Harm Reduction in Horsemanship

Something that I don’t think is discussed often enough in the horse community is the idea of harm reduction.

So much of the horse world seems to view all opinions in a very black and white light, assuming that someone either has to be completely for something or completely against it. And, unfortunately, a lot of horse people DO contribute to this belief by publicizing their very black and white views.

A lack of nuance can contribute to more harm than some flexibility, or at minimum, understanding of where other equestrians may at in their journey of knowledge acquisition and horsemanship improvement.

I do think as an industry there needs to be a certain openness to people who are moving towards reducing harm in their horses, even if they are not fully there yet. Trying to do better is something that does deserve appreciation.

I do think that this is an important discussion when we are referencing the rewards based community versus people who are still using predominantly, or entirely, aversive methods. It’s a hard transition for people to make especially with how closed off much of the community still is to rewards based training, it can be hard to find trainers and mentors to help make that transition and adequately learn how to use R+ or even just learn WHY it’s beneficial.

It is not reasonable to expect someone to go from using entirely traditional methods, with no rewards, to being purely rewards base with no aversives. This is the equivalent to expecting a horse to do a complete 180 in training and start doing the opposite of everything that they have learned prior in just a matter of hours or days, which isn’t something that good trainers would reasonably expect because we know re-learning and unlearning things takes time. There is an adjustment period and shaping typically has to be a slower approach of many little steps.

And so, it’s important to consider that operating with a shame based mentality and taking such a rigid stance that you cannot appreciate the growth of an equestrian until they have completely committed to a purely rewarded based approach is counterproductive. It is a mistake to label people who are actively trying to learn how to do better as terrible or abusive people simply because they haven’t fully committed to the entire process and are in the beginning stages of undoing previous mistakes. All this ends up doing is creating barriers that make people less likely to want to reduce harm due to feeling that nothing they do will ever be good enough.

The desire and attempt to start doing better is how one begins the journey of developing more ethical practices. No one starts this journey by fully committing to a 100% change in practices because it’s hard to do with a lack of support and resources, which let’s be real, science based horse training is currently under resourced due to how few available trainers there are with equine sciences backgrounds when compared to traditional trainers.

It’s imperative that we realize that the shift in the horse world won’t be immediate. We can hold space for our personal views while still recognizing when someone is engaging in harm reduction and choosing our battles wisely.

For example, you can believe that bitless riding is the most ethical way of riding. You can believe that there is no need for a bit and that they are always going to be uncomfortable and unfair to the horse.

BUT— you can do so while recognizing the fact that encouraging people to ride in a smooth mouth piece snaffle or rubber snaffle, is preferable to someone using an abrasive mouthpiece, such as twisted wire, or a gag bit. Doing so is probably more likely to result in a softening of methodology than demanding someone go bitless when they have grown used to using harsh equipment. They’re more likely to meet in the middle and choose a softer bit than they are to go from harsh bit to entirely bitless, especially when we remember the aforementioned lack of resources for qualified trainers to help them along this journey.

It may still fall outside of the realm of your ethical beliefs, but for the horse, the improvement from going from a harsher bit to a softer one is something that will still undoubtedly improve welfare, even if it is not the perfect situation.

And, for the horse, that welfare improvement is substantial enough to at minimum make their day to day more pain free and tolerable.

Similarly, even if you believe purely positive / rewards based training is the way to go, it is still a positive and meaningful improvement for someone to start using ANY rewards-based training in their program if they did not used to. Even if it is still not enough by your belief system, it will still enrich the horse’s life to have any type of rewards based methods used, even if it is more sparingly than what you may like.

Plus, beginning to use such methods allows people to see and test the efficacy of them, leading them to use them more and more in a lot of cases. It is the beginning of a transitional period and if we get too rigid with how people should go about things, we can cause them to balk and give up on testing the waters altogether, rendering their horses less likely to experience harm reduction.

This doesn’t mean we have to settle for situations in which welfare is undoubtedly impacted to an extreme extent, such as blatantly abusive training methods. Or, in the case of large governing organizations like the FEI, there is more need for accountability due to the level of influence they hold, so when addressing major governing organizations, it may be fair to be more critical of their decisions and what they enable due to the power they hold over the industry.

However, with what has been allowed to slide in the horse world and what has been normalized for so long, we do have to make some concessions because we cannot expect people to do a complete 180 from beliefs that have been instilled in them from the very beginning of their riding career. Beliefs that they had never been led to believe are problematic even in the slightest because they were educated in such views by someone they perceived as credible.

There is so much misinformation in the horse community, horse stress behaviour is so frequently mislabeled. Because of this, it can be very hard for people to not only find but also accept what is and isn’t true because if they’ve grown-up being told one thing and are suddenly having random people say the complete opposite, there will be a lack of trust in that information, and it will be hard to accept information that serves to completely dismantle their belief system.

Many people struggle with this transitional period, because it is exceptionally uncomfortable and it is reliant on a huge shift internally to fully accept and embrace ethical and science based methods when you have been taught something completely different.

