I haven’t read your link but I posted a screen shot of what I had read years and years ago.
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I find this post a bit hypocritical, considering saddlefitting.us and Kim Gates are known for blocking any saddle fitter or saddler who comments on their posts or in their Facebook group that doesn’t align with their narrative. I personally know of at least 10 saddlers and fitters they’ve blocked for things like asking about their training or sharing saddle fitting information that is different from their opinion. That includes one of the most respected saddlers in the US.
I really appreciate that people are talking about horse welfare and they might not be aware of the background.
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What I really hate about these accounts that put riders on blast is that they never post examples of what they think is good horsemanship or riding. Or good animal welfare in general, except in the most idealistic “happy animals in a perfect green field”-type of way.
Most eventers and endurance riders I know, know more about conditioning and keep their horses “like horses” (with appropriate turnout) in part because it’s necessary to participate at a high level in the sport. I’m not saying there isn’t a lot in high-level horse competition that doesn’t make me uncomfortable at times, but engagement bait isn’t the path to change.
You can’t know if a horse is healthy from a single photograph any more than you can looking at a photograph of a fitness model in a sports bra.
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This!
I just watched a video on the Milestone FB page today that was about a horse that had really dangerous behavior while leading. There was a small video of the dangerous behavior and her unsafely handling it. And then a video with it leading nicely saying that the behavior had been corrected with positive re-enforcement. Well great but… A ) put a (#&$(#% helmet on when handling a horse that’s kicking at your head and you’re making a video for public instruction B ) stop being so vague because what you just showed average Jenny is that bad behavior + treats = good horsey 
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I think I’ve seen this video (watched it without realizing who it was, if it’s one of her diatribe videos yeah no thanks, scrolling by). That horse was on the edge of an identical freakout in the “after” video. On the muscle, hyper alert, and now has a human treat button to push whenever she felt like it. Ugh.
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but for only $4 a month we can help horse welfare! (as states on every single post Milestone makes)
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This whole issue of topline was in the Saddle Fitting Q&A on Facebook and I was appalled that someone took photos of a well known eventer and their horse at the jog at Badminton, then all piled on about the horse’s lack of topline. I think it is unethical to take a photo of a horse that you don’t own, and a photo you don’t have permission to use, and basically bully them by claiming the horse’s back looks bad because of poor saddle fit. Not a single person on that thread examined the horse in person, looked at it from different angles or had any knowledge of the saddle used on the horse or the care regime followed by their connections.
I’m all for education about saddle fitting but the bullying and the lack of respect for riders who have conditioned and cared for their horses, bringing them to the top of the sport, is enough to make me stop reading that forum.
There are plenty of examples of horse abuse out there that require a LOT more outrage than a horse with shark fin withers at Badminton.
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Plus so many of the photos they use are cropped tight plus I think the horses at the jogs being so shiny can create some unexpected shadows and almost optical illusions in photos. And then of course, I’ve seen some posts from the ‘5* eventers have bad toplines!’ group where they mix photos of the 5* horses in with some actual rough looking and emaciated horses but don’t give any context which is incredibly misleading.
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I also have to wonder if the Social Media Topline Police have ever seen an elite human endurance athlete, such as a marathon runner. I don’t mean their weekend warrior friend who goes to the gym every day and runs 5Ks, I mean the type of person who wins the Boston marathon.
Elite marathon runners don’t look like fitness models. They’re lanky and skinny and don’t have a ton of muscle bulk to them. I bet if they were horses, they might not have the prettiest, roundest, most muscular toplines.
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And also, how does she explain the absence of shark fin withers at CDI jog-ups, if they aren’t caused by lower body condition scores?
Does this mean she thinks that the dressage riders, unlike eventers, are all using biomechanically correct training practices and well fitting tack, therefore preventing the “topline atrophy” from occurring?
Because that doesn’t seem like something she would agree with, given that it implies upper level competitive riders did something right.
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I was a ride vet for the Vermont 100 for several years.
There was a 100 mile footrace for runners that was held in conjunction with the endurance ride, and was mostly over the same course–in the Green Mountains.
You want to see lean, conditioned athletes–these runners were it.
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I’ve always thought the ultimate flex for any rider who runs would be to do both! (i.e., run one year, and ride the next). The human 100 miler is one of the most historic ultras on the east coast!
On social media already, so many human runners get shamed for looking sickly at the end of a marathon when they are glycogen-depleted and at the end of an intense training cycle…just like lots of women who lift weights get shamed for looking too manly in photos. It’s sad that now even HORSES are getting body-shamed.
Of course, it’s one thing if a horse is actually emaciated, but, ironically, in actual cases of abuse (I’m thinking of a recent scandal at a retirement farm), the people who are mistreating the horses are very clever with blanketing /photographing that it doesn’t get exposed for a shamefully long time.
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My almost step-father was an ultra-marathoner who ran in that a few times! At the time in the early 90s he was the oldest person to complete it! My mom and I went to watch and I completely ignored all the runners and just focuses on the horses. It was a pretty cool experience though.
Also, my almost step-brother, who was significantly older than me, had apparently toyed with the idea of being a professional show jumper at one point (supposed qualified for an Olympic qualifier in the 70s), but he wound up switching sports and becoming a triathlete and was one of the 12 people who completed the first Ironman competition. He did give me the riding crop he used in competitions, which I recently found in my mom’s condo.
Man, I haven’t thought about any of that in years
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I share your thoughts. The last time I spoke up about the lack of ethics displayed in that group I was basically told to mind my own business or leave. There seems to be a theme that as long as it’s “for educational purposes”, anything goes.
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A lot of triathletes look much the same!
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Just to play devil’s advocate here, I wonder about the concept of choice and whether that has an impact. An ultra runner, marathoner, or triathlete knows what they’re getting into and can say no. A horse doesn’t have the cognitive process to be able to make that decision or let people know that they’re changing their mind along the way. I’m mostly thinking of agreeable horses, not the ones that will dump you in the dirt to get their message across.
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I don’t see how a horse can get to & stay at the 5 star level and not be wanting to play. You cannot beat a horse over those fences, they have to be a willing partner.
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I have learned a fair amount from the group (although I was already pretty educated about saddle fit), but there are a few things that are never addressed – for example, using shim pads to adjust fit, having a fitter reflock to fine tune the fit, or God forbid, you want to ride in a treeless saddle. Basically, almost every post explains why the saddles don’t fit. Although I will say that people do put saddles on their horses that are so far off that it makes me wonder why they can’t see the problem.
Very rarely have I had a saddle that fit “out of the box” but most of the time my fitter was able to modify the flocking in the panels so that the saddles worked fine. And even when I (shhhhh) decided to ride treeless, he helped me understand how to pad the saddles so that they worked for my horses.
I just didn’t feel that rider deserved to be shamed. Save your outrage for the Big Lick horses or for the horses dumped at auctions, not the ones that are being cherished and cared for.
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It used to be a good group, IMO. Once upon a time (before the current administration) it was full of fitters from a wide variety of backgrounds and brands, and you could get a broad selection of advice to that effect. It was very real world useful advice.
I don’t believe that every UL horse has a perfectly fitting saddle or that there aren’t some toplines that could be stronger, but all of them, worldwide? Unlikely.
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I don’t know if you have ever jump judged at an FEI level event, but sitting in a folding chair all day long at a jump around a blind corner and watching the horses turn the corner and lock on to that jump with the same intensity that a cutting horse locks onto a cow is just an amazing thing.
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