Who Will Advocate For Your Horse?

By now, unless you are in some remote part of the world with no internet, chances are good that you have heard the news regarding Charlotte Dujardin. It seems that every other post that comes along on Facebook has to do with Charlotte, with everyone putting in their two cents. Heck, just type CHAR into your browser and her name pops up.

I have spent the last few days reading and processing the news, as well as watching the video, which, while it was not as horrific as the videos of Helgstrand or Parra, it was disturbing, and who can really determine what scale to use in terms of abuse anyhow?

I am not going to debate why it took several years for the video to surface (pretty coincidental, with Paris starting this week) or that the rider was underage, (which somehow gives her a pass,) that the person video-taping, (who is heard laughing), didn’t make mention of the abuse, or about how Charlotte should be forgiven, because we have all made mistakes. There is plenty of debate on social media on all of those subjects. I will however, comment that some of those who threw Charlotte under the bus, by condemning her in their letter from the International Rider’s Club, are two-faced cowards, who the world knows are guilty of rollkur and other abusive training methods, and their comeuppance will come calling soon.

What I want to ask (again!) is, who is being the advocate for the horse?

I have always said that the horse is probably the most abused animal since the day man discovered them. Chased by helicopters, slaughtered for meat, harsh hands yanking on their mouths, ill-fitting tack, trip wires for stunts in Hollywood, spurs, whips, exploited for greed, the list sadly is quite extensive.

One of the reasons that I began writing Common Sense Horse Keeping was due to the lack of knowledge of basic horse care and the abuse that I saw in local barns. Even in fancy barns with “big name” trainers, I was saddened by what I saw and it bothered me that many horse owners didn’t even know better and accepted what was happening to their horses as standard practice. Drugging, the use of harsh bits and gadgets without understanding them, extensive lunging, and limited turnout time, just to name a few of the common scenarios that I saw. Just as concerning to me was the lack of attention given to the mental status of horses.

That really hit home for me at one barn where I was working, when over two days, four sale horses arrived from various locations throughout the state. Three arrived in commercial trailers, the fourth one was a dirty Palomino from a local farm in an equally dirty horse trailer who showed up at this high-end hunter-jumper barn. One horse arrived lame and another was colicing within an hour of being unloaded. The 4th horse was covered in sweat when he was unloaded and clearly stressed. The casual attitude directed at these poor horses was pathetic. They were treated as a commodity and nothing more. They were tried by potential buyers and then loaded back onto a trailer to be shipped to who knows where. It was so upsetting to me, seeing these horses treated this way, that I vowed that I would never sell another horse, and if I had to, I would make sure that they were treated better than these four were.

Nobody was advocating for those horses.

I refer to this particular barn often throughout my book. The final straw for me that caused me to give my notice after two months of employment was when a man showed up the day before a show, carrying a bucket full of syringes and a piece of paper with the names of the horses and ponies who were going to the horse show. Down the aisle he went, quietly slipping into stalls and popping these horses and ponies with who knows what. This is a barn that caters to two types of clientele: the wealthy parents who can afford a 6 figure pony for their child and the middle aged business woman, buying her first horse. Both types of clients expect to show up to the barn to have their mounts groomed and tacked and all they do is hop on for a ride, and when they are finished, they hand the reins over to a groom, feed treats to their horse, take some selfies and leave. They take the word of their instructor, barn manager, and barn owner as gospel and make no effort to learn about proper horse care, paying exuberant board bills every month. They have no clue that their horse is being drugged for shows. Educated horse owners didn’t last long at this particular barn, for they were discouraged and given a hard time (one eventer who was attending college nearby was considered dangerous because she could take care of her horse!). Good help, such as myself, didn’t last long either because we could not stomach what we saw.

None of those owners gave much thought to the well-being of their horses. They were not their advocates.

A few years ago, I met a woman at a trade show who was from my town. She cried as she told me about the vicious whipping her horse received by her trainer, after the horse didn’t want to load in the trailer. She said that by the time they arrived at the horseshow, the horse was covered in welts from his beating. The owner, stood by and did nothing, and she told me that she will carry that shame to her grave. Because this was her first horse, she didn’t know how to stand up for her horse. She actually told me that. Her trainer was one that my daughter and myself had ridden with, and while we never experienced any angry outbursts, similar stories from people who boarded with her (we trailered in for lessons) were becoming more frequent, and I severed ties with her as a result.

