Oops! Mark Todd cruelty

[enjoytheride]

So we have everything from the horse is lame, to the horse is a mare and because it is a mare it will remember this forever, to the rider is a horrible rider, it’s the rider’s fault for not advocating (when it appears it was the rider who posted the video), to all this horse needs is a cookie and it’ll go into the water.

We can’t even determine what’s the problem here or how to fix it!

I do think if this is the worst thing you’ve ever seen anyone do to a horse then you’ve been sheltered and you are lucky.

[meupatdoes]

Yeah, you don’t necessarily want a 1200 lb horse experimenting with every creative idea it gets in its head and seeing if you will feed it a treat for that.

[McGurk]

A couple of points:

1.) I think this is a terrific, important, useful thread. We absolutely NEED to be discussing horse welfare, how training is perceived by the non-riding public and what does and does not constitute good training, training by force and abuse. Please, please, let’s not make it personal and keep to the very important topic .

2.) Anyone on this thread who can truly say they have never resorted to training by force, never over-disciplined out of frustration or acted out of temper handling a horse, please stop following/contributing the thread. Even if you exist, this conversation isn’t really about you.

We are all imperfect horsepeople. Some of us have been on a lifelong journey, doing better once we know better, trying to do better by our horses, trying to learn more. I count myself in that group, BUT (here’s a big, fat, hairy BUT…)

I came up riding school horses at backyardigan kinda lesson barns, and then a kinda fancy show barn, and all I was EVER taught was that if a horse didn’t want to do something, it was your job to MAKE them. So I got good at that.

As a teen, I didn’t even realize that not all horses had been trained to jump, and jump courses, and when I encountered a horse that couldn’t/wouldn’t/didn’t understand what I was asking, I made the horse more frightened of me than jumping the fences, and when the horse jumped around, counted that as a success. So, sadly, did other people.

I was very fortunate that in my late teens, I met an instructor, trainer and mentor that had a system for training that involved small, incremental steps, not scaring the horse, building on what had been trained previously - and a barn full of happy, willing, obedient horses as proof that the method worked.

But even with that example, there were times I resorted to cruder methods and training by force. I am ashamed of that. (I never stood behind a student and whipped their horse over a fence, thank dog. But I certainly overused a stick on a stopper. Absolutely, I did. I can only be grateful there isn’t video. ) The ONLY thing I can hang my reputation on is that I kept learning and I kept trying to do better. If you were to draw a graph of the amount of force I used in training over the years, it would be a straight downward line ending at very close to zero. Because the more you know, and the more tools you have in your toolbox, the less likely you are to resort to force.

So the big question, the useful, productive question in this thread for me is, how the hell did this happen? How did Mark Todd, who has a bigger riding/training toolbox than I could ever dream of, get so frustrated that he resorted to this? And how do we give other, less famous, less successful riders and trainers enough tools so they don’t get to the bottom of their respective tool boxes?

PS - And if you’re still using the force based techniques you learned as a lesson kid years (decades? generations?) ago, stop. Learn and do better.

[ljm824]

I don’t know why MT’s actions are being attributed to frustration or emotion? The video shows that MT went and got a branch, stripped it, and then laid in wait for the horse to come back around multiple times. First shaking the branch, then using it. It wasn’t a split decision. I don’t know that MT was at the bottom of his tool box. I think the concern is that he felt that beating a horse in this manner was part of the toolbox.

[FitzE]

@Posting_Trot

Horses (most horses, anyway) are very stoic. When I looked at the longer video, what I saw was a gray horse that was trying really hard to do what was being asked of him, even though it obviously scared him at least a little bit. And he kept trying hard even as he was thrashed repeatedly with the branch by MT. The fact that the horse doesn’t just nail MT or buck his rider off in that moment is evidence of both his stoicism and his essentially good temper, both of which MT was taking advantage of.

This is exactly what I saw. That horse seemed like such a willing and forgiving soul. I cannot connect the horse’s behaviour to the reaction by MT. I’m still at a loss on that point.

Another factor we might discuss is changing the attitude of both clinician and student that problems will/must be solved over the duration of a single clinic. If riders think a clinic was a failure b/c a problem was not fixed, they will give the clinician bad reviews and that clinician will lose opportunities. If clinicians approach clinics as though the only metric for success is fixing a problem right then and there in front of their audience, they will be more inclined to use extreme measures.

