Maintaining Reasonable Expectations in Horse Training

A comparison of one of the first OTTBs I had (top) vs one I have now. The bottom horse has been in training for less time than the top horse was and was also a more difficult horse.

While the love for horses is a prevalent motivation in the goals of most equestrians, it can often become a misguided love, one that serves to focus on the selfish desires of the rider and leave behind fairness to the horse. This typically isn’t done intentionally at all, but the goals of the equestrian supersede being more considerate about the horse and the “why” behind their inability to perform in certain areas, their anxiety or “bad” behaviour.

One of the most crucial things to consider in training is the fact that training horses for riding is mental just as much as it is physical. Discomfort of the body can result in mental distress, so the physical and mental aspects go hand in hand. In training, horses are slowly developing skills along with the fitness and muscling to be able to perform said skills with ease. A horse may struggle with a certain concept physically, even if they mentally understand what they’re being asked. Similarly, a physically fit horse who is capable of performing the task it is being asked of from a fitness perspective may struggle mentally with said task for a multitude of reasons. This is why training is an art of “scaffolding” the skills. You are gradually building an intricate framework that includes both physical and mental needs. If you rush either one of these, you risk a shoddy foundation that could crumble at any time.

For example, a horse being entered into training after time off will need time to get back in shape before being asked to do things that they may already know how to do. You cannot expect a horse after half a year off to be able to literally jump back into their show jumping career just because they’re trained to do it. Their body hasn’t had the necessary training to upkeep the fitness, so it needs to be retrained, and this starts at focusing on the basics to allow development of fitness without overworking the body and causing injury. Similarly, a horse who has been trained and maintained physical fitness for one sport will need the same type of consideration when their career suddenly changes. We see this most often with horses retiring from racing. Being asked to run on flat ground, through big, sweeping turns is a lot different than being asked to supple, go slow, sit on the haunch and be flexible through 20 metre circles in the arena. It is also much different than sinking back on the hindquarter to be asked to go over a jump. So, while these horses ARE, indeed, insanely fit, they haven’t developed the muscling and flexibility that we typically ask of them in their new careers, it takes time. Mental distress can be caused due to the physical complications of trying to do things they’re not yet muscled or flexible for, or due to what they are being asked to do suddenly changing and conflicting with everything they’ve known in their previous job. This is why consideration from the rider is key.

You cannot rush relaxation. You cannot force a horse to relax. You can, however, use bandaids in training in an attempt to mask stress behaviours, but the stress will still be there and it could end up causing you major issues down the road. If you take the time to develop baseline relaxation and softness without trying to manufacture it through force or essentially gagging the horse’s ability to respond to said stress, you’ll end up being able to move faster in the future, even if it’s a slow start. Failing to deal with high levels of anxiety for length periods of time risks the horse trigger stacking and eventually having everything you’ve missed out on in their training blow up in your face in a big way.

This level of consideration is also important to your trainers. If you are asking a trainer to assist you by way of lessons or training rides, you need to be realistic. Trainers are not magicians. They can’t just snap their fingers and make you a physically stronger rider or suddenly make your horse fit. They can’t instantaneously have your horse develop suppleness and flexibility. They need to put the work in to have this happen and this takes time. Some trainers may be willing to rush things, but be conscious of the fact that this will come at the expense of your horse.

Rushing the horse physically is the equivalent to a human having a bad personal trainer who forcibly pushes them down into a stretch they cannot yet do, causing immense pain and discomfort. You’ll likely walk away from a session like this very sore, perhaps with an injury that will take time to heal. This is exactly what your horse will experience if you use gadgets in a manner that forcibly pushes them into a frame or position they’ve not developed the flexibility and fitness to maintain. Draw reins are great example of this, this isn’t to say everyone will use them in a manner that could cause these issues, but they act via a pulley system that means the rider has less of an ability to feel the horse’s objections to the pressure. This makes it very easy to keep your horse in a frame they’re not developed enough for, causing discomfort to the neck and over working or over stretching muscles. In turn, the horse will have to sacrifice the lift in their back, because they are not yet physically developed enough to hold it.

Let’s compare this to a person being asked to do the plank, this is a hard thing to do initially. Someone forcing you to hold it for longer than you’re able to will likely result in your form degrading as your body fatigues. Them forcing you to maintain a static position for too long doesn’t change the fact that you’ve not put the leg work in to slowly develop the fitness to make it easy for you. It also may make you resentful of work with the trainer because of the physical and mental repercussions.

Comparison of one of my old OTTBs (top) ridden in an elevator and martingale, versus one of the ones I have now. The bottom horse started out with much more anxiety and resistance to stretching and relaxation than the top.

Since we cannot feel the horse’s physical discomfort or mental distress, it is imperative we be extra cautious of this and allow the horse opportunity to relieve themselves of strain if the physical output becomes too difficult for them. This is exceptionally hard to do when you’re using force by way of harsh bits or certain gadgets. So, be conscious of the mechanics of the equipment you use. Draw reins are a pulley system, which means the pressure per pull will be significantly greater than a direct rein. Twisted wire bits increase pressure points and make the risk of pain greater, thus making the horse submit to rein pressure faster. Generally speaking, if there is immediate change in softness when you put certain equipment on your horse, it is either making the consequences of resistance greater, or it is due to the equipment anatomically fitting the horse better, thus producing more comfort. Certain bits and gadgets simply cannot be justified as preference by the horse due to their mechanics. When they work off of increasing discomfort, the horse isn’t responding to them better due to personal preference. This is just a fact of how the mechanics work. Things being made easier for the rider are not necessarily correlated with them being preferred by the horse which is why we need not anthropomorphize the horse’s response in these situations.

Patience in training to develop the muscular and cardiovascular fitness for the horse, along with promoting a healthy mental state, will pay off in the long run. Maintaining realistic expectations for your horse and any people you have training the horse is key to having a long lasting riding career with your horse and helping your horse actually enjoy the work you ask of them. Too often riders will try to align their own goals and preferences with the horse’s, thus having their desires take priority over that of the horse. Horses do not care about competition. They do not understand the concept of winning and being competitive. They may correlate a win with a positive state of mind from the rider and perhaps, something rewarding they may receive in turn, but that does not mean they understand what they are competing for or what the actual “win” means. Horses are not vain. They are not judgmental. Their lack of development of a pre-frontal cortex guarantees their lack of ability to understand the complex human social structures of respect and our general responses to things. We want them to be like us, so we label their behaviours as such, this does not make it correct. By viewing things through the lens of a horse, you can better your training program by being considerate of how a horse thinks and reacts to things.

Build the foundation. Consider your own physical development in an exercise program and be mindful of how crappy it would be to be forced to run ragged or stretch more than you’re comfortably able to. Be cautious of doing this to your horse. We are a motivated species and even the best intentioned people can get greedy and make mistakes. Learn from your mistakes, don’t beat yourself up, and just try to do better next time. It will pay off in the long run, I promise.

When I first started working with OTTBs and definitely when I showed on the Arabian Horse breed circuit, I was always looking for the quick fix. A twisted wire bit, a kimberwicke, draw reins, a ten ring martingale, elevator bits, waterfords and so on and so forth. Every time I tried to take a shortcut, I prolonged the time it took for me to physically condition my horse, to help them relax and to help them be skilled at what we were working towards. I may have gotten instant gratification sometimes, but in the long run I was always dissatisfied with the quality of work my horses were able to put in and their overall body condition pertaining to muscle. I would be frustrated when comparing myself to other riders, who took the time and put the work in, because I was not seeing the same results. Slowing down these last few years, both myself and my horses have ended up much more satisfied and happy with our work. It has made riding more fun, with less “bad” rides and more clear improvement over the course of months. The difference in my horses physically now versus several years ago is also crystal clear. I put the work in to allow them to develop physical fitness and flexibility along with prioritizing their mental state far more than I used to and it has paid off tenfold in comparison to what I used to do.

Riding is not a race. It is a meticulous process of using building blocks to gather the little pieces that will eventually make up your end goal. It is developing a steady framework, that when even encountering hardships, does not completely crumble to the ground. It is a partnership, one that should involve communication on both sides, instead of one voice utterly dominating and silencing the other. It is time we be more critical of much of the “quick fix” types of equipment in the horse world that serve to give riders instant gratification at the expense of quality and at the expense of the horse. We need to be more critical of what we condone in use for training and competition, because for far too long, we have justified practices that are unfair to the horse.

It is important to remember that you can love something while making mistakes that are harmful. I did not love my horses any less when I was making a lot of mistakes to the detriment of their overall health and happiness. I was just naïve to how what I was doing impacted the horse. When people criticize the mechanics of problematic equipment, they are not saying you do not love your horse, they are merely stating that there is a better way, even if you cannot see it yet. Learning how to condition and train concepts will make you a more versatile rider and improve the quality of the horses you are able to produce.

Consider how you would want your own fitness program developed. Consider how you learn best. Is it by rushing, being forced so far out of your comfort zone that you cannot evade pain or stress? Is it by people leveraging power over you by increasing your discomfort until you finally fold? Or, is it by gently working up to your goals, developing fitness slowly and pushing slowly outside of your comfort zones, not so far that you cannot handle the pressure? I think we all know the answer.

The Punishment Epidemic in Horse Training

Milo having a stress reaction during a photoshoot as a 3y/o

There is an epidemic of mishandling of horses. There has been for a while. Now, there’s just less of an excuse to be complicit in the spreading of it due to the wealth of information being shared and spread easily by way of the internet. Alas, horse people are notoriously anti-change. I don’t say this in an “I’m better than you” mentality, I say this as someone who used to be the stubborn, defensive and anti-change type but who is now in a position to reflect on my past behaviour and training decisions.

Now, what do I mean by this? Well, allow me to elaborate. We are all well aware of the fact that we are working with thousand pound flight animals. We know this to be true. Even people who do not subscribe to science based methods will agree that horses are flight animals. Their instinctual behaviour and entire way of being is still very much connected to the fact that horses prefer to flee from conflict or danger. They would much prefer avoidance of stressful or aggressive circumstance than they would facing it head on and getting aggressive, because this is what has been necessary in their evolution to allow for their continued survival. Sure, some horses may choose aggression over avoidance, but generally speaking, those behaviours stem from prior experiences of being unable to flee from danger and instead being trapped and forced to defend themselves. It typically isn’t a behaviour that is ingrained in them from birth, they will only choose violence if they have to, horses are very much passive creatures.

Anyways, now that we have established that horses are flight animals, here is the next piece of information, some food for thought: If we know horses flee from danger and avoid fear inducing stimuli, why is so much of horse training contingent on the use of force and pressure to coerce horses into situations that they are afraid of? In what world does it make sense to “fix” horses’ issues with things such as trailering by scaring them more? Reader, I must ask you, even as a human, who is not a flight animal, would you be less fearful of one of your main phobias if you were just poked with a hot iron until you were in close proximity to said phobia? Would this make you anymore likely to comfortably deal with the phobia the next time you encounter it? Probably not. But, with the flight animals, this avoidance reaction is tenfold. If we up the amount of anxiety by adding pressure and force to chase an animal into a situation they’re uncomfortable with, we are just creating a more profound stress response and giving the horse more of a reason to link an unpleasant emotional state with the thing we are trying to acclimate them to.

I can sympathize with people who are hesitant to use reward based methods in riding and I do not think you are evil, but when we are trying to handle fearful reactions from horses, we need to utilize systematic and kind approaches to help lower the level of anxiety. Sure, immense pressure may get your horse into the trailer, but generally speaking, it doesn’t lower their overall anxiety in the trailer and make them significantly more easy to load or less stressed when they’re on. But, you know what does? That’s right! FOOD. I can get a horse who is a bad trailer loader loaded in a fraction of the time it takes with pressure when I use food. I have fixed notoriously terrible loaders using food. Prior to using rewards based methods, I found myself angry and exceptionally frustrated as I continued to get louder and add pressure by using a bum rope or broom behind the horse while someone yanked on their head. The horse would plant their feet and pull back or, in some cases; spin, rear, back up violently or come up to the trailer, put their front feet in before firing back in fear. It took longer. It was more physically taxing on both me and the horse and incredibly frustrating. All to have to deal with the exact same issue or worse the next time the horse needed to trailer. Chewing of food increases salivation which in turn helps to buffer stomach acid and soothe the stomach of the horse, it also is a relaxation behaviour. So, even reward aside, the act of chewing is a tactic to help calm your horse. You know what promotes chewing? You heard it! Food!

It is amazing how much more willingness you will be offered when you remove pressure. When the horse no longer feels like they are being chased towards the boogie man, they can take a deep breath, stop and assess the situation and then offer any small approximation towards the end goal behaviour (in this case, trailer loading) and be rewarded for it. Quickly, they will realize that there is a fun and positive association with the thing that they once feared, this will result in lowered anxiety and increased willingness overtime. Due to the nature of things like trailering being so far opposite to anything horses view as safe and comfortable, there is an inherent anxiety related to them. For a flight animal, a small and dark confined box that rattles and is noisy and, more often than not, moves them to a new highly stimulating and stressful place is the epitome of danger. Their instinctual response is fear, to keep them safe. In a confined area, there is no option to flee, and as mentioned prior, this is the main defense and safety mechanism for the horse. So, think like a horse. They have a valid reason to be afraid of many of the things that we expect of them, so help them learn to soothe their anxiety and keep anxiety at a low enough threshold that the horse can actually effectively learn. We know for a fact that in humans and horses both, when their anxiety and stress response increases past a certain threshold, they cannot learn and retain information as effectively or in some cases, at all. This is because the body is now in fight or flight response and their energy output is now focused on being poised to save them from perceived danger. This is not an effective head space for learning.

Trailering isn’t the only training issue where force is frequently the preferred method. My sentiment regarding lowering the amount of pressure applies to basically any circumstance where the horse is responding fearfully. Reducing pressure is far more likely to get you further and incite lasting change than increasing pressure and increasing the stress response will. Again, this is due to the phenomenon of the stress response resulting in a reduction in ability to focus, learn and retain information. Lower stress will get you further in every situation you encounter, even for yourself. When horses are difficult, our stress response also undoubtedly increases, whether we realize it or not and far too often, riders are taught to respond with frustration. In turn, this means that punishment of the horse is reinforcing to the human because it allows you to release said frustration by applying physical pressure to the horse and “disciplining” them for their “bad behaviour”, which is really just a fear response. Retraining yourself to not have aggression as your first response to perceived bad behaviour takes time and dedication but it is never too late to start to adapt and soften your methods.

Horses are incredibly forgiving and passive animals. The amount of mistreatment they can put up with and forgive in training and management is truly incredible. We often have them isolated and deprived of direct contact with other horses, in living situations that don’t offer enough forage and result in stomach ulcers from acid build up as well as keeping them far too confined, which doesn’t allow them to effectively release pent up energy and practice normal play behaviours. But, despite this, horses forgive us. They learn to trust again even after training with people who abused them. They forgive again and again for the mistakes we make and will continue to make in riding and handling of them, because no one is perfect. Horses are truly incredible animals and I believe it is this inherent docility that makes them so likable and so fun to work with. But, it also makes them much easier to exploit because they seldom ever fight back and people take this passiveness as license to continue applying increasing pressure because “if they didn’t like it they would make us stop!”

So, here is your reminder that horses are not people. They are flight animals and are wired to react with fleeing from danger, in the same way you have that knee jerk reaction to draw your hand back from a hot pan, they may have that knee jerk reaction to flee when something surprises them and can act without fully realizing it. Similarly, horses differ from us in their ability to understand complex concepts such as respect. They do not have the highly developed prefrontal cortex that we as humans have. This means that when they do misbehave, it will never be with the intent to deliberately spite and disrespect their handler. Just because you cannot put your finger on what incited said behaviour doesn’t make the behaviour itself malicious. Viewing them through this lens helps to justify some of the harsh treatment we see as commonplace in horse training as it allows handlers to presume that the horse knows better and is choosing to act out despite this, which increases handler frustration and further justifies excess use of punishment.

Your horse is not out to get you. They aren’t just being stubborn when they refuse to load on the trailer. They are just scared. Missing their signs of stress and fear doesn’t negate or lessen their feelings. If you don’t believe me, try putting a heart rate monitor on your horse next time you do a task that you feel they respond poorly to out of disrespect or stubbornness. You’ll probably notice an increase in heart rate pretty quick and I would wager that it would continue to increase with amount of pressure applied. Heck, even go about testing for blood or salivary cortisol levels if the heart rate isn’t enough. The answer may surprise you.

Your horse isn’t spiting you. They aren’t disrespecting you. They are probably just scared and confused and looking for your leadership and empathy, instead of blame and punishment.

Be A Friend to Your Horse By Letting Them Have Friends

The horse industry is a very interesting and unique place, which is unsurprising given the finnicky and unique nature of horses. You do have to be a little bit crazy to involve yourself with such accident prone, difficult to care for animals, let alone revolve your entire life around them. Yet, here we are, as horse people who live, breathe and dream horses. Such passion is something that is hard find and should be coveted, however, it is also important that we do not allow our zest for the sport of equestrianism to come above the overall wellbeing of our horses and this is one of the biggest shortcomings of the horse industry.

This is not to say that horse people don’t care about their horses, they most definitely do, however, the industry itself is flawed in that from day one, many equestrians are misled about facts surrounding the care and behaviour of the animals that they so love. What I mean by this is that we are often taught to over value things that in the grand scheme of life are unimportant such as big, beautiful stalls, lovely arenas with good footing, making sure our horses are blanketed for all different types of weather. We hyper fixate on what our idea of comfort is for horses, rather than considering what they actually need to be comfortable and happy. It’s to the point where as a horse owner, you’re honestly more likely to be criticized for having your horse out in the rain or snow or standing in a bit of mud than you are for having them in a meticulously groomed single dry lot paddock. This is because the focus of horse care is still surrounding the human idea of what horses need, rather than what we actually know about them. I won’t go into too much detail about the typical boarding situation in the areas I’m familiar with or what the typical schedule may look like for the average sport horse, I’ve done this at length in other posts. What I will do, however, is discuss the importance of socialization for horses and how often this is missed out on as a crucial, key factor to equine welfare.

Individual paddock turnout is what I would personally view as the most common way to keep horses, particularly in boarding situations. Horse owners are often exceptionally paranoid about the idea of injury and to them, having horses out together increases such injury due to risk of being kicked. This isn’t untrue, however, I feel that such risk is amplified to a point where people fear it more than what the bigger problem is- lack of fulfillment of their horses’ needs. Well socialized and stable herds really shouldn’t bring about an extra risk. What we need to remember as horse people that by depriving horses of basic needs like friends and foraging behaviours that are consistent with being out on pasture, we bring about new risks. Colic is such a huge fear in horse ownership and while it can happen even to pasture-reared horses, it is much, much more likely to occur in traditionally kept horses who live in stables and small paddocks with limited social contact. Horses who have a deficit of social contact with other horses are more likely to engage in stress behaviours or show signs of depression or boredom. Social contact is an incredibly important need for horses and such need isn’t considered enough by the average horse owner or boarding establishment. I am not sure how we got to the point where we have somewhat forgotten how crucial social bonds are to equine welfare, after all, they are herd animals, should this not be a no-brainer? Unfortunately, though, many well intentioned horse owners do not realize just how important the socialization aspect of horse behaviour is.

I write this post without judgment of others who keep their horses in the situations I’m discussing here. I used to be one of you. For much of my riding career, my Arabian was kept in a stall 16+ hours a day and when he did get out, it was in a small dry lot paddock that was barely big enough to trot in. Sure, he could touch noses with horses over the fence sometimes, but the fences were hotwired so such social interaction was limited due to fear of electrocution on his part. During this time, I was constantly frustrated with him. Ride after ride, he would spook at the same things. He would bolt. He never seemed to get used to things or really relax and it led to me resenting him to some extent. Fast forward several years to when I got him out on group pasture turnout: quite literally a different horse. He was suddenly beginner safe. No bolting. No spooking. A happy horse. The only “bad” part that came along with this was that he was hard to catch, but realistically, who can blame him? If you’d been cooped up for the better part of your life only to now taste freedom, would you want to risk giving it up? To him, I was the death of his freedom because we had so many consistent years where I was the one bringing him back inside to solitary confinement or taking him outside to a slightly better location but one that still left him feeling unfulfilled.

The difference in my Arabian’s behaviour upon getting adequate amounts of turnout and socialization took me down the path of researching equine behaviour and husbandry. It was eye opening to read about how crucial foraging and social behaviours were to the wellbeing of the horse. I had known they lived off of hay, but I hadn’t known how dramatically risk of stomach ulceration was to increase with set feed times and hours spent without access to forage. I hadn’t known how closely horses bonded with each other and how much lack of ability to do so could affect them mentally. I’d not had the pleasure to actively engage with a stable herd, to see the horses hanging out together constantly. Napping together. Eating together. Running together. Playing together. You name it, they’ll do it together. When I finally had the chance to see this, it was quite honestly one of the most beautiful things I’d ever witnessed. Truly happy horses, who had the ability to develop the herd connection that all horses should have access to.

Nowadays, my horses have been living out 24/7 for the last several years. Milo, the horse I’ve had the longest term, has never had to live a life without access to at minimum an in/out paddock. For the last 5 years, he has been out fulltime in a large dry lot or pasture with a shelter, always with a friend. For the first year I had him, though, despite having an in/out (which is far better than being stalled for part of the day, as he always had the option to leave) he was unfulfilled and bored. He didn’t have a buddy out with him so was reduced to trying to solicit attention from other, older horses from over the fence and it wasn’t enough for him. This resulted in much more excited outburst behaviours due to his lack of ability to utilize this energy on his own time. It was frustrating and it made handling him more difficult and dangerous. As he adapted to the herd lifestyle later in life, he was able to tire his busy brain by engaging with buddies. He was able to self-calm by having a friend to stand by him in periods of high stress. He was able to maintain a consistently lower threshold of stress due to the relaxing and calming aspect of having the ability to practice natural behaviours, which for horses will almost always include being around other horses. It made him a better horse as a result and by default, a better partner to me and better competitor.

Horses do not choose isolation when given the choice. While we may see horses who have aggressive behaviours towards other horses, this is largely due to our lack of ability as an industry to allow for enough socialization for horses to develop a proper social repertoire and avoid frustrated behaviours that at their core are likely stemming from the stress of having been unable to engage with other horses and/or not knowing how to. These types of behaviours need to be viewed for what they are: abnormal. It is not normal for a herd animal to choose isolation, to not want to be around conspecifics. When this happens, it should be viewed as nothing other than a tragedy, an abnormal behaviour adopted due to less than ideal social circumstances growing up or, perhaps, some type on anomaly with that particular horse if it has been an issue since birth. Regardless of cause, though, we need to acknowledge that herd animals who resent time spent with their kind are abnormal. Their behaviour is not what you should model your typical care off of, it is something you should work to avoid creating in the first place.

In boarding situations, horse owners may be limited in what they can do due to barn rules. The key to changing this, though, still revolves around spreading the idea that horses are herd animals and this means that socialization is not optional, it is a necessity. In the mean time, though, for people who are stuck having to follow the outdated rules of establishments that may discourage group housing options, there are some ways you can help bridge the gap between isolation and socialization. This starts with trying to find similar minded boarders who are willing to allow their horses to get to know yours. Socialization can be done behind protected contact, such as between stall bars or with safe fencing between the horses, so they can interact and get to know each other while limiting risk of injury. For horses with behavioural problems from poor socialization, there is definitely more work involved for remodelling this behaviour but protected contact for these types is even more crucial. Engaging with other horses over a fence or between a stall is better than nothing. Taking your horse out for hand grazes with other horses or going hacks with other horses and actually letting them engage with each other is preferable to the alternative of absolutely no socialization.

The picture I want to paint for people skeptical about letting their horses socialize is truly a beautiful one. My horses are such a joy to watch, their zest for life and overall happiness is superior now that they get to engage in natural social behaviours and hang out together in a space where they have enough room to run and play. We frequently catch them playing “tag”, running after each other, bucking and kicking or standing stationary and finding entertainment in nipping at each other’s faces with the occasional rear. When they’re sleepy, they have group naps together, preferring to sleep side by side rather than alone. They even go to the water trough together to drink in tandem and even do menial tasks like peeing together. They develop strong relationships with each other and have different traits specific to their relationships with other horses. Two horses with similar play styles may play more, or they may adapt their play style slightly to fit the style of a less rambunctious friend. The vast majority of their time spent together is merely spent enjoying each other’s company and while they do sometimes bicker, the vast majority of the time it is merely the warning of pinned ears or perhaps, at most, a bite. This is also reflected in studies. Horses really aren’t aggressive creatures and provided they have enough room and resources, they will often choose to warn rather than “attack” so the risk of being kicked or injured in group housing should drop dramatically with well socialized horses with enough resources.

Horses are herd animals. We know this. We have studied it extensively and there is a wealth of information pointing to the problems associated with individual housing while highlighting just how much a social living style can amplify the wellbeing of your horse. This is an indisputable fact, it is just something so many choose not to recognize out of fear of not offering the “best of the best” for their horses, they do not want to admit to any shortcomings of their care. It isn’t the end of the world to not have the perfect situation for your horse, it becomes much more of a problem, though, if you cannot recognize where there is room for improvement and do whatever you can to better the life of your horse in the areas that are lacking. This is why the conversation surrounding the species-specific social needs of the horse is such an important one to have.

We live in a modern world where land is limited and depending on geography, options for grass pasture in a group setting may be limited. Horses may have specific dietary or physical needs that necessitate different living circumstances, too. But- at the end of the day, if we recognize what the best case scenario is and work to enrich the situation our horse is in, we can improve the welfare of our horses to the best of our ability. I live in a pretty populated area with limited land. Many of the boarding facilities here do not have any option for group turnout. Huge multi-acre fields are not a common thing here, let alone expanses like what those living in more rural areas like certain parts of Alberta may be accustomed to. I wish my horses had a bigger field. I wish I had acres and acres of grass to rotate them on year round. But, I live in a rain forest and do not have the land mass to do this. So, I make do with what I have. Their field is more than large enough for them to actually run in. They have free choice forage in different locations so they can walk to seek different types of hay, still nothing like pasture grazing, but as good as I can offer here and their behaviour isn’t reflective of a stressed horse. Eventually, I want more for them but they have it pretty good. If I’d never been able to recognize where care was lacking or where there was room for improvement, though, my horses would likely still be spending the majority of their time in stalls, which would be far worse than what they can have now.

Be the best friend you can be to your horse, simply by letting them have friends and prioritizing their need for socialization.

The Importance of Realism in Animal Advocacy

Left: Just after being rescued. Extremely malnourished and emaciated. (Photo by Mane Frame Imagery)

Right: Summer 2020. A soft, relaxed eye and healthy, nourished coat.

