09/11/2024
Sorry this is lengthy, but I think I’ve well established myself as long winded…
In notes, labeled as: To post, or not to post?????
Oh you guys…. This should be a moment where I say, yes, finally, people are waking up and seeing the way we used to do things is not ok anymore.
But… I don’t know if it’s just that people haven’t been paying attention, are willfully ignorant, or are only willing to jump on a bandwagon once it’s reliably and unquestionably barreling down the hill… but - wake up!!
Horse abuse comes in many shapes and sizes, it is a very non-discriminatory and hungry beast.
It looks like chemical and manual hypersenstisation before show jumping. Punching your horse in the face in dressage warm up at an FEI while the stewards turn a blind eye. IV injecting your horse with magnesium in your trailer before FEI dressage. Purposefully flipping an overly bold horse over an XC fence to teach it a lesson. Withholding water from it before dressage. Shooting at it with an air soft gun to get it in front of the leg. Simple rolkur starts to sound like child’s play. Show jumping practice with carpet tacks or fishing line dangling across the standards. Descending oxers and a sedative cocktail on board for show jumping prep schools (what’s in that backpack? Who’s covering up the positive drug tests?). Running a horse that you know is injured and compromised, keeping it on ice from the moment it arrives at the venue and then having it ambulanced off mid way through the course. Continuously presenting lame horses to the ground jury for FEI jogs. Sending them to the vet hospital for a nerving procedure under a different name. Drugging a horse for sale with a quickly metabolized sedative so that it behaves when people come to ride it but drug tests clean during the vetting a few days later. These are all things I’ve personally witnessed over the last few years at the upper levels of the sport.
Honestly, abuse is around almost every corner of every farm and horseshow if you have your eyes open and are paying attention, and most, if not all of our idols practice or have practiced some form of it.
I’m incredibly ashamed but feel it’s incumbent upon me, and only honest to admit, that my job coming up as a rider was to be “the enforcer”. I’ve whacked a horse in the face, kicked a horse in the gut, overdone the whip during trailer loading and cross country schooling. I’ve je**ed them in the mouths and made bad decisions that have poorly affected their health and soundness. I’ve lost my temper and done some really bad, uneducated and rough riding.
But since then, I’ve learned and grown, I’ve become more educated about how horses think and learn. I’ve evolved in my understanding of horses, horse care, and horse training. I look back at my former self and I can say that I had moments that today I am utterly and completely ashamed of.
But I’ve learned from all of those moments and I truly believe that the knowledge and experience I’ve gained from my desire to learn how to be better for the horses has made it so that now I can do real good in the lives of my horses and students.
I know first-hand what it’s like to run out of patience and tools. And now I know, through my own experiences, how to overcome those shortcomings and try to be a good and kind horseman to my horses. I was not born perfect and patient and with all of the knowledge I would need to face all of the challenges that life and horses present to us. I’ve had to come by those lessons through trial and error. I’d take back all of my mistakes if I could. And still, to this day, I have to remind myself to pause, take a moment and reset, because I now know what the moment just before I lose my patience feels like.
I don’t think I’d be remiss in reminding everyone that most of us were taught as we were coming up that horses “need discipline”. It’s literally still legal and accepted to whip horses in competition (but only two times in succession now and not three).
In 2017 I was the highest placed US rider at the Kentucky five star after XC, an accomplishment I’m still very proud of. But, I cringe whenever I watch that video back because of how desperate I was to get my genuine, but ditchy and “water-y” horse around the wet and slippery XC. I used my whip way too much - yet always within the legal competition parameters. Back then I thought that I was helping to give him confidence. Now I know it was only giving me confidence, and that he jumped brilliantly and honestly around that course despite my “encouragements”, not because of them. Even then I felt embarrassed watching the video back and wished I had used my whip less. But around the barns at the end of the day I got pats on the back and told by person after person that it was “good, old fashioned cross country riding”. Now I know better, and I want to keep learning how to be better for my horses.
I admit all of this about myself not to try to explain away the current conversation, but to be honest about what I think the journey towards more enlightened and ethical horsemanship looks like for many of us who are over the age of ten.
Furthermore, I would add that when reading back this stream of consciousness that is this essay, the thing I worried the most about making public was not my own transgressions, but whether or not naming the transgressions I’ve witnessed or have been privy to are sparse enough on details as to not blatantly identify the perpetrators, as I myself, while disgusted by these actions, am not ready to be the whistleblower. And for that fact I also feel shame.
So I would like to offer that this line between training and abuse has not always been a crystal clear unmistakably illuminated line.
Horse training used to be brutal, and that was accepted. Horse training is often still brutal, and thankfully, hopefully, little by little, that brutality is more easily recognized and less readily accepted. And I hope that in 50 years the line between training and brutality will be so blatantly clear that we won’t have to have these conversations and arguments anymore. But we are not there yet. We are in a growth period and a very grey area still. What is one man’s training is another man’s abuse. Which doesn’t excuse the abuse, but it does mean that those of us who seek to build a better sport and better horseman must focus on education and not condemnation.
So, in this moment, if we are going to condemn one, we should likely condemn all, because picking and choosing who we string up surely won’t effectively move the sport forward. I don’t think there’s a single one of us who can say we’ve walked a perfect path on our journey with horses - if you can you’re either lying or have been in horses for two days or less. We ALL must get better at training and caring for our horses. The USEF must get better at holding people accountable, even the idols of our sport, for not only equine abuse, but also human abuse, rather than constantly ignoring things or sweeping things under the rug.
And the collective we must get better at holding people accountable, big name or no name, while also allowing for some grace and empathy. Not excusing transgressions, but identifying them while also being mindful that behind those mistakes are human beings.
My best friend was killed by a careless, thoughtless, selfish drunk driver. Her life cut short, her brilliant spark snuffed, her wonderfullness and promise ripped away from those of us who loved her, in an instant.
The driver went to jail for many years, as he should have. But I have forgiven him, as has her family, for what he caused in what was the lowest moment of his (and our) life. Why? Because no one deserves to live out their lives being defined by their worst moment(s). If they are a piece of s**t they will continue to make horrible, selfish decisions and lay waste to every gesture of grace sent their way. They don’t need me to hate them and crucify them to continue being the worst.
But, if they have any chance at redemption or rehabilitation, then they need my love, forgiveness and empathy in order to move past their worst and find something better.
So I would say, hate, name, and disavow the action - but don’t hate the human. Condemn the action, but not the human.
Forgiveness does not mean a free pass to continue being horrible, but it means that we can still treat those who have done despicable things with grace and without righteous cruelty, even while we hold them accountable for their cruel actions.