Some people may have an easier time with this than others, but we shouldn’t base the way we go about this approach off of the most resilient people. We need to look at a pragmatic and realistic approach towards improving the horse world and that may start with realistic steps towards harm reduction, and then having our end goals of where we would ideally like for things to end up.

There are a lot of welfare concerns present in the Horse world currently that are totally valid. But because of the number of years that we have had people put into spreading misinformation and normalizing harmful practices, it will be very hard to completely just collapse that system without taking small, shaping steps to help people get to the eventual goal.

This is, of course, is within reason because certain practises that are so harmful do deserve to be taken on a hard line with less flexibility, such as the prevalence of hyperflexion in competition arenas, both in warm up and the actual show ring, this is not something we need to take the slow approach on because there is enough evidence and need for immediate change. Plus, this type of treatment is being enabled by powerful organizations that profit to the tune of millions off of the competitive world. Such entities are deserving of far more scrutiny than your average junior or amateur rider because there is a power dynamic involved.

Besides, as far as training goes, it is a lot easier for people to adapt training to avoid hyperflexion than it may be for them to fully embrace positive reinforcement training or switch from going bitted to bitless if they lack the instruction to do so.

Similarly, improving bitting regulations in the in competition ring is a realistic approach to harm reduction because it’s not calling for a complete ban that will result in people balling at the idea of change due to its extremity, and because of this is more likely to be accepted with less of a fight. Besides, more stringent bit regulations are a stepping stone towards less harsh practices, even for people who eventually want to see bits banned, it should still be viewed as a win to set a standard for what level of harshness isn’t allowed in the arena.

When we take a very extreme approach to things, it increases the likelihood of people completely writing it off and wanting to entirely resist without even considering the possibility for change or looking at the information to justify the need for change, which will end up prolonging how long it takes to achieve meaningful growth in the industry.

Starting with realistic goals is of the utmost importance and starting the discussion in the first place is paramount because it opens the door for people to slowly learn about a better and more ethical way of doing things when they may not otherwise be able to access the information.

I think a lot of people are extremely well-intentioned and I do think that there is merit to those who have adopted more extreme mindsets, such as being completely anti-bit, however, I see how the response from the general horse community to such mindsets is counterproductive in igniting change. Because a lot of people are put off by the extreme nature of these views and fail to even consider what would be valuable information that they may be open to if those producing such information were not taking such a hard and fast stance .

We can do so much better for our horses and I really do believe that harm reduction is a very positive start because at the minimum it will reduce the harm that horses experience, instead of prolonging it by creating argumentative discussion that seeks to try to halt said needed change. A little improvement is better than no improvement at all and this does not mean we should give up and not continue pushing for needed change, but we should see steps towards a more ethical industry as a little win, even if the battle has not been completely won yet. It is still a step in the right direction.

So while people may want to ban horse sports or horse racing or bits or XYZ, getting to that point is something that is going to take a lot of time. Would they not prefer to help better the lives of horses in the meantime by improving regulations to help promote better welfare practice? Otherwise, the alternative is creating a ton of discourse with no change while in the meantime horses continue to suffer with little to no efforts being made to reduce harm as the sport currently exists.

We should not be so stuck in our personal views that we negate any ability to create immediate and sweeping improvement that could better the lives of horses long-term and lead to what the eventual goals may be.

Even those who have the most extreme stance of wanting to ban all equine sports are still benefitted by harm reduction, because it is a step towards their eventual goal whether or not it is fully representative of the direction that they want things to head. It is still a win in terms of welfare improvement.

I, for one, am not for a complete ban but I fail to see why those who are wouldn’t be happy with measures being taken to make horses more comfortable and cared for in the meantime, after all, is the movement to end all horse sports not about the well-being of the animals? If that is the case, harm reduction should be embraced rather than shrugged off as not good enough.

So, here is your encouragement to be open to people improving, to not hold them to their past mistakes and to be happy to see harm reduction in the industry

Tides are changing, attitudes are shifting, and people are becoming more and more open to these ideas so we have to try to find ways to support them in trying to make positive changes for their horses even if they’re not at the final destination for what would be best for horse welfare quite yet.

Reinforce the changes in human behaviour we want to see by appreciating those who are making an active effort to learn how to do better and are attempting to adopt a more welfare forward approach because this is where it all begins.

I used to resist a lot of the information I now embrace. At first, my change started off slow but then it began to catch fire as I learned more and realized how well these new rewards based methods worked and realized how the changes in management of my horses benefitted both myself and my horses.

From there, I kept going and didn’t look back. But, it took me testing the waters first and really learning that such changes could bring so much positivity to the life of myself and my horses. I had to try it first.

And, when I did, I got hooked.

So, all we have to do is wait for people to get hooked.

Put the information out there. Encourage them to try it in their horsemanship. Applaud them for their attempts and gently help them along the journey.

When they realize it works, their interest will be piqued and they will become much more accepting of new information and then so begins the journey of change.

We can reduce harm in the horse world, but we may need to consider approaching it similarly to how we would nervous horses and recognizing that one step forward is better than no steps forward.

Save the anger and rigidity for powerful governing organizations and try to encourage the average horse owner along with compassion when they’re actively trying to find ways to reduce harm.