The world is working to improve on the basics of animal welfare as we learn more and more about the learning process and biological needs of the animals around us, which is fantastic! But, unfortunately, with this new territory also comes evangelical extremists who take on an “all or nothing” mentality when it comes to animal welfare, which pushes them to try to strong arm other people to take on the same values of them. Such mindsets results in an awful lot of animosity and the word “abuse” being thrown around more often than it ought to be. This, in turn, makes these well-intentioned but off base people actually ruin some of the positive ideas that they’re trying to push by taking too radical of an approach and being too inflexible, thereby ruining their credibility and having the people they’re trying to change start to view these new welfare ideas with bitterness and resentment. On top of this, way too many animal advocates and advocacy groups try to make bold claims on animal species that they’ve clearly neglected to properly research. A shining example of this is the time that PETA put out an ad against wool in which they used a photo of a lamb that appeared to have been skinned and tried to pass this off as a byproduct of shearing for wool, which is a completely asinine and untrue take considering sheep do, in fact, need to be sheared for their own health because we have bred them to grow more wool than they need and as a result, they can become wildly uncomfortable if handlers neglect to do this. Also, shearing does not remove the skin of the sheep. It is literally the same idea as shaving your head. Last I checked, hairdressers are not scalping their clients when they do this.

Realism is important. While everyone is entitled to their beliefs, if your belief is that all animals should run wild and unencumbered by humans, you are allowed to feel that way, but you also need to acknowledge the reality of the situation. Domesticated animals are nothing like their wild counterparts. They do not have the same instincts of survival and rely on human intervention for nutrition, vet care and safety. They simply do not have the skills to survive in the manner that wild animals do and if the idea of releasing these animals into the wild is pushed, we actually only endanger the animal as well as putting true wild species at risk by introducing invasive species when the world is already lacking in resources. The problem with so many people who take this stance is the immediacy with which they expect this to happen. You can believe with all of your heart that horses deserve to be wild, but they are not currently, and domesticated horses are currently occupying this planet in the millions. If you were to succeed in “freeing” all of them, it would not just be the horses who suffer, it would be many, many other undomesticated species suffering alongside of them. So, anyways, this is where realism comes in.

A true animal advocate needs to recognize that not everyone is going to be able to offer their animal the perfect ideal of a “natural” life unaffected by humans. Training animals can be exciting and enriching for the animal when done correctly, so even if someone is of the mind that this is unnecessary and more for the enjoyment of the human, they should support and recognize the value of ethical training. On top of this, we need to acknowledge the amount of open space in the world. Horses are living in areas where they simply do not have the space to roam in herds. While this is devastating and sad, it does nothing to help the horses if you just slam their handlers and go on about how cruel and abusive they are. What does help the horses is indicating what horses natural needs of socialization and foraging are and offering enrichment ideas to better the lives of the horses within the situation that they’re in. This offers the handlers a solution that can improve wellbeing immediately and doesn’t focus on shaming and “punishing” the handler. The irony of how so many of these militant “advocates” speak to people is not lost on me. They’re highly against mistreating and punishing animals and yet they speak to humans abusively and venomously, using punishment as training and for whatever reason expecting a different outcome than what we have documented in studies with both humans and animals.

Positive reinforcement works on people too and this needs to actually offer them some constructive ideas on how to better the handling and care of their animals and to properly do this, you first need some knowledge on the basic body language of the animal, their species specific needs and how these can realistically be offered and met in a modern situation. It is absolutely irresponsible as an advocate to go spouting off information on animals you’ve never even handled without taking the initiative to ensure that what you are saying is actually accurate. People do this from a moral high ground but their words only serve to perpetuate false information to less experienced people, meaning if they decide to take on a high maintenance animal like a horse and don’t do further research, it is the horse who suffers. On top of this, it ruins a lot of the work in improving ethics that people within the industry are trying to do because these militant advocates put others on the defense, making them much more likely to shut down any similar information the next time, no matter how politely and constructively it is worded.

I have been incredibly outspoken on the importance of turnout and socialization for horses as this is what I view to be one of the most pressing welfare issues for horses and yet, I still put out information on enrichment for stalled horses. This isn’t giving up the good fight or selling out. It is offering people who love their animals, but are “trapped” by circumstance in the modern world, a means of improving the life of their horse however they can. Are you a real animal advocate if you care so much about being right and rigid in your views that you continue to berate and disparage those who aren’t at the pinnacle of enlightenment, wherever you view that to be? This mindset does not improve the life of the animal. It may make you feel better in your righteousness, but you’ve offered zero tools to immediately help the animal. None. Positive change that could have been made is thrown out the window in the name of a person’s ego, this is merely a different way of exploiting animals in the name of your movement. You are putting your desires ahead of them because your focus is entirely about being correct and trying to ridicule those you view to be wrong, all the while losing sight of what will actually help the situation of the animal.

Top: Milo after being “left to his own devices” in a field with other horses. Incredibly emaciated and malnourished.

Bottom: Milo in Summer 2020. Healthy and happy.

I also think it is important to acknowledge that as an animal advocate, owner and lover, you are not being responsible if you do not take the initiative to teach your animal how to live a safe and happy life in the current world. This means they need to be trained to coexist with people. They need to be “tame” and able to be handled for necessary medical care. They need to be able to view humans without fear and find their place in the world alongside humans. No animal owner on this planet can ever guarantee that they will always be the sole caregiver of the animal. Financial struggles happen, deaths happen and other unforeseen circumstances. There is always the risk of your animal needing to be rehomed and if you haven’t prepared them to be able to easily live alongside humans safely, you’re setting them up for failure and at high risk of not finding a home, being euthanized, sent to an auction or shipped the slaughter. This is not the kind thing to do. The kind thing is to practice ethical training methods while still prioritizing the realism that is a domesticated animal. They cannot live wild. They need human intervention for their safety and health and what this means is that it is your job as their caregiver and advocate to help ensure their wellbeing through how you handle and train them.

It is not kinder to leave your animal to their own devices, lacking nourishment or eating to the point of obesity. This is not without stress. Poor health adds stress. Confusion in a new environment after having no training to prepare them is stress. These things can easily be avoided by proper handling. So much of animal advocacy is so incredibly misguided because the people within some of these movements hyperfixate on their end goal which is ending breeding and ownership of animals and forget that there are millions of small steps towards achieving such goal, unless, of course, you view it as more ethical to let domesticated animals starve by the millions while they deplete the natural resources of the wild animals who actually need and use said natural resources. Moving towards a more ethical society involves mediation. This means, even if you would do something differently, you have to look at situations practically. Sure, someone may ride their horse and you, as a vegan, may view this as exploitation. But, learn about the subtleties of equine behaviour. Does the horse look like it is in active distress or pain? Most don’t. Is it really the end of the world for someone to ride their horse for exercise if all of the horses’ needs are met and it looks otherwise unbothered? Absolutely not. Is it more harmful to latch onto your militant ideas to the point where you slam rescue organizations and people who are advocating for positive change that actually moves towards your end goals? Yes, absolutely. You’re ruining your own fight for betterment by going about it like a god damn dictator. Nothing in the world works like this, this is basic psychology and learning and behavioural theory. Going at people with 100% intensity is never going to work. It doesn’t work for animals, it doesn’t work for humans, and quite frankly, it is extremely ironic to see animal welfare advocates behaving in the exact ways they condemn in animal training. Learning theory for humans really is not that much different than it is for other animal species.

This isn’t to say people should be coddled. If you have factual information, like what I have shared about the importance of socialization for horses as herd animals, you should not refrain from sharing it. But, such information has been replicated in a series of studies over the course of years. It is not just an opinion you formed by following hypocritical and erroneous organizations like PETA. Also, even when sharing these facts, coming at people on the attack rather than just sharing information to your pages or in discussion forms, is less effective. The reason why most of my controversial takes are posted to my platforms rather than as venomous comments in response to peoples otherwise innocuous posts of their horses is because it allows people who need to see it to find the information on their own, thereby setting them up to feel less defensive and more receptive to the information. Even when care is not the 100% ideal, most of the people we disagree with are not actually being what is considered abusive. Someone keeping their horse in a smaller turnout than what you personally believe to be fair is not abusive. It may be neglecting some of the biological needs of the horse, but calling someone who is doing their best a horrible abuser takes away from the impact that descriptor has for actual abusers and allows the real abusers to use this to discredit others under the guise of people being “snowflakes” or “treehuggers”. It gives them a reason to try to undermine the credibility of otherwise educated comments and allows other disenfranchised, frustrated people who have been attacked for lesser offences to join them in their defense. This moves things backwards for animal welfare by pushing people further into denial.

My horse, Milo. Left: just after being rescued in 2014. Right: Summer 2020.

I ride my horse. But, he was such a difficult horse in the beginning of his training that I am not kidding when I say he would have been an exceptionally difficult horse to adopt out somewhere that would not actively punish his misbehaviour. Inexperienced horse people would have been put in danger by him. It is doing horses like him a disservice to claim they’re better off not being ridden, especially when those most qualified to ethically handle and train away dangerous behaviour usually learned to do so by being riders.

What frustrates me so much about these types of people who are so rigid in their views that they actually refuse to consider any information that confounds what they believe to be true, no matter how credible the source, is that they frequently parade around on a moral high ground while being hypocrites who are doing much, much less for welfare. Yelling on the internet perpetuating ideas that are so unrealistic for the state of the world currently that they’re basically folklore does not help as many animals as you think it does. Blindly and hypocritically supporting organizations like PETA like they’re the epitome of animal welfare when they put out so much false information, euthanize more animals than what die in any of the industries they attack, such as horse racing, and do virtually nothing to offer people enrichment and alternative training ideas to some of the harmful mainstream methods, is utterly useless. You are supporting an organization who does less rehoming and education than many of the rescues that you attack due to viewing them as problematic for exploiting animals by adopting them out to homes where they will use for sport. PETA literally euthanizes more animals than it adopts out, many of which are killed in a matter of days after being “saved” which implies that there is no real effort to find these creatures homes. This is not a sustainable method of improving the treatment of animals. You are still exploiting them by assuming they would be better off dead than being ethically managed and trained for odd jobs like agility or basic obedience training. On top of this, openly supporting any organization that is collecting millions of dollars worth of donations each year but spending virtually none of it on actually helping animals, is just irresponsible activism. You are a fool and I do not respect you if you condescend others for exploiting animals but follow an organization that is exploiting you and your ignorance to earn money that is largely spent on media and advertisement with less than 1% going into helping animals. If you’ve perused any of the stats surrounding organizations like this, this is not a surprise, because why would you need money to sustain animals you promptly euth once they’re in your custody?

In order to be a true activist, there is a certain level of responsibility that goes along with it. Such responsibility includes: not putting out false information on animals you have not bothered to become educated on, actually looking at credible sources that go against your current beliefs when they are offered, not supporting organizations that are not doing anywhere near what they claim to be cough PETA cough and maintaining a realistic outlook instead of latching onto radicalism and thinking it is the smart approach to enacting any change. With horses, we know that proper introduction to new stimuli that may provoke fear needs to be done at lowered intensity, gradually increased as they understand and get more comfortable. This keeps stress low and makes them more receptive. This is the same approach that needs to be taken with any form of education and it should go without saying that it is just ridiculously impractical to think we are anywhere close to being able to allow domesticated animals to live completely left to their own devices.

Dogs and cats are such mainstream animals that people typically understand their mannerisms, needs and overall body language far more than they might farm animals like horses or cows. The average pet owner can take on a lower maintenance dog breed or adopt a cat and figure out how to care for it without doing too much harm. Livestock is not the same. Flight animals like horses react entirely different than dogs or cats and due to their size are just not safe for inexperienced people to handle, care for and be around. Your dog can get into something its not supposed to eat, vomit and move on with life. A horse cannot do this and if they are to get sick and colic, this is life threatening. However, like dogs, horses can find enrichment and reward in training. They can be trained using positive reinforcement. They can grow accustomed to walking on a lead. They can be taught to happily carry a rider and do so comfortably in properly fitted tack. It does not take brute force to train a horse if you do it properly. Brute force can be used with any creature but that doesn’t mean its the only means of achieving the teaching of a certain behaviour. It is naive and illogical to assume that the only means of training animals whose ethogram you do not understand can only be achieved by abusive methods.

Asking questions and being open to education is one of the most important parts of any advocacy. Ignorance may be bliss, but it is incredibly damaging to go speaking on topics with conviction when you’ve not bothered to research. Misinformation has been one of the most harmful aspects of equine handling. This is what has caused people to mislabel stress behaviours in horses. To partake in ineffective methods without a care in the world. To push inexperienced people to decide to randomly get a horse to “save” it before malnourishing it and having it develop dangerous behaviours due to their naivety, even if they were well intentioned. If you want to better animal welfare, you have a responsibility to know what you are talking about. Horses are not an animal that is understood on the mainstream. The movies and TV shows about them sensationalize their behaviours and over simplify their training while misplacing body language cues and “dumbing down” the care of them. Even within the horse industry, lifetime horse owners are still massively misled on behavioural repertoire because it is just not being taught to the extent it should be and SO MUCH about horses is misinformed. Militant animal rights warriors amplify this by putting these types of people so far on the defense that they will discredit even the educated people who go about trying to correct misinformation in a productive way.

I am writing this to tell you, if you are reading this, that you probably have made my job harder as a trainer and behavioural consultant by radicalizing horse care and coming after people frothing at the mouth, throwing abuse around like a buzz word. The world is not as black and white as you think it is and if you do not have the experience to adequately care for and provide for a horse or lesser known domesticated animal, you do not have the experience to be calling the shots on what these animals “need” or what they “want”. Horse care is not easy. It is a process where you are constantly learning. I’ve been in this industry 20 years and I am still learning. I am almost done my equine sciences certificate through Guelph University, which has a great equine sciences program, and I am still learning. I have received my certified equine behaviour consultant title from the International Association for Animal Behaviour Consultants and I am still learning. If people with as much experience as myself still are actively learning, those outside of the horse world need to stop being self absorbed enough to believe that they’re some how more capable of being able to call the shots on how to ethically modernize horse care without actively setting foot in a barn and handling horses or educating themselves on the learning theory of horses on a scholarly level. You are making the jobs harder for those more capable of educating the masses than you are yourself. You are not bettering the situation for horses by pushing rhetoric that cannot feasibly be applied any time soon and if it were applied now, would have massive fall out to the detriments of the horses.

You are not a real animal advocate if you can’t slow your roll for long enough to look at situations practically and realistically. You are simply a glorified radicalist who is narcissistic enough to believe that you know better than everyone else even though you’re not passionate enough about animal welfare to learn the inner workings of the animals you speak on. You value the fight, the idea that you are superior, more than you do the wellbeing of the animal. And, frankly, that is sad. I truly hope people will chose realism and the path to improvement over their hunger of being right. I hope they will eventually see the hypocrisy in the animosity they direct at their fellow humans, while preaching about the ethical way to train and handle animals but showing no ability to do that themselves despite trying to enact change. I hope that people realize that there are few things more harmful to the animals than the spread of misinformation.

Want to be a real animal advocate? Educate yourself on the animals you speak of. Learn about the process of reputable and functional rescues. Support them and direct donations their way instead of to organizations like PETA. Learn about the aspects in the industry that are in the most dire need of change and come up with REALISTIC solutions and push for those. Change doesn’t happen overnight but if you’re smart enough to set up the building blocks to incite positive change, you’ll see the foundation for improved welfare built a lot faster than you will by viewing the world through your idealistic lens and spouting off ideas that have no way to be practically applied any time soon. Fantasy does not help animals. Reality does. Work within your reality and you can really make a difference, I promise you that. The middle may be a lonely place, but compromise is where the learning starts. Rigidity just creates animosity between the two extremes of either side and doesn’t help anyone start to soften their perspective. Compromise involves supporting those that perpetuate the ideas that help you on your journey to righteousness. Perfection doesn’t exist which is why, like in training animals, you need to capture moments of positivity and shape those towards your end goal. You cannot do this by ostracizing the very people who can help you on the journey to enlightenment.

You may be wondering why I wrote this blog disparaging the very organization that is closely linked to the Dodo, a platform I allowed to use my horse’s story and my likeness. You may think it is hypocritical of me to allow them to do this when my views do not align with many of the ones that are pushed on their pages. I understand why people may think that, but consider this: In allowing them to share my story, I targeted the very demographic of people who need to be educated, who need to learn to be less rigid. Who need to become more understanding the the industries that they condemn. I have targeted a demographic of people who would otherwise refuse to view my pages and while many of them are too self righteous and angsty to listen, there are probably enough of them who are flexible enough to have seeds of doubt planted in their preconceived notions and that is just enough to help set them on their path of education. So, if you are one of these types of people and you still chose to read this whole thing, I appreciate you and your willingness to consider the other side and I truly hope you take what was said here into account.

Lets Talk About the Elephant in the Room: Horse Mismanagement

A depressed horse. Photo by Shutterstock.

So much of what we have been taught about caring for and training horses is fundamentally wrong. It’s easy to get sucked into the whirlwind of misinformation that is the horse world as even outside of the horse world we see pop culture depictions of horse care emphasizing the animal’s perceived need to be in a stall as well as a display of stress behaviours as normal behaviours. Within lesson, training and show barns, it is extremely common for horses to be stalled for at least part of the day. This pushes the notion, even if unconsciously, that being stabled in individual housing is a prerequisite of good horse care. When you consider how new riders come into this atmosphere and soak up the teachings that they are told implicitly, as well as those that they learn via watching and asking questions, it really is no surprise that equestrians have been told to shrug off and ignore some of the most common signs of stress in horses.

This isn’t to say that horse people don’t value or love their horses. They do, they absolutely do. But, there is a certain level of ignorance to the actual biological needs of the horse as a species that is indoctrinated into riders from the beginning from their mentors. Learning to ignore some of the vices that are strongly correlated to our use and management of horses allows people to pretend that they’re not a problem, that they’re “normal” behaviours. Then, this is where these things become background noise and people tune out anything that would force them to question what they believe to be correct.

Happy, relaxed horses in a herd setting. Photo by Shutterstock.

If you walk through any boarding facility that doesn’t have socialization and space to move around for most of the day, you’ll probably see a whole laundry list of identifiable stereotypic behaviours, aka, “vices”. Everything from the obvious practice of cribbing to stall weaving to stall walking to head nodding to running teeth along the bars of the stalls… you name it. Much of these things that horse owners choose to view as quirks of the horse are a direct result of the stress the management imposes on the horse. Alternatively, while some horses may not adopt some of the more obvious stable vices, they may have increased levels of aggression. They may be more inclined to bite or kick or be otherwise difficult to handle. They may constantly be extremely excitable to ride and handle on the ground, requiring excessive lunging to quiet. The riders may view these things as the horse being “mareish”, “disrespectful” or “spirited”. So many of the ill behaviours that riders come to resent in their horses can be completely, or at least significantly, rectified by first addressing the environment the horse is in. Far too often, though, riders choose to instead punish the negative behaviours that their horse offers them. To the horse, this essentially forces them to quiet all outward expressions of frustration, many of which serve the purposes of alleviating some of the stress. This means that the horse is forced to withdraw, to give into the anxiety, depression or boredom, or instead, they may choose to lash out and become aggressive. If we offer our horses no environmental means of relaxing, self entertaining and releasing frustration, we cannot expect them to not search for ways to fulfil that need, even if they impact what we as human partners want to do with the horse.

Is this to say that all stalling is bad? No. I am a realist. I totally understand the various reasons for stalling but what I will say is that there is a culture of ignoring obvious welfare problems and choosing to deny that they are, in fact, a problem. The cognitive dissonance that is behind this perpetuates ignorance and can give other impressionable people the wrong idea of horse care. So, what I mean here is that no, stalling is not bad. But, people need to be mindful of the stress behaviours that may develop when horses are left stalled for lengthy periods of time with no ability to socialize, no toys or enrichment to interact with and self entertain and very often sitting with an empty stomach due to set feeding times that may not allow for trickle feeding. Similarly, the common occurrence of barns intentionally constructing stalls and paddocks to discourage socialization between horses is a very concerning thing to be as normalized as it is. As far as I am concerned, there are very few reasons that make it fair to the horse to wall up stalls so they cannot see other horses or to leave paddocks far apart so horses can’t interact with each other. Even interaction over a fence line is preferable to the tragedy that is a herd animal going without one of its most basic, core needs: a herd.

There is a ton of research on the implications of traditional housing practices and extremely compelling evidence to suggest that there are numerous ill effects linked to long periods of stalling and isolation of horses. Many of these effects are related to mental health and these are where we often see horses engage in odd, ritualistic behaviours as a means of self-entertaining or relieving stress. However, there are also physical defects seen in stalled horses such as reduced bone density as seen in young horses kept in stalls with limited exercise and increased risk of injury due to propensity to engage in erratic excitement behaviour to try to release pent up energy upon exiting their stall and having the means to move around. We have enough evidence to suggest that what we are doing, what we normalize even at the top levels of the sport, is not the best way for the horses. Price of the horse is not an excuse for deprivation of needs. Horses can be insured and well socialized, well adjusted horses in turnout are not found to be at greater risk of injury compared to stalled horses. Risk of injury due to perceived value of the horse doesn’t outweigh the detriments the horse faces. On top of this, if riders are willing to risk injury for sport and for their enjoyment of riding, it is utterly unacceptable to use this excuse as a reason to blatantly ignore one of the most crucial needs of a grazing herd animal.

A cribbing horse. Photo by Shutterstock

Now, as a realist, I understand that there are areas that lack land and may not have the means to rectify the living situation of the horse to the extent to allow social, group turnout. With this in mind, riders still need to be honest with themselves about their horses’ living situation. You can acknowledge that what you have is not ideal and enrich the environment your area offers you to the best of your ability, but if you ignore there is a problem in the first place, how will you know to seek enrichment in order to make up for the shortcomings? Horses who have to be stalled for lengthy periods of time can be offered slow feed hay nets to encourage constant grazing. They can be offered varied types of forage in different areas of the stall to further mimic grazing behaviour. You can provide toys such as Jolly Balls, Likits or hay balls to help keep them entertained. Most importantly, we can start to completely revolutionize the idea of how we build barns. We can start to make it common place to allow windows or bars for horses to see and interact with one another between stalls. This seemingly small change has been found, in studies, to have a profound impact on the occurrence of stress behaviour.

“But what about horses fighting with each other?” Well socialized horses who haven’t been forced through isolation much of their lives are less likely to display aggression associated with resource guarding or environmental frustration. We will not see the same instance of horses “hating” all other horses if we adapt our keeping of them to limit stress and ensure they are receiving all of their 5 Freedoms relating to animal welfare. These basic freedoms are sadly ignored in a lot of barns, namely “freedom to express natural behaviour” and “freedom from stress and discomfort.”. If we better provide a lifestyle for our horses that encourages more natural behaviours and allows them to coexist with conspecifics in the manner they are supposed to, we will not run into many of the commonly used problems or excuses to avoid socialization or turnout.

“My horse doesn’t like turnout, they just pace and run!” This is another common excuse, one that, once again, fails to acknowledge why these intense stress behaviours exist. Ironically, many horse people would be able to acknowledge this as a clear stress behaviour in an animal such as a dog when they hear about a rescue dog with separation anxiety. But, in their horse, they will instead choose to view it as a personal preference because that is easy to come to terms with. Hear me out, if you were forced into a low stimulation, small environment with repetitive days and less unpredictability and then suddenly thrown out into a huge, louder and more highly stimulated area, would you be comfortable? Probably not. Your horse isn’t, either. The solution to this is to work as hard on this undesirable behaviour as you would for problems that affect your ability to ride and enjoy your horse. When stuff impedes our ability to ride, we are not so quick to just claim it’s a preference and allow it to happen. These high levels of anxiety that affect horses’ ability to live a happy and healthy life can also be addressed through training and an effort to help encourage relaxation and a slow introduction to allow anxiety to stay within a threshold that allows the horse to actually learn.

“But what about stallions?!” Stallions also need socialization. We wonder why stallions are labelled as these notoriously difficult, aggressive and unpredictable creatures but normalize keeping them in high stress living situations and treating them as a creature less deserving of the same things we offer more freely to horses of other sexes. Stallions can be socialized and coexist well with other horses and such keeping of them has been linked to reduced stress. Sure, they may not be able to be kept near mares but you can absolutely socialize a stud to enjoy social time out with some geldings. In some areas with large plots of land, stallions are even kept out together.

Horses seeking socialization by tactile touch, just out of reach. Photo by shutterstock.

We already know that stalling massively increases risk of colic and we also know that higher rates of stomach ulceration are correlated with stalling practice as well as diets high in concentrated grains and where horses could not graze constantly throughout the day. Colic is the number one cause of death in horses outside of old age, this is not a coincidence. Speaking from my anecdotal experience, frequency of colics dropped dramatically as soon as I started moving away from the traditional isolated stall and small paddock boarding, but outside of anecdotes, studies reflect this same though. Despite the tangible fear horse owners feel when the word “colic” is uttered, much of the horse world is actually doing little in the way to help to prevent this from happening. Of course, even in the best circumstances, horses can still colic but the fact of the matter is that we have a lot of research pointing to some of the main risk factors and they are correlated directly with management. There are even studies that have looked into the amount of space offered to horses and how that is correlated with stress.

I believe that deep down, horse people have to know that something isn’t right with how normalized certain horse husbandry practices are. I see horse people going after organizations like Sea World due to the animals there exhibiting stereotypic behaviours in too small environments. I’ve seen horse people complain about being cooped up, isolated and lacking social stimulation because of the pandemic. We know the feeling, the yearning for social contact. We know the feeling of being trapped, restless. We can even recognize this stress in other animals, sympathize with them and demand that there be change, that there be justice. And yet, so many people do not have this same insight when considering the care of their horse.

So, we have mental health issues, physical health issues and behavioural issues that affect horses’ aptitude in riding and training that are all correlated with poor management practice. There have been some noted clear differences in horse behaviour in studies when looking at horses who are kept stalled and those turned out and said differences are even seen under saddle. It is time that the horse world learns to adapt with the times and choose to work to improve the welfare of horses kept in traditional boarding practices. Even without needing to increase the space of land horses are kept on, there are still environmental changes that can be made in order to reduce stress and allow horses to practice more natural behaviours. It is time that we grow less comfortable with clear stress signals in our horses and start working to lessen the frequency at which these are seen by taking them as a symptom of a problem to change rather than just something to ignore.

