In my wild and woolly younger days I did a fair amount of lashing and over and under-ing. I never was an overspurrer. Despite all of that and a belief you should and by God ought to get after a horse- I never ripped a bit through a mouth, never broke anything, much less a whip!!! on a horse, and never ever even raised a welt. That pony looks like he laid down in ants, for God’s sake.
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He’s an utter ass.
There is an upside to witnessing this kind of abuse.
The kid has an opportunity to be inspired, and to respond with living her horse life in a different way.
When I was 14, I witnessed my H/J trainer get on a school horse who had refused repeatedly. He beat the crap out of that horse when he couldn’t get it to jump, then jumped off, threw the reins over its head and kicked it in the belly. Then he TURNED IT LOOSE to run across the field back to the barn. I was only a kid, but I imagined the horse hitting the pavement at a gallop…
I never went back.
I never told my mom why.
I am a trainer now, and my school horses are golden.
Scott Culp had an impact on my life that he never knew, and my school horses have benefited from that poor horse’s experience long ago.
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That is just awful horsemanship and so upsetting for the poor girl.
If your horse is so resistant you need to beat it to a pulp odds are there’s something physical that wouldn’t be helped by beating your horse into submission.
Not to mention, even if it is purely a ‘training’ problem and not something physical, if it gets to the point where you’re indiscriminately beating on the horse and still not getting the desired response, the horse mentally checked out a LONG time ago and is learning nothing other than to be afraid of you.
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Overfaced is a possibility. Just doesn’t have the physical ability to do what is asked … in fact, he indirectly suggests that is possibly the case, and pretty much says that he didn’t think the pair were ready for that session’s level.
Being overfaced can be either because it is beyond the pony’s jumping range, and/or because the pony isn’t fit for what is being asked.
In either case, the treatment that pony got could possibly ruin it as a confident mount. That would have been traumatic and memorable for any creature.
I can’t think of one reason why a clinician would do something like that … except that I have seen clinicians lose their perspective and their rational thinking over a what they see as a contest of wills.
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Exactly.
And that was demonstrated to the clinic session. How not to do this.
I’m surprised that there were no other adults on hand that were willing to step in, in some form or fashion. Just take the pony’s bridle and say “I think he’s had enough for today, he doesn’t seem ready for this today.”.
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Agreed. And it says about his lack of concern or empathy. It reads like a publicist making the best they can out of a bad situation.
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Having once had a clinician mount a horse that I had lent for a clinic, and leave bloody cuts on his sheath from a dressage whip. I can empathize with the child, and the pony. My horse was a talented psychologist as well as a good jumper. If a rider was hesitant to jump, he did not jump. He listened to the rider. It made me rethink the competence of that rider who needed a horse dragging her to the jump, and was incapable of riding a horse to the jump.
Said clinician was never invited back, but not forgotten.Ever!
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Poor pony -poor kid. I witnessed similar behavior from a bnt when I was in college working at an eventing barn while deciding if I should change my major to Equine Science. The ‘trainer’ lost his cool and beat a sweet, young horse mercilessly. I had been at lunch when it happened and when I returned to the barn, everyone was talking in hushed, horrified tones about it. I went in to see the horse and it was the first - and thank God only - time I have seen a horse that is truly broken in body and spirit. He was in the corner facing the wall with his head down to the ground, covered in huge hot welts from his poll to his dock and he was so traumatized, he tied up and the vet had to be called.
The farm manager called all of the summer employees together and told us not to breathe a word of it. I had idolized that trainer before I saw what he did to that dear horse. It was a real eye opener into the dark side of money, pressure and horses. He is still regarded as a big deal but to me he is nothing but a horse beater and always will be.
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That’s the problem with our sport. That trainer’s reputation doesn’t deserve protecting if that’s the kind of “horseman” they are.
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Wrong thread
I still remember getting permission to longe a school pony that needed exercise at the farm where I started riding. I was probably 10? 11?I wasn’t older, by the time I was 12 I had my own pony. The small/medium pony wasn’t super mannerly which contributed to his low use. While longing, he turned in and ran at me. The instructor teaching at the time marched up, took the pony from me and proceeded to beat it into the ground with the longe whip while shanking it with the chain over its nose. I just stood there frozen. Once the pony was too cowed and exhausted to disobey, he handed it back to me and ordered me to keep longing.
I’ve never forgotten the look of fear on the pony’s face and a large grown man implacably dominated him so harshly. He wasn’t angry, it wasn’t rage. It was just … fixing, like banging a dent out of a fender.
I’ve told the story many times when someone I work with starts accidentally creating/teaching bad behavior. That it is far kinder to maintain clear rules with horses than let it become a situation needing fixing. The ‘fixing’ may be so much more traumatic to the horse than you could ever imagine. I’ve seen too much violence done to horses in the name of fixing them. Sometimes it was even necessary(?), but it was almost always obvious that early intervention would have made a world of difference.
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It’s because of an a**hole like that I wound up getting a very nice (but totally ruined) son of Seattle Slew. Only took me 6 years, a broken hand, bruised femur, and broken hip, to undo all the damage done to him. I can only imagine what an amazing horse he would have been if he had not been so badly damaged, physically AND psychologically. As it was, in his teens, he developed into the most loyal, loving, devoted schoolmaster ever. I wish I’d taken pictures of him trying to make his 17.1hh body as short as possible so 9 year old son could groom and tack him up. :winkgrin:
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Any pictures of him?
