Equestrians Showboating Harsh Methods — the bane of my existence

I truly believe that the vast majority of horse people get into horseback riding due to their sheer love and adoration for horses. The joy that brings people into the horse world does not allow for the mistreatment and bullying we see on such a wide scale, so how does it become so mainstream and accepted? No child goes into horses wanting to cause them harm or distress, that is the truth. It is the trainers who exploit the naivety of young child or inexperienced horse people that cause them to grow increasingly more accepting of using blatantly harsh methods, things that are unlikely to fly if you applied them to other types of animals and enacted such methods in a public setting. While abuse certainly does occur to dogs, it is a lot less likely that you would watch a dog owner lay into their dog using whips, their hands or other forms of “weapons” with the intention of using blunt force to incite fear and pain and thereby discourage a behaviour or “teach them a lesson”. In fact, if this were to happen in a public scenario with a dog, more often than not, I truly believe someone would either speak out, or, if shared online, the aggressor would be met with an awful lot of backlash. So, why have we become so accepting of this with horses?

In training horses, there is an awful lot that we justify due to their size and the dangers that them acting unpredictably pose. Ironically, though, a lot of the fear based methods that we use on mass scales are more likely to cause the very types of sudden, dangerous flight responses that we claim to train out of them. Horses a prey animals, their flight response is so ingrained in them that even with the most perfect training, we have to pay mind to it. It is utterly foolish and egotistical for any horse trainer to claim they can undo the horses’ natural tendency to avoid, or flee from, danger and other novel stimuli that they have not been able to decipher as safe yet. The people that claim to do away with said flight response are delusional. Sure, you can make it less likely to occur, but that absolutely does not mean their nature as a flight animal goes away. Most of what we do with horses goes against their nature and in the pursuit of creating flight animals who bravely do what we ask, no matter how much instinct may tell them not to, a lot of horse people end up losing themselves and their ethics. Let me circle back to what I mentioned about dogs. Dogs are predators and because of this, we should be able to argue they are more dangerous due to their propensity to choose fight over flight, unlike horses. But, despite this, using positive reinforcement training with dogs is a lot more mainstream than it is with horses. On top of this, we know horses are quick to flee from fear and react unpredictably when afraid. So, how in the world did we decide it was logical to use fear based methods on FLIGHT animals, wired to flee from danger?

Much of the methods used on horses that I personally believe are unjust (and that are also found in research to cause mass stress and be… well.. unjust) are largely misunderstand by those who apply them. You see, those that use such methods don’t actually have a good grasp of learning theory. They don’t understand the whys behind the horses’ reactions to said training. For example, let’s use one of the more common approaches to teaching horses to stand tied quietly: the patience pole. While some use this term simply to reference teaching to tie, others take it to the level of making horses stand tied for hours until they learn to do so “patiently”.. Such method also utilizes force by way of non breakaway halters and hard tying horses so that if they do pull back, they cannot escape. As you can imagine, with a flight animal, the feeling of being trapped usually increases panic.

Many horses will fight back against the pressure, some more than others and when they DO calm down and give into the pressure after said panic, it is only due to the realization that they cannot free themselves from this situation, are not in control of their environment and thereby go into a state called learned helplessness. In behavioural study and ethics, learned helplessness is heavily frowned upon. Brain scans on animals in this state are comparative to that of scans done on depressed humans. It is a depressed state of low reactivity and in the horse world, such a state is often mistake with good training or a nice “quiet” horse. Pretty much any method that involves flooding a horse with fear provoking stimuli until they give up can result in this. On the flip side, if the animal does not go into learned helplessness, they can fall into what is viewed as the precursor of this: experimental neurosis. This is the presence of maladaptive behaviours in response to lack of control of environment, first coined in studies where they tested shocking animals both with a signal that preceded the shock and without. The animals with no ability to predict or control their environment exemplified the maladaptive behaviours that were then coined experimental neurosis. Such neurosis is not an uncommon sight if you walk through virtually any traditional show-type barn.

My yearling colt, trained without harshness, is my most well adjusted horse thus far.