You are your horse’s only advocate. They have no voice. When they try to communicate via their behaviour, they are too often punished and shut down or ignored. They become voiceless, ignored, lacking autonomy even in their “free time” outside of riding, waiting for their next moment of stimulation when the feed cart rolls around or when their rider returns. By addressing some of the common deficiencies of modern horse care, riders can also improve their horses’ rideability by limiting stress and frustration, allowing the horse to enter the arena with a more positive and relaxed outlook. We can strive towards being safer in our handling and riding of horses, especially when scared or stressed horses are so frequently the reason behind major injuries to humans. We can do better. We can work together to come up with solutions to help better meet the needs of horses, even on smaller, traditional barn properties. We just have to care enough to notice and if enough people just simply care enough to enrich the environment that they have, we could make some real positive change to the lives of many, many horses.

https://www.horseillustrated.com/horse-keeping-reduce-stable-stress

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0168159102001089

https://bvajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1136/vr.148.26.799

Possible influence of neighbours on stereotypic behaviour in horses

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fvets.2019.00162/full

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Noah_Cohen/publication/12902343_Dietary_and_other_management_factors_associated_with_colic_in_Texas/links/02bfe514074ffef3bc000000.pdf

Valentine's Day Equestrian Lookbook| Holland Cooper

Following the drearier weeks of winter after the holidays, it can be hard to find things to look forward to and enjoy, especially when winter weather can make riding much more difficult. Winter is my least favourite month due to the perils of not having an indoor and my climate being so damp and cold, I feel like I am always dressed like a swamp rat at the barn throughout the winter, it can wear on you to never feel dry or stylish for a season that feels like it lasts 6 months of the year. February, I find is a positive month due to its inherent shortness, closeness to spring and, of course, Valentine’s Day. This particular hallmark holiday doesn’t appeal to many, but single or taken, I think V-Day is an excuse to treat yourself, love yourself or direct your love towards someone else. It does not have to be about relationships with others, it can be a day of connecting with and treating yourself!

My “treat yourself” Valentine’s gift was from Holland Cooper, the Sports Team Gilet, an adorable puff vest that is as warm as it is pretty. From their Valentine’s lookbook, this vest contrasts navy with a red and white chevron pattern and is perfect for layering. It looks fantastic over top of sweaters (which are over top of your long sleeve and however many other layers you need, I treat layering as “the more the merrier”) and low profile jackets but is also fitted enough to wear underneath winter coats without it adding too much bulk. The zipper is high quality and contrasts nicely with this vest in gold. Wearing the vest made me feel good about myself due to it being flattering and spiced up the dreariness of the winter days by allowing my photos and videos to look more appealing and less soggy and sad!

Holland Cooper’s Valentine’s gift guide has a number of other options for those who aren’t fans of vests or simply would prefer something different. For casual wear, there is the stylish Team HC Navy Hoodie, which also stands out in its navy and red contrast colouring. For more practical winter wearing, they have the Team HC Riding Jacket in red, the colour is vibrant enough to light up the darker days of winter In a bit more of a subdued red, you can also get their warmer version, the Sports Master Puffer jacket, contrasting the red with black accents. If your wardrobe is already full of jackets, their gift guide also boasts a Cable Knit Headband, a fun accessory for people who like to keep their ears warm but also want to show off their hair more than a beanie may let them. Lastly, for riders who need more base layers, they have their Heritage Base Layer, which offers the comfortable form fitting fabric and flattering silhouette that I found with one of their other base layer options. They are high quality with far better quarter zip zippers than a lot of the other options I’ve tried on the market and I really like the feel of the thin, but extremely stretchy comfortable fabric as I do not find base layers that feel constrictive to be comfortable to be in all day.

Team HC Jacket

Holland Cooper is a great brand to consider for riders looking for high end products that have stunning finishing touches while also remaining practical and comfortable to wear. I have absolutely no complaints about their products after spending much of my day, often in the rain, in them and trust me, I am rather weird and picky when it comes to clothes which is why I often live in sweatpants if my clothes don’t cover it comfort-wise. I enjoy this brand as through their styles, I’ve tried some looks that I honestly would not have thought I would like, such as the striped accents on the vest, and this has allowed me to broaden my horizons fashion wise.

We Need to Stop Blaming Equipment Choices on the Horse

One of the most commonly repeated sayings within horse training facilities is “it’s never the horse’s fault”. This saying is repeated so often that virtually any rider you ask can probably confirm they’ve been told variations of this mindset by a horse trainer in their life. The idea that what occurs in our work with horses, even when negative, is never the fault of the horse is actually an excellent one in theory. We, at the end of the day, are the ones who make the choice to work with horses, to decide to train them, therefore we are responsible for any outcome of said training. Because of our personal choices to take on work with flight animals, we in turn, should accept accountability for anything that occurs in training, whether it may seem like a “deliberate” action from the horse.

So, why, you may ask, am I taking issue with the very saying that I said I support? The fact of the matter is that it is not the saying itself that is the problem, it’s the fact that it is more often than not used fraudulently. If we truly believed that the horse was never at fault, we would not so frequently see riders opting to punish behaviours they don’t want to see, nor would there be a mass culture of riders choosing to use harsher bits to control behaviour problems rather than questioning why said problems exist. I bring up the bits in specific because of how frequently we see riders blaming the horse for the equipment they use. We see people choosing bit set ups such as double twisted wire bits, elevator bits or pelhams with one rein, kimberwickes or waterfords with the excuse of the horse “needing” said set up due to how strong they are or how a certain exercise is otherwise difficult to accomplish without said bit.

This isn’t to say that I’m writing off the value of educated hands opting for certain types of harsher bits in specific situations, nor am I saying there is never an excuse to bit up. But, the increasing frequency of use of training gadgets and the number of new bits and gadgets out on the market that promise to fix X problem are indicative of a major cultural issue in our mindset towards horses. If it is never the horse’s fault, why is it always the horse’s responsibility to put up with the inherent discomfort and in some cases, pain, that follows the use of these training fads? At their core, these pieces of equipment are brought forth to try to achieve an end goal more quickly or more easily, be it starting jumping sooner, moving up over fences faster or trying to fast track getting the horse in a “pretty” headset. None of this realistically actually factors in how the horse feels or whether the horse “needs” such thing, it is all about the rider’s ambitions or safety. Which, again, aren’t necessarily bad things, but is it fair to frame the use of such pieces of equipment as though it is the horse who requires it, rather than the rider?

Not all horses ride the same, this much is true, but at the end of the day, what necessitates use of equipment more often than not is the rider’s experience level, their patience, overall ability and who their mentors are. If you only know how to use a handful of tools and are taught the solutions to most riding problems are to change the equipment, how can you ever fathom alternative options that don’t require opting for a different bit or slapping on draw reins or a martingale? You can’t. You don’t know that these things exist, so the idea of life without them seems like an impossibility. I say this from experience. My first trainers only taught me how to fix my horse’s heaviness using different types of bits or things such as draw reins, 10-ring martingales or see sawing on his mouth. I was never taught how to achieve a proper, soft carriage through my riding so the only solutions in front of me that I could see were the ones that I was taught to see. I was like a horse wearing blinkers, utterly blind to alternatives because my trainers never referenced them due to their lack of ability to teach and use them, so they instead took the easy way. The shortcuts.

“I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.” -Abraham Maslow

If you only have one tool or a small selection of tools to use, every problem you encounter will be viewed within the framework of utilizing said tools. You will see no other option, because you do not know the option exists. This is the truth of horse training for so many. Seldom does the horse need the extra bit of equipment for control, but frequently, the rider’s personal ambitions result in the horse’s sudden “need” of something new. Something to allow the rider to enjoy the horse in the way they would want to. Strong horses exist, but riders with the tools to create softness through their riding and their exercises they use will find themselves with way less horses who “need” more bit than the ones who don’t think to change up their riding routine or what they ask of the horse and delay the instant gratification of continuing about their current ambitions without a pause.

My Arab and first few OTTBs “needed” kimberwickes, elevator bits or pelhams to jump or go to shows. I was constantly trying new bits to try to find something easier to ride in than my loose ring snaffle and any time my horse was heavy or resistant it was because they “didn’t like” the bit that I was using. Quickly, this caused me to associate softness that was achieved due to a strong as the horse “liking” that bit simply because they responded quicker to my aids due to the inherent sharpness of a harsher bit. Louder cues that increased more quickly if the horse were to resist, meaning their level of resistance drops severely due to the heightened consequence of continued resistance. I anthropomorphized my horse’s behaviours to suit what I wanted to believe. They did not like the harsher bits, they simply had to respond quicker because it would suck more if they didn’t.

A stressed horse showcasing the pulley nature of draw reins and how they can amplify the pressure of the rider’s hands.

Similarly, with training gadgets, my horse’s “need” for them decreased dramatically as my education and training tool box increased. I would frequently ride in draw reins or a 10-ring martingale when I showed Arabs. It made my rides easier due to being able to use a pulley system to muscle my horse into the headset I wanted without it being as much work for me physically. I couldn’t feel him being heavy and was able to increase the action of my reins tenfold with such gadgets. To me, he felt like he was going better when in reality his head looked “pretty” but his back would have been hollow, hind end trailing along. Such lazy use of equipment did a poor job of developing any top line or teaching correct carriage, meaning my Arab unfortunately developed a premature swayback because of it. On top of this, if he was every forced to carry himself in a position that he wasn’t physically able to comfortable maintain for the amount of time he was being asked, he could not escape it and I couldn’t feel his attempts to relieve himself from said position due to the change in leverage that accompanies gadgets such as a draw reins.

As riders, because we cannot feel the physical discomfort our horses might, it becomes easy to ignore. This makes the quick fix promises of more bit or the new hottest gadget on the market all the more tantalizing. To us, they may feel that they work but to the horse, it could feel like the equivalent of working out with a really bad fitness instructor who forces you into certain advanced stretches or pushes you past your comfortable threshold of physical output and ignores your cries of discomfort when it becomes too much. Most riders do not intend to do this to their beloved horses, it comes from ignorance and apathy surrounding horse training. It is easier to ignore the opinions that conflict with those we have grown comfortable with, too, especially if said opinions call for doing things in a manner that is more work, requires relearning much of what we know and also demands the acknowledgement of past mistakes.

Saying that it is the horse who needs a certain bit or likes to be ridden in a certain gadget, in my opinion, is an attempt at safe guarding the rider and pawning off accountability onto the horse. It is easier to claim a horse is too strong or too dangerous to be fixed to be ridden in a softer manner than it is to admit that you as a rider aren’t able to do it. It is easier to claim your horse answers your cues better because of your bit or gadget due to their enjoyment of such piece of equipment than to admit they respond quicker because saying no becomes increasingly more uncomfortable.

As a trainer, I do recognize that when working with students there are times that coaches may have to make equipment choices they would not make personally in order to assist in safety of riding for their less experienced student or to help out a rider who is not currently able to physically do what they need to in order to fix a problem without the extra help from a bit. But, what we see in the horse world far too often is an inherent laziness and desire to rush for the benefit of the rider, even if it comes at the detriment of the horse. We could be educating our riders better and we could be setting a better precedent in terms of what we view as acceptable and kind horsemanship. I am so disheartened to see the huge range of bits and gadgets on the market and the claims that they make to suck riders in, then actually critically consider the mechanics of such devices. Mechanics that work against the horse to help the rider feel better rather than helping the horse.

I implore riders everywhere to start considering what it is like for them to start a new fitness program. Imagine you’re trying to extend the time spent holding the plank position, a massive test of core strength and something many people find difficult to maintain for lengthy periods of time. If your instructor punished you every time you needed to rest or used mechanics to force you to hold the position, are you going to be any more capable of physically and comfortably doing so than you were prior? No. Your fitness level and overall ability remains the same because you cannot achieve immensely increased fitness within one session, it takes time. Your horse is very much the same. Sure, you can throw draw reins or a bigger bit on and with this, you may be able to make them carry themselves in the position you want the entire ride or you may be able to rate their speed better towards fences. But, the physical and/or issues causing their inability to maintain a static headset or necessitating rushing towards fences still remain, they’ve not been “fixed” , they’ve just been covered up.

A common lunging training aid, tightly fitted and does not allow for much relief if the horse can no longer comfortably maintain this position.

I used to be the rider who had horses who “needed” bigger bits and who needed to be schooled in draw reins, german martingales or tie downs because of how “difficult” or “strong” the horse was. I have since realized that it is no coincidence that I’ve not needed to resort to such methods in years, despite taking on definitively more difficult horses and sitting on many, many more horses per year than I did back then. I’ve realized now that I was the one who needed such devices, not the horse. It was never the horse that was the problem, it was me. I was just too proud to admit that at the time, it took an awful lot of reeducation and learning different training tools before I learned how much easier it really was just to gain some patience and let the process of physical fitness as a riding horse meander at the pace the horse needed. I realize now how much of a disservice we do to both horses and riders to perpetuate the idea that people who use harsher equipment are just riding inherently more difficult horses or that said riders are more skilled and thereby more able “properly” ride in such equipment. This mindset negates the work of riders with difficult horses who have put the work in to make them soft without resorting to the forms of coercion associated with certain “quick fix” methods. The equipment that a horse is ridden actually says more about the rider than it does the horse. The horse is not the factor that necessitated harsh methods, it is the training they have been put through that has required this. The horse did nothing to ask for this, they are merely responding how they have been conditioned and trained.

It is never the horse’s fault, but the rider’s.

A correctly muscled neck in my current riding horse, Milo. Muscle along the top of the neck and at the base. No excess under muscle indicating frequent hollow carriage.

Very poor neck muscle in one of my OTTBs when I did not rely on training softness but instead tried to muscle it using gadgets. This is an “upside down” neck with lack of muscle at the base and along the top of the neck.

The Pursuit of Better Horsemanship and Equine Husbandry

The horse world is wrought with opinions, some blunter and louder than others but with said opinions always comes the risk of harsh judgment when you post your riding, handling or horse care publicly. Oftentimes, when people have some form of anonymity from posting on online forums, they will voice their opinions in a much harsher manner than they otherwise would, increasing potential for hurt feelings and risking how well their commentary may be received, even if true. This is one of the biggest shortcomings of the horse world, as it vastly increases the level of defensiveness the average rider ought to feel when posting their riding journey or responding to comments on public posts from other people. This inherent defensiveness that is created in equestrians can result in the creation of an echo chamber, where people who have been reprimanded harshly by others for their horsemanship choose to completely ignore even the kindly voiced information from people on “the other side” and defer to engaging only with groups that completely support what that rider views to be correct.

This is why, aside from cases of outright abuse or when there is risk of immediate danger, I think that education is better done in a generalized setting. Write blog posts with your opinions on important training and welfare topics. Create your own post on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter with your thoughts on certain training and care beliefs and use your own platform to reach people whose thoughts you can provoke in a manner that feels less antagonistic, because they don’t have to feel personally targeted. This is one of the more successful ways to incite change without putting people on the immediate defense. While people may be unfairly reactionary to statements that aren’t targeted or were meant with well intentions, we can’t exactly blame people for these reactions that at their core are meant to protect and safeguard their feelings.

Speaking from my own experiences as well as what I’ve witnessed on other people’s pages online, equestrians can often be needlessly cruel. It doesn’t take much in the way of repeated cruelty for a person to resist any outward commentary due to viewing anything that makes them uncomfortable as a threat. It’s a psychological protection mechanism that many people adopt as a means of shielding themselves from harmful comments. I can attest to this for myself, joining social media and being active in the equestrian community as young as I was (just 14 or 15 years of age) put me in the throes of some pretty aggressive arguments and unkind commentary. It incited anxiety and fear when I would post things about my horses, never knowing how they would be received, and even more neutral comments could come off as antagonistic if I was looking at everything through the lens of being criticized. It resulted in me misinterpreting a lot of well-intentioned comments and the defensive nature of this still often causes me to read a lot of comments in a harsher light than the original author may have intended. This is one of the problems of the online era, without being able to hear tone of voice or read facial expression, you never know someone’s true intentions and things can come off as an attack even when they absolutely are not.

So, how can we move forward with educating the masses within an industry that has no regulatory body to ensure professionals are qualified to be effectively teaching new riders horsemanship, equine ethology and correct care practices? This is a tough one and it largely is reliant on equestrians growing comfortable with the discomfort of realizing their shortcomings in care practices, what “ideal” horse care looks like and how to handle with enriching the life of a horse living within an “unideal” circumstance. It requires the realization that you are not a terrible horse owner or rider if there is room for improvement in your care or if because of your geographic location, you’re limited on to what extent you can provide a more natural equine environment for your horse.

For example, turnout and socialization are arguably one of the most pressing factors in horse care we need to change the general public opinion of. It is still far too common to see barns being built with stalls with full wooden walls, no windows or ability for horses to physically interact with each other, even through bars. It is equally as common to see individual turnout as the norm, often with spaces in between the paddocks or high electrical wires to prevent contact. These practices disallow horses one of their core needs as a herd animal: socialization. Too many trainers are not doing their part in teaching equine ethological needs and the fact that many of the stress behaviours we witness in horses are a direct result of the lifestyles we mandate for them is something that is glossed over too often. This necessitates the need for outside sources, such as online equestrian voices, to become more effective at producing other forms of information in a manner that makes it most likely for the people who need to see it to read it and actually have the information land for them. This cannot be done in the typical commenting on someone’s personal post in an extremely antagonistic manner and expecting them to learn from it. It has to be done by providing adequate resources and gently trying to push someone in the right direction.

The perfect ideal for horses care wise is, of course, group turnout on large plots of land with free choice forage, different footings, hills, forests and other forms of shelter. Of course, in the modern world, especially within cities this isn’t always possible. Equestrians need to grow comfortable with the fact that they can still better the lives of their horses without being “the best” or offering “the best” scenario for them. Recognizing where you might be limited in offering the ideal circumstance for your horse and enriching the life that you can offer them is still horse care. You may not have group grass turnout, but you could help emulate the act of walking and foraging by providing your horse with an interactive toy like a hay ball that they can follow and push, while eating the forage out of it. This stimulates motion, can be used in a paddock or a stall and helps to entertain the horse by providing them a form of cognitive enrichment, allowing them some form of autonomy over an environment that may otherwise provide little in the way of autonomy. Giving horses some form of “control” over their environment has shown some marked improvements in overall psychological welfare and can allow for owners to make the best of unideal circumstance like lengthy periods being stalled or the limits of small, dry lot paddock turnout individually.

The thing about this, though, is that the ability to enrich the life of an animal is reliant on the owner’s realization of what needs to be enriched. The welfare conversation for horses is an important one because of the massive number of horse people who are so misled from day one to believe that horses “need” stalls and that they enjoy being confined and isolated, that set hay feedings followed by hours without forage are healthy and normal when there is so much in the way of information out there now showing that these things are not the case. Study on horses is still developing but what we do know about them is that they are a foraging animal who trickle feeds, meaning they are eating smaller amounts of food near constantly throughout the day, their main form of sustenance coming from forage such as grass or hay. Since they are designed to be eating for most of their day, their stomach produces large amounts of acid that mean when left empty, the stomach is extremely prone to ulceration due to excess amounts of acid. The act of chewing forage encourages salivary production which, in turn, helps to buffer the stomach acid. Chewing of forage is more time consuming than chewing of concentrated feeds such as grain, meaning more time spent chewing = more saliva to buffer the stomach + providing the horse with a relaxing behaviour that keeps them busy. In modern diets, many boarding facilities do set feeding times, often feeding small amounts of hay 3-4x a day. If the horses are fed small enough amounts that they finish long before the next feeding, they are left with an empty stomach that causes increasing discomfort along with boredom.

Even within boarding establishments with set feed times and barn managers unwilling to change the schedule, you can help to provide your horse with the means to forage constantly with aforementioned hay balls or slow feed hay nets. Slow feeders are great as they can slow the intake of easy keepers, thereby preventing weight gain from eating too much, while still allowing them to have constant access to hay. There is a misconception about horses that they can have too much hay or shouldn’t be eating constant when it quite literally is what they’re wired to do. While we have metabolic issues and other problems that can necessitate more careful hay feedings, these can still be accompanied by slow feed nets to even allow these horses the ability to forage throughout the day. By providing a hay net to allow for constant forage, you lower your risk of ulcers, and thereby, colic along with lowering boredom and the risk of stereotypic behaviours such as weaving, cribbing or stall walking that typically go hand in hand with boredom induced stress.

Ideally, horses should either not be stalled or should be spending more time with free access to a paddock or field than they do confined in a stall. We need to be more mindful of how we word horses’ turnout schedules. Instead of saying they get 6 hours turnout, say they’re stalled 18 hours. It may change how you view it. Could you imagine leaving your dog kennelled 18 hours? Could you imagine being alone in a room with little in the way of entertainment for 18 hours? Doesn’t sound very fun, but if you can’t get around this, you need to work a bit harder to find your horse means of self entertaining while stall bound. Toys such as likits or the Uncle Jimmy’s Hanging Balls are great for food motivated horses to self entertain while being rewarded for it by way of nice tasting treats. Some horses enjoy engaging with toys like Jolly Balls, exercise balls or even “cheap” DIY toys such as cutting a few holes in an empty milk jug and filling it with grain or hay pellets. The horse can manipulate the milk jug to cause treats to fall out, giving it a reliably consequence of playing with the toy and thereby allowing for some level of autonomy in a situation where their autonomy has been stripped due to inability to exit the stall at will.

Stalls with windows and bars between them can improve welfare by allowing horses to interact through the bars or hang their heads over the window to watch the goings on.

For modern barns, in my opinion, best case scenario is providing in/out stalls with attached paddocks, even if paddocks are on the smaller side. In/out stalls give horses the ability to walk in and out and get differing forms of stimulation due to being able to watch the goings on within the barn as well as outside. I can personally attest to the reduction in stress behaviours that I have seen in these types of barns. My preference for paddocks is for them to be long enough that the horse can, at the bare minimum, trot, but ideally have at least a few canter strides before hitting a fence. Contrary to popular belief, small turnouts are actually more likely to influence injury if horses play in them, due to sharp turns or sudden stops. So, whenever possible, you’re probably better off providing large turnouts even if your horse runs more. Remember, the more space horses get to self exercise, the less explosive behaviour you’ll see upon turning them out. Excess excitement when released into bigger areas is a symptom of their lack of ability to express their energy and self exercise within smaller living spaces, so horses who spend more time stalled are much more likely to come out of the stall exhibiting far more highly stimulated and excitable behaviours.

Remember, your horse is a herd animal. If you can’t have them in group turnout, be mindful of letting them have a “herd” even if its just by making friends through the bar of a stall. As a boarder or client of a riding stable, you do have some say, especially if we start to demand for reform in horse care in large groups. You are the paying client. You are why these facilities can remain open and exist. The higher we increase expectations for modern horse living and the more we educate, the more pushback there can be to ask barn owners to be more considerate of equine ethology in their building practices. While mass changes such as building paddock paradises may be cost prohibitive for many places, building windows between stalls or allowing for some form of interaction in paddocks is less pricey and time consuming.

I also want to reiterate that by providing your horse with a better living situation, you’re likely to improve the rides you have on them, their level of engagement with you and their overall happiness. Many behavioural problems under saddle are, unfortunately, the result of environmental frustration. Horses who spend more time stalled and thereby less time in motion are also at far greater risk of colic, the #1 cause of equine mortality other than old age. They’re also more prone to ulcers due to stress (and also set feed times) along with circulatory, respiratory and joint and soft tissue problems. Standing stagnant for lengthy periods of time doesn’t allow for joint fluids to circulate how they should and in young horses, reduced motion results in a reduction in bone density.

Even for competition horses, in terms of lasting soundness and increased fitness along with the obvious psychological benefits, turnout for as long as possible is the superior option. I wish I had the funds to run a long scale study on this because while there are several depicting the health implications associated with too much stalling, there are not enough long scale studies done on soundness of pasture-reared horses versus stalled ones, would it not be interesting to see if this was a largely contributing factor to the breakdown rate in racehorses and injuries in show horses? The studies we do have certainly point in the direction that this could make a substantial difference.

I am also understanding and sensitive to many of the concerns people with horses who have not had the ability to properly socialize from a young age tend to have. Aggression to other horses and resource guarding is a big one, but, these behaviours would not be seen in the excess that they are IF we properly managed horses and allowed for more socialization within barns. Turnout anxiety is another one, horses pacing to the point of being lathered or running around erratically, causing owners to fear about injury. This is a valid concern, however, it is fixable. Just like anxiety under saddle, which many riders encounter when introducing horses to new environments like horse shows, environmental anxiety in the paddock can be fixed. Any creature, humans included, would be likely to experience anxiety if they’re taken from a low stimulation, small area and thrown out into a much larger, highly stimulating area like a field adjacent to other horses. There is a needed adjustment period and with supervised turnout or even starting the process out by utilizing ground work, you can help to counter condition the anxiety associated with being out. I’ve had great success taking many, many racehorses who go from 24/7 stalling in 10x10 stalls to 24/7 outdoor living and while there absolutely is an adjustment period that can be stressful to watch and deal with, they all pull through it and are happier because of it. We just need to try as hard to better our horses’ wellbeing in their time off rider, we need to try as hard as we do when we are fixing under saddle issues that disrupt our ability to enjoy the horse.

As a horse owner, you can only do your best with the resources you have. I have the utmost respect for owners who go out of their way to enrich lives of horses living in limited space and are aware of the shortcomings of certain care practices and as a result, work to enrich and adapt the life of the horse to limit stress behaviours and depression. Whether you realize it or not, you are helping to lead the charge of better equine welfare by setting a good example to people in traditional boarding facilities on how they can benefit their horse’s wellbeing and reduce stress behaviours. My horses all live out 24/7 in a herd with a shelter but my area is limiting due to the immense amount of yearly rain, limited land space and expensive living costs. It isn’t possible to maintain a grass pasture year round unless you have acres upon acres to rotate on. As a result, the horses here are living largely on dry lots and owners must accommodate this by providing adequate forage. Similarly, most boarding barns only offer smaller individual paddocks, sometimes with seasonal pasture. Group turnout can be difficult to find. Group turnout on large plots of land even harder. My horses’ field isn’t massive, but they do have room to run. They can practice natural behaviours and all of their 5 Freedoms are met. I watch closely for stress behaviours and work to enrich their turnout to help accommodate for any of the boredom and stress that can come with the lack of ability to move around on large enough land to seek new scenery andd different terrain. But, is it the perfect ideal? No. Are they doing better than many horses in my area? Absolutely. All I can do as an owner now, is continue to work on my ability to provide them with something better in the future while taking solace in the fact that my horses are perky, playful and happy horses full of personality and do not exhibit stereotypic behaviours. They don’t have the amazing deal horses in more rural areas have when they get to run on hundreds of acres, but their needs as domesticated animals are being met and most importantly, their social needs are being met.

