avoid pushing their horses to this point, in the first place.
I will share that less and less, am I feeling comfortable illustrating my writing with photographs of myself working my own horses. Why? Because the message I relay is too often hijacked by the type of gear I use, whether I am wearing spurs or no helmet, whether my horse is wearing a shanked bit or going bitless, entirely.
Horse(wo)men, we have veered into ‘us vs them’ territory, parroting why our pet discipline doesn’t require horses to move correctly, or for us to ride with independent seats, because we have somehow risen above this need for traditional horsemanship.
Get this: I want it all!
I want relationship, though not at the expense of my workmanlike horsemanship, my being able to saddle up and go out and do a job. I want my performance but not at the expense of the connection I have built with my horses. I get very uncomfortable with the way we are being sorted off, like cattle run through a chute, into the people who achieve greater understanding at the expense of their riding, vs the people who achieve good performance at the expense of being caring, or thoughtful, people.
Do not buy into this crap.
If we are being told to ‘get after’ our horses in order to win, then we have to ask ourselves how badly our horses want to be in our chosen sport? In this case, the only ones winning are our trainers, through the cheques we are continuing to write.
Conversely, if we are being told that building friendship with our horses will excuse us from having to learn to ride correctly and teaching our horses to be obedient—aka SAFE—thousand-pound animals, then we are being sold a bill of goods. The only ones really benefitting are our gurus.
Too often, we are being told that in order to right the considerable wrongs of the past, we must absolve ourselves from wanting anything taxing from our horses. That we will exonerate ourselves by paying the living expenses of an animal that has no intention of doing anything for us, other than that of sharing space. While this works for many people, I don’t buy into the notion that traditional horsemanship is entirely wrong. Do I wish that aged events were celebrated more than futurities? You bet. Do I wish that individual disciplines wouldn’t veer from what is good for the horse, in order to be unique? God, yes.
While I have read—and cried—over ‘Black Beauty’, I have been mentored by too many thoughtful, excellent horse people, to fall for the idea that my prior horsemanship is steeped in shame. Of course, I have made mistakes, gone down wrong paths. I have tried to learn from them.
My horsemanship needs life-long tweaking, adding a shift in how I go about things, in how I strive to understand the horse. That is all. I do not want to throw the baby out with the bath water! I will need to learn what to let go and how to do it, to make room for the new… but I will not be shamed into turning my back on my prior life with horses.
This means that until someone comes up with a better method than that of putting in the effort, in real time, in how to school both a horse and rider to a high standard—without doing harm to either, mind—I will remain watchful. I will remain skeptical.
I have this feeling that my ever-practical, yet kind, grandparents would raise an eyebrow at this modern goal of always making everyone feel good, at all costs. In the long run, I’m predicting another pendulum swing from hard to soft, from resolve to feeling, to back again. We’re skidding from one ditch, to the other, rather than holding steady in the middle of the road.
Always, we do this at the expense of the horse.
Can traditional teaching can be both kinder to horses and to their people? Yes. We don’t need to continue browbeating individuals, just to get our point across. There is no benchmark of suffering that makes my learning any more valuable than yours.
Here, then, is the warning. We are in danger of replacing skills with concepts.
Replacing old standards of competence with new theories is in no way guaranteed to keep us safe. Neither we, nor our horses, will ever learn how to do an applied task, a real-life job, without actually stepping out, learning and then, doing it.
When we are riding and faced with uncontrolled pressures and ordinary risks—working cows, seeing wildlife, added speed or stress, other horses and riders, changing weather, or as many of us have done this summer with impending disaster, such as fire or rising water—we do not want to ask our horses a big question and find out they do not have our backs. l, for one, need to know that if and when we’re under extreme pressure, my horse will say yes, no matter what.
I feel as though I’m an island in thinking, let alone voicing, these thoughts.
