That’s another one of my problems with the idea that horses can’t communicate their consent or choice.
I’ve had some stoic, good-natured horses over the years that would do almost anything I asked. Yet if they truly aren’t feeling well enough for the job, it’s going to come out somehow… especially when you’re talking about something as strenuous as 5star XC.
Meanwhile, it’s okay if a person competes in all sorts of pain because it’s their choice and they consented to it. People don’t always look out for their best interests, especially when competition and adrenaline is involved.
With the exception of masking equine pain with pharmaceuticals, I honestly think the horses are overall better equipped to express their opinions about whether or not they want to run XC than their riders. They aren’t going be swayed by human constructs like money or glory. It’s just as dangerous for a physically impaired rider to try to navigate a massive course of solid fences.
This, thank you. Clearly I (unintentionally) struck a nerve where I was speaking generally NOT specifically - and was just musing on WHY some people stick around in jobs well past when they may HAVE to for financial reasons. And well past when they might be actually effective or productive in that job.
The fact is people(g) make work their identity (the way horse people often make “horses” their identity, or dog people, or gym people, etc do) and then find themselves adrift when they leave or can no longer do that Thing. Maybe it’s not the office job, maybe it’s the garden or the farm or the horse show - some day those activities are no longer possible and it’s a tough transition for anyone to handle without support.
I was not as tactful in that earlier post as I could have been, and that’s on me. In my defense I had JUST been run through the wringer by one of our resident Please Has Anyone Heard When They Are Going To Retire employees, who on top of being not so great at their job at this time is also just all round an awful person. They are not an example of every person at that stage of life, but they sure know how to leave an impression themselves.
I’d take that deal! And most domestic animals are domestic because some ancestor took that deal too.
That’s what I tell my lesson students who seem reluctant to push against a horse pushing back.
Horses are large and powerful animals capable of far more than most of us will ever ask them to do. (Not counting UL horses, of course.) They can do this ride for a couple of hours a day, easily with fair care and treatment. And have the other 22 hours a day to hang out with friends, eat, take naps, read FB, whatever it is they want to do.
Plus they are in a curated environment with grazing, regular meals, consistent farrier and vet care, horse cookies and carrots, and most importantly, no predators. Deal of the century, for a horse. I’d take that deal, too.
If the activists ever open the gates to my horse’s pasture with cries of “you are free to run!”, he’ll run all right, right back to the barn. He enjoys domesticity and knows he would not last a week “in the wild”.
My horse’s ancestors haven’t lived in the wild in 600 years.
There are plenty of feral horses that manage ok ‘in the wild’. Or – do they? They are said to be short-lived, by those who study them. Many, maybe all, plagued with maladies and pests. A serious enough illness or injury and the predators will make a meal of them. Not sure many die naturally of old age.
The domestic horse’s options for a life equivalent in quality to the one they have with humans are pretty much nil. So much so that there isn’t much to discuss.
It’s a fair trade that a horse should work for a living in exchange for the care he gets and the life he lives as a domesticated animal.
And saying:
My horse (or any horse) loves his job so much! He would probably do it on his own for the enjoyment factor, even without a rider!
Sure, horses might enjoy racing each other around the paddock periodically or hopping over a random jump. (Although after a lifetime around horses that jump, I can only think of two off the top of my head that I personally have seen voluntarily jump the jumps in the ring on their own when they were turned out.)
That’s not the same thing as saying that the horses would voluntarily choose to get on the trailer and leave all their friends at the barn on the regular to go compete, or spend the time and effort doing trot or gallop sets to get fit, or spend hours improving their dressage when the phase they really enjoy is cross country, or vice versa.
I haven’t noticed anyone in this thread suggesting something so fanciful. Unless I just missed it.
Horses can enjoy some of their work, that suits their nature and instincts. But they have no larger context for why the work was significant. No goals, no purpose, other than feeling ok right now. It was either a day that gave them a sense of innate satisfaction, or it wasn’t. They don’t seem to have a glimmer of any ‘why’ thoughts. It all just ‘is’, to a horse. At any given moment, things are either going well-ish, or they aren’t, to a horse.
In “Survival of the Friendliest,” Duke University Dog Lab dude Anthropology Professor Brian Hare calls a similar concept “theory of mind.” It’s the idea that a task can be shared, and work improved simply with looks and gestures. Both horses and dogs will respond to a point and/or follow a gaze to gather information. In fact, both species will pick up a foreleg (in dogs, it’s called pointing) to show their intense interest. Few species display this quality, and even fewer share it among other species as we do.
If you saw Harry Meade’s x-c trips at both Badminton and Ky, you could see that his horses were so fit and so familiar with the task at hand that they needed nearly none of the pulling and rebalancing commentators love to tell us about. In fact, it is hard to find places that Meade overtly adjusted their stride at all, and he brought all four horses in under the time. As Meade described it last weekend, the goal is to have the horse so fit he or she can complete the course at what passes for a “resting heart rate.” Arguably, Meade and his horses share Hare’s version of theory of mind. They sense (not via magic or woo, rather via their nervous systems) what the other is thinking and how to help accomplish the task.
Joining the horse’s sense of vigor and connection with human purpose has created a place for horses to exist in the world. (…)
Humans keep the equine species going because humans maintain that purposeful connection, a thing that is integral to being a horse.