Lots of alternatives to getting that horse down the bank have been presented in this thread. It would be great to build an atmosphere where learning tools, working on problems, and taking first steps towards fixing them = success at clinic for both student and instructor.

Perhaps the insane prices for BNT/BNR clinics is part of the issue as well. If you spend/demand a lot of money, everyone’s expectations and definition of success/getting your money’s worth, will rise until they are almost unachievable over such a short time, which will also create incentives to take things to an extreme (both riding and instructing) that one wouldn’t otherwise.

[Djones]

As I posted earlier, my backstory is this rider and horse combo doing very little that MT is asking them to do. No idea if I’m even close to accurate on that, btw.

Some of y’all are telling yourselves some version of a backstory wherein MT, apropos of absolutely nothing, fearsomely, ruthlessly, cruelly, heartlessly rips a branch from a tree, strips it with fury, then furiously beats and abuses a now terrified mare who shall never forget…into a pond, and somewhere in the middle of it all… a piece of your heart died.

Given his storied history, which seems more likely?

[Knights_Mom]

He was wrong.

It was unnecessary.

It WAS abuse.

He knows this and so, has apologized.

I’m not sure what would be a just punishment for him. Suspension comes to mind.

[eggbutt]

Mark Todd steps down as World Horse Welfare patron after viral video

[Knights_Mom]

Yeah that was probably a step down he had to do!!

[Haybert]

Rightly so.

As said before, he really crossed the line.

[Annie_Burton]

@McGurk

who can truly say they have never resorted to training by force, never over-disciplined out of frustration or acted out of temper handling a horse, please stop following/contributing the thread. Even if you exist, this conversation isn’t really about you.

So true! This thread isn’t about any of us. It’s about Mark Todd, his world class medals, prestige, experience, role modeling ability, and all of the implications inherent therein. So worthwhile to be discussed, dissected, weighed, and (re)considered — each in their own style of reflection. The essence of forum-ing. Thanks to all who contribute, and thanks to all who feel however they feel here. Don’t stop following, contributing.

[FitzE]

@Djones

Some of y’all are telling yourselves some version of a backstory wherein MT, apropos of absolutely nothing, fearsomely, ruthlessly, cruelly, heartlessly rips a branch from a tree, strips it with fury, then furiously beats and abuses a now terrified mare who shall never forget…into a pond, and somewhere in the middle of it all… a piece of your heart died.

As delivered, this response is petty and patronizing.

I don’t see that. I don’t think that. In fact, I think he looks and sounds oddly calm and rather workaday in how he goes about getting and stripping the branch. So casual, in fact, that the manner in which he hits the horse creates a very stark contrast to his calm demeanor and tone leading up to the incident. It’s actually one of the more striking aspects of the whole thing, for me anyway. Your disingenuous hyperbolic description doesn’t describe what I see at all nor what I’m seeing in most people’s responses here. It seems just to be a jab at folks who don’t agree with you/MT.

Insulting other posters and their views doesn’t move the conversation forward and is not additive.

[OverandOnward]

@meupatdoes

Every single time a professional is suspended or sanctioned for abusive practices, the owner of the horse should be suspended as well, and all of their horses should be suspended from competing for the duration too.

THIS !!! I have wanted this for the owners of sored TWH horses forever.

Soring will stop cold when the sanctions are applied equally to both owners and trainers. The owners who are paying the trainers and claiming “I had no idea!”. Owners MUST take responsibility to find out, to know, what goes on in the trainer barn … just as they do the babysitters of their children. What other protection do animals and children have than the ultimately responsible adults in their lives? (Especially as this is very obvious at the trainer’s stables during the time that the trainer is applying the soring, and the horses are groaning in pain for hours.)

Whatever the discipline, the owners who don’t keep up with how their horse is being treated do need some accountability. There is more to do than just write checks and watch from the sidelines. Not saying that most owners do this, I’m sure a great many owners stay close to their horse’s journey. But those who are allowing obvious abuse to continue need to suffer the consequences. If the show vet identifies the problem, let the owner share the accountability, and they won’t keep shuffling it off to “it wasn’t me”.

@Xctrygirl

You cannot fix a societal problem in the microcosm of a sport. You need to fix it in society first. Then it might improve as it filters down to the past times and hobbies.

