17/12/2023
This post 👌🙌
Attention, jumping coaches: it's time to halt the teaching of children to use a whip whenever a horse hesitates in front of a jump.
Children do not naturally harbour a desire to kick, hit, or yell at their animals. These behaviours are either observed or instructed by those who should know better. This generation of riders is being explicitly taught how to be angry and abusive, perpetuating a cycle that must be broken.
Consider this scenario: You witness a child walking a dog on a leash. As the child turns towards some stairs, the dog stops at the bottom step. The child forcefully kicks the dog in the ribs, yells "GET UP," and hits it with a whip. Outrageous, right? Yet, when the same scenario occurs with a horse, it often goes unnoticed.
This normalised and accepted practice is alarming. Picture it applied to a horse in a photograph. Understand that it does not contribute to the safety, confidence, harmony, or balance of the horse or the child. Once these abusive "techniques" become automatic habits, they are challenging to correct. It's time to intervene.
Why did the horse stop in the first place? There are numerous reasons: underprepared, over-faced, tired, sore, lacking clarity, rider unbalanced, horse unbalanced, wrong pace or line, and many more. None of these reasons are helped by angry and abusive riding.
Yelling, hitting, and frightening the horse further lead to nobody having fun, nobody feeling safe, and both people and horses getting hurt. Our sport deserves better representation in the media.
Here are phrases we should abandon:
"Make him do it"
"Don't let the horse win"
"Always discipline a stop"
"Don’t let him get away with it"
"MORE LEG!"
Replace them with:
"Prepare, then prepare some more"
"Reward the smallest try"
"Breathe"
"Wait"
"Feel"
"Trust"
Children do not naturally desire to mistreat their animals; they learn it from those who should know better. STOP IT! Let's break this cycle and create a more compassionate and effective approach to jumping coaching.
