I think you can say this in many disciplines, but not when it comes to advanced level XC. The horse is making just as many of the decisions as the rider when the fences are that challenging. They aren’t going to hold their line and go blindly off a bank or through brush just because their rider says so. A horse that doesn’t enjoy it is not going to cut it at the 5 star level.
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But it’s not really about education. That’s actually the group where I know at least 10 to 15 saddle fitters and saddlers who’ve been blocked. If it were about education, they wouldn’t be blocking people who have different ideas.
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These are great points and is helping me clarify my own. I’m speaking more about choice in the conditioning program rather than the event itself. Conditioning for human athletes includes hundreds of miles of runs, hours of cross training and workouts. With horses it would be swimming and trot sets and gallops (and other things I’m sure I’m not aware of). That’s the place the horse can’t choose because we can’t explain it in a way a horse can understand. I wonder if horses knew how challenging and strenuous it is, which ones would choose to be an elite athlete and which ones would choose something else?
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100% of horses would choice a field with their friends, unlimited food, and no environmental or otherwise introduced stressors. Of course they would because that’s in their biological nature while galloping and jumping big tables is not. I am NOT saying top level horses don’t enjoy or willingly participate in their job, but fundamentally being a ridden horse for human sport is never going to rank above their preference for other more basic life needs. Walter absolutely loves his job. You cannot tell me otherwise. But if Walter was never asked to run around Badminton again and still was given love an attention by Ros and the other humans in his life, a large field with chances to have other horse social interactions, he would be perfectly content.
Looking at conditioning from a consent based perspective is interesting. What a lot of people miss when going that route is a “yes” is only valuable if the horse also knows they can say “no” and the no is respected. It’s not that we can’t explain it to them in a way they understand it’s that the vast majority of riders when given a “no” by the horse with ignore it or try other methods until the horse says yes.
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How many humans would choose to go to the office (or other workplace) everyday, if they didn’t need to do so to put food on their table and have a decent quality of life?
I don’t think there’s anything unethical about asking a horse to do things he might not choose to do if left to his own devices, as long as treated fairly in the process. Why should domesticated animals be exempt from needing to earn their keep in some way that neither humans nor wild animals (who must find their own food, shelter, etc) are?
I don’t think it’s reasonable to apply human definitions of consent, and requirements thereof, to horses. Their brains don’t work the same way ours do. A horse galloping around an XC course isn’t thinking, “well, this is really fun, but I’m a bit concerned I might have a rotational fall, and I didn’t think I agreed to working quite this hard.” A horse that puts up a fight when the vet tries to vaccinate him is simply scared based on his prior experiences that the needle will cause him pain, he’s not thinking, “I don’t consent to this medical procedure! I read on Facebook that vaccines cause autism!” and the horse the stands quietly isn’t thinking “I understand that this slightly uncomfortable procedure will protect me from disease and I think the benefits outweigh the risks.” Expecting horses to provide consent when there is no reason to believe they understand the concept is not a fair expectation.
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Agreed with all these points, and if we were truly to apply the standard of absolute consent to working animals like horses, then we have to be prepared for a world where horses aren’t ridden at all, and are expected to do no work for their keep. In other words, horses would be kept like pets from day one.
Honestly, the adult horses I have encountered who have not been “started” at normal times (I’m talking 7-8-year-old healthy horses never broke to saddle because the owners “never had time”) have not been all that fun to be around, just because they haven’t established disciplined relationships with human beings, and have no jobs to do to keep their brains and bodies active. Kind of like kids after 3 months of summer vacation with no activities before school.
But I digress. If we go with the “horses can’t consent” model, then we need to construct retirement farms situations for every horse out there.
Hell, this might be the end to youth sports, too, because you could argue that children do not have the capacity to consent to the rigors of many athletic programs. Even school, maybe?
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I absolutely hate when we make arguments based on “consent.” It doesn’t even work for the majority of human instances.
We have had to make a rigid definition of consent for sexual situations because the amount of nuance allowed some people to justify undeniably wrong actions. (Stuff like, “yeah I slept with my teenage student but did you see what she was wearing? She was asking for it!” 
) We need a clear yes/no and defined rules for those instances.
But in the majority of situations, consent is fluid. Just because you agree to something doesn’t mean you condone all possible negative outcomes. Not with people, not with animals.
