He makes some good points, especially regarding limiting the amount of work the big eq horses do prior to showing. About 10 years ago, a friend of mine when to Kentucky with her daughter for their first and last time in the Maclay Finals. She said that there were horses warming up that jumped a hundred jumps before entering to do the class. Making the horses so quiet is hard on the horses’ health, besides the classes are getting pretty boring any more because all the horses go exactly the same way. Grass could grow in the corners before the round is finished. It’s time for a lot of changes in hunters and equitation land.
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“Not all people are capable of safely riding a horse at the level they wish or jumping a horse at the height they desire at any given moment.”
Well written piece.
Exactly what Hope Glynn was discussing in her FB post and follow up here. Trainers need to step up and say no. And people need to learn that no does not mean go find another trainer who will say yes, but take lessons and improve. Horses are not machines and treating them as such is extremely detrimental to the sport. Someone is going to notice this and step in before long - and lets hope it’s not PETA.
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Is there a link?
I agree with much of what he says, but I’m not sure that adding more rules is going to ensure that judging “evolves” along the same lines. Rather, I’m afraid people will simply find new ways to keep the horses “dead quiet” that don’t break the new rules. When judges reward the type of rides that many of them do, that’s what trainers and competitors will produce. If horses with solid but livelier performances were rewarded rather than the mechanical automatons, I think that we might see a return to happier horses and more prepared riders. Perhaps.
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There was a video circulating last fall in which a BNT commented that an equitation horse looked too fast when it had just scored an 87 or something, they wanted 100 (it later won a final, perhaps more sufficiently dead). This sums up everything I despise about equitation.
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I don’t think new rules are the way to change this. We need new judging standards. Until the judges start rewarding riders who ride with more spark and stop penalizing horses that aren’t robotic these issues will continue. It’s the same issue as the Hunter ring. Horses should look like they enjoy their job, not like a brainless rocking horse going around the ring.
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I agree w this completely. I think his ideas may be a way to get there. Somewhere, someone said something very similar re: judges not penalizing the horse for a bit of expression. I think the argument was something along the lines of “those trail blazing judges won’t get re-hired”. I am an amateur who gets made fun of because I hand walk my horse instead of lunging. (I could care less). If a horse was wearing a number, people could see it was out there forever as opposed to another plain bay.
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Judging needs to be more standardized in hunters. I think that would help immensely. Not to dump on judges more, but I do think the move towards rewarding robot-like horses has evolved because of bad and/or lazy judging. If you aren’t really sure what to look for, it’s easy to pin the slow horse on course instead of really looking and saying ‘how does the rider approach challenges? Do their legs swing? Are their hands quiet? How was the lead change asked for? How did they use their corners?’ Etc.
And while from a welfare perspective decreasing lunging is great, and I’m on board with that, I do wonder what other ‘remedy’ it will lead to. What drug will they use? Will they withhold food or water? Will they do major blood draws to decrease energy?
It’s sad we have to think this way, but there’s too much money in it and people are creative. The change needs to start with who gets the blue ribbon, not trying to ban things.
(Unrelated side note, but this is also how I feel about a bunch of the USEF banned substances. When you start banning stuff people use weirder and weirder things to achieve the same result. It doesn’t stop the problem, it mutates it.)
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“Second, the variations in a jumper course, paired with the need for a quick, careful ride means riders must be savvy and able to properly handle the horse over the track. If a rider attempts to compete in a division that is beyond their capability, problems will crop up on course, and it’s more likely that the rider will step down a level and not move up until they can safely navigate upper-level divisions.”
Not necessarily. Hope’s article was inspired by watching a 1.2-m jr/am jumper class at Thermal. I’m pretty sure I watched the same class and agree with her assessment of some of the riders in that class.
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I agree with you. I actually think most riders in eq or hunters are riding courses below their ability, not above it. One problem that jumpers has is that for various reasons riders are often pushed to be competing at heights above what they probably should be doing, whether it’s that the rider doesn’t have the ability yet or the horse doesn’t have the ability yet.
I know the Europeans laugh at us for having .60 jumper classes, but I’d so much rather have someone competently and safely riding a horse over a .60 course than watch someone try to manhandle a horse over 1.20.
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I thought that the article was addressing the Equitation classes.
I think that Mr. Leone’s issue with some riders not being as capable as he would like, could be well addressed by having the same rules for the EQ that are in effect for other disciplines, IE, no one schools the horse on the day of their classes other than the rider.
If that rule was added to the proposed limit of longeing time to prevent the tiring out of the horse, et voila! EQ riders would have to be able to ride a fresh horse to warm up for their classes, and that would likely separate the wheat from the chaff. A quicker result, I would think, than would having only longeing time, or riding time by trainers, supervised.
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I agree w you, as well.
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True. But, by citing the jumper division as one where he feels riders aren’t moved up before they’re ready, he opens the discussion to include that division.
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In my area, many move up before they are ready. Some rounds leave one gasping.
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I distinctly remember watching a low jr/am 1.2m class at Lake Placid a few years ago and being absolutely horrified at the quality of riding. It wasn’t just one or two scary rounds - it was round after round of riders who had no business being in that ring. 1.2m seems to be the ‘sweet spot’ (eye roll) where a really nice horse can still overcome bad riding and not have it end in disaster. I’m not sure what the solution is, but the phenomenon is all too real.
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In my experience, I’ve seen one jumper “rider” and I use that term loosely, buy a very nice 6 figure meter+ horse and get left behind over every. single. fence. It was painful to watch her ruin this horse and the trainer allowed it! The horse got sick of being jabbed in the mouth over every jump and started stopping. Strap on the spurs and force him over! Horse started racing around the course just to get it over with. Totally soured a nice horse to jumping and took a bath on the price when she got out of horses. I think she sold him for a third of what she bought him for.
She was getting left behind over cross rails and had absolutely no business riding anything over 18" or even poles until she learned how to stay with the horse.
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I remember seeing some jr/am jumper classes online that were frightening to watch. They looked more like a gymkhana scurry than a jumper class.
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Can someone explain to me the thinking behind the proposed rule - horses can be lunged/ridden up to 2 hours PLUS their warm-up for the class, in each 24 hour period.
That seems like an awfully long amount of lunging and riding! I consider a normal day at home to be a 45-60 minute session, including lunging. Sometimes if I’m getting a horse fitter, I’d add some hacking to that schedule. The total would still only be 2 hours max. And I wouldn’t do that several days in a row.
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I think it’s to accommodate people who do a lot of walking. I have known horses who had their best rounds after an hour or so of walking under saddle.
Two hours of lunging would be IMO abusive. But maybe there’s someone out there that lunges at the walk for a really, really long time on show day.
Personally I don’t think the proposed rule will work out. It isn’t strict enough on where it’s needed (lunging a horse at the canter for an hour or two would most certainly be abusive) but then also could of punish others who aren’t doing anything wrong (at WEF it’s not uncommon you’d have one flat class in the AM and then go for a hack since there’s not much turnout. That could easily push past your 2h cap but the horse walking and trotting around flat Florida is not being abused).