One of my pet theories is that horses directly or indirectly kept our species going during several ice ages, one of which, 70,000 years ago, had shrunk the whole human project down to about 10,000 people. Equids robust winter hardiness and ability to dig for fodder and break through ice may explain why our earliest ancestors painted and sculpted horses earlier and in greater numbers than any other creature.
The oldest evidence for actual cooperation with wolves dates to between 40 and 15 thousand years ago. Though fossil evidence for horse pens shows up about eight thousand years ago, Mongol pastoralists still don’t use pens and their entire culture still centers on horses, so it seems likely our interdependence with horses could be much, much older than those petrified pens.
Lastly, we are all animals, gratitude is part and parcel of cooperation, and I’d argue both are linked to Hare’s version of theory of mind.
Though I could go on, suffice to say we owe horses and most, if not all, of us here feel it in our bones.
100%, and I hate the mentality I sometimes see in the comments of horse-related posts: “oh, I don’t care if people get hurt, only if the horses do.” I care about protecting both. Yes, there are always risks, but sports need to determine what are acceptable/unacceptable risks. It’s never a black-and-white issue.
I think other sports are valuable for context, too, because people who only follow horse sports sometimes have this weird mentality that it’s “anything goes” in other sports. Even in ultras, people can get pulled off the course if they put themselves in danger. And marathons have been cancelled because of unsafe conditions.
I wouldn’t say I have less common sense when running an ultra than I do when my horses are doing endurance races but I strongly fall on the side of caution with my horses. The littlest indication and I’m pulling them. When it’s just myself, I know where the point of I can push through this vrs I have nothing left and I’m really going to hurt myself is.
My DH, on the other hand, fell pretty firmly in the finish at all costs up until recently (for himself, he doesn’t ride). He does adventure racing and I think as he’s gotten into longer events (prepping for a 7 day expedition race currently) the voice of reason has crept up on him a bit lol
We literally train our horses to think for themselves because UL cross country isn’t always pretty or perfect and we want them to be able to get out of a pickle if WE give them a bad ride.
Not me! That’s too close to being a slave. “I’ll give you a nice place to sleep and food to eat but, you’ve got to do what I say, live where I put you, eat what and when I allow, etc”. No, equating us working for a living isn’t the same as horse ownership.
We had a baby years ago who loved to jump. We found him outside the paddock a couple of times when he was still with his mom - absolutely no way he could have gotten out except by jumping. Then we caught him in the act - yes as a 2 month old baby he was jumping the 5’ fence. Turned him out in the indoor when weather was bad as a weanling - he jumped over the course that was set up. Just having a great time while the other baby looked at him like he’d grown a 2nd head. He ended up with his sire’s owner who said the sire did the same thing. They were just wired to jump.
Had another horse years ago who would jump from field to field just because. You never knew where he’d be the next morning… Had another one at a college who would do the same thing. Guess they were claustrophobic
Adventure racing, and backcountry travel in general, is where you find out if you can make truly good decisions and more importantly stick to them. There are a lot of otherwise fairly intelligent people out there who just assume decisions will work out in the end because they always have before and because they want them to. I find it a lot more interesting than ultras personally.
Having spent a chunk of yesterday extracting a friends yearling filly from the fenced out corner she looked at, thought about and then chose to jump into while the rest of the herd watched and said “uh, I don’t think that’s a good idea!” maybe there is the same variability amongst horses.
I find the mountain biking part of adventure racing is the terrifying part- fly down a mountain on a horse, no biggie. Fly down a mountain on wheels nope, not happening lol
Some of the videos my nephew sends me of his mountain biking are beyond hair raising. I don’t watch them anymore, I just send a response back about how amazing that was.
We had one many years ago who was the most quiet, quiet, quiet, QUIET horse under saddle. If you did not have your spurs on, you were barely going to get out of the halt.
But he decided that if he did not like the paddock we put him in, he would hop out over the back fence, which was pretty tall, to be with the group of horses that lived outdoors.
We borderline could not believe he had done it until we saw it with our own eyes. We were thinking maybe he had found a hidden hole in the fence that we could not spot or something. Lol.
But I don’t think he necessarily loved to jump, per se. He just wanted to be with his friends.
These are all interesting takes. The way my horses expect certain things at certain times, I’m pretty sure my horses think I’m the hired help… And I’m definitely not THE BOSS when it comes to riding; they seem to think their opinions about all sorts of things are really important. My event horse does get to make some decisions out on course - I am but a lowly amateur and he knows what he is doing.
Flying 40mph on a ROAD bike for me is also not happening. I can swim as well as run, and sometimes people ask me why don’t I try a triathlon just for fun. I’d rather RUN 50+ miles (and I’ve never done an ultra) than bike it.
Honestly, I trust horses more than bikes. I guess I do like the “think for themselves when navigating terrain I’m not used to” aspects. As well as distrust drivers. I have definitely ridden horses smarter than me when it comes to figuring out both jumping and riding out in the open.
Many years ago, I was minding my own business and riding my bike in Wellington, and I came across two ladies who were out riding their horses through the countryside.
And one of them started making comments to the other one about the stupid person on the bike who might spook their horses.
I just ignored them, but I was pretty tempted to say I was not the one who was stupid enough to leave the barn on something I apparently could not control. Lol.
For the record, I saw them coming a long way off and stopped out in the open to let them go past me. So the rude remarks were extra uncalled for, in my opinion.
No, equating us working for a living isn’t the same as horse ownership.
