I wrote this on my Equal Equestrian facebook page on July 26th 2024
These are my own opinions and I do not profess to know anything about the details of the situation I was not present at the time but I felt it important to share my own perspective on this matter and it's potential influence of the future of human and equine interaction.
My brain is in a myriad of turmoil. The initial shock has passed and now the deep contemplation begins…
Part of me is remembering streaming tears of pride watching Charlotte's and Valegro at the London Olympics, part of me is feeling sick with a punch of shame in my gut at some of the ways I've handled horses in the past where now I would feel disgusted with myself if I was forced to watch that back, part of me is nervous that this is the beginning of the end, where any one who sits on a horses back is going to be viewed as cruel, and part of me is terrified that there's real potential for someone to do something unthinkable and irreversible through the shear despair and shame they must feel with everyone in the world now having an opinion about them and I really hope no lives are lost because of these internet revelations.
I have a lot of different opinions now, that I didn't even last year, let alone 5 or 10 years ago. I know a lot more now, and I've experienced a lot more including making a lot of mistakes. My priorities are also vastly different than they were. My perspective is not fixed but forever changing and evolving.
I'm not defending the actions in that video but instead thinking of myself and my own historical actions and decisions through my life...
Who among us wasn't taught to "kick" and "pull" to go and stop as a child on a pony, who among us hasn't at least witnessed, if not partook in the use of force to try to load a horse into a trailer that didn't want to load, how many millions of riders use spurs as a tool for "more forward" rather than "greater refinement". The list is endless.
As a rider, coach, horse trainer and veterinary technician my view is very different now from what it was. For me, I feel more sorrow for the horse overfed and laminitic through lack of knowledge or lack of care that may lose it's life in the process and suffering weeks even months of intense pain, as is the horse uncared for and with a painful wound unnoticed or untreated in a timely fashion. As a vet tech, I see horses euthanized on a regular basis and the decision is never an easy one and the timing is never perfect because there is no right or wrong answer, but sometimes I feel bad that we are able to be more humane with our animals than we are with our own species when death is the only outcome of a person's pain and suffering and I always advocate that, if it was me, I’d ask for a month too early than a day too late to end that suffering.
For a very long time I walked the line where I tried to influence the people around me, by only leading by example and not taking responsibility or speaking out about methods I believed to be cruel that I witnessed around me. I have a lot of guilt for some very specific moments I witnessed and said nothing through fear of losing my position at my barn because of being seen as "creating waves". Now I feel differently and if I was ever in that position again, I pray I'd have the courage to speak up.
I've always encouraged horse riders and owners to be more willing to question the rhetoric they hear from their peers. If you're paying for a lesson and are instructed to do something you don't understand, please, please ask your trainer why! Why do I need to do it this way? What do you mean when you say "more round?" Inside leg to outside rein? I need a more detailed explanation. How does this work? How does my horse understand that when I do this, I would like this? If you get an answer that doesn't satisfy or simply says "that's how everyone does it" or worse, some negativity towards you for even asking such questions, then this is your first sign to consider if this person really is the right person to be guiding you and your horse. No one knows everything. No one. The trainer who's humble enough to genuinely say " hmm, I've never thought of it like that, let me think on that and I'll get back to you", might be the trainer who's better fit for you and your horse than the one who believes they do already know everything. I'm in no way blaming any one in particular in that video, I'm merely encouraging others to do what I wish I'd done more for my own horses in the past.
The horse world is its own very insular ecosystem where hearsay and social media create and enforce highly unobtainable levels of fantasy and everyone else seems to be doing it right and showing you how wrong you must be doing it by comparison. It's not a fair world, and it can be a very cruel world for human and equine, but the one thing I’ve more often come across is that even if a mistake is made, the vast majority of us care deeply and wholeheartedly for our equine partners and want to do the best we can for them even when that means suffering (mostly, but not exclusively financially) ourselves in the process.
However, there are stories you hear in the horse world that boggle the mind and go in the face of that, and although I have never witnessed these, I believe, have come from some place of truth. Paprika in horses butt holes! Chains around horses legs! Racking with jump poles. The list could go on and on and several other riders are currently suspended from the Fei for accusations of such practices. Charlotte is not the first to be here, and she will not be the last with the historical backlog of evidence that's sure to follow. Back when Totalis first reached international stardom there was much speculation about the development of his "unnatural" movement, but it was all hearsay and speculation, and guess what, did anything get better because of it?
Where do we even begin, let alone decide where the line should be drawn? This debate is going to be around for a while, and going to touch everything from pony rides at the park, to endurance, to dressage, to reining, to eventing, to children's lessons at the local riding school, to driving, to showing classes, to touring liberty displays, pony club, to horse racing and on and on and I don't know what the right answer is.
All I can say is nothing is ever as simple as black or white, but the internet and social media especially, is perpetuating the myth that it is, that we all have the right to judge and have an opinion, for any snap shot or video taken in part or in full at any moment in time, but then this is the first time we are living in an age where nothing is ever gone, lost or forgotten forever, and where mis-information is rife and even harder to distinguish from truth and fact. My biggest concern is that as a species, I think mental health is far worse as a whole in part because of social media and the internet than it was before it's invention and that it is far too easy to pass judgement without ever considering the possible mental, emotional and physical health issues those comments might cause.
Here's a side note that helps me with my own perspective on things. I enjoy watching historical documentaries and they always get me thinking.... Every historical, political decision that was made in the past may well have come to a different outcome if it was being made today. I'm talking about wars, terrorism, atomic weapons, pandemics etc and even with countless different perspectives, unlimited amounts of information and years in which to consider, debate and understand both sides of the argument that preceded the eventual decisions, I still don't know what I think the better choice would have been. Hindsight is a wonderful thing but it's not always an option when a split second decision is made.
And that's just it, hindsight, life is full of decisions, big ones and seemingly small ones, that no one will ever get 100 percent right, 100 percent of the time. Hindsight is recognising the things in the past we want to do differently in the future because of those mistakes. Just as courage is not the absence of fear, but the strength to do something in spite of it.
Maybe today will be the day things change for the better, or maybe today will be the day where all equestrian disciplines, sports, hobbies or even simply horse ownership will begin to die a slow death.
We are all guilty, to a lesser or maybe even a greater degree of questionable behavior or actions with horses, pets and people in our pasts. We’ve all acted rashly, impulsively or emotionally at one point or another and later, regretted it. Let's each try to look at ourselves going forward, to try to improve the equestrian world we share with these humble beings who, without a doubt, are much more forgiving of us, than we are of each other.
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