I also hate the assumption that domesticated animals would “prefer” the life of their wild counterparts. Most domesticated animals enjoy the comforts and safety that domestication provides them: reliable access to food and water, protection from predators, protection from severe weather, maintance of their health, etc. But I don’t think it’s unreasonable for domesticated animals to have tradeoffs to maintain those comforts just like we humans have. Does it have to be advanced-level eventing? No. But that’s just one job a very small percentage of domesticated horses can hold to “earn” their comforts.
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100% agree. Which is why it’s a slippery slope to go down as it’s leads to end of horse sport or even having horses as pleasure companions for that matter.
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A good friend of mine is one of the few people that have done that (I think there are 10 or 11 total). I would 100% love to add this to my resume but I think the ride is far more within my reach than the run since I can’t seem to stay sound lol
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My grandfather went into the office until he was 94. He said that being around people, thinking about interesting topics (he was a patent attorney) and feeling useful (he was also a volunteer fireman, serving as Chaplain in his latter years), kept him going. Some horses do better with a “job”, albeit not necessarily jumping around Badminton, and some people crave the stimulation and social benefits of working.
BTW, Ros Canter posted a cute video of Walter lying in a green field and nibbling the grass around him as he rests after the event.
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I can see you doing this someday, more than anyone else I know! Maybe riding the course would help you come up with a game plan!
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Do we crave the social aspect of WORKING or do we just crave social interaction and the only way some people know how to get that is working in an office?
There’s a huge difference between someone who has a very flexible work schedule and someone who’s tied to a desk for 8 hours a day 5 days a week.
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Actually some folks need the feeling of actually having a job, of contributing to a greater thing; having a purpose. As I am nearing the retirement age, I hear that change in sense of self from retirement is a really big deal and some really struggle w/ “not being useful”…
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I LOVE going to work! I love my job so much that I did it for free for 3 years in order to create the research program I wanted to create. I am even happy to work at competitions to help students or manage the lab.
My honest feeling is my horses enjoy competing and doing xc because I enjoy it. It is a herd activity where we play together. Is consent involved? No. We do it as a partnership for fun.
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This is such a great post. A really good point that even wild animals are required to “earn their keep”, just in a very different way. You explained it very well.
Also, I like what this discussion has become. Unlike so much of what’s on the internet right now, this feels thought-provoking and informative, and it’s helping me clarify my own opinion on the topic. Thank you to those who are participating.
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@Marigold, you hit the nail on the head. The conversation was started as a thought exercise. It’s just interesting to imagine if horses would choose a 5* life. Just to clarify, I’m not intending to start a flame war around ethics, or “shoulds” or actually trying to apply this idea to real life.
Although I am fit, I am not a high performance athlete, but my brother is an Ironman triathlete. I don’t have any desire to put that much time and effort into training for anything, but for him, he’s driven by that goal. Maybe it’s the same for some horses, and I wonder which horses would “choose” to be a 5* horse if they had the capacity. I bet some would, just as some people want to be high performance athletes.
Yeah, I’m going to keep working even though I’m 65 this year. I enjoy what I do and I like having interactions with my clients. Now, I’m not tied to a desk – have worked remote for 30 years – and I have a lot of flexibility. My grandfather did not need to work. He had an active life beyond work, but he enjoyed going into the office. He did not get paid those final years beyond his pension, but it kept his mind active and he enjoyed himself.
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There might be some horses who would choose to do it, but I bet it would be a fairly small percentage of the ones who are actually out there now.
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COTH forum participants strike me as in general well versed in horsemanship and grounded in reality and ethical considerations.
Are you contributing to a greater thing and having a purpose by entering spreadsheets in a cubicle? Or could someone who’s retired have a greater purpose by volunteering as a jump judge, working for a charity, etc. Meeting my productivity on my monthly review isn’t serving a greater purpose beyond paying my mortgage on my farm.
I think there’s a great myth that everyone’s job has them clocking out with a sense of fulfillment. People working retail or in fast food don’t feel that way.
It’s kind of how as soon as we leave our cubicle we’re on our phone. We don’t know what to do with ourselves.
But back to horses, it’s a slippery slope to say that upper level event horses or 100 mile endurance horses are being forced to do those things because they can’t say no so we should give them consent. I can tell that my horse likes performing certain tasks above others, and we have so many lower level horses because they don’t have the desire to trot for 100 miles, but I’m sure my horses would rather be eating in a field.
