People may choose to do an activity when they are compromised. Horses are not given a choice.
I understand what “retirement” means for many horses. I also know plenty of people who give their horses amazing retirements. I know plenty of owners who keep their feet, supplements, vet care etc up until the day they die. The fact that many horses end up getting shipped off to slaughter or neglected out in some pasture after they were show horses does not mean this is OK. Also, I don’t buy into the thinking that it is better to use a lame horse because otherwise he will end up dog meat or crippled up and forgotten in some pasture unable to get enough food. It is not OK to treat a horse badly, even if they could be worse off somewhere else. People who can afford to do the hj thing can afford to properly retire their old or lame horse. They should not take on more horses than they can afford to care for long term. The industry culture should strongly support this mentality, not the current one where horses are disposable. The notion that people need a string of horses and to constantly trade up and pass down is sure an amazing money maker for trainers who salivate at commissions, but it leads to abuse. People should not pass down a broken horse to a crummier rider or a crummier program with an even more unscrupulous needle loving trainer which happens all the time. These broken sad horses still often sell for a decent price and a commission. Who with a conscience trades in such misery? At a large show venue, I call the low hunter ring the “cruel ring” because there are a bunch of truly broken horses in there struggling at this point in their careers to even navigate the little stuff. There are mostly low level kids and the worst amateurs out there clueless as all hell that their mount is severely neurologic or obviously lame on multiple limbs. The ring is sort of tucked away and forgotten by those who are no longer there or who have never been there. Still some of those who are not there have a poor broken horse that is now there. They don’t think about it or they justify it with so and so “loves his job”. He is “happy” being a step down horse for someone. Well he would be a lot happier if he wasn’t living in NSAIDs so he could still hobble around over several jumping classes in show after show after show. The problem I have is the industry gives its blessing to this abuse and very wealthy people discard horses to this abuse when they could easily afford not to. The culture needs to change.
But from the OP’s original posts it is not obvious they were not making large blanket statements about all trainers, all barns, all riders.
I do not deny that there are bad people out there.
There are bad people everywhere, which we read about all the time here, and all over the place.
But screaming at the top of your lungs that, for example, everyone who does not trot going into the ring to do their course must be lame because that is why that is done, is not going to fix the problem because that statement is false. Maybe some people do it for that reason. I know far more that do it because their horse does not have a hunter trot and they do not want to show off their horse’s knee action before the judge gets a chance to see how wonderful they are over fences.
Having a discussion about the problem does not need to include someone making huge statements as fact about everyone being the same.
Oh good grief. Back in the day, most of these guys became lesson horses if they were “reasonably” sound, or went to auction if they weren’t. It wasn’t all sunshine and roses back then either.
Fair enough, and there were definitely many measured responses, but I felt some posters were a bit too extreme in suggesting there was no basis to what the OP was saying. I agree there are bad actors in all disciplines, but I kind of agree with the sentiment that unfortunately as the pressures of showing more grow, and shows grow more expensive, so do the pressures to ensure the show is “successful” at any cost–and when people who seem decent start to do things that are “grey” ethically in response to those pressures, it’s hard not to get into the mentality of “well, if even X does it, it can’t be all bad.”
But also agreed also there is no “pure” discipline and it’s often better to keep a horse working at something than to send them off to some often-shady retirement home.
Right, so people have been treating horses like crap forever, so it is OK? The industry has grown. The money involved is obscene. A large swath of the public would not be OK with millionaire, billionaires, and celebs drugging horses, forcing lame horses to jump and then discarding them to “not so rosie” endings. Remember what happened with the Pentathlon. It is only a matter of time. Callous “horse people” who justify abuse by whatever means are not doing the industry, which really needs a huge overall, any favors.
If it is your horse, you can make sure the retirement home is not shady by not selling or giving your horse away. If you can afford the hj show circuit, you can prioritize and afford to give your horse a proper retirement. Also, there is a potential deterrent that people will take better care of horses, such as not showing the crap out of them and drugging them, if they are not disposable.
I am forced to be part of USEF because I compete in FEI dressage in this country. I would love it if I didn’t have to be. And I have complained. If falls on deaf ears in large part I believe due to the obscene amount of $$$ coming from HJ. I have been showing all season and have yet to see anyone fall off at a dressage show. One EMT, who also has a contract at the horse park where all the HJ shows are, joked about how boring dressage shows are. When I have gone to that horse park which I do to watch relatives and friends I have seen way more lame horses, way more riders who have no business riding in a show, several crashes, and I got to witness a horse die last season because some lady who had a terrible seat and no eye crashed him. Of course in dressage, there are people who ride at a level they shouldn’t, who ride horses they can’t sit, or who ride lame horses. Fortunately, this almost never results in a dead horse. Also, it is becoming way more acceptable in dressage to compete on a Lusitano or PRE, a smaller horse whose back doesn’t really move and is pretty darn easy to sit, so dressage has been self correcting on that front. Oh and I have seen people who don’t have independent aids jumping horses in draw reins with an elevator bit so yeah, there’s that. I never understood all the flack for rolkur when I saw all the bits and contraptions some HJ people use, but then I ride FEI in a snaffle. All horse sports have ugly as hell parts. I don’t deny that, but HJ is extra sick. It just is and it does affect me. For example, now for every show I have to get my horse checked for stomatitis because a bunch of horses that may well have been on steroids, stressed as hell, shown way too much, caused an outbreak. I have to pay a drug fee that mostly goes to police the HJ crowd who loves their needles.
