08/16/2024
Read it. So many people will help navigate horse ownership. Look at their horses first.
Recently, a trainer shared some words that echoed something I think about daily.
Then, days later, another trainer I've known since she was a child shared with one of us that she hoped to not train horses after she graduates because it is too painful to see what happens to horses after they leave her care.
This continual issue wears on good horse trainers, clinicans and rescues, and I don't know how we can really fix it. But we are burning out the good horse people by refusing to change.
We live in a world where unlimited educational opportunities are available to us in a plethora of ways: in person and virtual or a combination of the two. We can take lessons for ourselves and have a trainer to advance both ourselves and our horses. We can hire a trainer from afar and take lessons via video calls with ear buds in, we can haul to clinics with revolutionary experts, we can subscribe to monthly learning centers, we can watch free youtube videos, we can call in or tune into seminars via Zoom, we can listen to podcasts, and we are able to schedule professional saddle fitters, body workers, farriers, chiropractors and more. There is so much knowledge on equine pains, brains and nutrition compared to even twenty years ago.
KNOWLEDGE is so accessible. WE DO NOT need to Wing It.
But too many people with horses will NOT even try any of these learning opportunites. They think those things are for someone else. Personally, they think, "I don't need the help." Too many of us never accept WE are the problem. We may say, it is never the horse, but we think we are the exception.
And so what happens as a really good trainer or rescue is this:
You receive a horse with problems, and usually it is a combination of physical and mental mismanagement. You correct the anxiety over pain from poor saddle fit, you get the horse comfortable in his mouth from teeth left unattended, you correct nutrional gaps and overloads, you get his body feeling great through some chiro and massage visits, you get the angles of his feet lined out properly, you get x rays and find out if he has injuries, you understand he needs to be a horse and enjoy natural behaviors, you get the horse condititioned through unrushed, consistent work, you see the little changes and reward them, you handle him in a way he understands, and he realizes, "You KNOW."
The horse flourishes with you in your organization or training program. YOU have helped the horse become a happy, adjusted equine ready to go into a new home and succeed. And he is ready.
But then he leaves, and the new home changes his diet without any research, to whatever is easier to pick up at the store, forgets a loose mineral, uses whatever dewormer is on sale, doesn't follow through with lessons, a saddle fitter, a quality farrier, skips yearly dentals, and the horse unravels. They may complain to you, but they don't hear your advice and make real changes.
Before you know it, you see updates on the horse and barely recognize him. He isn't neglected, really. He weighs enough, but you can see the light is out of the horse you cultivated and loved.
If you're a rescue, eventually the adopter wants to return this horse because he isn't what they thought he would be, and if you're a trainer, perhaps you see a post trying to sell that training horse you loved, and our hearts all sink.
Another horse let down by a well meaning owner who refused to be told anything, who would not grow into a better horse person.
Horses are complex, they are costly, they are worth US becoming better.
And so many of the people guilty of these things read posts like this and think, "That's not me."
Sigh. It probably is, though.
But for the sake of horses, I hope if it is you, you make the change today. Not one horse should be a casualty of your ego.