Horses are incredibly resilient and tolerant animals. We frequently move them around, forcing them to lose affiliations with other horses that they may have made. They have to adapt to entirely new environments, new riders, completely different expectations that may not be well linked to what they had learned prior and they do this well and largely without complaint. They adapt to less than ideal circumstance and cope with stress admirably and, for whatever reason, they still try super hard to do what we ask them to do in sport, even if their environment is causing psychological distress. We owe it to them to do better. They honestly put up with so much from us and do it with such incredible strength and grace. The least we can do in return is push for more horse-conscious boarding and training practices and if we succeed in doing so, we will likely see a complete overhaul in how our horses work for us. If they can perform as well as they do while being psychologically unsound, imagine the things they can do in the absence of environmental stress.

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Training The Difficult Horse

Dealing with interactions between humans who can communicate effectively whilst utilizing the same language is difficult enough, when we try to bring similar levels of communication to animals who learn, think and communicate differently from us, the potential for miscommunication and resulting frustration for both sides increases immensely. On top of this, a certain level of frustration is created by human desires conflicting with the abilities, understanding and needs of the animal who is being worked with, in this case, being the horse. Our desires as riders, may we be competitors or pleasure riders, are generally strongly correlated with goals that at their core are mainly about what WE want and virtually nothing the horse “wants”. I don’t mean this as a bad thing, it is simply an undeniable fact that horses do not have the capacity to have the same drive for improvement under saddle or results in the competition ring as their human partners do. This detail is one of the most important things that is routinely forgotten in training and in misrepresenting it, we only serve to potentially create scared and frustrated horses by our assumption that when they don’t follow the path we have outlined for them in training, they’re doing so as a slight against us or to be decidedly “bad”.

The attitude with which we approach training will ultimately define the success of said training. It is also important to acknowledge that in many cases, what humans perceive as success is viewed entirely different by the horse. It is perfectly possible to achieve the results we want at the detriment of the horse. Horses can be competitive and achieve great heights within the confines of human goals while being wildly unhappy themselves. We see this frequently within the competition world with horses who are stalled most of their days only to enter training exhibiting many frustration signals and an overall distaste for work but such athleticism that they are heavily rewarded in competition for their efforts. This issue, however, is also present outside of the competition world as it can be closely linked with personal goals of the rider who, while may be riding for pleasure, still wants to attain certain abilities within training. Generally speaking, in each of these cases, the desire to do right by the horse is there, it is just misguided and unfortunately, riddled with cognitive dissonance when personal human goals conflict with what is best for the horse. Or, in many cases, where catering to the needs of the horse may uproot the human’s ability to do things the “easy” way or demand for an overhaul of what the human has always known to be righteous.

First and foremost, the difficulties horses present us with should be actively looked at through the lens of the horse. This can be very, very hard to do. Even for behavioural inclined trainers and people who “know” better, working with horses within the confines of the demands of their owners, their connections and their management scenario can feel helpless and frustrating when you feel unable to make the changes needed or do not know the best way to navigate a situation at a specific time. So, this means that making mistakes or misreading scenarios is only human, but we need to be mindful of how often we do this. So many of the behavioural issues people run into with their horses are directly related to management. In most cases, this means that the horse is exhibiting outward frustration or “resistance” behaviours that conflict with what the rider is requesting or expecting of them. Said behaviours are often strongly correlated with the reduced ability to interact with other horses or the deprivation of autonomy and natural movement that comes with being stalled too much. These basic factors can result in a great variety of poor behaviours under saddle or inhand that make it difficult or impossible for the rider to meet their goals with the horse.

Unfortunately, in many cases, instead of meeting these needs, the humans expect the horses to be able to deal with the frustrations of training on top of the frustrations that come from poor management. This results in an awful lot of bickering between horse and rider and immense irritation on both sides. It also ends up in a lot of horses being labelled as naughty and reprimanded accordingly. The punishment serves to only silence the horse’s means of communication and outbursts that at their heart are just trying to relieve pent up frustration. This, in turn, doesn’t really solve the “why” behind said behaviours and instead pushes the horse to find a replacement behaviour to serve the same purpose as the “naughty” one, which means they may stop the “bad” behaviour temporarily but are highly likely to find a just as undesirable outlet for whatever reason the previous behaviour served for them.

Not all instances of frustration behaviours are related to management. We need to reserve understanding for the moments we see in young horses, struggling to retain focus for extended periods of time without playing or feeling more of a need to have silly moments in cold snaps. In these cases, the same thinking applies, though. The behaviour serves a purpose for the horse and reprimanding said behaviour harshly only tells them “don’t do that” without offering them a different solution. With this in mind, when my horses act out under saddle, I try to master the art of just sitting there. Riding through the moment, not reprimanding the horse and then once they’re through it, offering a replacement behaviour. For fizzy youngsters, this can be as simple as working on some lateral work basics that are more physically and mentally demanding and thereby require more focus. Or, it can be frequently changing direction or speed so that the horse is more focused on what comes next than they are about being silly. There are a great variety of solutions to offer replacement behaviours for when undesirable behaviours arise, but it requires the rider to think a little bit more and try to get to the bottom of why the negative behaviour exists in the first place. Very seldom does it ever necessitate punishment.

I think one of the most pressing issues currently in ridden training is the fact that it is far too common for people to use discomfort or pain as a means of punishing a horse or maintaining control. This very mindset entirely negates the idea of trying to get the horse to enjoy their work and instead results in the person riding them pretending that there is a greater sense of enjoyment coming from the horse than what is there in reality. Horses cannot enjoy the work if they have to worry about being hurt or frightened if they offer the wrong behaviour. In turn, they’re less likely to trial behaviours to figure out what the correct one is, because the outcome of doing the wrong thing is painful and/or frightening. Similarly, when we move to use harsher equipment to achieve control instead of doing the foundational work to develop a level of relaxation that allows us to be as soft as possible, we sacrifice enjoyment and comfort from the horse for a quick fix to muscle the horse into the cookie cutter our training program represents. A horse isn’t going to enjoy working within a program that would rather up the consequences of being “wrong” in terms of leveraging discomfort through bigger bits or gadgets that are much harder for the horse to escape. These programs don’t really give them choice since the horse is forced to progress at the often fast paced expectations of the rider that don’t account for the slow progression of muscular fitness on top of mental understanding. The lack of autonomy and lack of consideration for the physical and mental output of the horse doesn’t leave the horse with an awful lot of options.

To master working with the difficult horse, we need to do our best not to be bullies. Training, even at its best, is not without stress for the animal. Exercise is stressful, even if just on the body. In order to achieve greater fitness in our horses (and ourselves, for that matter), stress must be inflicted on the body. BUT- the level to which we demand such stress is what matters. As humans with autonomy, we are unlikely to continue seeing personal trainers who work us with such high expectations that we leave the session with physical or mental injury. Horses should be viewed as no different. We cannot expect them to perform well without any opinion while we demand far too much from them mentally and/or physically or try to force them to work through painful conditions. Said painful conditions include bits or gadgets that either inflict pain simply from their mechanics or due to how the rider uses them but also are strongly related to saddle fit, fitness, lameness and many other factors. Riders, at least, get to pick and choose what level of discomfort or pain within themselves is acceptable to work through. Horses do not, so as their advocates, it is our job to, you know, advocate for them.

So, how do we fix the difficult or “naughty” horse? We fix them by trying to look at the why behind the behaviours we don’t want to see and try to address whatever is necessitating the behaviour. This can be done by improving management, enriching the horse’s lift within training and/or outside of it or offering a positive replacement behaviour for the negative one. It should never be done through heavy, consistent punishment of the “bad” behaviour with no example set for what the correct one is. Rewarding the good behaviours will elicit greater change than punishing the bad will. Heavy punishment has been shown to come with a great variety of negative psychological repercussions, not just within horses but also dogs, cats and humans. This is a non-negotiable fact as it is something that is heavily studied, however, it is far too often disregarded as an untruth in equine training. Horse people without the tools to understand alternatives to punishment when it comes to handling bad behaviour simply lack the understanding to do so and whether they’re your trainer or someone you highly respect doesn’t matter, they simply cannot deny science. They can’t.

This isn’t to say that positive punishment should never ever be used in any setting. I think it is foolish for anyone to claim that there is never an appropriate scenario to ever use it just because it doesn’t look at life realistically. You’re not always going to be able to set up the appropriate times to train someone’s horse in every setting. You could end up pinned against a wall by an aggressive horse with no means to counter condition or have a horse charge you in the field and in these scenarios, it is warranted to do whatever the heck you need to do to get out of there and be safe. But the important thing to remember in these types of emergent situations is that they do not represent a regular training situation. Repeated punishment has been shown to actually increase risk of agonistic behaviour in animals, which is what makes it problematic as a training tactic regularly used in a program. I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve done things like lip chaining horses, using twitches, or other highly aversive things. I don’t use them in replacement for training, though. I use them in situations where it isn’t safe to “train” the correct behaviour such as vet procedures, when taking horses out for the first time after being stalled or handling horses who are known to be dangerous but need to be moved to a different property or area immediately. In situations like this, you aren’t in an environment where you can enact longstanding behavioural change and you may need to muscle yourself out of a situation but this is not representative of the situation the vast majority of equestrians find themselves in within daily work and these cases represent a “bandaid” fix in terms of being a lazy, short term way to get to the end goal without actually addressing the cause of the problem. Also, the infrequent use of such things is a lot less likely to cause the neurotic behaviour correlated with repeated use of positive punishment.

In training, it is important to remain realistic. I recognize the fact that many riders may lack the necessary tools, support and management style to help them achieve the best possible way to enact change for their horse. However, it is also important to realize the power of an education. Educating equestrians on the repercussions of some of the more mainstream ways of handling “bad manners” only serves to push those who are willing to look further into handling things differently. It also helps reduce the frequency at which we see shutdown horses who go through the motions of their work and appear otherwise well trained but had to go through hell to get there. Similarly, it will hopefully reduce the wastage that we see in horses who instead of shutting down and going into learned helplessness, became so unpredictable and dangerously neurotic that they could no longer be used as a riding horse. Such horses typically end up getting euthanized or dumped at auctions unless they’re lucky enough to find a home willing to retire them or a trainer willing to try to save them from the damage their previous program imposed on them.

At the end of the day, the best way to handle the difficult horse is to refute the training ideas that only “work” on horses who passive copers and the most likely to shut down rather than fight and get continuously more anxious and frightened. A lot of the force based methods we see commonly used in traditional training practice have far too much wastage and a training approach that fails on an abundance of horses or immensely increases neurosis or aggression isn’t something that needs to be promoted. The difficult horse very often the misunderstood horse and as a trainer, it is so sad to see the sheer number of horses who are failed and fall through the cracks at the hands of what horse people view to be “right”. The level of anger that stems from humans when they’re unable to make an animal bend their will within the confines of a very rigid training approach is one of the biggest downfall we see from people who work with animals.

We all have the capacity to do better and we will all continue to make mistakes as we journey down the path of enlightenment. It is not an easy feat to effect change on a creature who not only does not speak the same language as us but also thinks entirely differently from us. This sets us up to make mistakes, even ones we may recognize as such within the same day but more often, mistakes we will come to regret years down the road. Making mistakes is not the issue so much as how we react to new information given that conflicts with what we have known to be true in the past. All of us only serve to improve in our ability to train horses within the confines of our sport once we learn to better understand the hows and the whys behind their learning style.

No, Your Bit is Not "Only as Harsh as Your Hands"

The equipment we advocate for in training and our attitudes towards it directly impacts the wellbeing of our horse partners, whether we admit to it or not. Because of this, I think that it is important to be critical of equipment and breakdown the mechanisms behind the results said bit or gadget provides. Unfortunately, all too often, we see horseback riders lazily justifying the equipment they use on the basis that it can only be as harsh as the hands behind it, negating the actual physics of how the equipment itself works the vast majority of the time this excuse is used. On top of this, such justification allows riders to breeze over the harshness of equipment they used without actually having to show any awareness of how their bit or training gadget enacts pressure and why their horse responds to it. It means that there is an easy justification for just about any bit or training gadget that doesn’t demand any hands on knowledge of the workings of said product from the rider. Saying that something is only as harsh as the hands behind it can justify anything if you try hard enough. You could claim a steak knife isn’t harsh if the hands are soft enough, but that doesn’t erase the nature of the equipment itself and just how easily misused sharper, harsher bits are even in the best of hands.

The fact of the matter is, regardless of hands, some equipment is just harsh. You could have play dough hands and it wouldn’t change the fact that your horse would be inherently more uncomfortable in a thin twisted wire than they would in a smooth mouthed snaffle. On top of this, if all of the riders who feel compelled to use harsh bits to cover up holes in training actually had the soft, amazing hands they claim justifies the use of their equipment, would they need it in the first place? Probably not as a readily. Good and soft hands should also be able to work to soften a horse without muscling them into softness by way of aversive gadget. At the end of the day, all riders need to acknowledge the fact that the reason why “bitting up” even works is because of the bigger bit increasing the consequence of non-compliance. Your horse does not “like” their gag bit more, they just soften more readily because if they didn’t, the discomfort would grow increasingly worse until they submit. They may not soften so readily in a soft snaffle but it wouldn’t be due to them “disliking” the bit, it would be due to the fact that they can more comfortably fight against the pressure than they may be able to in a harsher set up. Humans anthropomorphizing equine behaviour to the point where they take submission to certain equipment as inherent enjoyment of said equipment is extremely problematic. At best, horses are just indifferent to the equipment we use, even the soft stuff. They may like the enrichment their halter brings them if they associate it with going somewhere fun, being led to the field, going on hacks or doing something they like, but the nature of the halter, bridle, bit etc isn’t something that the feeling of elicits joy from the horse. The riders are the ones who typically “like” the equipment that makes their rides easier or allows them to hit their next training milestone faster, even if it is to the detriment of the horse, simply because it brings them joy by allowing them to bypass some of the more tedious and boring aspects of foundational training.

As horse people, it is up to us to level with ourselves and honestly look at what the driving factor behind the use of most training aids or harsher bits is. It all relates to the desires of the rider and almost never what is actually best for the horse. In terms of producing equine partners who will have lengthy careers and stay sound, achieving softness without needing to amp up the level of pain or discomfort to do so is how you would get the lightest, most pliable horse. As soon as you start to increase discomfort as a form of control, you’re pretty much guaranteed to get a tense horse at some point or, at minimum, you’re sacrificing your horse’s comfort in training to produce a faster result. I’m not saying in every case that this is a terrible thing but with the sheer number of bits and training aids on the market, it is pretty clearly an epidemic of laziness that there is THIS much stuff out there that claims to bypass training, make the horse softer, get them calmer etc and it is selling.

People are eating these products up without critically looking at how they may negatively impact the horse. On top of this, it allows people to remain in denial about the fact that the equipment a horse “needs” to ride is almost entirely a result of the program they’re in. The idea that there’s these horses who come out of the womb needing much harsher bits and that will "never” be safe in a snaffle or bitless is something that plagues an awful lot of training barns due to the inability of that specific program to produce horses soft enough to do these things. Then, they teach those within the barns that it is the fault of the horse rather than a commentary on the program itself. This removes all accountability from the riders and trainers and places that fault on the horse for being so strong or so uncontrollable that they require their twisted wire gag or always need to be ridden in draw reins, tie downs etc. It blames the horse without acknolwedging the fact that 9 times out of 10, it is actually the rider who needs the equipment, not the horse. What do I mean by this? Riders who do not have the tools to fix horses without gadgets or bitting up will view it as impossible to do so because, like their horses, they are a product of the programs they’ve been in and a product of what they have been led to believe. The lack of ability to do something makes it feel impossible and when something feels impossible, people are a lot more compelled to insist that those who state something as being possible are merely lacking of well-rounded experience.

I used to be one of these riders. When a horse would rush fences, I would bit up, instead of, you know, training it. When they would get heavy, I would feel compelled to use draw reins or something to take the workload off of myself and make it feel easier, allow me to achieve things faster, even if the horse wasn’t physically ready to do so. I am not lying when I say that the reason behind every decision to bit up or to slap on X training aid was entirely catered to my own desire to move quicker and virtually never considered the horse or what was the best approach for them, even if at the time I would claim something differently. In most cases, slowing down and going back to basics to build that good foundation without intense force through discomfort or pain is going to produce better, faster and long term results than any quick fix training gadget or bit will. Most of our mistakes as riders stem from wanting to move too quickly rather than too slow. It is a lot harder to screw a horse up by taking your time, but time isn’t something most equestrians want to be overly generous with because patience is hard, especially when you’re constantly comparing yourself to people on social media with these speedy, results based training programs that work to churn horses out to shows and get them jumping high ASAP without regard for what is best for the horses’ wellbeing. The entire competition circuit in virtually every discipline encourages this exact mentality by largely rewarding it in judging along with immensely encouraging it on social media and virtually every other facet of the horse world. We see it everywhere, even with the entire idea that a horse can have their potential “wasted” when, quite literally, the horse could not give less of a shit about said potential in the show ring. We have made it our culture to guilt trip riders for not doing enough with their horses, for not moving fast enough and it has resulted in a mindset that is quite insidious towards our horses.

So, here is the truth: your soft hands do not change the nature of the equipment you use. If you use something that serves the purpose of further leveraging pressure to make it harder for your horse to resist, the equipment itself isn’t soft even with your soft hands. The choice to use harsher equipment serves the sole purpose of utilizing gadgets for the means of increasing the consequences of resistance. Even with soft hands, your horse is still meeting further discomfort from any type of shanked bit, abrasive mouthpiece, gag, curb action etc than they would from a smooth, direct action bit or bitless. Even when using them “properly” gadgets like draw reins still run the risk of forcing a horse into a false position they’re not ready for and making them hold it for longer than they’re comfortably capable of. Even in the best of riders, this is easy to do because you cannot feel the horse’s muscular fatigue. That is why it is inherently riskier to be tempted into using harsher and harsher equipment to achieve shortcuts. Does it mean every rider who is compelled to do these things is being unfair to their horse? No. However, I would say that these shortcuts are most appealing to those who probably are not the most qualified to use them.

I am of the mind, as a trainer, that any horse can go in a snaffle or bitless if they’re trained to do so. Does this mean in every instance everywhere all horses can do it no matter what they’re being asked to do? Maybe not, however, we could see a lot more snaffle mouthed and truly “soft” horses if we prioritized it more in how we trained horses, but currently, that really isn’t a priority. The speed of results for the rider hold importance over what speed is actually fairest and most beneficial to the horse. This confounds the actual number of horses out there who could be going around a lot more relaxed and soft than they are, because they’re merely a product of their training programs and responding to the information they’ve been given from their riders. Riders without the support or tools to learn softer methods will almost always reject those who state the possibility of such, as it feels like an attack on what they’ve always known. They aren’t typically the most receptive of these outside opinions because they go against everything they’ve been taught and can also demand walking a harder, more lengthy road in training. I know this because I’ve been one of these riders and, frankly, I don’t at all think it’s a coincidence that since I learned how to ride better and prioritize foundation more, I haven’t needed any of the bigger bits or fun little training gadgets I used to use so frequently. I think it does myself and my horses a disservice to have the mindset that we all just lucked into being snaffle mouthed horses who can also go bitless. You can’t get lucky time and time again like that, especially when every horse prior frequently used gadgets or a pelham or elevator to jump in.

As riders, we commonly say to never blame the horse but, ironically, the vast majority of the time it is the horse who is blamed for needing the equipment they are ridden in when it is more of a commentary on the rider and the programs the horse has been through than anything else. Horses will fluctuate with what they’re ridden in from rider to rider as they go from home to home. This isn’t a result of the horse changing so much as the parameters of their training and management changing as well as the abilities of their rider. The equipment we use and how we manage our horses is reflective of us and these things are all more interconnected than most people want to realize. It is no coincidence that it is usually the areas where horses receive the least amounts of turnout, socialization and other important basic necessities are typically heavily correlated with having the most excitable, ill behaved horses who require heavy equipment to get around. By addressing management and training practices and looking hard at the why behind our choices of equipment, we only will get better as horse people because it will force us to consider every action from the standpoint of the horse rather than what is most convenient for us.

The bit is as harsh as the mechanics allow it to be and it is your job as a rider to showcase your true softness by your consideration towards your horse. Be careful not to justify equipment that may benefit you but only to the detriment of your horse’s comfort. Softness is more than just your hands, it is where you draw the line for what you view as fair to use on your horse for regular training. The softest hands won’t want to be the on the other end of the rein for certain bits and equipment because they recognize that they cannot make up for the aversive mechanics of what they’re attached to.

We Need to Talk About Stalls

There is a fundamental problem in equine management that has resulted in the normalization of horses spending much of their time isolated and indoors. We see this depicted in movies and TV shows, in barn tours of fancy stables with upper level riders and with what certain boarding facilities offer in terms of amenities for the horses. I cannot count the number of times where people have shared beautiful barns to ooh and aah over and the barns were aesthetically beautiful. But, all I could see was the high, boarded up walls of the stalls, the lack of space left for turnout and much of the space being used to appease human aesthetic and cater to the needs of the boarders, rather than the horses who actually have to live there. There was a time where I would look at these upscale barns with envy and gush about how fancy they are, but now, whenever I see a place that hasn’t factored turnout and socialization as a necessity, I just feel sad.

It is funny to me, also, to watch the sheer number of horse people who will petition against zoos or places like SeaWorld due to viewing them as morally abhorrent, but then condone leaving their horse utterly isolated from other horses with little room to roam and self exercise outside of their stall. The level of cognitive dissonance that is associated with this is startling, to be able to acknowledge the lack of space and denial of species specific needs in one type of animal, but utterly indifferent to it when the animal in question is in your care. I don’t deny that these people love their horses but such love is so misguided. Sometimes, love for an animal requires taking a hard look at the situation you offer them and acknowledging where it needs improvement. Not being able to offer the perfect ideal isn’t a crime, but if you cannot even acknowledge where potential shortcomings are in care, how can you try to enrich the horse’s life within the confines of the situations you have access to?

It’s uncomfortable to see how many experienced horse people balk at the idea of horses not being stalled at night and truly believe that there is something negligent about 24/7 turnout. That their show horses some how have evolved past the point of needing the base level needs: socialization, forage and room to roam. Too often is the excuse of the horse’s value used as an excuse to why they cannot “risk” turnout or socialization. This is a piss poor excuse, to be frank. Horses do not get to decide how valuable they are and value should not be an excuse to deprive an animal of basic necessities. First off, expensive horses can be insured. Secondly, if you’re willing to put your animal at risk of injury for sport but won’t do it for their mental and physical wellbeing, you really need to re-evaluate whether you’re in this sport for the love of horses or if it is the competition that you actually love. There is something so absurd about people willingly risking injuring their horses in sport, for the human’s own personal enjoyment, but for whatever reason believing it to be acceptable to deprive a social herd animal of one of the bare minimum basics due to “risk”.

Ironically, in studies done on competition horses who were housed in stalls, they found that the horses with access to turnout and socialization were less stress throughout the day and did not find there to be any additional risk of injury. In fact, the hypothesis was that horses with access to turnout are less prone to injury due to having to navigate an environment that isn’t as controlled as a stall. Keeping their joints and muscles moving kept them fitter and didn’t come with the circulatory and respiratory repercussions that can come with stalling. So, the excuse that so many use isn’t even founded on any actual basis aside from the fact that horses who are forced to stand most of the day tend to have excitatory movement when released into open space due to pent up, unused energy from being stalled. This is an easy fix by, you guessed it, turning the horse out.

The risk of injury in turnout climbs when horses are not allowed access to it or are only allowed very limited access. It becomes a novelty, a source of stress or the one place where they can actually freely exercise themselves without being in the confines of a ridden training program or attached to a lunge line. Horses that run until they are lathered in sweat if turned out or pace the fence line incessantly are a result of poor management. Horses have evolved to be social animals that move upwards of 20km per day. A horse, being a flight animal, does not naturally prefer an isolated, confined area where they are vulnerable and it is the ultimate travesty when we create such anxious horses that being let out into an open space is overwhelming. I also cannot get on board with people using said turnout anxiety as an excuse to never allow the horse access to turnout or claim that they “love” their stall. Equestrians will happily address and train away behavioural issues when they get in the way of their riding of the horse. They don’t just have a horse say “no” to the saddle or to a jump or to a lead change and go “oh, welp, they don’t like it. time to give up!” They train through it because if they didn’t, they wouldn’t be able to enjoy the ride or meet whatever goals they have set. If you are willing to train away anxiety and behavioural issues when they interrupt your riding, you should be twice as willing to do this when the issue is one that affects the mental and physical health and wellbeing of your horse.

Here are the 5 freedoms for Animal Welfare as described by Humane Canada:

Freedom from Hunger and Thirst by ready access to fresh water and a diet to maintain full health and vigour.

1. Freedom from Hunger and Thirst by ready access to fresh water and a diet to maintain full health and vigour.

2. Freedom from Discomfort by providing an appropriate environment, including shelter and a comfortable resting area.

3. Freedom from Pain, Injury or Disease by prevention or rapid diagnosis and treatment.

4. Freedom to Express Normal Behaviour by providing sufficient space, proper facilities and company of the animal’s own kind.

5. Freedom from Fear and Distress by ensuring conditions and treatment which avoid mental suffering.

By this definition of welfare necessities, many horses are not meeting the standards for good animal welfare. All of the stall vices we commonly see in barns are signs of distress that are often downplayed and ignored. While horses may still partake in said behaviours after their environment is enriched, these behaviours begin due to distress and they serve the purpose of trying to relieve said stress. They do not exist in natural roaming feral horses and have been heavily linked to amount of time spent stalled and limited access to forage. So many of the undesirable behaviours we deal with in our horses from handling on the ground to riding could be lessened or, in some cases, completely eradicated if we met more of their species specific needs. Even something as simple as providing a horse with a mirror in their stall has been shown to lessen stress behaviours like weaving. If we have a greater awareness of equine needs, we can also reform how the typical barn is built. No boarded up walls, let the horses be able to see and interact with each other. This minor change could bring some real positives to the welfare of stalled horses. Similarly, just making it known that horses are not made to stand still for extended periods of time or have no friends outside of their human handlers. Allow all horse owners to be so aware of this that they start to consider ways to enrich their horses’ lives in their current living situations. If you’re in denial, you’re not going to make an effort to enact change. If you’re aware, you will.