A friend worked for a big stud years ago. Big name in dressage WBs. The yearlings would be priced at $X. Any that didn’t sell to BNT or BNR went to the knackers. No one was getting a “cheap” WB from that stud. If the Names passed them over, they were slaughtered. Said it broke their heart, and they left.
Similar has happened in Europe. Lots of babies bred to get one or two GP prospects, the rest sent to the tucker factor.
Dressage is just as dirty as other disciplines. So much so we have to have our warm ups filmed by stewards to stop the shenanigans.
Sure.
The cost of playing in this industry has grown exponentially in a short, short time. I don’t think that “if you can afford this…you can afford to give your horse a proper retirement” is necessarily a fair statement (although I do have two retired horses that were not jumped and drugged to death. One is 28). At the time I acquired them, I could easily afford them. Not anymore.
There is a poster who has posted in another thread to says they have data about how dangerous the hunter jumper world is. Maybe you and @Jealoushe could get together and make a formal complaint that they will listen to.
I don’t think that’s a fair attitude at all to have. It’s not like every single person, even a wealthy person, has a money-printing machine. I know many people who–because of illness, financial failures, or whatever–had to give up beloved animals and cut back. It’s fine when you’re in your 20s to say the horse comes first, but when someone is in their 50s or 60s and is facing retirement, aging spouses and parents, then the perspective changes.
I’m not saying horses are disposable, but a horse doing a job is always going to be more valuable and in a better situation than a horse who hasn’t been ridden in years in a field.
Are you talking about a breeder in the US or in Europe? I too have heard of breeders in Europe doing that but not in the US. That is sick to me, and I don’t know of any dressage breeders in the US that do that. I am pretty familiar with a few of the bigger breeders, but I can’t say that didn’t happen.
Anyway, in the 80s when we were still showing HJ, an extremely wealthy HJ amateur decided to try her hand at breeding. None of her foals were what she expected. Her husband complained that he was spending money on all these useless horses and she put them all down including the mares. I knew this woman quite well, and she was beyond wealthy and could have afforded to give each reject an amazing life. She also tried to sell my friend a dead lame 5 year old hunter that she had paid a fortune for. Poor thing was lame at the walk. I later saw him in what I call the “cruel ring” with a kid who had no clue that he was beyond broken. The kid was being trained by the trainer of this wealthy evil lady. The trainer of this kid now lives at the cruel ring. She is old now and doesn’t have any clients in the big divisions anymore. She camps out at the “cruel ring” all day with clueless kids and amateurs on the most broken horses out there. I feel she got what she deserved but no horse deserves that.
You can plan for your horse’s retirement. Many people do. Many people, who can only afford one horse, do not get a new horse until the old one is gone. People make choices.
And people’s lives change unexpectedly and those choices have to change.
Disclaimer - so far I have retired my own, since mine live at home.
I’m not saying that you don’t have some valid concerns. One question for you, however – we’ve established that “lesson barns” have largely gone the way of the Dodo. Using a horse stepping down (with maintenance) from a higher level job is cruelty. How are newbies supposed to learn?
Yes, this can happen, but it is often an excuse. It is not often that the person passes off the horse because they are bankrupt or dying of cancer. More often it is they are done with him and off to the new shinier thing. Alternately, it is sometimes that they don’t feel they owe the horse anything and if they can sell him for some $ that is better than paying bills on him. For the actual cases where people have legitimate hard times and cannot pay for a horse, there could be a fund supported by fees at shows to save at least some of those horses from nasty situations
OP, you’re really sounding like an unhinged total troll, which is unfortunate because many people here are interested in discussing some of the issues you raised in a serious way, but talking in massive paragraphs and throwing out allegations like this isn’t the way to go.
Signed, a dressage person who was grateful to take lessons on her instructor’s carefully managed 28-year-old schoolmaster who had a long showing career and still took a victory gallop every day around the paddock before he ate grass.
Yeah, so I will embrace my trollness. People have been politely whispering about this crap since before I was born, and if anything the industry has just gotten worse with the influx of way more money and way more not real horse people playing in it. My loudest troll rants are nothing compared to what will descend when all the crap people whisper about is exposed and the average person latches on. It will come to this; I wish it wouldn’t have to, but it is a matter of when not if at this point.
I don’t think you know what a troll is, in this sense.
