If it isn’t broken, why fix it?

Perhaps not surprisingly I’ve always struggled with some of the ethics used in traditional training and management of horses. The endless gadgets, forced outlines, rugs, hard feed, twitches, mane pulling, restricted grazing, strict routines and lack of natural environments to name but a few. So many of them seemed counter productive to me but it was the world I worked in and even though I often felt conflicted, I knew no other way. The fact that everybody else just did the same meant that it was simply easier to just go along with the status quo rather than challenge it. Instinctively I knew much of it didn’t make sense, but it was just what you did. It worked for the most part too. Stables were immaculate, horses obedient, riding looked neat and orderly. Was there/is there any real reason to change anything, If it isn’t broken, why fix it?

Yet, although the above is to some degree true, anyone who has spent time in traditional livery yards will have at some point seen the obvious issues that institutionalised horses have to contend with. Horses often have separation anxiety, stress around food times and exhibit coping behaviours. These behaviours are all to common and are unfortunately labelled as ‘vices’. The term gives the impression that it is in some way the horses fault that it weaves or cribs and not the fault of the owner who has allowed their horse to get so stressed that it has started to exhibit undesirable behaviour.

I try to inspire my clients to learn to be part of the solution with their horses and not part of the problem.

All to often I realise that us humans are in fact part of the problem and not anywhere close to becoming part of the solution with our horses.

And this, unfortunately is true for all aspects of horse management from the environment horses are kept in to the way they are trained. It extends from the novices to the experienced, it sits in our equine institutions and it is taught to our children from the very beginning of their life as horse people.

The cadre Noir once famously wrote: "respect for tradition should not prevent the love of progress"

Of course things are slowly changing... Some people are starting to find another way, these people are scaling the walls of the institutions and reaching for more information. There is a complex and exciting world of new research being done in equine behaviour and psychology, biomechanics, nutrition and training. The emergence of alternative horsemanship is giving people a chance to learn a different way of training and working with their horses form the traditional methods.

Sadly, when I started my transition my years ago I would often notice a defensive and critical reaction from my horsey peers. I found it really quite puzzling that with so much new scientific research there were still many people that resisted change and couldn't or didn’t want to see the glaringly obvious....

The way most of us look after and train our horses in the UK is actually rather archaic in it’s principles. If Equine mental health and physical wellbeing is at the forefront of the work we do with our horses then the ugly truth is staring us all right in the face.

"I remember feeling like I was falling down the rabbit hole. The more I learnt the bigger the picture got and suddenly the ethics of almost everything I did with my horses in the past started to come into question."

And I think that in that statement right there is why so many people struggle to really look at the reasons to what and why they do what they do with their horses. We all love our horses, we spend a small fortune on keeping them healthy and safe. But maybe just maybe we have lost our way with it all. In truth most of us unwittingly keep our horses in a system that was originally designed by the military, an archaic formula for how to handle/ride horses which over many hundreds of years has become the bedrock in the methods used within the British Horse Society.

Yes, much is sensible and works, but on the flip side much doesn't. To become truly in tune with our horses we must not be lazy, there is so much inspiration and information out there and believe me, once you start looking you won't be able to stop and your horses will thank you for it!

Happy Hunting Everyone!

#BHS #naturalhorsemanship #training #stables