This was a woman who should have stepped in and stopped the beating. I cannot imagine thinking that it is ok for someone to beat your horse simply because they are your trainer.

Age should never be the reason not to be your horse’s advocate, as some have tried to make excuses for the rider in the Dujardin video. Children need to be taught from the moment they swing their leg over the back of a pony for the first time that they should never allow anyone, including themselves, to treat their mount poorly. If children can be taught about stranger danger from a very early age, and to tell an adult when they are in an uncomfortable situation, then they can be taught to be the advocate for their horse.

When my daughter was about 11, she was in a lesson and the instructor was becoming increasingly frustrated with our pony, a rescue with some issues and very new to jumping. After several refusals, and my asking the instructor to drop the top rail to make the jump more appealing, that it was too daunting for our pony the way it was set, this person managed to find a lunge whip on the ground, and before I knew what was happening, at the next attempt at the fence, he gave our pony a good whack with the whip. I’m talking about a 2 handed hold on the whip and swing with all the might that a 220 pound man can muster. I jumped up from my seat, informed the instructor that the lesson was finished, and I never returned for a lesson again, instead finding a new instructor for my daughter.

We have to be our horses’ advocate! If we don’t, who will?

Several years later, when my daughter took a different horse to college, she stood up to the barn owner, who was losing his patience while loading the horse to go to a vet clinic after he injured himself. My daughter took the lead rope from the man and led her horse back to the barn. While hosing him off, because he had become hot and sweaty, the man’s true nature came out further when he told my daughter that the horse did not deserve to be hosed off and that he should be put away hot and sweaty….as if he were a 10 year old child who could process the actions of his behaviour! We had serious questions about this man by this point, and the horse came back home by the end of the week.

We must be our horses’ voice!

It is human nature I suppose, to worship and idolize others, whether it be a celebrity, an athlete, or for those of us who ride, we pick riders at the top of their game. But we forget that they are human and are not perfect, and when they fall, they fall hard and we fall with them. I will never forget the shocking news as I read in the paper that Barney Ward was involved in the deaths of horses for insurance money. I had watched him win the American Invitational on Felton (who bucked him off in the winners victory gallop!) and had admired him as a rider.

Similarly, I will never forget my experience in a clinic with a much-admired gold medal Olympian show jumper, who proved that just because one can ride, doesn’t mean that one can (or should) teach. While there was nothing abusive in his teachings, the clinic was a huge disappointment, not just myself, but all of those who attended and it left me a tad jaded when it came to riding in clinics again. I believe that Charlotte belongs in this circle. While she may be a gifted rider, she is not capable of teaching and perhaps the reason she resorted to abusive training methods is because she is incapable of teaching the methods correctly.

And so, unfortunately, I find myself asking again: At what point do we put aside money, ribbons, “likes” and accolades and start to put the horse first? We are getting closer and closer to having equestrian sports removed from the Olympics. There is much speculation that the 2028 Olympics in LA will be the last to have equestrian events. With social licensing, we are getting closer to not only getting kicked out of the Olympics, but it will be a short hop and a skip to getting horse shows, racing, endurance riding, and rodeos shut down in their entirety. Are you ready for a major shift in how we are involved with horses? If we don’t make the changes ourselves, someone else, who has no clue about horses, will be making those decisions for us.

We must do better! We must be better advocates for our equines!

It is time to demand better from judges. They must stop rewarding performance that reflects abusive training measures. We need to demand better from trainers and instructors. They need to be educated and they need to stop demanding movements from horses that are not attainable without utilizing cruel training methods or gadgets. Horses should not have demands placed upon them that are stressful on both their physical self as well as their mental well-being. It is time to reward horses and riders who clearly show harmony, relaxation, and good training. We must weed out the bad eggs for the sake of future equestrian sports.

Are you going to be your horses’ advocate?

In other news, Common Sense Horse Keeping will be released on August 15, 2024 on Amazon! If you know a local tack store or book store that you would like to see my book in, please drop me a line with the name of the store!

And please follow on FaceBook and Instagram for the latest news regarding a virtual launch party and contests with collaborations of other equestrian related companies!