Not with you. You try to scream down anyone that disagrees with you or doesn’t play your tune. There’s no sense in trying to tell me what words to use, you can’t round pen me into obeying.
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I don’t want you to obey. I want to have conversations, debates.
I haven’t screamed at anyone here. If someone is rude, I match their rudeness. I won’t be bullied.
I normally don’t spend my time here chit posting anyone. Well except LK etc.
But on the recent abuse posts? Nope. Feel free to show me where my posts hurt you.
“Wet saddle blankets” to me has always meant the context which Aussie describes. Not abusing, just using. Which a lot of us don’t do enough of.
(It would be far more effective if the discussions on how we could improve equine welfare didn’t descend into personal abuse, one more time. I get that this is a subject that raises passions, but we are all on the same side at the end of the day.)
I enjoyed the article. I think he has very many valid points and I for one have striven mightily recently to improve my equitation, which means increasing my fitness, strength, balance as well, in order to be able to do my horse justice.
However holding JS up as a paragon of training virtue is a bit rich. I’ve audited several clinics with him and while he is very entertaining and knows his stuff academically, Ie decided that my horse is not mentally robust enough for his training style.
(Actually, holding Dr Klimke and Alerich up as such is also probably a view through rose tinted spectacles, too.)
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I’m with you for wanting constructive conversation. I don’t know enough about JS to comment as to his personal ethics demons (if any). I’ve heard his name a bunch but don’t know his reputation.
I’ve heard recently that Klimke wasn’t all sunshine and roses as well. His riding as illustrated by the pics and videos I’ve seen look lovely. Maybe he evolved into lovely. Don’t know.
I do see trends and the world is morphing to kinder things even though politics, the media and wars might indicate otherwise. But there are many signs that the new normal is anti fur, anti meat, anti factory farming, anti abuse of any kind to any one at any time, pro animal, pro environment etc etc.
I believe that the first part of our evolution has to be cleaning up our industry. I don’t need people crucified, I want them to change. To do better.
There are crazy extremists who would like no horses to be ridden EVER. Imagine if more of this stuff comes out how hard would it be to protect our industry from THEM?
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Which came first, the crooked horse or the crooked rider? I have had the benefit of riding a lot of different horses over the years, mostly lower level or green ones. Each one I had to remind myself to not compromise my position which is not always easy! We are dealing with our own conformation as well as the horses, I think what he is saying is do better.
Some horses will tolerate bad riding and others will not. I put the “bad” rider on a school horse of mine who will not tolerate a tight seat or grippy legs when they complain their own horse won’t go forward. This school horse tells the rider the truth about what THEY are doing to hinder the progress.
So if you don’t think what your doing is effecting the horse you’re wrong…just some tolerate it more.
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To me, ever since I got crippled from MS, I really wish that I could still do the wet saddle blankets, but wet saddle blankets ONLY from a good long trail ride. Just get the horse out of the ring, quit micromanaging every movement the horse makes, and ride for miles and miles (mostly at a walk.)
THOSE wet saddle blankets can have a positive influence on the horse’s training.
The wet saddle blankets that come from heartless drill in the riding ring, with the horse sweating from muscular tension, anxiety about how the rider will hurt that horse physically, and the additional physical exertion from using muscles in new ways for longer, far longer, than what the horse is used to, those wet saddle pads can be harmful.
That is one riding sin that I used to do. MS saved me from being able to do this any more. I can still get my point across to even the most resistant horse, eventually and usually peaceably, within my 30 minute riding lessons. I have not had a wet saddle pad in decades since my body cannot ride that hard any more.
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There is no need for that wet saddle blanket for most horses.
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I’m sorry I simply don’t understand the reasoning behind taking out a written standard??
I do see, (even my untrained eye) many top level horses that don’t perform according to what used to be a written standard, ie. front and rear leg angles not matching.
Why do they place riders who clearly are not riding at the appropriate level? Is there a way to protest a placing?
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Have you seen him work with sensitive horses?
He absolutely uses strong phrasing with riders who are being too soft, but I’ve seen him take riders off horses when they were unkind, and he has helped me through rides on a VERY explosive horse who couldn’t take much pressure, and helped me get him calm and quiet through long but quiet work. I’ve also had him get tougher when I was “too nice” on a more mentally robust horse… and it turned out I was actually being unclear, but he showed me how to fix that. I’ve also seen him work with imported baroque horses whose minds had been nearly blown by the bad examples of training discussed here at times, and those horses were ALL happier at the end of the rides than the starts.
I’ve also seen him really tick off owners who lacked basics but wanted to do “the tricks” and were mad he made them do simple walk/trot/canter all ride. And everyone could have days which are bad - I just haven’t seen them, and have seen him work with mentally difficult horses.
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Great article.
He writes for the Chronicle…was this originally in COTH ?
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He said on his Facebook that he originally wrote it for COTH but that they didn’t end up using it.
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