Social turnout is not the scary and risky endeavour so many view it to be. The aggressive behaviours we often see in traditionally kept horses exist due to our lack of effort to properly socialize them or lack of space, lack of forage, among other issues. The point is, we create many of these behaviours in how we manage horses and they are atypical behaviours, it is not normal for a herd animal to resent socialization from other horses. Stalling is also not without risks. Aside from death by old age, colic is the number one cause of death in horses. Guess what immensely increases colic risk? You guessed it, stalling! The more time a horse spends stalled, the more at risk they are of colicking. This is a scary concept even without factoring in the other risk factors that come with too much stalling. Colic is pretty much every horse person’s worst nightmare and we could dramatically reduce the risk factors if we start to reform the typical keeping practices of horses.

I am truly not trying to guilt trip anyone. I just want everyone to know that it is a fallacy to believe that turnout is inherently more risky that depriving your horse of one of their most basic biological needs. It is risky to your horses’ mental health to disallow space to move and socialization. We have an abundance of studies showing all of the negative repercussions following lack of ability to engage in natural behaviours. I understand that in the modern age, it isn’t realistic for everyone to have hundreds of acres of turnout, but heck, even an in/out paddock with a shared fence line or stalls that are more open concept is a really excellent start. The more aware people get, the better stable practices become and we can start valuing barn set ups that take the needs of the horse into account more than the human’s enjoyment of the horse.

Studies referenced in this post (there are a lot more out there than this, highly recommend further reading):

https://www-sciencedirect-com.subzero.lib.uoguelph.ca/science/article/pii/S0737080611004187?via%3Dihub

https://beva-onlinelibrary-wiley-com.subzero.lib.uoguelph.ca/doi/full/10.1111/j.2042-3292.2011.00296.x

https://www-sciencedirect-com.subzero.lib.uoguelph.ca/science/article/pii/S0168159102000916?via%3Dihub

Whoa! Hold Your Horses! (and stop rushing them)

3y./o Milo escaping during a photoshoot while I flail in the mad panic surrounding the idea of him getting loose in a public park. Thank you to Quinn Saunders for continuing to shoot these photos even during chaos.

I can quite confidently say that the vast majority of major mistakes I have made in my training and handling of horses were initiated by the desire to move too quickly. Falling into the temptation to utilize gadgets like draw reins to force that desirable frame sooner than the horse offers it, or rushing to do the “fun” things like jumping so that I could step into the show ring that much sooner. The times were I grew frustrated with my horses and punished them for not keeping up with my schedule, all related to me being annoyed at the fact that a flight animal who didn’t understands my ambitions wouldn’t abide by a timeline that was solely made up and enforced by me or my trainer at the time. Let’s face it, the motive behind a lot of people’s choices is trying to get to the end goal sooner. People would not be so quick to suggest a different (often harsher) bit or whatever gadget is currently trending on the market if they were not motivated to achieve selfish goals as quickly as possible. If we were all content to meander at the timeline the specific horse may require, we would not have such a vast range of bits and gadgets that promise to fix all of our woes. That very market is reliant on the human desire to get greedy, demand too much and rush their horses.

Now, this isn’t to say that every instance where someone opts for a gadget or bigger bit is related to rushing. Just that an awful lot of them, in fact, far too many are motivated by their own goals and ambitions rather than what is actually best for the horse. I can promise you, from the bottom of my heart, that no horse on this planet actually enjoys a bit or a gadget that serves the purpose of holding them in a static position (usually before they’ve built the muscle to hold said position for extended periods of time) or a bit that is designed to increase discomfort until the horse succumbs to the force and softens faster than they might have in a snaffle. Think about our own muscular and cardio fitness and how long it can take to develop that, especially when we are referencing lengthy exercise sessions involving an array of muscles that all must be in action at the same time. Similarly, for those of us, such as myself, who lack flexibility (can’t even touch my toes, lol, I am sure we can all relate to the fact that it takes an awful lot of time to stretch our tight muscles to the point where we have the range of motion to do things that were once impossible or incredibly painful. Horses are no different than us in this way. They’re dynamic beings with a range of physiological processes that help them keep up with the tasks we demand of them, but since we cannot feel their discomfort or resistance due to weakness or lack of flexibility, we often overextend them and even cause pain at times.

Before utilizing any gadget that uses leverage or any type of force to put them into the “ideal” head position, we really need to think long and hard about what is fair to ask of our horses, and for how long. Sure, putting draw reins on your horse and creating a pulley system that leverages their head down will certainly make their head come down faster. But, for a horse who has never had to hold this position for any length of time, do you really believe it is fair to ask this of them consistently for much of the ride or for lengthy periods from the very beginning? Hint: it isn’t. Our lack of ability to feel the discomfort our horses may be experiencing renders us more or less blind to it, especially when horses are very adept at hiding said discomfort and it can take a very keen eye to notice the more subtle signs. We need to be more mindful of this fact and start to treat our horses training the same way we would for ourselves as we start a new workout regime, new sport or something we are otherwise not perfectly fit for.

Milo used to be a very dirty stopper and still is sometimes, I could have at least in part avoided this by slowing down.

Now, enough about gadgets. Lets talk about young horses and the stress that our expectations can impose on them when we demand too much too soon. With the age of social media, it is all the more tempting to move things along faster so you don’t have the “dry” or “boring” posts that tend to be associated with youngsters. Ground work generally does not get as many likes, especially if it is pertaining to short sessions with a weanling or doing the bare minimum basics like teaching a yearling how to tie. I’ve noticed that with social media comes the increased temptation to move things faster than one might be tempted to do otherwise. We see this even with prominent accounts, starting to lunge their youngsters during or before their first year, saddling weanlings, ground driving their babies that should either still be at their dam’s side or out in a herd with buddies. These instances are not at all uncommon but perhaps I have become more attuned to them now that I have my yearling colt who I have watched develop from birth. Like young children, young horses have lower attention spans and do not do well with lengthy, structured programs that require extensive focus. Similarly, they are more likely to act unpredictably than an older, more experienced horse. Because of this, I fail to see why people take risks like hard tying foals that are young and fragile enough that it wouldn’t take too much for them to do severe neck damage if they pulled back or starting repetitive circling on horses who have barely begun to have their joints start to fuse.

The excuse is often that horses need to be handled before they are “too big to control” or that if they don’t learn things early in life “they will walk all over you.” I think that this is a terrible excuse due to the fact that these thoughts are pretty much entirely unfounded by science. There have been numerous studies on practices such as “imprint training” which is a very invasive training program that involves extensive handling of extremely young foals. I have a detailed blog post on it here, with references, if you want to learn more. Anyways, studies on this found that the foals who were extensively handled showed no behavioural benefits compared to the control group when reassessed as yearlings. In fact, many of the imprint trained horses actually had more reactivity and nervousness. Imprint training is a very extreme form of rushing, if people follow the full original program, but I think that a lot of the mindsets surrounding training young horses stem from this type of school of thought.

Good training produces good horses. Good training is not overfacing horses and asking too much of them too soon just because they will more or less put up with it or because you can bully them enough to force them to put up with it. Basic handling of young horses such as leading skills, trailer loading and tying are really the only skills that I think a horse “needs” to know as a yearling. Some may disagree with trailer loading but from the standpoint of preparing for potential emergency vet visits or environmental emergency, in my opinion, it is necessary to get horses loading well. The extent to which you demand said skills matters, though. For example, it is ridiculous to expect a foal or a yearling to stand tied from lengthy periods of time without complaint. They are literal toddlers. How many human toddlers do you know that you could get to stand and stare silently at a wall for an hour without moving? Not many. So, why would it ever be viewed as appropriate to demand this of their horse counterparts? Rushing. Human desires overriding equine welfare. Forcing too much too soon is a very good way to sour a baby and for the most part, horses start out their lives with an immense curiousity and an enjoyment of time spent with humans, if their interactions are kept pleasant and as low stress as possible.

This is only really having discussed the psychological repercussions of demanding too much from youngsters, there are also a lot of physical repercussions. For example, most vets will recommend against lunging young horses, or if necessary, they will recommend short sessions with a limited number of rotations due to the nature of circles being hard on young, growing joints. There really is not any reason to be lunging a yearling or weanling, particularly if you aren’t start to break them until 3 or older. If you teach the basics of leading skills, moving their shoulders and hindquarters and basic voice commands, lunging is a skill that should come easily once they’re hitting an age where it makes sense to teach them. Even with 2 year olds, I keep lunging sessions short and fairly infrequent. Just long enough for them to understand the basics and always on as large of a circle as possible. I see no reason for people to be rushing to put their yearlings in surcingles and side reins and lunging programs throughout the week other than the selfish nature of personal ambitions. Don’t take this too personally, the vast majority of humans on this planet are selfish in some way. What matters is whether or not we try to learn and acknowledge what drives our ambitions and if they are taking precedence over what is the best next step for our animal.

My first photoshoot with Banksy is quite the contrast to Milo’s first one. Photo by Quinn Saunders.

In writing these posts, I want all of you readers to know that I absolutely am slamming myself for past mistakes and mistakes I will probably recognize and slam once again in the future. This is not me getting preachy and trying to condescend others whilst raising myself on a moral high ground. I made these mistakes and have had to pay for it by creating problems that are way harder to fix than they would have been if I had slowed down and not created them in the first place. I was impatient and wanting to rush, but ironically, things have taken longer due to my initial lack of patience creating problems that require even more patience to address. The mistakes that I made with Milo, my first “youngster” that I owned and brought up myself are evident when comparing him to my now youngster, Banksy, my yearling colt. While some of Milo’s problems can be at least in part attributed to his negative and neglectful start to life before my getting him, lots of them could have been addressed better and may have not existed in the first place if I had exercised more patience. I absolutely could have given him a better set up that provided more enrichment as a two year old, I could have prepped him for riding a lot better from the ground and I most definitely could have started him over fences better. Even the groundwork basics like tying and loading in a trailer were ill informed and too driven by force, at the time. I ended up creating stress where I could have been resolving stress and creating a more positive association.

On the flip side, when working with my colt, I am often taken aback by just how easy certain things are when I compare them to prior experience with Milo. He loads better than most of my older horses, ties impeccably and has excellent ground manners. The cherry on top of this is his natural curiousity and sensible nature when faced with potentially scary stimuli. I could have never been taking Milo on trail rides whilst ponying him off of another horse. He certainly was not loading with ease, walking in confidently either. While he is probably a more naturally reactive horse than Banksy, I could have handled said reactivity a lot better and made things easier for the both of us. It is a learning experience, though, and without making mistakes, you likely will not get the push you need to investigate other, better ways of doing things.

So, this is not to say you’re a terrible horse owner if you’ve made similar “mistakes” or even if you don’t view them as mistakes. It is simply a call for people to try to be a bit more mindful and to slow their roll a bit when they are motivated by ambitions that are human specific like showing or riding. Horses know nothing of these aspirations and are simply doing their best with the information that we give them. Trust me, I know more than anything how incredibly frustrating it can be to work with them when their reactions contradict with our goals, I have had plenty of breakdowns and much upset over such issues. But, at the end of the day, I am asking horses to partake in endeavours that generally speaking, are simply to benefit human interests, so it is my duty to try to take this into account and do better to problem solve without pushing on through unfairness or rushing unnecessarily. With horses, the saying “slow and steady wins the race” is often more true than you think. Once you’ve created negative associations from rushing, you have to work double time to undo them, so it is always easier and more successful to avoid these things in the first place. It benefits our personal goals more than you would think.

The Head Start Most Equestrians Don't Realize They Have

Picture yourself when you’re young and naive, full of that raw desire and burning “want” to be something in the horse world. You soak up everything you can in lessons, you read books about horses and fully immerse yourself in everything horsey, with the dream of becoming a better equestrians. Perhaps, your dreams are ambitious and you hope to go to the Olympics one day, or maybe, you want to be a professional trainer once you’ve established yourself as a well-rounded, knowledgeable rider. Now, picture yourself with all of that love for horses, that raw desire and a want so bad it hurts your soul… But, without the money to ride. Without the support to ride. Lacking something crucial that would connect you enough with the horse world to even start to achieve those big dreams. The heavy, stabbing pain of so much wanting but knowing it is just but a pipedream. This is the reality of many equestrians or those who want, more than anything, to be involved in the horse world and simply can’t. I want to discuss this as the pain of wanting something so badly that it encapsulates my whole being is something I am not unfamiliar with. Even still, I also was privy to the head start that many equestrians reap the benefits of while remaining entirely unaware of that fact. I want to discuss the head starts that allowed me to get ahead and also, head starts I never received and how the awareness of how much more simple things would be if I’d had them plagued me (and sometimes, still does).

I started horseback riding lessons at the age of 4. An incredibly young age to start out and at the time, I had no idea of just how fortunate I was. I just knew I loved horses. My life revolved around them even prior to taking riding lessons. I drew horses, I wrote stories about horses, I read about horses, I asked about horses, I played with model horses. In fact, basically every project I could relate to horses in preschool and elementary school was about horses. The obsession was to the point that many teachers tried to help me take interest in other things, worried that my persistence in all things horses may make my path narrow and not allow me to experience other things. Didn’t work. Anyways, my ability to start riding at 4 was entirely reliant on my parents’ ability to provide that for me. Such support is largely financial, but also emotionally. They had to allow me to start the lessons. They had to be willing to pay for them and to continue to do so. And they did, for quite sometime. But, a 4 year old cannot provide for themselves. Without that support, who knows, maybe my love for horses would’ve dissipated over the years that the harsh wanting never was satiated. My ability to ride for my entire youthful years was reliant on parental support. That is a fact and that is the reality of any young rider who started prior to a time where they could actually get a job that made enough to support it. Without the support of some other person who could fund your dreams, or take the time out their day to teach you themselves, provide you with a horse and so on and so forth, without that, you would not have been able to ride.

Even as my life started to get harder, following my father having a massive stroke that nearly killed him and my family having all of their savings embezzled by a trusted (but clearly untrustworthy, we now know) familial advisor, I still reaped the benefits of my many head starts. Even through hardship, I was given head start after head start whilst many of my peers ran behind me in a much slower race, weighted down by the shackles of circumstance. My parents bought me my first horse. He was a very nice horse, not a cheap one. The money that purchased said horse, to many families, would have been extremely useful for buying the necessities, like a car. But, my family could do it, so they did. I started doing small jobs, helping around the barn to help contribute towards board around the age of 11, but said work was infrequent, easy and didn’t pay much. It hardly took off the burden of the expense of boarding a horse and paying to get lessons and training. It sure as heck did not even begin to fund the shows that I attended. At 14, as soon as I was able to, I got a “real” job at a local smoothie shop to help pay for more of my horse. Still, I was able to get financial help, at least in part, from my mother. It would be another couple of years before the weight of the responsibility of covering my horse’s expenses would rest on my shoulders.

My ability to take lessons from a young age and own a horse allowed me to develop as a rider quicker. It gave me the essential skills that later allowed me to offer people exercise rides on their horses for free, to start to build the references and clientele that led to the start of Milestone Equestrian. Without the many years of lessons that allowed me to hone the necessary riding skills to provide the services I do now, there is absolutely no way I would be where I am today, even if I worked hard and pushed myself to the bone. This is the problem with suggesting that hard work will overcome all boundaries. In some cases, it might, but for many, the obstacles in their path are too much to progress at the rate they need to. It can be risky, stressful and disheartening to try to chase a dream that is always just out of your grasp..

The point of this post is to try to kindly say that people being aware of privilege and in some cases, even pointing it out, is not an attack on how hard you may have worked to land some of the opportunities you have received or develop further as a rider. It is to encourage people to be thoughtful and understanding of the struggles of others and realize that if the path is cleared for you by way of immense financial support, it is a lot less stressful to take the path to success. For an example, growing up in a very affluent area, many of my friends had their first cars purchased for them by their parents or given a hand-me-down car from the family. This meant they never had to account for the cost of purchasing a car. I did. That took money out of the bank that could have been put towards other things. Similarly, many people had their university tuition covered by their parents, at least in part, once again, this made it a lot less daunting for said people to decide to attend school, not having to shell out thousands of their own money to go or take out loans and become in debt. Even in cases where people were loaned money by family that they later had to pay back, they were still able to take out said loans, oftentimes with little to no interest rate. This, in itself, is a privilege, even if you have to work hard to pay it back. All of these things make life easier, give you less things to worry about, thereby more time to dedicate to pursuing your passions and chasing your goals.

The horse world takes privilege to an extreme. It is “normal” to see people dropping tens of thousands of dollars on horses. This always mystifies me because I cannot wrap my head around how people can just pay for a luxury animal outright with that amount of money. Unlike a car, there aren’t as many financing options. The ability to be able to do that is an immense privilege and it most definitely garners a head start. On top of this, show fees are not attainable to the average person without support from family. To show on the circuit and pursue it to the degree needed to eventually attain the ultimate dream of going to the Olympics, you need a lot of money. Sure, you can get sponsors, but generally speaking, sponsors do not come forward until you have already established yourself and doing so takes, you guessed it, a lot of money. Accessibility in the horse world really does not exist, the circumstances you were born into can almost entirely define your capabilities of ascending to a certain level, but for whatever reason, a lot of people like to try to sweep this under the rug and insist “hard work is all it takes.”

My talented $400 rescue has been a challenge and taken years to produce. Going clear in the .90m at Thunderbird is like the Olympics for us.

Hard work is relative. To some, hard work is going to school and juggling school work along with multiple lessons a week to train for the string of shows they will be going to throughout the show season. They often do not have to worry about funding this all by themselves and can thereby dedicate more time to both riding and school due to not having to work an excessive amount of horses to earn said money. They still work hard and their talent is relevant, but it is a different type of hard work than someone trying to do school, riding and working many hours to try to pay the fees to participate in the first place. This is why it is problematic to play it off as success being as simple as working hard. Some people have so many barriers that slow down their ability to achieve things that come more easily to others, so many, in fact, that they simply cannot work harder than they already are to overcome them. Implying hard work is all it takes discredits the level of effort people are putting in just to take lessons. To attend that one show a year. To attain the ultimate dream of one day owning their very own horses. They want these things so badly already and most of the time, they are more than willing to work hard for them. But, sometimes, hard work isn’t enough. Hard work cannot account for every impairment a person may face. Sometimes you just physically cannot put the number of man hours it takes to level the playing field and allow you the same opportunities as another person. And, it is devastating. It is horrible to be filled with an aching desire to achieve something while being well aware of how unlikely it is currently. It sucks to dream and be aware that unless something massive changes, your desires will remain just that, dreams.

We need to respect these hard working equestrians way more. They are fighting against the confines of circumstance to achieve something in a world that lacks access. A world that requires a fair amount of money just to dip your feet into it. They are likely the ones that are wearing second hand breeches, helmets that aren’t the “in” look right now, the ones riding around on older lesson horses and wearing half chaps at shows that they work their asses off to get to once or twice a year. They are the types of riders that get a lot of flack from the privileged types that choose to judge without recognizing their own head start, they simply frown upon someone not fitting the certain mould they’re used to seeing at showgrounds, around the barn or in social media postings. The last thing these types of equestrians need is to feel further alienated from a world they often feel like they view from a frosted glass window, wanting, but that yearning never being satiated.

So, here is your reminder that it does not take away from your own ambitions and accomplishments to acknowledge where you may have gotten a head start. It is not an attack on the work you put in. It is simply a call to appreciate the circumstances that may have enabled you to get to where you are easier. We all have them, these privileges, and oftentimes, we do take them for granted. Being aware of the advantages that helped propel you ahead, even just a little bit faster, allows credit where it is due to those who are working to overcome more. It opens the doors of the horse world for other people to feel accepted, not judged, when they don’t have a lengthy show career detailing their accomplishments. It allows people to feel heard when they express their frustrations of how hard it can be to advance on a limited income. It helps to reiterate that the work you put in is what matters, not results at a show or the height that you jump. We need to change the tone of the equestrian world because even though I have grown up with privileges that have led to what I have worked incredibly hard to get after said privileges were removed, I still have felt alienated. I have still been told that my efforts as a horse person and validity as a trainer are lesser than, simply because I’ve not been able to drop thousands a year to attend the number of A-shows I would need to in order to compare to those who can do what I cannot. It has taken me a lot of years of personal growth and reflection to come to terms with the fact that a lot of what people on the circuit value holds no real weight in terms of defining someone’s horsemanship and abilities as a rider, it merely just allows them a paper trail of their accomplishments.

So, equestrians, I implore you to self-reflect and level with yourselves on aspects of your life that have made things easier and more attainable for you. We ALL have them, even us who have struggled with many of hardships. We all, in some way, have something that gives us an advantage over someone else. Life isn’t fair and it is never going to be even, but it is weird to perpetuate the idea that hard work trumps all and levels the playing field whilst simultaneously acknowledging the unfairness of life. Life IS unfair and it results in people being dealt a shitty hand of cards and to deal with more than some of us can even imagine and yet, still, these people manage to persevere and maintain the fortitude to overcome their challenges and hold out hope for the future. More so than other sports, equestrian sports demand a certain level of privilege that is fairly abnormal almost anywhere else. It often leads to a skewed sense of self, people not even realizing how fortunate they may be compared to others. It also leads to a feeling of inadequacy if you cannot compare to the “norm” you’re used to seeing around the barn or at equestrian events or while scrolling through social media. It is up to us to acknowledge this more and do our part to be accepting of those not like us and do what we can to help improve access and give more opportunity to those who may struggle to get it.

I am working hard to establish myself as a trainer and business person. I hope to one day own my own plot of land to run a program out of. This is my pipedream, as living in an area where such properties go for millions, seems incredibly unattainable to achieve. But, my hope is to break that so-called “glass ceiling” that will in turn allow me to offer even more opportunities to other.. I know lots of people look at me and my privilege and I acknowledge it, but I will say, even with less resources there is still traction to continue down that hard road, keep on keeping on and don’t give up on your dreams. I could not have accomplished what I have to date without my parents, but also without all of you supporting me on social media, this has allowed me sponsorships and other opportunities that would have never existed otherwise. To be frank, much of the fancy things I have only exist due to my reach on social media. It is humbling. I’m hopeful that equestrian social media will continue to increase access for all and open the doors for more opportunities for financial support as well as the necessary recognition for lesser known, but very talented riders.

All of you on your personal journeys, working so hard to get to where you want to be, I commend you for your efforts and support you along the way. I hope that myself and others can help to lift you over some of the obstacles you may encounter, even if just by way of moral support. I am rooting for you and I hope you all know that you are just as deserving of a place in the horse world, surrounded by your beloved horses, as anyone else, no matter how hard it may seem.

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.

Reflections on My Riding Journey | Mistakes resulting in reduced welfare

My current “heart” horse, Milo.

From a very young age, I have been fortunate enough  to work with horses and develop as a rider. At age 4, I began riding Arabian horses and by age 5 was showing on the Arabian Horse circuit. My discipline of choice became the first one my coach introduced me to, hunter pleasure, which on the Arabian circuit differs significantly from what most equestrians would envision as the mainstream hunter. During my youth, I had limited access to the internet, and the range of information available to learn about horses was nothing like it is today, leaving me solely with the teachings of my instructor as my influence. Her views shaped and coloured my understanding of horses from a behavioural and training perspective for many years to come, leading me to make many mistakes due to naivety and lack of understanding of how horses learn. While I regret much of what I have done in the past, I recognize that my mistakes have directed my  journey to learning more about equine behavioural science and adapting my training and riding style using science based methods, allowing me to do justice by my horses and offer them the respect they deserve. 

My trainer was and still is very well known on the Arabian horse circuit and produces winners. Many of her training practices, however, are questionable, and it took me many years to recognize this. Idolizing someone from the age of 4 to 12 means I viewed her as infallible and blindly trusted what she said was true, even if it was not. Her practices, compared to what was accepted in that circuit at the time, were not unusual. From what I recall, the Arab circuit relied heavily on shortcuts.. Said shortcuts often involved training gadgets such as draw reins, side reins, tie downs, 10-ring martingales and virtually anything you can imagine to create more force to pull the horse’s head into a certain position. Everything I was taught as a rider focused predominantly on headset, and there was little in the way of teaching what correct carriage even was and how to achieve it. If the head looked good, the frame was expected to be there. In terms of headset, the use of hyperflexion was commonplace and so normalized that it was never something I thought to question until I moved onto other disciplines of the horse world. I was also taught to use my hands lazily and ineffectively, see-sawing to try to get a response from horses whose mouths grew deader and deader due to the harshness of their handling. 

Riding my old horse, an Arabian named Farley. In a kimberwicke that my 9 year old hands probably shouldn’t have bee attached to.

Similar to the restrictive gadgets imposed on the horses, the manner with which I was taught to handle them was also forceful. If they misbehaved, they were being rude or disrespectful. If they puffed out for the girth being done up, I was taught to knee them in the stomach because they were being bad by doing so. If they tried to bite from being girthy or due to frustration from being overstalled, I was to hit them as discipline for biting. Overall, the use of punishment was so normalized that I never even thought to consider why it may be bad. From a learning theory standpoint, most of what I was taught was entirely ineffective and relied on coercion and disabling the autonomy of the horse. Everyday, I was unwittingly souring horses and making them seek to avoid my presence. I don’t believe my role models at the time sought out to be unkind to their horses, either. I do not believe they engaged in these methods out of sheer malice. They did, in a weird way, love their horses but the training methods and what they believed to be acceptable were vastly misplaced in terms of learning theory and fairness to the horse.

Poor management was so common within this breed circuit that for years, I never even considered the fact that horses may not like being stalled or isolated because everyone I trusted and respected was guilty of housing their horses in this manner. When horses adopted stall vices to cope with the stress their lifestyle imposed on them, my trainer taught me that they were just “dancing” when they were weaving,“playing” when they stall walked, or entertaining themselves when they cribbed. The acceptance of these practices and behaviours further reinforced  to a youngster like myself that they were normal-  the way horses were meant to be. Despite my trainer’s  barn having enough room for group pasture turnout, the horses remained confined to stalls and small paddocks the vast majority of the time. If they ran in the field, it was viewed as dangerous and they were brought in. These aspects of teaching and management bred into me a certain amount of impatience, anger and frustration with the horses when they did not meet my or my trainer’s expectations. As a result, I struggled immensely when I got my first horse at just 8 years old, a 6 year old Arabian gelding named Farley. He was green, heavy in the hand, spooky and had a tendency to bolt. Despite these issues, I loved him dearly, and my trainer never indicated any cause for concern with said behaviours, nor considered a way to change them by adapting his living and management style. I believed her, so for the whole time I trained with her, Farley remained in a stall and a small paddock a short part of the day.  He didn’t get to go out in the rain, despite the fact that we lived in a temperate rainforest and it typically rained about 80% of the year. 