I completely disagree with this.

You can’t ‘fix’ it, but sport can most certainly start showing the way to a better future. Helping change attitudes and demonstrate new practices. And help influence junior sports participants to plant seeds for a better future.

One of the most important purposes of a sport is to compress much life experience into an intense preparation and then execution of an event, and to learn from it. Preparation that is mental, even philosophical. That’s at the individual level.

At the societal level, sports rules have been a frontline testing ground, even a re-testing proving ground, for various strategies to correct systemic wrongs. See rollkur. See drug rules in various sports, and also how they have changed over the years (cannabis is getting a fresh look). See the efforts in professional sports first to introduce racial integration into teams at the highest level, and now the current lawsuit against the NFL for the way the rules on recruiting black coaches have failed. Etc.

If the opportunity is there, we must start at the sport level. It’s the way to influence young participants and shape their attitudes, as well as address adult attitudes and practices.

[OverandOnward]

@Djones

As I posted earlier, my backstory is this rider and horse combo doing very little that MT is asking them to do. No idea if I’m even close to accurate on that, btw.

Some of y’all are telling yourselves some version of a backstory wherein MT, apropos of absolutely nothing, fearsomely, ruthlessly, cruelly, heartlessly rips a branch from a tree, strips it with fury, then furiously beats and abuses a now terrified mare who shall never forget…into a pond, and somewhere in the middle of it all… a piece of your heart died.

Given his storied history, which seems more likely?

Why does it matter?

I didn’t interpret what others remarked as you did, that MT takes this action with no … I dunno, excuse? reason? justification?

There is no excuse, reason, justification for waling a horse with a branch.

Why MT did it doesn’t matter.

What matters is that he did it.

[FitzE]

If you’d like to respond to me, stick to what I said to you not what I did or didn’t say to anyone else. That’s just a cheap dodge. You don’t have to respond to me at all but, forgive me, “what about heeeeeeer!?” doesn’t seem to be an actual attempt at dialogue.

[OverandOnward]

@FitzE

If you’d like to respond to me, stick to what I said to you not what I did or didn’t say to anyone else. That’s just a cheap dodge. You don’t have to respond to me at all but, forgive me, “what about heeeeeeer!?” doesn’t seem to be an actual attempt at dialogue.

Could these personal remarks go out of the thread?

Not just you, but all of this ridiculous bickering between users that is directly personal to that person, not to the thread discussion.

• Please use direct messaging to argue, bicker, snipe & snark at other users.

• Better yet, go to your upper right avatar photo, click on it, click on your username, and select Preferences. Left side selection Users. Set annoying user on Ignore and “Forever”.

Thank you on behalf of everyone.

[FitzE]

I was calling out a personal remark, but sure. Sounds good.

[RegentLion]

This reminds me of an experience I had as a kid. My lovely large pony just didn’t get into the game on XC… he’d do the water but nothing else on the first try. Fabulous show jumper but I just didn’t have the knowledge of how to get him to go, but I had the skill.

We went to a Pony Club camp in Wisconsin, and the instructor got on the pony. He rode the pony around the XC, in my short stirrup length, and only occasionally used the stick. When the trainer got off, pony had a solid idea of forward/jump.

It was a turning point for us, and that impromptu training ride paved the way for many years of success for both of us. I will never forget that experience. The trainer eventually became, and remains, one of my favorite instructors I’ve ever ridden with, and over the many following years I’ve learned so much from him. One of my favorites being to “let them be good” (shorthand for setting the horse up for success and then not nagging or preemptively riding for bad behavior that may not develop).

Trainer also cautioned me, when I was new into instructing, not to be too eager to get on a student’s horse, because you might inadvertently create a bigger issue. He explained that years ago when he got on my pony he KNEW he could improve pony, so he did. But you need to be 100% confident you can make a difference in one ride; a difference that makes the regular rider’s experience better, otherwise there’s little to no value. Better to teach the rider to ride the issues themselves.

Unfortunately, not every pro ride since then has been positive, and I’ve become extremely wary of letting/encouraging pros to sit on my horses.

[TequilaMockingbird]

I know nothing about training horses for cross country, much less how to handle specific training problems like a drop into water.

But there are two things that stick out to me.

