Choosing the Horse First, the Sport Second

Choosing the Horse First, the Sport Second

There was a time that I thought rolkur (hyperflexion of the horse’s neck) was a perfectly acceptable and necessary practice. In my opinion, anyone who criticised it was an armchair critic who had never had to ride “sensitive” warmbloods that can be damn scary to ride in certain environments or could be difficult with their responses to the bit. Rolkur helped me survive and take my horse out. Besides this, many world and Olympic champions used the practice and had won, so how could the practice be potentially damaging to the horse?

Then I discovered that I didn’t have a “sensitive” warmblood, it was just that I filled his worry cup by not understanding how horses learn and by making him uncomfortable. All these mistakes I was making reduced his ability to cope with environments and didn’t build his trust in me. When I corrected these issues I discovered I had a horse with a beautiful temperament that didn’t need the cocktail of herbs to help his anxiety or need to smell patchouli and lavender oils before I rode him (trust me, my journey into horse behaviour has gone down many rabbit holes)! He also didn’t need me to put his nose on his chest in a rolkur position and physically restrain him to supple him up or save me from death!

Even after discovering this and although I had learnt so much about how horses learn, I was still ignorant of so much. I remember being completely perplexed about how voices from within the dressage community would criticise competitive dressage for rewarding the horse doing movements that were nothing more than “circus tricks”. I could not understand this description. In my opinion you taught horses to understand and perform each movement in a dressage test. For instance, how could one horse perform a travers as a “circus-trick” and another not as a “circus-trick”, if all a travers was is a horse flexed in the direction of travel, with their hindquarters on the inside track and legs moving on four tracks if viewed straight on? I found teaching a horse any movement easy. I broke the movement down into simple steps and I refined their performance by rewarding the slightest try. Very quickly the horses I trained understood the cue for travers and they would perform this movement and maintain it until I asked them to do something else. Then I made a horse sore…..really sore, like needing an operation sore….. and that is when the penny dropped for me and I got the whole “circus trick” description.

What I discovered was that dressage was not a series of movements that you could train a horse to understand and obediently perform in a dressage test. Dressage is actually a process of creating a horse that is protected against the negative impact of being ridden and is set up to remain sound well into its old age. What I discovered is that each line, arena figure and movement in a dressage test was like a gym workout for a horse, working different muscles and different elements of their biomechanics. My understanding of how horses learn was purely an understanding of how their minds work but I was missing how to improve and protect their bodies. I made that horse really sore as I was not appreciating how much strength I had to develop in him BEFORE I could progress his training, introduce new movements and expect him to sustain performing them. I didn’t understand how to determine how his strength and gymnastic ability was progressing. I also had no feel or eye to determine if a movement was being done in the correct posture. I am still learning how to do this and have a long way to go, especially in different horses with different conformation. However, I finally understand the “circus trick” accusations and how movements can be performed incorrectly and in a way that was detrimental to the horse instead of protective.

There is a saying – “choose the horse first and the sport second”. To embrace this we need to challenge ourselves – remove that noseband and learn how to overcome the contact or control issue. If we can’t perform a movement without a whip, we need to identify we have a training issue. The horse either doesn’t understand the cue to perform the movement or is uncomfortable doing so and needs the motivation or sting of the whip to perform. If our horse’s joints need supplements or injections for soundness, STOP – we have a problem. Our horse’s don’t care how many first-place ribbons or performance medals we have. Soundness issues mean the horse is breaking down. The result of our training SHOULD be making them more resilient to soundness issues. Judges are only judging us for 8 minutes, the horse’s body is showing us the true impact of our training. If we are labelling our horse “sensitive” or have it on calming powers, anxiety herbs or are tiptoeing around it, we have a training or trust issue and we CAN help this. Basically, anything that is frustrating us about our horses, means we need to learn more or make changes to what we are doing.

I am sure there are people reading this nodding their heads in agreement because you have known this stuff for a hundred years. Others will be rolling their eyes wondering who the hell I think I am. Regardless of where you sit on the spectrum of “nodding your head or thinking I am a dickhe@d”, there are two things we have in common – we love our horses and we are doing the best with the knowledge we have. I am not going to sit here and criticize people for being no different to me and being on their own learning journey. But I do have the courage to share my story, my stuff ups and ideas that might help others look at their situations differently. None of us are perfect horse trainers, there is always more to learn, but we choose our horses first when we show courage and are prepared to listen to them and learn more.