One of the most memorable moments that accurately depicts the example this trainer set for me as a young child was when my horse was too heavy in my hands during one of my hunter classes at a big Arabian show. I already rode him regularly in harsh bits like kimberwickes or thin, twisted wire snaffles. I was taught that he was softer in these bits because he liked them, not that he had to soften due to increased pain if he didn’t. Despite the use of harsh bits, he was still heavy on my young arms when we first started showing. The way my trainer “corrected” such heaviness resulting from the lack of proper carriage was to take my horse to his stall at the show and tie his reins to each side of his girth, like side reins, and to leave him in there for over an hour. She tied him so short that he had to hyper flex to get any relief. He called and called for help and by the time he was finally untied, his muscles were convulsing from exhaustion and he had gone into what now realize was learned helplessness. Despite the example my trainer had set for me for years leading up to this moment, this interaction made me very uncomfortable, but I was too afraid to speak up. It was too much of a feat to call into question someone I had grown to idolize and view as one of the best riders I had seen. 

Much of Farley’s life for the first several years I owned him took place in his 10x10 stall or a slightly larger dry lot paddock in individual turnout.

Eventually, I became burnt out from showing on the Arabian circuit and decided to move out of show barns altogether. I took my horse to what many would consider a “backyard barn”, a  low key facility with 20 acres of group turnout, a small outdoor arena and most of the space used for the horses. The change in my horse from the change in management was pretty much immediate. Gone was the spooky, bolting horse I had grown frustrated with and punished time and time again over the years. He was quiet to ride and even became beginner safe, all because he had the social turnout that he had needed. Unfortunately, due to the deprivation for years prior, Farley became hard to catch in turnout, sometimes taking hours to catch. This made me grow impatient and resentful with him, and I utilized the method of chasing him until he was tired, then was disappointed when it did not make him easier to catch. I did not understand the aversive nature of this coupled with my anger when he was finally caught was quite literally conditioning the undesirable behaviour I hated so much. I had only been taught how to utilize punishment and dominance theory to exploit horses to do what I wanted and to punish them when they didn’t. The school of thought I had known so well relied entirely on intimidating horses into submission or using tack and bits to force them to do what I wanted.

At age 16, I made the decision to find a new home for Farley where he could teach some younger kids to ride, and I decided to focus on getting into the hunter/jumper circuit. I began to access more online information during this time and came to realize the holes in my learning and how many problematic behaviours I had been taught for years, However, I was still naive to the entire truth of the situation. After selling Farley, the owner of the barn I’d been boarding at gave me a 4 year old off the trackThoroughbred mare that had come in to be rehomed. Maya, as I named her, was the quintessential ulcery, high strung and neurotic Thoroughbred. I cinched her up too fast the first time I tacked her and she exploded. She was hot to ride, like a rocket ship ready to launch when you put leg on,and had difficulty relaxing. I assumed this was simply due to her breeding and previous career as a racehorse, rather than potential ulcers or the fact that I was rushing her under saddle, riding her like I would a trained horse for sport horse disciplines. I also had such limited knowledge on  equine nutrition that I did not know how to feed her correctly to do her justice, factors created the problem horse I rode. Eventually, I sold her and purchased yet another OTTB, this time a 5 year old gelding I called Dallas. 

Dallas’ upside down neck and my use of a pelham as a bandaid for his rushing that I caused from a poor flatwork foundation.

Dallas was a saint of a horse and with his patience and quiet attitude, I started to learn a lot. Still, being young, I tended to rush to do things and therefore did not end up doing them well. With jumping, I taught him to rush fences by utilizing bigger bits as bandaids and assuming said rushing was due to excitement and enjoyment of jumping rather than nerves and confusion from inadequate or incorrect rider communication. I kept Dallas for several years, starting lessons under a jumping coach who was  more ethical than my last trainer, but still perpetuated ideas that were centered around bitting up for control, disciplining bad behaviours, and failing to recognize certain behavioural cues that would indicate stress. I also failed to get an education on the essentials of proper foundational flatwork, and instead had  jumping and the “fun stuff” prioritized in my lessons. Luckily, for me, my growing access to the internet and social media sites like Tumblr allowed me to find studies and connect with people who knew more than I and could teach me or at least direct me to sources where I could read further and reassess my practices. Unfortunately, for me, there was also a lot of bullying on these social platforms which led me to becoming more defensive and closed off to certain schools of thought. This resulted in a refusal to look further into information that may confound what I knew and believed to be true. 

As I matured and neared the end of high school, I ended up rehoming Dallas as a trail horse when he was no longer sound for jumping after a paddock accident. This resulted in the most remarkable influence in my perspective on training and working with horses: the adoption of a little 2 year old rescue from the BCSPCA. He was a spitfire of a 14.2hh, skinny little thing that looked a full year younger than he was. I named him Milo. Due to prior abuse and neglect, he was very distrustful but also had such a natural curiosity that made him easier to work with. I initially tried to employ the methods I’d been taught that relied predominantly on force and punishment, only to have him increase in aggression as a response or completely go over threshold and do things like rearing up and walking on two legs. This made me afraid of him but also forced me to start looking into other means of teaching.  I began  learning in earnest about positive reinforcement and applied it to teach him basic concepts like blanketing and being hosed or fly sprayed, things I’d never had to consider with previous horses. The manner in which this approach altered his behaviour was clear. Milo became considerably more receptive and less defensive,and I started to believe in this method more while still holding onto punishment and force based methods to an extent. 

Over the years of working with Milo, I’ve been challenged immensely. He was amiable to start under saddle but would be very excitable and explosive in new situations, due to changes in weather or when hearing loud noises or sudden movement. He really taught me how to ride with his acrobatics, but looking back, I definitely could have avoided much of this with different management styles and more patience. I could have had him out in larger, group turnout from the beginning, and I’m sure I would have seen a tangible change in his behaviour.  I could have emphasized reward based groundwork more to work on his nerves. I  could have started with a classical dressage foundation in training much earlier than I had. Overall, my training was moving the right direction in terms of developing using science based methods, but it was inconsistent and I was still impatient in the first few years working with him. Had I sought out better role models, outside support, or taken behavioural classes earlier, I likely would have been better able to adapt his behaviour more quickly and effectively and could have avoided many of the problems I created, such as his refusals over fences. My lack of patience in moving him up and teaching him to jump resulted in a shoddy foundation that didn’t instill confidence, and undoing the negative associations with things I screwed up on initially is an awful lot harder than not messing up in the first place. Fortunately, I  avoided guidance from punishment based trainers who encouraged me to beat him at the base of the fence when he stopped and adopted more compassionate methods that I would not have been capable of doing in years prior based on my knowledge. I owe Milo more than any other horse for what he has taught me and the direction he has pushed me in for developing my training. I am not perfect, but he has inspired me to be more compassionate and aware of how the horse is feeling and to be a lot more detail oriented when looking into why horses react to things the way they do, rather than just blaming the horse for being bad like I would have in years prior. He has also shed light on the repercussions of punishment as a training method and pushed me to research. He definitely was a more challenging behaviour case than I was ready for at the time, but without him, I would have robbed myself of the exponential growth and learning I’ve experienced.

My horses’ lives now are a stark contrast to that of my first horse. 24/7 turnout and socialization, huge positive difference in behaviour.

In recent years, I have continued to educate myself on a scholarly level about horses, predominantly through courses that Guelph offers, but also through exploring studies on my own and talking to a variety of horse people that social media has allowed me to connect with. I have also learned the value of dressage as a foundation for all riding, soaking up the writings of people like Walter Zettl, those far ahead of their time in terms of implementing rewards based programs that consider the horse and focus on relaxation. I notice the positive differences that my growth in knowledge and my ability to recognize and share where I went wrong in the past has made to my training. The horses I develop get consistently nicer. It gets easier to problem solve and deal with new cases and  new behavioural issues.. There are fewer explosive behaviours. My horses no longer develop stereotypic vices. They aren’t hard to catch; they actually want to be with me. As I move further away from the aspects of dominance theory, punishment and coercion that I was once so familiar with, my horses like and trust me more, making them much easier to train and far more adaptable. The most stark comparison that I can make nowadays is by watching my yearling Oldenburg colt grow up and remarking on the differences between him now and Milo as a 2 and 3 year old. I believe Milo is the more intelligent of the two but due to my emphasis of a rewards based program from a young age, coupled with the lack of neglect or abuse, my colt, Banksy, has grown up to be essentially unflappable. Easy going, easy to introduce things to without big reactions. Enjoying training and wanting to participate, Banksy learns things quicker and without as many problems. This has been particularly eye opening as it allows me to compare my past and present personal training methods as well as those used from one horse to the other, as each horse has their differences.

Nowadays, my personal take on equine learning theory is very much backed by science. I have seen the differences in horses’ level of participation and enjoyment  being around their trainer that comes with a reward based program. I have seen how much more sound bodied and minded horses are when they’re afforded the ability to relax within programs and  have their behaviours considered and viewed as a means of communication rather than an attempt to disrespect their trainer. What has influenced the biggest changes to my program is not only been seeing the impact of certain methods on my horses, but also reading empirical studies that emphasize how horses learn and the outcomes of different methods. You can argue with yourself quite easily using anecdotes, but it is a lot harder to refute evidence brought forth by equine science professionals. It does not allow you to justify unfair training practices as easily when you have experts pointing out all of the problems with them. While I do not reject negative reinforcement in training, I do recognize how much more of a powerful training tool positive reinforcement can be. I also try to limit punishment as much as possible due to the ambiguity inherent in it: it doesn’t allow the horses a means of understanding the right way of doing something. It only highlights where they went wrong, which can make them afraid to give the wrong answer, thereby making them less inclined to try to offer the correct behaviour as they learn. It is my belief that the more stress free a horse is, the quicker it learns and this is supported in studies examining negative and positive reinforcement comparatively, finding they perform fairly similarly in the absence of stress (Valenchon et al, 2017). Another study tested positive reinforcement as a method for trailer loading horses slated to go to slaughter. There was a profound reduction in time it took to load and horse problem behaviours like biting or kicking (Dai et al, 2019).  As such, I utilize both methods, typically trying to do more positive methods with my personal horses and not having the same freedoms with all client horses, but teaching with negative reinforcement in a manner conducive to learning, not just drilling them with louder cues that resemble punishment more and more until they finally respond. 

I stopped using martingales on Milo 4 years ago and haven’t since. He has never worn a gag bit, twisted wire and is typically ridden bitless or in a soft snaffle. Major contrast to how I was initially taught.

It took me far too long to realize, but now that I have, I recognize the importance of science based learning in animal training, but also even in the teaching of humans. Many of the methods we’ve grown comfortable with using in a number of different schools of thought such as dominance theory or punishment based programs do not hold up when tested and have proven themselves to be unethical. I am of the mind that anyone unwilling to utilize learning theory and science based methods in a position where their job is to teach ought to not be teaching. Recognizing the science behind what you do and learning how to effectively communicate with the creatures you’re trying to train is a necessity for efficacy in training. Horses will fail to be managed and trained ethically as long as proper management and training styles continue to be condemned and ignored by traditional minded trainers. We are doing them a disservice by failing to learn and adapt with the times and engaging in cognitive dissonance as we deny their needs as flight animals who have adapted to live in herds and behave a certain way. It is my hope that the more often horse people speak out on and normalize the science based methods behind the training and keeping of horses, the more change we will incite. I recognize the mistakes I have made and still make or will make in the future, and I vow to continue to improve, grow and learn so that I can adapt with the times and offer my horses the best that I can. 

Works Cited

Dai, F., Costa, A. D., Bonfanti, L., Caucci, C., Di Martino, G., Lucarelli, R., & Padalino, B. (2019). Positive Reinforcement-Based Training for Self-Loading of Meat Horses Reduces Loading Time and Stress-Related Behavior. Frontiers in Veterinary Science, NA. https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A602299498/AONE?u=guel77241&sid=AONE&xid=2cf9d97c

Valenchon, Mathilde, et al. "Stress affects instrumental learning based on positive or negative reinforcement in interaction with personality in domestic horses." PLoS ONE, vol. 12, no. 5, 2017, p. e0170783. Gale Academic OneFile, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A491171575/AONE?u=guel77241&sid=AONE&xid=16155f51. Accessed 10 Oct. 2020.

Holland Cooper Product Review

With the sheer number options available for equestrian wear for both schooling and showing, it can feel overwhelming to make a decision and figure out which brands are the best for you size and fit wise. For myself, comfort is of the utmost importance and then, of course, style. 

Recently, I was fortunate to be able to try a variety of garments from the company, Holland Cooper, a brand that I had seen before on social media and appreciated the look of the styles they offered, but had not had the chance to see their products in the flesh or to feel the quality of the material. I have to say, I was very pleasantly surprised when my test products arrived! While I expected them to be of good quality, they definitely exceeded my expectations. As I said, comfort is extremely important to me as I’m often down at the barn for several hours a day, riding many horses. Being in equipment that is restrictive, scratchy or in anyway uncomfortable is a very quick way to ruin my productivity and enjoyment of the day. With baselayers, in particular, I’ve found that even some higher end companies make the material too stiff and too fitted, making it feel far too restrictive and not the “second skin” feel that I look for when purchasing a quarter zip. Holland Cooper definitely exceeded my expectations, the fit of their ¼ zip was perfect, very form fitting and flattering with soft and stretchy material that is thin without feeling insubstantial. For summer wear, it would be easy to stay cool in this material but during the fall and winter (especially in Canada), it is perfect for layering under vests, sweaters and jackets while retaining full range of motion due to the nature of the fabric. The zipper on the baselayer is also extremely high quality, a heavier duty zipper that isn’t flimsy, which can be the bane of the existence of an otherwise nice product and unfortunately isn’t uncommon to find in equestrian wear and fashion wear alike. The Holland Cooper baselayer is not only comfortable, classy and flattering- but also built to last. I’ve washed it a few times now and the fabric feels the same, no shrinking, stretchy, pilling or otherwise any changes to the original fabric as new out of the bag.

Along with the baselayer, I was also sent a pair of the white show breeches. I’m particularly picky with breeches, especially full seats. I’m a bit of a weird shape with extremely long legs that don’t suit the length of my body height wise but a very small waist and short upper body. The Holland Cooper breeches are a higher rise, which initially concerned me due to having such a short torso, I was a bit worried they may come up to my boobs- but they didn’t! The material on these breeches is lovely. They are stretchy and fitted but with a thick enough material that underwear doesn’t show through, something that I definitely typically have to worry about when wearing whites! I also really love the silicone full seat. Sometimes full seat breeches can give a “diaper-like” feel, which is why I generally prefer knee patch but the way in which the full seat was done on these breeches gives a similar feel to a euroseat kneepatch breech but all of the support and stickiness of a fullseat. They are going to be really fabulous breeches for competing dressage in. Similar to the baselayer, the zipper is heavy duty and built to last and the material feels this way as well. The breeches also maintain the comfort of leggings, something that is very dear to my heart when I’m shopping for clothing I plan on being in for hours a day. The biggest bonus, especially for someone as clumsy and messy as I am, is that they come in a stain resistant fabric! I cannot tell you how many white breeches I’ve permanently stained by accidentally spilling a drop of my lunch or drink of the day on them, especially at horse shows. Stain resistant fabric is an absolute MUST for me if I am ever to wear light coloured breeches so I’m pretty jazzed about this!

My favourite of the Holland Cooper samples is definitely the lace base layer, though. It is extremely classy, offering the edgeyness of lace but in a very chic manner without going overboard. The material is the same type of light, stretchy and comfortable material as the quarter zip base layer and the lace is very high quality and doesn’t feel cheap or scratchy like some lace garments (you know the ones! Nothing is more disappointing than ordering a beautiful lace shirt and having it arrive only to have it feel like halloween fabric). The zipper, also like the quarter zip is heavy duty and I especially love the contrast of the gold on the white. Along with the lace, there is also a very classy rhinestone finish with the Holland Cooper logo and I quite like this as well, all in all, stylistically, it ties in a lot of more unique, fun and “out-there” materials in a very stylish manner that is useable for schooling rides, horse shows and even out and about doing regular people things, outside of the horse world. I am very excited to hopefully be able to wear it at horse shows, next summer (hopefully I’m not speaking too soon and there will actually be a show season next year). 

Last, but not least, is the Holland Cooper belt. I got it in brown so it would match with my brown riding boots and the gold buckle looks extremely lovely as an accent with the brown. The stirrup-style buckle is also super cute and classy. I love the manner in which the belt buckles, too, it’s super easy and not a traditional buckle, a hook closure. Really easy to do up and super adjustable as you can set the belt to wherever you want instead of being limited to specific holes like most belts. The belt is also a stretchy material which means you don’t get weird pressure points that leave bruises or marks like some harder-material belts do. It also means it’s even more versatile size wise as it stretches on top of not having the wearer be limited to specific holes. The belt overall feels very durable and well made and is comfortable to wear, it also goes with anything and crosses over well to street wear if you need to wear it out anywhere after the barn.

Overall, I really like all of the products that I got to test from Holland Cooper. They are high end, extremely well made and seem like they are made to last. On top of this, the price point is lower than a lot of other similar high end brands and I do find that the clothing materials they use for their apparel are absolutely worth the price. Their products are versatile and well suited to wear from the barn to the street, I can definitely even see their appeal as fashion for those who don’t even ride as the products are so classy. By far, though, the function and comfort aspect is what I appreciate most from them. Comfort and useability was not sacrificed whatsoever for fashion and they’ve made their products in a manner that allows the wearer to be comfortable all day while looking good.

You can check out the Holland Cooper website here

The Myth of the Bad Horse

my stressed out horse on xc… still not being bad.

We’ve all met that “bad” horse. That terrible horse who looks at you from his stall with a sour look on his face, perhaps pinning and gnashing his teeth when you walk by. When you bring him out to tack him, he might try to kick you while you’re girthing him, or turn to try to bite you, his teeth clicking together as he misses your arm. Or, perhaps, his “badness” is something you only see under saddle. Maybe he scoots away from you on the mounting block, making you exclaim out of frustration that he’s being deliberately disobedient. Or, once you’re on him, he spooks or bolts or maybe he bucks. Worse yet, perhaps he makes a habit out of being light in the front end and rearing up on you. All of these bad behaviours, to you or your trainer, may have been regarded as quirks or the horse“being a dick” and you’re taught to ride through them. Use the whip a little bit more on him when he bucks. Smack him on the shoulder when he scoots away from the mounting block. Yank on his mouth and get off and run him in a circle around you when he rears. There are varying degrees of the “bad” horse: sometimes he might be hot and nervous to ride, quicker to buck and rear than others. Other times, maybe he wouldn’t dare offer a buck, bolt or rear but he is notoriously lazy under saddle and might kick out when you put your leg on. To combat this, your trainer probably has you use a whip and/or spur and maybe despite this, he still continually backs off and kicks out at your leg. Perhaps, his bad behaviour escalates with time, no matter how much you discipline him for it…

Is he truly the “bad” horse? Or is the “badness” on the humans’ part for ignoring his numerous attempts at communication, growing increasingly more frustrated as time goes on… or worse… shutting down and giving up entirely on communicating his woes?

The vast majority of riders have, at minimum, met a horse like I’m referencing here. More likely than not, you have at least a few in your public boarding barn and you’ve probably seen several that fit these descriptions over the time you’ve ridden. I’d bet it’s a lot more than just “several”, personally. I see this horse everywhere. He exists in many accredited training and show barns. I see him competing in every ring known to mankind, may it be western disciplines, dressage, show jumping, or eventing. There he is (or she is), shouts of communication falling on deaf ears. I’m sure many of you reading this probably are expecting this to be some dramatic article sensationalizing the woes of horses who just need a “firm hand” and to learn some “respect” and if that’s true, please, for your horse’s sake… keep reading.

As a species, humans are incredibly self absorbed. We often lack the ability to sympathize with other species (and even our own), let alone try to comprehend the differences with how they think versus us. We might bring our narcissism into the training of said animals, viewing their behaviour through a human lens rather than through the realistic lens of their own species. When horses are bad, it is easier for us to blame them for our frustrations. Easier for us to assume that we are doing everything right, that we haven’t missed anything and that it is the horse trying to deliberately disobey us. This allows us to wash our hands clean of any wrongdoing, proclaim ourselves amazing trainers and then take out our frustration on the horse by getting after it and feeling like we’ve really done something… like taught them “respect”… a concept horses are mentally incapable of comprehending due to the lack of a prefrontal cortex. Despite this fact, people remain willfully ignorant, looking for excuses to justify why their horse is an exception, why they can understand the concept of respect or why they react vindictively, despite science pretty damn solidly proclaiming that they damn well can’t.

So, if this “bad” horse isn’t actually being bad, what in the world is he trying to communicate to you? Probably a number of things and unfortunately, due to the language barrier between us and horses and our species’ far greater intelligence, it can require a lot of trial and error on our part to figure it out, if we actually care to. Like I said, it is easier to blame the horse and remain ignorant and to some extent, with many horses, it will work because lots of them are willing to shutdown and carry on through pain and discomfort because the outcome is worse if they don’t. Their riders aren’t willing to listen to their shouts, they just shout back louder whilst wielding weapons. And so, the horse withdraws within itself, succumbs to the reality of life without a personality and stops trying to communicate. The rider views this as a win because it allows them to ride the horse through their pain, anxiety or discomfort and they truly believe they’ve done an amazing training feat by “fixing” the horse when really all they’ve done is ignored the issue, stuck a big ol’ bandaid on it and gave themselves a pat on the back. Some horses may be willing to carry throughout life shutdown like this, while others may revolt when they finally hit the breaking point of pain or fear and then they react big. Some just end up breaking down completely after years of masking pain physically but communicating behaviourally, only to be ignored and forced to work through it. Good choices, eh? Not.

Let me tell you a story that really opened my eyes with regards to these cases of “bad” horses. Recently, I took in a client horse who had a history of competing in eventing and doing quite well. The horse was successful over fences, never stopped and was forward to fences. Overall, he was always a lazier horse who required lots of leg to ride and didn’t have an aptitude to go forward much. Randomly, he started sucking back more and more under saddle. He would also start resisting lateral work like leg yields, crow hopping or tripping instead. He became more and more dead to leg and the solution suggested to his owner by a trainer was to use a crop or spurs to urge him forward. Not an odd request, a very common one seen in most training barns, in fact. Also, not inherently problematic, but let me tell you why it sometimes can be and why it’s so common for people to make this mistake.

So, this horse would express disobedience or “disrespect” by backing off, trying to move down to slower gaits or jogging around like a western pleasure horse. He would get a smack with crop, asked to go forward, and pressure was removed when he did. Oddly he just kept backing off. More pressure, more smacking, “send him forward”," “make him go”. He would resist sometimes by hopping up to rear, but then going. The owner was doing what they were told by a trainer, a professional they trusted and at the time, they trusted the method to work for the horse. For a while, it worked just enough and they even did a basic veterinary exam, got him some maintenance of joint injections which seemed to help for a short time, even though he still remained lazy and in need of motivation to go forward. Then his behavioural issues increased. Walking away from the mounting block, then rearing when riders would mount. Evading the bit, hollowing out his back, refusing to go forward even when the pressure of a whip or spur was added, slamming on the brakes randomly under saddle and rearing. The owner did everything that many would suggest like checking saddle fit, chiropractor and massage. They even went above and beyond to check for kissing spine, to no avail. After further therapy to rule out any back pain, the horse was put back into work and was a bit better about not evading the bit, still not forward. The owner was still having to heavily use a whip to send him forward and smack him hard right behind their leg to “reinforce” their aids. Again, a very highly suggested and commonly used method by many many trainers and suggested to this person by their trainer.

The use of the whip to force him forward worked for a short while again, so his work load was increased as he got back into fitness on the flat, still requiring fairly heavy use of the whip. He started back over fences and was better behaved over fences than he typically was on the flat. The owner then went away and had a friend getting on him. The horse started to squeal and rear very high up when the friend first got on, but since this was after him having a short time off, it didn’t raise any major alarm bells. Friend was a good rider so rode him through it and was fine. Owner came back, could not get the horse forward under saddle and he would start to resist the heavy whip use and still lose forward motion. He would bolt away from the mounting block before getting on. The owner sought help out from another trainer, who proclaimed the horse as a “dominant” type and proceeded to try to enforce further dominance over him, getting fairly aggressive in their quest to have him relax at the mounting block. Owner admitted to being quite uncomfortable, but was not a professional so let the professionals do their job despite said discomfort. The horse then started to strike out or kick at people even during ground work, resorting to biting and acting out. The suggestion by many was predominantly that the horse was just ill-behaved and needed to learn some manners and be put in his place….

Eventually, this horse came to my barn. Knowing the past history of the trainers, I assumed he would be pretty shut down. I asked for specifics on vet records and it had looked like he’d had everything looked at and done pretty recently. His owner had done far more diagnostics to assess his behaviour than most people would. I started this horse in a ground work based program without any aversives like the whip because these increased his “bad” behaviour. I used a target to get the horse following it and seeking it for forward motion and while it worked, he was still quite sucked back despite being highly food motivated. I worked with him daily with this to the point where he learned a very good understanding of the target, wanted to be caught and wanted to be trained and yet, I would get him doing a nice forward trot on the ground, only to have him slam on the brakes and suck back. I was mystified. There was still a clear improvement however, so I gave it time but I was suspicious something else was the issue, so I started to watch this horse in my time off while he was out in the field. This is a big perk of living on the property and one of the newest developments to a change in my training methods. When you see how horses behave on their own, it’s a lot harder to anthropomorphize their behaviours or make excuses. Anyways, this horse was out with a young buddy who liked to play. On cool nights, many of the horses at the farm like to run around and play and chase their friends and field neighbours up and down the fence lines. This horse’s buddy would do the same and try to get Problem Horse to join in. On numerous occasions, I noticed the horse start to engage in play with his field mate and suck back just like he did with me in training.

This is where the wheels in my head starting turning once more. Even at liberty, on his own time, where he was completely quiet and relaxed and happy with no bad associations like the ones he had learned from too much pressure, even then, he still sucked back. Something wasn’t adding up: I knew I had missed something. The program was helping to mend his psychological behaviours but something from within his body was preventing him from engaging in the manner he wanted to. I brought this up to the owner and bless their soul, they were absolutely okay with looking further into it from a vet perspective. This may not seem like a big deal to some, but many owners in the same position would insist it was a behavioural issue and refuse to put more money into it, especially after looking into it to the degree this owner had. Many would probably just pull the horse out of my program and send the horse to someone who would train increasingly more loudly until the horse responded, but his owner was different. We took him to the vet for another lameness exam and some more comprehensive x-rays of joints.