The unfortunate thing about this harsh, force-based methods that are reliant on exploiting the neophobic nature of horses is that a lot of people take pride in them. Punishing and exerting power over a creature you perceive as being “bad” is reinforcing to the punisher. This means, they experience positive feelings of relief in taking out frustration on their horse and feeling like they have done something. As someone who was initially taught to handle horses just like this, I can attest to this. Taking out my frustration on my horses helped to relieve my anger and that made me more likely to be harsh again in the future. Untraining this attitude was exceptionally difficult and took a lot of self reflection, education and actually sitting with my guilt and recognizing where I went wrong. Leaving behind the damage these methods put on my perspective of training horses has been a long journey. What is more concerning is that what I see now, especially with social media, is those who utilize these harsh methods taking immense pride in doing so. They share videos of them being blatantly cruel to their horses, horses reacting with so much panic that they have virtually no self-preservation and react hugely just in an attempt to escape. Exceptionally dangerous situations both to the horse, but also the handlers. People post such videos as jokes, poking fun at the “stupid” horses reacting to their poorly applied and mean spirited training methods. This further reaffirms to other people like this that it is okay. It is such a common trend on platforms like Tiktok that I literally cannot watch Tiktoks. I have the app, but I do not go to the for you page, ever. There are that many disgusting displays of horsemanship meeting applause and affirmation, it turns my stomach.

So, what can we do, as people who do not support these types of methods? We can try to educate. Push the teachings of learning theory and what modern science has shown us in terms of the best ways to teach horses. We can own our past mistakes publicly and use ourselves as scapegoats to show that it is okay to change, that it is okay to admit where you screwed up or may have caused your horse pain or distress. We can publicly condemn those who choose to gloat about the terror and pain they inflict on their horses and make it less comfortable for them to post such things. We can show the perks of light handed methods that focus on instilling the horses’ trust in their handlers. We can share alternatives to the harsh methods, for those who may be curious in how to change but unsure how to apply said methods differently. Most of all, we can continue to educate ourselves and remind ourselves that results are not an indicator of ethicality. Someone absolutely can gain a lot of training clients or go to the Olympics and win gold, all while causing their horses immense distress. People take shortcuts all of the time, to the detriment of their horse. Results mean nothing to the horses. Learn about the more subtle aspects of behavioural signals and be more critical of your idols at the top, they are not infallible.

Most of all, I want to share with you how much safer my handling of horses has become since learning how to be kinder to them. I found myself in way more dangerous situations with stressed out, scared and frustrated horses than I do now as I work to build their trust and confidence in me and try to help them understand and even enjoy what they’re being taught. I had way more near-death experiences. Similarly, consistently the most dangerous horses I get in for training are the ones who have been roughed up. For every horse who succumbs completely to learned helplessness and becomes a lifeless shell that is easy to exploit for the rider’s wishes, there are several neurotic, nut cases who go through periods of quiet with little outward evidence of their internal stress, until they completely explode. Such horses are the ones impatient and lazy trainers hard tied and pushed them into mass panic or broke them to ride roughly without patience or moving at the rate the horse demands. Unfortunately, these shortcuts only served to make these horses training take longer and make them harder and more dangerous to work with. The impatient, force-focused trainers also are not typically the ones who have the time and patience to put into fixing them, so the horses end up discarded, counting on a kind hearted person to come in and save them.

Virtually all of the “mean spirited” or “crazy” horses have just been wronged by someone at one point. I’ve thought about this so many times over the last several years as I’ve grown as a horse person and educated myself. Milo, my personal horse, could have very easily been that “psycho” horse that people say needs to get beaten into submission and learn “respect” when in reality, he is a horse with a good flight instinct and natural caution that lends itself well to guaranteeing his survival. He is a horse who learned from prior neglect and abuse and has chosen caution to protect himself. He is a horse that deserves kindness and understanding, as are many, many others. Horses owe us nothing, we need to remember that. If we are going to use them for personal enjoyment, we need to do so in the most ethical manner possible and we need to hold ourselves more accountable for our behaviour than we hold the horses for theirs. A lot of the stringent training practices and perfect reactions we demand from our horses, we could not follow ourselves. It says a lot when a highly intelligent species like the human demands more understanding and consistency from the less intelligent counterparts that are merely a product of our training. We need to not be so damn egotistical and start realizing that many of the problems we run into with horses, we create from our own mistakes and it is our job to make training make sense to the horse, not theirs to bend to our every demand without reward.