The first is that this is clearly ineffective, bad training. If the horse isn’t forward enough, that is a rider problem, not a horse problem. If the horse is afraid, beating them with something is not going to make them stop being afraid. It just forces the horse to react. Unless MT plans to have a grounds person chase this pair over every future cross country course, MT has not fixed anything. If the horse or the rider are overfaced by this drop, they should have taken a step back until they had the tools and confidence to complete the drop without needing to beat the horse with a switch to do it.

The other thing is this seems like extremely dangerous training. MT had no way of knowing how the horse would react. We’ve all seen the videos of horses completely over reacting/ flailing over a jump. You force a horse to react, they often do so with no thought to their own safety, much less their rider. MT doesn’t know this horse or this rider beyond what he saw during the clinic. The rider was a minor and probably even less likely to say no to someone like MT if she felt uncomfortable or afraid. I have been in that rider’s position before, though not in cross country. When I was being chased with a lounge whip, it was all I could do to stay on.

You train horses and riders by building confidence, not fear. I think the abusive part is not so much the instrument used (though it was abusive when he just started beating the horse with it), but it instrument’s effect. He could have been shooting blanks into the air behind the horse (so no physical contact being made) and probably gotten a similar terrified reaction from the horse. He accomplished nothing outside of terrifying the horse. That’s not training. That’s abuse.

[gardenie]

I really appreciate all of the posts; they make me think. And so many quotes come to mind.
“Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.” ― Isaac Asimov
Or the time pressed. Or the perceived omnipotent. I think MT was seeking to git 'er done, and he figured he could that way. He wasn’t thinking in the fashion of taking the time to let the horse figure out resting was in the water.
“Experience is something you don’t get until just after you need it.” Stephen Wright
I learned over the years that clinicians have knowledge I want, but I must choose what knowledge I want. I have hidden my horse during clinics because of adversarial techniques, I have had to tell clinicians my horse needs to stop now. To get to the stand up for my horse place, I had to learn the hard way by riding other horses and getting in trouble.
Why do humans, and in this case, mostly women, choose to take clinics with strong competitors, most often male? Strong competitors have a completely different way of interacting with horses, they are much clearer about “go” and "stop.”. Mark Todd and Andrew Nicholson and Oliver Townend “love” their horses for what they can do for them. They want to get to the other side of obstacles. They are great at caring for their horses because they learn over time that horses break if they do not.
This rider of the grey mare is typical of many who are thinking they want to do something but are not certain. The horse is aware that the rider is tentative, so she is making decisions for both in order to stay safe. It takes a while to learn that maybe you are doing what you think you should, but not what you really want or feel prepared to do. As I often think when I see such a pair out at a clinic, that the pair needs more time to sort out their toolbox. A clinic should be a time that you show off your competence and get fresh eyes and maybe new exercises. A horse that is stopping at the water is not ready for a clinic with a tough clinician.
“If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.” Isaac Newton
The stories of an imperfect Ray Hunt. We are human. Does anyone deserve to be idolized, or do we take what they learn over a lifetime and see further and do better ourselves. I was a ten-year-old girl riding my beloved horse when I asked for help to get my horse out for a trail ride. We were lunge whipped over the obstacle I needed to cross by my mother. I have asked in tough situations for people I trust to back off the pressure and find another way, to be told if you won’t do it, I will find someone else who will.
“The master has failed more times than the beginner has even tried.” Stephen McCrane In the case of horses, this is truly misery for the horses.
“There but for the grace of God, go I.” John Bradford
It took years to come to grips with the path and choices I’ve made. And when I try to put different thoughts in the young people’s heads, when they don’t hear, and keep going in that direction I know is “wrong” I remember my own issues and the tolerant horses who let me learn at my own pace.

“He who is without sin, cast the first stone.” Jesus
I am sorry to the horses I failed over the years with my ignorance. All I can do is say that I know better now, so I’m doing better.
“If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.” Maya Angelou
I am blessed to live in a time that I can find other ways. That the knowledge base that exists allows me to find the way of connection with my horses that is different. From Linda Tellington Jones, Warwick Shiller, Masterson method, myofascial release, I have learned there are other ways. Competition, that human desire to show off one’s power, is how I came to get here. And it becomes harder to see competition as a path for me, because the connection continues to be the stronger motivator. How do we do both competition and connection in a way that inspires those first drawn by an image of glory?