WHAT DO YOU SEE? BEAUTY OR ABUSE PART 2
WHAT DO YOU SEE? BEAUTY OR ABUSE PART 2
Back in December I wrote part 1 of this blog and it caused a lot of controversy. It set off a number of bit verses bitless debates and people accused me of being melodramatic about using the word “abuse”. The interesting thing was the blog was about neither of these things, it was about becoming aware that your impressions about images you see have been subconsciously programmed into your brain and images that might trigger off impressions of beauty or desirability might actually not be beautiful in reality. The more you understand the horse as a species, their biomechanics and the results you are expecting to see with correct training the more you can see problems in what you once thought was beautiful. The blog was also about directing any passion you have for horses or correct training towards promoting an understanding of horses and how to manage and train them to ensure their mental and physical health, instead of pointing fingers at individual trainers, riders, disciplines or industries. I say this because I know I train horses better today than I did a year ago and a hell of a lot better than 5 years ago but I am sure I will be able to say the same in about a years’ time from now…and if you want to change the world for horses creating enemies is not how you do it.
One of the photos I put up on that blog was 3 year old Ruby being ridden by her owner Tegan Gamage. It was of Ruby just weeks since Tegan had started her under saddle. She was being ridden bitless in a side pull and allowed to cruise around in her natural head carriage. This is the way I start horses and I will say now that it is not the only way or the best, it is just the way I have found works well for me and the clients that I coach. My reasoning and experience is that it lets the horse become confident with their new job without having to also cope with the bit and having to adopt a particular imposed posture. I just let them tonk along and learn to get relaxed and find their own balance in each gait. It doesn’t mean I advocate bitless for the rest of their ridden lives…I don’t care what people choose, I am good at getting horses confident with working and responding to the bit and developing a posture that sets their bodies up to cope with being a ridden horse but you can also develop a good posture minus a bit! What I am against and what this blog is about is people having an expectation of what a horse should do at a particular time or age. I want to promote the horse and its training as a piece of art work, a creation and certain qualities you build over time. People expecting young horses to have their polls up, contact consistent, more impulsion etc. These are all things that are built over time as for many of these things the horse needs to be strong enough, balanced enough, mentally cool and confident enough to perform or at least maintain for periods of time.
Therefore, I thought I would share an updated photo of Ruby and Tegan from today. This is 18 months between photographs and you can see the changes in Ruby. She now works in a bit, is developing her posture and is building the strength, fitness and athleticism required for dressage. She understands simple lateral movements such as leg yield, shoulder fore and mini shoulder in. All exercises that will help developed her core strength and ability to engage that will then lead to her ability to collect that will improve the quality of her paces and the ability to perform the higher movements in dressage. She is calm, focused and a quick learner and that is because she is so switch on to how Tegan communicates with her and has confidence that when Tegan asks her something new she can work it out. Ruby has a lot of heart, she is brave and her try is through the roof and people would be quick to think that is something inherent to Ruby’s personality, her blood lines or just luck but it isn’t, it’s because Tegan has cultivated these qualities in her by her approach to training and developing her. So while her photograph and posture in the first photograph could cop a lot of criticism and doesn’t necessarily trigger an impression of a beautiful dressage horse it represents part of the process of how Ruby the “dressage horse” is being developed and created. The latest photograph shows development and progression and you can see she is starting to give the impression of a dressage horse. But what both photographs do is represent a careful, thoughtful training process that occurs over time and that is what it is really all about.
