This article was originally written in response to the video of an Olympic equestrian athlete coaching a young rider by repeatedly whipping a frantic horse in order to encourage a desired movement.
This is true and just about every area of competition. Yes, horses jump, but we make them jump higher than they ever would choose to naturally. Yes, horses can slide to a stop, but we make them do it further and more exaggerated than they ever would naturally. Yes, horses can collect, but we make them do it for insanely long periods of time to a degree which they don’t do naturally. Yes, saddlebreds step high, but we make them step higher and brighter than they ever would do naturally.
In order to motivate horses to complete these incredibly effortful maneuvers at such a high-level, with consistency, an immense amount of pressure has to be applied — stronger bits, tiedowns, stronger spurs, chains, weighted shoes, acid and who knows what else are employed. I think it is worth examining what we are willing to do in order to achieve a certain aesthetic or athletic accomplishment.
I watched a woman with a cute little Arabian take a dressage lesson one day. The entire lesson was conducted in side reins. Let’s put aside the dangerous nature of riding in a tiedown for now or the fact that it cannot make a horse truly collect. The horse exhibited numerous anxious behaviors throughout the lesson. The horse gaped its mouth and stretched repeatedly against the boundaries of the side reins. It swished its little tail, pawed and had trouble standing still — all signs of anxiety and discomfort. The level of collection this horse was asked to maintain — fairly average for amateur dressage expectations — during the entirety of the one hour lesson was far, far greater than any horse I have seen ever maintain on its own for this duration. I say with 100% certainty that this little horse could not comfortably maintain that level of collection for an hour even with extensive conditioning. No horse can comfortably maintain that static, exaggerated position throughout their neck for more than a couple minutes in the best of circumstances.
Hasn’t everyone experienced the intense muscle ache that comes from trying to maintain a static unnatural position for an extended period at some point? Yet, forcing a horse’s physical position is an incredibly common occurrence from riders at all levels in numerous disciplines. It is a simple, absurdly common example of the willingness we have to take something the horse does naturally and exaggerate it in proportion and duration to a level that requires immense effort from the horse — and few are capable of completing the task.
To think about it a little differently… Would we be comfortable asking a dog to step with its legs high for 30 minutes straight? Would we be comfortable asking a dog to walk on its hind end for an hour? Think of what would be required to motivate the dog to do these things in such an exaggerated way, for such a long duration.
The question here is, how do we determine how much is appropriate to ask of a horse? Does that differ for a backyard horse versus a horse competing at the Olympics? How much pressure are we comfortable applying to achieve what is essentially a meaningless, unnecessarily movement?
If we truly put the horse first, I think we could be amazed at how much our horses will do for us without the emotional and physical discomfort. It requires that we take the time to learn better ways of asking them AND it requires that we collectively reward not only the outcome of training but also the quality of the process.
