Nobody has any right to treat an animal like that or, indeed, ride any horse that is either hurting, frightened, confused.
If the extent of their feelings or knowledge is so low they should not be on a horse or anywhere near animals.
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According to comments, the device used to shock the horse is called a jigger. If you Google âjigger shock deviceâ it looks like it was originally used in racing.
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decades ago, in
Decades ago, in some racing circles, there was talk of some kind of electric shocking device, then called a bug, that some may have tried to use to get horses to run faster?
Donât confuse that with the apprentice bug, a way to handicap horses by letting apprentices, with lesser skills, race with the advantage of lighter weight requirements.
For what I heard, never knew of anyone using such, it fit on the boot and worked similar to a spur may have, but it was a shock?
Whatever it was, it was illegal, so just more of those rumors flying around.
I would think any kind of shock to a horse would cause any reaction and violent ones.
Racing it would make them break stride, nonsense to use any such?
We can see in this case how a very nice and well trained and proven horse reacts.
Definitely not any way that serves the riderâs purpose.
Sure doesnât appear to be working.
It is dry here. I have sent my horse flying BACKWARDS just touching her by sparking static electricity. When it happens, no matter where I touch her, she goes backward so yeah, I donât understand the rationale that any shocking will send them forward or faster. Not to mention that she wonât come near me for a couple minutesâŠjust from static.
I hope the rider is dealt with harshly like no longer be able to have ANY animals :mad:.
Susan
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There are worse disciplines for routinely-accepted abuse than barrel racing. But that doesnât let it off the hook in any way. On another forum, more geared to beginners, I regularly read innocent posts by (teenage girls mostly), asking things like which bit would be better for my barrel horse, showing two of the cruelest bits youâve ever seen. Or, I bought this ex-barrel racer and it is fine as long as you donât ride it in an arena, where it is psychotic. These posts are not few.
Itâs a sport which absolutely lends itself to horse abuse, by its very nature. Whether some individuals have figured out a way to barrel race without abusing their horse doesnât negate that.
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Amen. When my daughter wanted to try out barrel racing and her instructor took her to her first race, I was sitting in the stands horrified at a lot of the blatant abuse and horrible lack of horsemanship a majority of the riders and so called trainers were exhibiting. My daughterâs instructor was not one of them. However, after a few barrel races neither me nor my daughter could stomach going to anymore.
Now these were really low level yahoo shows, so Iâm not saying it applies to all barrel racers, but at least at these shows it was appalling.
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Horses are prey animals. So theyâre flight creatures. Something startling from behind, hypothetically, would make them go forward regardless of position. We train them that the forward cue should come from the approximate position of our leg when we train them as riding animals. However, think of driving, cracking a lunge whip, patting them on the butt, even jockeys starting with the whip on the shoulder before they go to the flank. (Regardless of your stance on if any of those are cruel or not - they are non-leg forward cues regularly used that do generally produce the desired result for the duration of a horseâs lifetime.)
This lady clearly took a page from the old racing trainers that used to teach horses how to jump from the gate at the bell by synching it with an electric prodding during training starts. But from the accounts of people familiar with her, I highly doubt she was clever enough to come up with this technique herself.
Props to the person who thought quickly and tossed those panels away before the horse could get its back legs caught in them. And what a horse to keep such a level head during all of that. That little bit of kicking and backing up is nothing compared to what could (and probably should) have happened. And to still walk forward some into the area at the end and stand there? That horse has an AMAZING brain. I hope someone sees that horse for what it can still be and makes her an offer she canât refuse to retrain it back.
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Some horses get sticky footed under pressure. That mare is one of them.
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Any updates on this,please tell me sheâs rotting in jail and all horses have been removed from her careâŠ
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Iâll check with my friend.
Edit: Nothing happened just laying low.
This infuriates me. This is obvious animal abuse.
What the police told her is that at this time, it is not illegal to shock a livestock animal with any type of device.
Letâs hope for some strict rules on abuse in the warm-up ring by both competitive venues and private barn arenas.
We have to self-police against abuse. That means we have to stand up and speak up, even when others are not on the same page.
As the people around that arena were doing, more power to them. Hopefully they followed up afterward with their show organizations and suggestions for private arena rules.
LE is often very limited in what they can do, and that is not their fault. They have to follow the laws and that is the way the laws have been written, usually dating from very permissive times. The only way LE can act is if there is a prosecutor who is ready to go forward with the case in some fashion. Prosecutors also rightly have to have a law behind them that very clearly fits the facts.
It comes back to what we are willing to do about the way the laws are written. Either we become active trying to change and strengthen those laws in spite of the considerable push-back that can be anticipated from legislators who donât want to offend constituents and donors, or, again, we self-police. Or both would be a good idea.
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Yes, true, but isnât she trying to train the horse to go forward on a riderâs command? Thus triggering the prey animal/flight response probably isnât a useful approach.
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The other sucky part is, if the girl has any sort of real quality training herself, she could probably do a better job fixing it herself.
Probably comes from seeing someone load horses onto a truck down a chute with an electric cattle prod. Which also doesnât work sometimes.
What child in this environment stands a chance of that being possible?
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