And guess what? We found a joint that had started to erode. The arthritis was so bad, it would certainly be painful. It would certainly be cause for a horse to suck back and avoid any forward motion beyond the walk. It would certainly be a reason for a horse to trip or to associate the mounting block with pain. It would most certainly be a reason for a horse to stand and still refuse forward motion even whilst being struck with a whip. He was in pain- this whole time, he was in pain and had been trying to communicate. The horse was injected in several different areas within that joint following this examination. He was put back out to pasture, given a week off and then slowly started back into a lunging program. Different horse, immediately. He wanted to take off on the lunge. He wanted to buck. He wanted to play. He was trotting forward and OFFERING forward motion without being prompted to do so. He played in his field, running up and down the fenceline with his friends in the evening. His behaviour had done a complete 180, all because of the outcome of that exam. It was the only variable we had changed.

The stark difference in his behaviour is what did it for me. I can only imagine how many horses are out there suffering from similar physical issues and being forced to work through them due to their handlers and trainers mistakenly believing the problem to be behavioural, an act of disobedience and spite. There are not enough owners like this horse’s owner out there. There are not enough trainers willing to push for another vet exam, despite one already being done, to look further into it. I even doubted myself in asking for a second look, but I am so glad I did. I would imagine many behavioural issues, especially ones that come across as deliberate disobedience actually stem from discomfort. Sure, many may not be as severe as the lameness in this case, but tons of horses will willingly mask discomfort from poor saddle fit, back soreness from muscular issues or perhaps, minor kissing spine- lameness issues that haven’t blown up into big problems… yet. A lot of horses also suffer from psychological trauma or anxiety even if it isn’t a physical issue and many of said horses are punished for it. I’ve gotten in a lot of these horses, the sensitive ones with baggage, some shut down and some not. Most of them were just misunderstood for so long that they finally lost it. Or, the lucky ones come to me prior to hitting the breaking point that might result in them being called crazy or dangerous and losing their life.

A lot of these horses are ticking time bombs in a sense as they’re risking having a breakdown physically or mentally. They try their damnedest to communicate, and they’re usually highly intelligent. They try to tell their owners something is off time and time again, getting louder and louder but more often than not, their cries for help and acknowledgment are drowned out by the human desire to discipline them for poor behaviour. Horses, like people, all have different needs in training but no horse (just like no human) needs to be trained abusively or have their needs or attempts to express themselves ignored. Good animal training allows for communication from animals: they need to have a voice and if you let them, they will “talk” via their actions and expression. Sure, not all behavioural issues are soundness and you’re certainly not Satan for using a whip, but be mindful of HOW you use it and how quickly you either vilify your horse’s behaviour or shrug it off as being mere “badness”.

So, here is my plea: listen to your horses! Even if they communicate in a manner you view as undesirable, please give them the benefit of the doubt. Horses do not have it in them to be malicious, even if it sometimes feels that way when their behaviour disrupts our goals or makes our jobs harder. It can totally be frustrating, I get it, but we regard ourselves as the more intelligent species and often still choose to react like cavemen in how we handle things by silencing the very beings we claim to love with a passion. We should want our horses to talk to us; it should be viewed as a necessity for good horsemanship. Alas, punishing communication encourages silence and then you merely have a partner who gets no opinion and is there by coercion, forced to participate without any suggestions on their part.

There are no bad horses, just misunderstood horses who were let down in some way or another.

The Horse World's Cognitive Dissonance

Photo by Quinn Saunders

Starting out in the horse world as a young child during a time where internet access did not hold a candle to what we have today was weird, to say the least. All of my education was entirely reliant on the belief that my instructors were infallible and the information they gave me was correct and fair to the horse. Knowledge of equine behaviour from scientific perspective was not as mainstream as it is now and the vast majority of trainers were just doing the things they were taught and had learned worked, on an anecdotal and practical basis. We didn’t have the same number of studies we do today and the ones we did have weren’t as easy as looking them up on Google Scholar and getting the full PDF, so for much of the beginning of my education as an equestrian, I relied entirely on what I watched and noticed around my barn and the show ring. This led to a very skewed perspective that neglected an awful lot of science in terms of what was fair care to the horse.

I was taught all about showing the horse who was boss and demanding respect from them, or having their behaviour and “manners” suffer as a result. I was also taught that the softness of my horse in the bit was dependent on how much they liked said bit, not as a result of training of proper carriage and softness. This led me to believe that when I bitted up, my horse softened as a result of enjoying that bit more, rather than the bit itself being more aversive so that it took less hand to soften. So, essentially, from day one, I was raised with the belief that any resistance to training was the horse’s fault, not do to holes create by myself and others who handled the horses. Being so young and seeing so much of the harsher types of bits and other equipment in the horse world so normalized by people I trusted and respected made it seem normal and until I hit the age where my access to the internet was enough to really interact with other equestrians, I didn’t have an awful lot of means of education other than blind trust and lucking out on picking the right type of book to teach me common sense horse knowledge instead of it being twisted to justify the common practices we participated in.

This meant, for years, I was ignorant on the importance of things like turnout and herd communication for horses. I knew some basics about it but I was never taught how much stalling contributed to all of the vices I frequently saw in horses nor was I taught about the physical detriments of no turnout. On top of this, I was misled about the severity of the mechanics of bits and gadget set ups that I used or how they may conflict with each other. One of my saving graces as a rider was when I moved to a cheaper, non-showing oriented barn that had 24/7 turnout. Witnessing the clear change in my horse’s behaviour when we altered this one thing started me on a path of self reflection and looking for the truth online. In connecting with other equestrians online and being able to read a variety of scholarly articles as they were shared by others on the horse niche of Tumblr or “Horsblr” as it was called, I started to ask more and more questions and sway further away from what I’d known to be right for so many years.

This change happened over the course of months and years and a lot of it required me hitting a point of personal growth and understanding where I could start to come to terms with and address the previous wrongs that I was taught and participated in for so many years. As I made my way through high school and became more educated on how to decipher credible sources and what the best platforms were for learning, I was able to more easily put some level of trust in the information that I was given. Despite this, there always was still some level of resistance and discomfort with throwing away a previously school of thought that I’d grown so comfortable with, so this change took time. It took relearning different management techniques for horses and seeing the good change that it brought to my equine partners. It took educated myself further on how to produce a good foundation without utilizing shortcuts in terms of bigger bits, gadgets and otherwise. It took me realizing that much of the problems I ran into over fences or at shows were a result of my leaving holes in my horses training, not the horse being too strong or needing a different piece of equipment.

Mostly, though, my major saving grace was getting a post-secondary education on equine behaviour via equine science courses through Guelph University. These courses gave me access to the newest studies from the most respected behaviourists and equine scientists in the industry. These courses taught me how much of equine behaviour is misrepresented or completely fabricated. The entire idea of achieving “respect” from horses or employing the dominance theory had to be completely thrown out because the research simply did not support the idea of being able to instill respect in horses. In fact, it was impossible to, given the fact that horses lack the neocortex which is the part of the brain associated with human concepts like respect. So, in doing what so many traditional trainers taught me to, I had been anthropomorphizing my horses’ behaviour and doing them a disservice by viewing their reactions as disrespect as though they were decidedly defying me out of malice or in an attempt to “be the boss”. The idea that this was possible, in turn, bred more bitterness in my responses to their behaviour since I viewed it as them being out to spite me or doing things with the purpose of intentionally defying me. Then, the horse, who wouldn’t understand my frustration and even more so didn’t understand the task being asked of them, was the one to suffer.

As this new information started to set in and alter my role as a rider and trainer, there obviously was a lot of guilt for things I’d done in the past, or even things I’d just witnessed, and allowed to happen. I felt stupid for not learning sooner and not being able to adjust my methods sooner so my horses wouldn’t have had to suffer for so long, but at the end of the day, I had to come to terms with the fact that growth and realization of prior ignorance was always going to be preferable to cognitive dissonance and allowing myself to maintain unfair methods just because it would be easier to pretend I was never wrong.

More so than my personal guilt, though, it was hardest to come to terms with how many people I enjoyed as regular humans, deliberately would defy logic to excuse what they did to their horses. It was hard to witness people’s reactions as I started to share some of the information I’d learned from my courses, complete with larger scale studies with very clear findings. The insistence that their horses were different or that the research wasn’t their. That I simply didn’t understand because I’d not shown at a high enough level or trained with big enough trainers. That part was and is always the hardest to deal with because at the end of the day, as hard as it is for me to see it happen, it’s the horses who suffer. The horses who are stuck with people who refuse to self reflect and consider newfound, credible info will always suffer the most. Even horses in less than ideal circumstances will benefit from open minded owners with a desire to offer the best they can in their situation rather than deny it.

Anyways, the horse world is a place that really rejects change and it’s unfortunate that we are still comprised of large groups of people who value status more than well being. What I mean by this is that there’s way too many people who value the opinions of those with good competitive results above those who’ve educated themselves on a scientific basis and have the means to participate in and produce studies on larger scales. We value the opinions of Olympic level riders and big name trainers above those of professional behaviourists and scientists that study horses both on a psychological and biomechanical basis and as a result, have the sample sizes to make more bold claims than a trainer ever can based off of anecdotes.

The sad thing is, until this changes, we aren’t likely to see the masses demanding for better ethics in the horse world. At it’s core, the longer we normalize demanding respect from animals who can’t comprehend it and that large animals need to be hit and coerced into submission, the longer it’ll happen. It’s still way too common online to see horse trainers and riders alike mocking anyone who suggests the idea that punishment isn’t necessary at the scale it’s commonly used at in the horse world. From there, these types try to move to discrediting any idea of positive reinforcement, a concept that is commonly accepted in dog training and highly regarded in efficacy through major studies in both animals and humans, under the guise of it being as simple as “feeding a treat when they’re bad”. As if the solution to less punishment is rewarding bad behaviour directly by praising them for a treat and marking the bad behaviour. In oversimplifying what positive reinforcement even is and making it out to be granola-esque backyard trainers treating horses for running them over, people perpetuate the idea that being nice to horses is bad and a concept only used by riders and trainers who have no real standing in the horse world… And, unfortunately, people buy into this nonsense because they want to, it means they don’t have to change their ways and it’s easier for them to cope with. The types who eat this stuff up when they read it online are likely the ones who’d never click to read further into one of the many studies re: efficacy of punishment based programs in comparison to positive reinforcement based ones, but they need to read it the most.

This isn’t to say I’m against any form of gadgets, punishment in absolutely any situation including ones where the handler is massive danger, bits, horseshoes etc… It’s just that we’ve been using a lot of the same schools of thought over and over again regardless of whether or not said training schools are even backed by science or proven to be the kindest or most effective. In fact, lots of the commonly accepted practices in terms of high punishment based programs, no rewards because they’re “bribery” are a lot less effective than the positive ones. Punishment, at its core, doesn’t allow for any insight on why the behaviour arises, all you’re doing is punishing the behaviour itself rather than addressing the cause of the behaviour. This means that the cause may never get addressed and the symptoms change instead while the horse flounders with the best way to cope with whatever the actual problem is, all while getting little insight on what the correct thing to do is. As a result, an awful lot of horses who lack the resilience to cope with such confusion fall through the cracks and are labelled as dangerous, crazy and so on and so forth. The horses who have the resilience and are able to shut down rather than continuing to loudly exhibit their pain, frustration or confusion have to live in learned helplessness, a state that doesn’t foster a happy horse with the actual ability to be a real “teammate” or factored into a partnership. And, aren’t we all supposedly involved in horses for the love of the horse, not just the desire to dominate them and blatantly force them to fit into the cookie cutter lifestyle that we’ve grown so comfortable with?

It’s about time we start to reward good riding, good results and good welfare instead of just what we view to be good riding and results. We need to normalize more of the nuances of equine behaviour, because horses are such subtle beings which means their cries for help are often all too easy for us to ignore. Far too many experienced horse handlers are actually naive to what specific behaviours are telling them. That swishing tail, grinding teeth and biting at air when you do up your girth isn’t just your horse being “mareish” , they’re trying to tell you something. The best types of riders who deserve the most glory should be the ones actually considerate of their equine partners, not the ones willing to do essentially whatever it takes to allow them to maintain a winning lifestyle on the circuit, even to the detriment of their own horse.

It makes it hard for people to improve, though, when we misrepresent specific behaviours of horses and also what they’re mentally capable of comprehending or how the herd dynamic even works. The belief that horses operate through a hierarchy of dominance and respect is something that needs to go, along with the idea that horses regard us as other horses, rather than being able to easily tell that we are not among their species. We also far too often equate our treatment of horses using how horses sometimes kick or bite at each other in the herd, however, we also fail to acknowledge the fact that we’re not herd members ourselves, as well as how much more the typical rider will use punishment in a training setting than compared to horses within a herd in the first place. Horses also naturally know how to coexist in a herd, they do not drop out of the womb with an explicit understanding of their owner’s goals for them and where they need to ascend to in the show world by a specific time before the rider gets frustrated with lack of progress.

This is why it needs to become more commonplace to teach equestrians how to be horse people, rather than just riders. We need to take the time to actually learn enough about equine welfare and equine behavioural science prior to regarding ourselves as trainers. At its core, if people are commonly and easily missing behaviour cues for the animal they’re supposed to be training professionally, they probably need more of a behaviour theory knowledge prior to continuing to climb the ranks of their career. Good animal training should always keep the animal’s welfare in mind otherwise we are merely using an animal as a vehicle to our success, rather than including their well-being in our journey to success in the same way we value our own. It’s hard, though, to expect more barns and trainers to instill these values in students when so many lesson barns are reliant on exploitation of lesson horses without offering them the care, maintenance and time off they need because they want to profit. There’s way too many places that make their business off of educating young, passionate riders on the backs of soured and sore lesson horses, so there would be no benefit to teaching correct understanding of equine behaviour if it would mean their students picking up on all of the troublesome cues given by the horses they ride. And so, it’s a vicious cycle, one that our horses are just kind and tolerant enough to put up with, and so we let them and pretend its because they’re equally as invested in the sport and love the shortcuts in care we commonly take and justify.

Whenever I point out any basic welfare concerns, no matter how proven or obvious they should be, I upset people. I make them feel attacked or make them feel like I’m placing myself on a moral high ground solely by pointing out the aspects of the horse world that I find troubling. The thing is, though, my hands aren’t clean, either. I participated in many of the things that I reject now. I also continue to grow and learn as a rider and trainer and I’m sure in a few more years, there will be more aspects of my riding and training that I alter as I learn more about what is fairest to the horse and what is most effective in fostering a good horse-rider partnership. I also will still sometimes have rides that I look back on and regret not cutting the ride sooner or not doing something a bit differently. But, the best I can do is to continue trying to learn and adapt and criticize myself when I get too greedy in my expectations in my horses’ training. Humans are not infallible and we will all continue to occasionally make mistakes or realize where we’ve had poor judgment calls, no one is perfect, but the willingness to learn is what is most important.

There is definitely more than one way to train a horse, but as we study these amazing creatures more, there are certain aspects of horse care and training that people cannot continue to deny if they’re truly here for the best of their horse. Some of these things will call for uncomfortable conversations and realizations of where we need to alter our own lifestyles to be more fair to our horses. So, while there are various ways to use different training theories in your day to day life working with horses, there is solid evidence showing that punishment largely disallows the horse the chance to understand the “correct” way to do something and it also silences their ability to communicate with you, because way too many “bad” behaviours are them trying to let us know about their pain, confusion or frustration. If what we have with our horses is to be called a partnership, then they need to have a voice, plain and simple. This is why the frequency at which we justify punishment, often to the point of excess, needs to be something that’s addressed a bit more because while there may be uses of punishment that are justified, it’s simply way too easy to use in a manner that requires our horses to stop trying to find answers in fear of having their answer be punished.

To finish off this blabbering post, I want to reflect on some of the notable changes in my horses the last several years. Online, people commonly remark on how much personality my horses have as they’re often playing with each other or going out of their way to interact with the humans in their life. The increase in desire to communicate was directly associated with my allowance for communication, or better put, a reduction in the frequency I used punishers or labelled certain behaviours as “disrespect”. My horses more and more have vibrant, funny personalities that are almost dog like. Because, I let them communicate with me. This has also made it an awful lot easier for me to tell when things aren’t quite right with them and we’ve caught a whole lot of problems faster than we would’ve if I’d assumed the behaviours were disrespectful from the get go. I’ve also been fortunate enough to have learned to look at bits and other equipment from a mechanics basis and not so quick to use the excuse of these things being “only has harsh as the hands”. Looking at the mechanics of equipment and how much harsher they can make even the softest hands forced me to come to terms with the fact that the truly soft riders don’t look to use equipment to bully a horse into softness. This isn’t to say that all bits and gadgets are bad, but we definitely need more discretion in what we view as an okay normal because as it stands, we are pretty relaxed about some of the set ups we put horses in, regardless of how the horses likely feel about them.

I also realize, especially with Milo, that if I’d allowed more of a voice in our partnership sooner, we would have progressed an awful lot faster. Milo isn’t a horse who easily allows humans to bully him and lucky for me, he always exercised his voice when I was being unfair and this forced me to self reflect more than I would have if I had a horse who shutdown sooner. A lot of more timid horses would defer to whoever has the loudest voice (namely, their trainer) and stop talking as much as a result, thereby becoming more compliant, but withdrawing within themselves far more. And that’s where we get these deadheaded, expressionless horses who get the job done but lose parts of themselves as a result of the stress associated with fitting into modern training practices. I am so thankful, for this reason, that I started to adapt to accommodate Milo rather than just getting louder myself because I’m confident he would be one of those “dangerous” horses people would view either as a write off or one that needed to go and be “put in his place” by a cowboy.

I’m thankful for everything Milo has taught me. He has single-handedly saved more horses from putting up with the BS he used to, solely because of his demands of justice in how I handled him and refusal to defer to violence. I continue to learn everyday how to do better by him and at the end of the day, my entire life as a trainer is devoted to trying to understand horses more and more so I can help horses who’ve found themselves in the position he was as a rescue horse, or even worse. I still make mistakes, as everyone does, but I really am motivated to continue to look forward to more and more research on what we can do to make our horses happier, safer in sport, and allowed to live the most ethical lives we can offer for them.

The day I will have peaked in success as a horse trainer is not the day that I go to the Olympics, but the day that I’m able to offer a farm situation for my horses as well as horses in training that is catered completely to their individual needs. The ultimate dream is to have a massive plot of land filled with happy herds of horses in training as sport horses, but also able to be individuals with opinions and their own lives outside of training. The dream is to be able to have a place that I could set up not only for the betterment of horses but to allow up and coming riders from the beginning to see the right way to do it, producing horses without stall vice related stresses and other undesirable behaviours they exhibit to cope with the stress we put them through. That is the ultimate dream and at the end of the day, I don’t want glory in the show ring if it requires sacrificing the ultimate dream of good hodsemanship.

The Classism That is Jumping Out in the Horse World in 2020

2020 has been a literal hell of a year and we aren’t even all of the way through it yet. With all of the bad moments, I would say one of the only plus sides of this year is that it is helping expose a lot of the unfair aspects of society that we have become complacent about and haven’t talked about enough in the past. Obviously, this is happening on a major social level that cannot be ignored unless you’re living under a rock, but I want to talk about the sheltered, horse world aspect of this revelation. You see, more and more people are finally stepping up to talk about the major lack of diversity in the horse world and the classism that is rampant in this sport. Because of the influx of new, loud voices, it’s becoming harder for people who don’t care to sweep it under the rug and ignore it.

The pandemic has been one of the major factors that is highlighting this, in my opinion. Lots of people who rely on shows for work have lost their jobs and a lot of people are suffering, however, there is a core group of people who realistically aren’t struggling in terms of barely making ends meet, there struggle is a little different. For some, the most difficult part of the pandemic is the cancellation of shows, which results in their disappointment in a competitor. They’ve lost the luxury of showing and rather than acknowledging the current world situation, far too many are starting to lash out at regulations intended to protect people from the spread of COVID and the unfairness of cancellations, rather than why said cancellations exist.

Many major shows have been cancelled, with an awful lot of major show parks cancelling entire show series. These cancellations have resulted in a lot of public outrage, with a great deal of people commenting on the unfairness of it all. Most recently, this has happened with Pony Finals, which was cancelled so last minute that people had literally loaded horses and paid for hauling to go there. I’m sure you can imagine the level of upset and outrage that came out of this. I can understand how disappointed and pissed off people would be to have something cancelled so last minute, but at the same time, how hyper privileged do you have to be to plan to trailer distance to go compete with large crowds at a show venue, all while case loads continue to climb for a highly contagious virus? I think it’s irresponsible of all planning committees for major events to not cancel in advance as the case rate sky rockets n their area, but at the same time, parents of the children slated to compete should have been well aware of the current world situation, and we’ve got to wonder why people are even focused on competing right now.

Seeing full grown adults complaining about how unjust it was for their children not to be able to compete after there were COVID 19 cases at said park just doesn’t sit right. There’s people losing loved ones from this illness and it is so incredibly odd to see people making this about a horse show, or not being able to finish their junior career… The worst part is, these same types of people are often the ones who say that there isn’t a need for more accessibility in the horse world. That people who want more access just need to work harder, be taken advantage of in work for lesson programs, or not be a part of the horse world.

How can people feel this hard done by and upset by missing a single show or even an entire show season but not understand what the pain would be like for a talented and passionate rider watching wealthier children get to do the things they can only dream of doing? The children who are able to start preparing to go to, let alone attend shows like Pony Finals are incredibly fortunate no matter how hard they have worked for it and at its core, it’s reliant on them having parents or someone else who can support them financially to get them there. A lot of children aren’t fortunate enough to be born into this type of situation and it’s not realistic to expect an underage individual to be able to work enough hours on their own to not only fund a riding career through lessons, but also expensive shows. So, I suppose my question here is: if you can have sympathy for your upper level riders, for the junior and amateurs competing frequently on the circuit and for people who didn’t reasonably anticipate cancellations due to a global health crisis…. Why can’t you have sympathy for the people who never have even gotten the chance to participate on the circuit due to circumstances that have affected them for much of their life? Why can’t you have sympathy for the kids who will never get closer to horses than through a TV screen but desperately want to? Why don’t you care bout these passionate, horse loving people having access to the things you’ve taken for granted for so long that you think it’s the end of the world to lose them for one season?

I really think it’s time the horse world sits with the disappointment they’ve felt from their show season being disrupted due to COVID19 and consider how there’s people who will never get the chance to show as often as you do in one season in their entire lifetime. It can even be something as small as people’s disappointment to barns closing and their lack of ability to visit horses for weeks and months, something we are all guilty of taking for granted and it’s something that we’ve only had to deal with due to a GLOBAL PANDEMIC, not because of finances, health, family circumstance or some other pressing issue that affects people every day of their life. We need to come to terms with how superficial a lot of people’s disappointment is this year and consider how much worse it can be. It’s okay to be sad about the loss of your show season and I do feel awful for the kids who had this huge build up towards Pony Finals only to have it ripped away. But, it’s also on their parents and trainers to have been more realistic about the world situation instead of ignoring it.

Having the privilege to be so lackadaisical during a time where people are losing family, jobs, getting evicted and being unable to make ends meet and then trying to claim that privilege doesn’t exist in the horse world or that “hard work will get you there”….. It’s just one of the most ridiculous things ever to watch unfold when just weeks ago, there was an influx of articles about white privilege, financial privilege and the lack of access in the horse world and said articles were flooded with comments from middle aged and young people alike claiming they didn’t have privilege, only hard work. That there didn’t need to be more access in the horse world and people needed to stop being so lazy and needed to care enough to make opportunity for themselves. Now, the same types of people are wanting sympathy over quite possibly one of the most privileged dilemmas a horse person can have. We can’t constantly alienate certain classes of horse people through exorbitant prices, biases, blatant racism, transphobia, homophobia etc and then expect them to be sympathetic as they watch horse people pitch a fit over the fact that a health crisis has halted their show career for the season.

So, I suppose this is a lengthy way of saying that if you feel inconvenienced by 2020 throwing a wrench in your show plans, imagine how inconvenient it would be if you couldn’t afford to attend them in the first place. Then, next time, consider people’s feelings when you say there’s no need for more access and it’s just up to hard work. It’s about as baseless and stupid as someone telling you that if you worked harder this year, you could’ve evaded the pandemic and shown anyways. At the end of the day, we are all running our own races, some of us just get head starts along the way and it’s up to us to have some compassion for those who don’t. I’m hoping the inconveniences people have experienced this year will help to make them more empathetic towards others and create more opportunity where they can as well as requesting the same from their favourite show venues. There is no way around the fact that owning horses and showing is a luxury, you’re more often than not losing a lot more money than you make and the only way you can afford to do that is if you have disposable income to blow. This doesn’t mean you’ve not worked hard for said income, but you still have it while other people also work very hard while receiving less for the hours put in.

To those who have lost their show season solely due to the pandemic this year: That sucks but imagine if this pandemic time had extended your whole riding career? How sad would you be if the most recent time you showed would be your last because you simply could not afford to be there anymore? If you love showing, I’m sure it isn’t something you want to think about and I can relate. So, please, before you type up another senseless comment about how unpaid working student positions will pay exorbitant show fees for every motivated rider or that there’s enough diversity here already, try to put yourself in someone else’s shows. Try to consider what it would be like to not have the things you have but to want them desperately. Then, feel some empathy and use your privilege to spread the word and encourage others to use their empathy to make the horse world more accessible. You have nothing to lose but have the ability to change people’s lives and allow horse loving children and adults to have a grasp of the horse world more easily. A little bit of compassion goes a long way and it’s time we all realize how out of touch it is to be complaining about not being able to spend thousands to be judged on our riding skills while people are dying.

The Casual Exploitation of Ambitious Young Riders

Photo by totem photographics

While being encapsulated in the echo chamber that is the horse world, it is easy to become complacent. We fail to recognize reality outside of the “reality” within the confines of equestrianism. This phenomenon is likely the driving force behind much of the problematic practices and behaviours we justify in the horse world, for example the skewed idea that somehow rules like labour laws are “different” when horses are brought into the equation. Growing up in this atmosphere where there is a lot of pressure to conform with tradition; what is viewed to be normal in THIS world helps indoctrinate riders into believing that everything we see happening here is acceptable. It teaches us to refrain from questioning practices based on the belief “everyone does it” or “that’s just the way it is”. There is a whole rabbit hole of topics that are covered up in this matter but today’s focus is going to be specifically on how blatantly and commonly businesses in the horse world violate basic labour laws. They do so publicly and without remorse, often being applauded for their generosity in offering young, up and coming riders such great opportunities.

These basic lapses in respectable treatment to employees are even (or, arguably, more so) seen in the barns and business practices of upper level riders, well respected trainers with accomplishments miles long. Guilty of not providing their employees with fair wages, even on the bare minimum basis. The name attached to a person’s riding prowess is given far too much value in our niche, the horse world, to the point where people will work ridiculous hours while essentially receiving pennies in compensation (even if we take into consideration “experience” based compensation in the form of lessons), and the worst part is that they get away with it all of the time. In fact, you’re generally more of an outlier when you dare to question whether or not fair compensation exists across the ranks in the horse world. You’ll be called lazy, ungrateful, spoiled, not “driven” enough, all for daring to ask for fair compensation for work done. These tactics serve the purpose of dissuading people from questioning the status quo, to make them feel stupid for saying “Hold up, wait a second…. is this fair?”

Before we get into the train wreck that is people’s experiences of major labor violations, blatant abuse and dangerous circumstance whilst working in the horse world, let me first talk about elitism in the horse world and how readily people claim it doesn’t truly exist. This plays a role in how expertly people manage to exploit ambitious young riders. First and foremost, the horse world that is the Hunter/Jumper, Dressage or Eventing disciplines in North America, is absurdly expensive. Attending even a single A-rated show is a huge luxury here because we are talking a week of competition that can cost thousands. This cost does not even factor in the lease, owning, care and equipment costs of horses. They merely refer to the expenses of a single competition. On top of competition costs, we also have board and care of the horse, lessons, tack and equipment, show clothes and more. This all amasses to well above the limit the average person can often reasonably manage to put into a luxury sport. Unlike many other sports, the horse world also lacks the support to help average to lower income riders attend competitions. There is little in the way of scholarships, cost breaks and bursary funds for riders with competitive dreams while outfitted in breeches with shallow pockets. Despite these realities, the common ideology expressed by more privileged people on the circuit is: “If you work hard enough, you can make it happen.” This is inherently classist and condescending because it implies that if you have not or do not eventually achieve your riding goals, you simply haven’t worked hard enough. It also implies that everyone who has gotten somewhere on the show circuit and made something of themselves has done so with the exact same obstacles when in reality, many of them, come from a place of immense privilege.

5 year old me enjoying the privilege of showing, paid for by my parents.

Let me break down privilege. It does not mean you’re lazy, untalented or haven’t worked hard for where you’ve gotten in riding. It can mean your parents have entirely or even partially paid for your horse shows. It can be knowing you have the comfort of a trust fund or university fund to alleviate stresses about affording things like post secondary education, your first house, a car or other big ticket items. It can be working your butt off for your horsey expenses but having someone cover off your gas, car insurance, rent, food and so on and so forth. It can be you covering off your living expenses AND riding expenses now but having had your introduction to horses as a child covered by parents. There are many levels of privilege and if you’re a participant in the horse world, you’re essentially guaranteed to be privileged in SOME way.

Like I said, there are varying levels of privilege, so implying that someone only needs to work hard to overcome the obstacles in front of them is negating how difficult said obstacles may be. To some, they may be reasonable feats equivalent to climbing a steep hill, crossing a quiet river or running a race that tests your athleticism but doesn’t push you to your max. To others, it may be scaling a cliff side or trying to swim across a raging current that threatens to pull you under. All struggle is not equal. The opportunities of hard work that landed you where you are aren’t necessarily going to apply to everyone, which is why ACCESSIBILITY is the most important factor of this so called “hard work” for success and to be frank, accessibility in the horse world is a bit of a fallacy right now. It isn’t accessible for the average person or anywhere close to it, and unless something changes cost-wise in competitions and compensation-wise in work positions, it never will be. So, at the bare minimum, cool it with the virtue signalling “we want diversity” BS if you’re going to be one of the people doing Olympic level gymnastics to try to silence anyone from discussing the cost and how much of a factor it is in the lack of diversity.

Anyways, before I go into the horrors of working student positions and how inherently problematic they are, let’s quickly break down the actual cost of showing. I just went to two days- yes only two days- of the week long schooling event at Thunderbird Show Park called the Rendezvous. I did not even stable at the property; I just hauled in, did my classes and left. With the exhibitor fee, paramedic fee, jumper ring nomination and lastly, the haul in fee of $125 for the week, I paid $220 before ever setting foot in the arena. After my 6 classes, the total for a schooling week that did not give ribbons or announce placings was $416.50. This was a “cheap” event at this show park; for their rated shows you’re easily looking at triple that amount or more for the week and that’s without factoring in trainer or hauling costs along with food, possible accommodations and more. I recently totaled only the necessary fees each rider must pay, with the assumption of one rider per horse, and came out to revenue of over one million dollars for a single week at Thunderbird Show Park. That is without factoring in total class prices, horses with two riders or any contributions by sponsors to lessen the total running costs. That is a low estimate of what these shows bring in, for ONE week, when on a regular season they’re running several weeks of shows year long. I’m telling you right now, unless the rider is sponsored, it is simply impossible for a family working on an average middle class income to fund $1,200+ weeks of showing several times a year, or even once a year, on top of all of the other costs that are necessary to be a part of the horse world outside of showing. As of 2019, the average income in Canada was around $52,600 a year. Please tell me, how on the average income, a family could fund their child’s entire show season when it would likely span over $10,000 if they were to participate at the extent of many riders who proclaim that all it takes is “hard work” to get to where they are? How can a family afford to put a fifth of their total income to a luxury for ONE child on top of all other living expenses? Answer: they can’t. Don’t get me wrong, I love Thunderbird: their staff is phenomenal and the facilities are beautiful, but to be honest, I don’t belong there. I’m an outsider in a world of privilege, even as someone who does well financially, especially for my age, and has privilege myself. I’ve never felt more poor or less worthy of respect than I do attending an A show with my 2005 Chevy Silverado with body damage and my cheap trailer.

My receipt from the Thunderbird Rendezvous schooling week, an unrated week of classes without ribbons or placings uploaded to showgrounds live.

The perceived solution to all of these woes for many is a working student position. Framed as an incredible, amazing opportunity that will help you achieve success in the horse world, set you up for big opportunities and fulfill your dreams of becoming a professional trainer or a big rider on the circuit. This is one of the most recommended options for less financially fortunate riders and the idea behind “hard work” getting someone anywhere they desire to be. But what is the reality of the vast majority of these positions, how hard is it to find one that actually provides the opportunities it claims to?

I recently conducted a survey of at least 70 working students. While this obviously cannot be held to the same validity as some sort of scholarly source or accredited study, let’s be real here, no one cares enough about their working students to conduct an accredited study or investigation into their well-being so unless you want to fund that, let’s all agree to cut the holier than thou “this can’t be legitimate” BS unless one of y’all wants to pay for me to do that. With that said, I feel I’ve inquired personally about enough working student positions, have friends who have worked in said positions, and have also seen the publicly posted remuneration rates for both working student and barn positions alike to see that the horse world believes that local labour laws apply to everyone except for them. Anyways, the responses I received to my survey are rather appalling.

The most commonly cited weekly hours requested of a working student were SEVENTY hours in my survey. The mean average still fell over the regular 40 hour work week, around 55 hours averaged the expected work day for these free labourers. While some were compensated fairly or at least slightly closer to what would be fair for their location, the vast majority of said workers were lured in with false promises about what they would receive in return for their work as well as being misled about the extent of the work they would be doing. For most, they were promised free training and lessons in exchange for work. Many were told they would work 5-6 day work weeks and ended up working everyday without days off, despite the promise of having days off. The vast majority of respondents claimed that they received a fraction of the lessons they were promised. Most were told they would receive at least one lesson weekly, and even if you factor in the rates of Olympic level riders- even charging $300 per lesson- this still doesn’t equate to fair compensation for a 40 hour + work week even if they did stick by their initial promises in terms of remuneration. Some students were also promised reduced show fees which either never happened or at least not on the consistent basis promised. Most were told that in working at these big barns, they would have the opportunity to sit in on lessons and clinics to soak up more knowledge, but their work expectations conflicted with these times, rendering them unable to sit and watch without being yelled at for doing so. In the survey, there is a clear trend of people saying that paying clients took precedence over their lessons, even though they were offering more free hours and arguably more “compensation” for their lessons in return.

One of the most troubling revelations I’ve had since surveying these riders is seeing how many of them were conned out of the promised compensation, weeks or months after arriving. To start with, much of the offered remuneration for these work positions was sorely lacking, even without the trainers offering said positions going back on what they promised to pay. More than half of survey respondents indicated that they were told one thing only to have it change once they actually started work. Some were robbed of the promised compensation entirely, others only receiving a handful of lessons in a lengthy stay as a worker at their farms, despite being promised daily, several times weekly, or weekly lessons.

For those who accepted live-in working positions, the vast majority did not receive fair compensation even when factoring in their rental costs. Out of all of the survey respondents, only a couple stated they felt the living conditions were fair and reasonable for the amount of work they were asked to do. Only a couple admitted to being allowed breaks and being encouraged to keep their physical and mental health in mind and not be overworked. The rest indicated the living positions were often shared living, which further reduces the actual “cost” of what the living situation they’re “working off” would be.

Work conditions were terrible. For example, the barn owner would pay her main hand only in cash and $100~ a week for over 60 hours of work a week. I was the only other worker, who actually had a deal for 20 hours a week part time. There were so much responsibilities that I had to do outside my agreed schedule that made me work 40 hours a week, but I was only compensated for the 20. I took a total of 2 lessons in 3 months.

She was a Grand Prix jumper and seemed to have a good reputation in the community if you made over a million. For anyone under her tax bracket, she wouldn’t talk to you. I had to be there at 5 am every day and again was treated like a slave, only this time in that I was told demeaning things if I did something slightly wrong, that I was too fat for this job (I was 5’9” and a size 6), and told I wasted money going to college because I came from a working class family and only the rich should go to college. I asked off 3 days in October (well before October) and was told that wouldn’t be possible. I gave her my two weeks notice but she kicked me off the property immediately because she “didn’t trust me”. The hours were fluid, you worked 6 days a week plus whenever she decided to tell you to come do night checks.

The biggest red flag from the respondents is the fact that the vast majority of them put in overtime hours without receiving overtime compensation, which is a requirement in the vast majority of areas in terms of labour laws. All of the people who participated in the survey were from Canada or the US, meaning that the labour laws in these areas are pretty standard and under no circumstances would it pass as being fair for someone to be compensated less than half of minimum wage for the work put in. It is commonplace in most areas to receive time and a half or double time once you’ve worked over 40 hours, which pretty much doesn’t exist in the horse world. Finding fair compensation in a job that actually respects local labour laws is like finding a needle in a haystack.

The worst part of all of this is that these types of barns and trainers make their living on the backs of young, ambitious riders who simply want more of a chance in the horse world without having the funds to buy or lease nice horses and show on the circuit the entire year. These riders have big dreams and shallow pockets and want nothing more than just a chance, and far too many trainers and barns exploit their desire to move up the ranks of the horse show world and become someone on the circuit. In fact, I would wager that these trainers and barns specifically seek out these types and the whole “if you work hard enough, opportunities will arise!” mindset is a manipulation tactic to fool these people into forgetting about what the labour regulations in their area construe as fair compensation. These riders are literally groomed for mistreatment by constantly being told that their lack of effort or “hard work” is the reason behind their lack of growth or success as a rider, instead of the absolutely devastatingly unrealistic costs and how deep pockets can help people quite easily navigate their way into the horse world, even at the highest levels.

Another alarming trend in the survey I put out was how many people were asked to participate in dangerous tasks for their experience level, or dangerous tasks in general, without any healthcare or injury insurance should they be injured from said task. They were also asked to do these things while being compensated virtually nothing. Many young riders were brought into programs that promised to teach them how to be better riders and handlers but essentially “thrown to the wolves” in terms of the types of horses they were asked to deal with. These riders show up lacking experience but are then asked to handle young, high strung and dangerous horses with inadequate training and preparation to do so. Some were even forced to be involved in veterinary procedures well above their pay grade and experience level and had to participate or risk being fired. Many also mentioned having to ride horses who were known to be difficult and dangerous while their employers got to ride the safer, more predictable ones. They were given the bottom of the barrel, dangerous jobs to get these horses going under saddle or on the ground fairly safety and THEN and only then, would the trainer who was supposed to be helping them along, get on the horse.

While a fair amount of the respondents did admit they didn’t feel endangered, the vast majority at minimum stated that they were overworked and lacked sleep, and these factors likely made their jobs more dangerous even if they weren’t being overfaced in terms of the tasks being asked. This meant that while the jobs themselves weren’t too much to ask for their experience level, the hours demanded were entirely unrealistic for any person, let alone someone working for free or extremely cheap just for the experience. The vast majority of riders who participated in this survey also referenced extremely high employee turnaround rates, something I’ve also noticed personally at a lot of big boarding and training operations. They’re always looking for new help and have a hard time hanging onto employees long term. This is often (but not always) an indicator of poor treatment to employees as businesses who appreciate and fairly compensate employees tend to hang onto them and hold loyalty.

Every single participant in the survey was under 25 years old with the majority being 18 or under. This rather aptly exemplifies the target age demographic for the types of trainers who exploit their students. They want the young, naive and ambitious. They want to utilize people’s desire to become better riders on a dime to their own benefit= free work. These barns want to operate with extremely low labour costs to allow them more of a revenue gain, and they clearly know where to find the types of people that will continue to take these jobs again and again. The high turnaround rate for employees doesn’t even seem to matter because there will always be some new fresh face who desperately wants to become like the many upper level riders they idolize and will do anything to achieve it. There will always be someone who will be easily fooled into accepting an abusive work position because the entire horse world works off this premise to a large extent. Like I said, riders are groomed to accept mistreatment. We perpetuate it by equating hard work with success whilst completely ignoring how even outside of the horse world, often times the hardest workers are not compensated to the extent of those on top who often do less hourly work or at minimum, less physically taxing work. We’ve created a world where people are shamed for their lack of success and presumed to be lazy, all while most people refuse to acknowledge how financially exclusive the horse world is.

I’m sure many will try to argue that operating boarding and training facilities is expensive and that trainers can’t afford to pay more, offer more, yadda yadda. My answer to those of you who think that is this: If a facility cannot pay their employees a fair wage or offer fair compensation in terms of training, lessons etc in return, then their business model is shit. If you cannot fairly compensate your employees because you cannot afford to do so, your business is a failure. If you cannot provide the minimum livable wage or services that equate to such in value, then you cannot afford your business. It is not other people’s job to be willfully exploited so you can continue to run a business that exists due to you labour code violations. Become a better business person or don’t be a business person. No one deserves to continue to run a business if it succeeds on the backs of poorly treated and under compensated employees. People shouldn’t have to accept mistreatment so that you can pocket a heftier check, and anyone who is okay with this needs to take a deep look at their own morals and ethics.

The saddest part about all of this is that these unfair working positions that overwork their employees suck the love of horses out of what were once ambitious, passionate riders. There is an extremely high burnout rate and for as many people who may achieve success from these working positions, there are so many more who leave the horse world entirely and are demoralized because of it.. For every trainer who offers a fair return when it comes to the work they ask of their employees, there are many more who have no qualms about taking whatever they can get and then replacing their employees when the work becomes too much for them. So, at the end of the day, it really doesn’t matter if these positions work for “some” people or if “some” trainers and barns are kind and fair to their students. It needs to be more than some. As it stands, it is way too accepted for trainers to take advantage of the young and naive and use their free labour as a means of earning more money themselves without having to offer much of their time for “free” in return for said work. It is way too common to see patronizing middle-aged and successful equestrians talking about how lazy and complainy the youth is and imply that if they only worked harder, their wildest dreams would remarkably come to fruition. Even younger generations (generally, the more financially fortunate demographic) will parrot the idea that all you need is hard work for success, all while failing to acknowledge where they may have had a head start.

The racing industry, in contrast to show jumping, gave me paid opportunity go grow as a rider and learn the industry.

The fact of the matter is that there is a deep seated, insidious toxicity in the horse world that will never be cured if we don’t start to acknowledge the existence of it and reframe our thinking and discussion. Everywhere in the world, hard work is often not compensated fairly. If becoming successful was as easy as working hard and putting your mind to it, there would be a lot more people in the income bracket to readily access university. There are an awful lot of extremely driven and passionate people who never get a chance to properly demonstrate the extent of their work because they don’t have the finances to climb the rungs of the ladder that would allow them to really show what they can do. Telling them that the only reason they’ve not achieved their goals is because they’re just not working hard enough is just a manipulative way of trying to keep the spirits of the less fortunate down and put all blame onto them so they don’t question the status quo and how much of a deterrent lack of finances are in a number of industries, especially the horse world.

To the passionate young riders who lack the finances to be a part of the horse world in the way they want: Do not be afraid to demand fair compensation for your worth. You do not need to sell your soul to a job that will suck the life out of you, demand far too many hours and offer little in return. If these positions were the key into the horse world that people claim them to be, we wouldn’t be seeing predominately wealthy people at the top levels. While there are riders from less fortunate backgrounds who have “made it”, the fact of the matter is that they are few and far between in North America. If these positions were the huge opportunity everyone claims them to be, there wouldn’t be such a discrepancy in terms of privilege at horse shows. We would see more diversity resulting from these so called “amazing” opportunities. But, most of these positions are not what they claim to be and the trainers who offer these opportunities in the right way are not as common as they need to be in order to increase the level of access in the horse world. Expect fair pay and fair treatment. Do not be afraid to speak out on the problems in the horse world and talk over the out of touch people, even if they are older than you. Age doesn’t always bring wisdom, especially if someone has grown up privileged and been so out of touch that they don’t even know where to start with educating themselves on the reality of things. Unfortunately, it is true that ignorance is bliss and way too many people do not want to let go of said bliss and come to terms with reality because reality is uncomfortable.

Lastly, to the trainers who really do offer great opportunities and fair compensation: We appreciate you! You are offering something very special to some very deserving people and you are changing lives. While it may not be as lucrative as exploiting students like many others do, you’re making a difference in a way that matters so much more than money. To any ambitious riders hoping to land under a trainer who will offer you a fair opportunity, consider putting less weight on the prestige of a big name. Big name trainers can use their names to add weight to what they offer, thereby depriving people further of fair compensation because they’re doing you a solid of letting you work for them. In fact, some of these trainers charge exorbitant daily boarding fees to have you live in cheap, group housing while you are literally PAYING to work for them. Now, in some cases, maybe these fees are fair, but it is up to you to decide. Look up your local labour laws: after factoring in your room and board costs, what are you really getting in return? Even if you’re working for a prestigious name, you still deserve the bare minimum of fair compensation.

What I’m saying is this: there are an awful lot of extremely knowledgeable, kind trainers who will give you opportunities but they’re often lesser known. They don’t have the mile long show records or Olympic gold medals, but they’ll offer you way more in terms of learning and knowledge. I learned how to start horses under saddle when I was taken under the wing of a woman who ran the boarding operation I boarded at for several years. She set her board costs so cheap, she couldn’t have made anything and she also gave me many many hours of free riding and advice along with free trailering to shows and many more opportunities. She operated (and still does) a smaller, not-fancy boarding barn that mainly served the purpose of helping to provide a soft landing to horses who needed it and finding them new, safe homes to go to. The facilities were simple but were all about the health and wellbeing of the horses rather than trying to put on a show for riders and boarders coming in. I’m not the only one she’s offered such opportunities to; she does so for many, offering cheap board and leases and most of all, the support and expertise to help riders to grow. She did not show on the circuit where my interests lay and her desires as a rider were more applicable to enjoying the horses rather than having her name in the limelight as a big rider on the circuit, but she taught me more than any other working student position could have at the time, especially for the time she expected me to put in (which was on my terms). She never made me feel stupid, she treated me as an equal and while she is a blunt and honest person, she was never unkind to me. I think many local riders can say the same about Tara Nicholson of Hayburner Haven because she has been a light in the lives of many less fortunate riders who just needed a chance and a role model to give them one.

Riders, I implore you to demand more. We need to start putting on the pressure for fair treatment of employees and exposing how often basic labour regulations are entirely disregarded in our industry. We cannot keep letting people get away with this just because they claim to offer a good opportunity or have a big name in the industry. Everyone needs to be held accountable, or we will never find change. There are zero good reasons why fair compensation should be deprived to the extent it is. There are zero good reasons to not care about diversifying and increasing accessibility. There are far too many exceptionally talented riders with little ability to showcase said talent due to the lack of money to do so and the worst part is, showing and show records are so valued in this world that you’re taken less seriously if you don’t have one, or lack a lengthy one. It’s stupid because all of our development as riders occurs outside of the show ring. Shows mainly provide a means of tracking your progress and letting other people see it. There are a lot of riders out there who could ride circles around the big names we see in the spotlight on the circuit but never get the opportunity to do so and are completely unknown, all because they don’t have the deep pockets to attend these shows.

Diversifying will allow these people access. It will also create more range in the horse breeds we see competing considering many of these less financially fortunate riders have to be crafty and take on the cheap “throwaway” types of horses that most people with money wouldn’t dare take the risk on since they can afford a more “sure” thing. It will then help to increase the desirability of these horses by showing what they can do, instead of the financially fortunate constantly discounting the abilities of Thoroughbreds, Quarter Horses, rescue horses, grade horses and so on and so forth, all because they don’t care to try to produce them themselves and haven’t seen them meet success due to who they surround themselves with. By increasing the representation of these types of horses and riders on the circuit, we will help keep passionate riders in the sport by showing them that they actually belong here and can reasonably achieve their goals instead of them constantly being disheartened by seeing that “making it” as a competitive rider is a pipe dream unless you have money and that if you don’t have that “fancy” horse, people will constantly remind you about how your horse is the exception or how it will “never make it” to your intended goals.

I’ve been riding for the last 20 years and many of the opportunities I have been offered by generous people would have never been there if my family couldn’t have afforded to get me lessons as a child to the extent that they did. I’ve been on both sides of the equation, one side being the kid with a wealthy family and the other being a hard working adolescent with a family who could no longer support my participation in the horse world. I can tell you from experience that participating at shows when my parents could easily afford it was as easy as blinking. It just happened. I didn’t have to work hard for it outside of trying in lessons and being passionate, something the vast majority of serious riders have regardless of money. I had even more energy to be present in lessons when they were paid for because they just happened, even if I wasn’t working.

On the flip side, when my family lost all of our money after it was embezzled, I started working at barns prior to being a legal age to work at a legitimate job in my area. As soon as I was old enough to get a real job, I did. I stopped riding as much because between work and trying to be a normal teenager, it was exceptionally draining. I grew sour seeing my friends achieving the things I used to be able to do with ease whereas even with working hard and saving, I couldn’t afford to attend the same shows as them. I gave up what had been a lifelong dream of becoming a horse trainer, for several years, all because of finances. What was the point? I thought. It was far too much risk with little reward, especially since I knew I’d be having to fund my entire university education. If my goals as a trainer flopped, I’d be screwed with no fall back option. My passion for becoming a trainer was reignited when someone just gave me a chance, helped me learn, and offered me opportunities that got my foot in the door of the racing world by giving me my first OTTB. From there, my passion snowballed and I started looking for every loophole I could to try and land myself in success. Many of these opportunities, though, were reliant on my ability to ride that was built over many years of parents funding my lessons. My show horse that I ride now never could have existed without said experience because he was so damaged and difficult, coming from an abusive background and being barely halter broke when I got him. Even with my mom having horse experience and me having the experience I did at the time, producing him was extremely challenging. It definitely went slower than it would have if I’d had more access at that point and was able to take more lessons with good trainers and learn more. Now, I’m sure that I could have produced him faster than I did, but it’s taken 6 years of patience and hard work to get him to the point of going around .90m rounds clear.

One of Milo’s many showstopping (pun intended) refusals

Many viewed this as a fault of my training and many have stated this and while it is in part true, I’d say it’s mostly a fault of the system considering my talent is valued based on how often or how high I show, without factoring in the types of horses I train and ride and how much work they entail. The entire mindset of the horse world completely discredits and discourages people like me and especially people who have even more obstacles than I have. Acknowledging that other people have more obstacles to overcome than you is not a criticism on the work you’ve put in; it is simply an acknowledgement you’ve had help. Help that has solved problems that you’ve never had to consider because of the privilege of said help. You can work hard and be talented all while still acknowledging that having support with your show fees, tuition, car payments, living, tack purchases etc gives you an ease of living that wouldn’t be there if you were having to find ways to cover this entirely on your own. Admit where you’re fortunate, acknowledge the obstacles others have to overcome that you don’t and please, just be understanding. We can all make the horse world a kinder, more accessible place if we just learn to listen, hold people accountable and remember that it isn’t a criticism of our own lives to point out how we’ve only come across certain opportunities and successes due to pure privilege and circumstance.

I want more diversity. I want to see more people like myself, who work full time, haul ass to the show and make it just in time for their classes. People who can’t afford living accommodations, stabling, living off of the show venue food and taking weeks off to attend shows. I want to see more people who understand what it’s like to try to navigate the horse world on a budget and who know what it feels like to be one of the odd people out on the circuit. I want more people to acknowledge the out of touch nature of the horse world and how it is wrought with privilege and how that lack of realization of said privilege is what enables the exploitation of those who lack many of the same privileges. It’s time for us to open our eyes and start openly talking about all of the problems in our world in an attempt to fix them. It’s time for all of us to stop being so selfish and to realize that there are plenty of riders who would cut off a limb to be in our shoes and that they’re not whiny or lazy for being disappointed or discouraged by how hard or impossible it is to try to participate in the horse world. It’s time for us to quit with the self absorbed nature and become empathetic towards others instead of trying to label them as lazy or ungrateful for being sad about having to forego on what may be lifelong dreams simply because they’re a middle class or lower rider.

It is time for us to acknowledge the immense amount of privilege in the horse world and use our access to said privilege to offer more incentives to those who lack the same access. We have the money and the means to make things more accessible. If people can afford 6 figure horses and tens of thousands of dollars in show fees each year, they sure as shit can afford to contribute to bursaries, sponsorships, scholarships and more. The big names or icons of our industry could consider doing sponsorships or at least advocating for the idea of them being offered to people not already able to actively show on the circuit. Equestrian companies can afford to sponsor lesser known riders and offer incentive programs to get talented riders into the show ring, thereby allowing them to “prove” themselves. Show venues can definitely afford, especially by way of benefactors or sponsors, to offer incentives for riders below certain income brackets or offer yearly scholarships like free show vouchers. It’ll get more riders into their arenas, more interest and thereby more entries. They can even guarantee the opportunities they offer are only used at their showgrounds, all by giving away things like a simple piece of paper that allows a lucky person a reduction, or complete write off, of their show fees. Even one show a year would make a difference to one rider, but I’m sure we can do better than that. There is enough money and privilege in this world to go around and make things more accessible, we just have to bloody care enough to push for it and offer it.