local-hellhound-steals-spaghetti reblogged
It’s crazy how you can say that in most cases horses can be forced to do things they really don’t want to do (see, horse diving) and that they don’t have any choice in whether they are ridden or not - and horse people will say you know nothing about horses or the horse industry.
I wish I could be ignorant and believe that competitive horse sports are totally based on the horse’s choice to participate. But how can you not see the whips and spurs and bits and nosebands and think “yeah, that’s an empowered animal with the ability to choose”
Horses aren’t allowed to say no. Horses that say no are labelled dumb, naughty or dangerous (depending on how loudly they tell you to leave them alone) and people see justification to abuse these horses in the name of training and “showing them whose boss”.
Of course, this isn’t the case for every horse but think about standard practices that you see in lesson barns or show stables and you’ll get your answer about what is considered normal and okay.
Idk I just feel so jaded and frustrated with the horse industry.
Modern Dressage at it's "Finest"
Charlotte Fry's Everdale shows significant pain face and a blue tongue - from the bit cutting off blood supply - right in front of the judges
They give them a score of 73% and a tidy second place
This article shows just how much these elite equestrians live in their own little fantasy world. We should be celebrating any opportunity to improve horse welfare in sport.
But now they’re trying to make blood on a horse as “just an accident”.
I’m sorry but if your horse is bleeding from your “aids” that’s not an accident. And also I’ve never seen a horse bite its tongue without there being a stress related reason. If the horse’s jaw is tense and they can’t move their mouth and tongue properly, a bitten tongue is not an “accident” it is the result of the equipment you are using.
They also want to live in a fantasy world where noseband tightness isn’t a “real problem” in showjumping, despite most horses being ridden in nosebands and it is pretty obvious that they’re too tight and do not allow the horse’s jaw to move.
One of the elite show jumpers Ludger Beerbaum, wanted to chime in to reassure everyone that we simple don’t know the purpose of tight nosebands! It’s about uh … “good control and connection.” Which, of course, means “the horse can’t open their mouths to evade the harsh bits pushing into tongue and palate or move their jaw so they have no choice but to submit”.
Ludger also wants everyone to know that these silly “vets and horse welfare people” are destroying the sport because they want “wide open nosebands” so the horse can do silly things like “move their tongue and jaw”
This noseband measuring device is just a way to give people warnings and not let nosebands restrict a horse’s jaw and mouth! How terrible!
It’s kind of hard not to be facetious about this when the complete lack of empathy and compassion these “elites” have for their “teammates”.
Unfortunately showjumping in particular is pretty egregious with strapping horses down with gadgets and allowing for very harsh bits and very tight nosebands.
You can read more about the meeting here: https://www.worldofshowjumping.com/en/News/Ludger-Beerbaum-at-the-IJRC-General-Assembly-2024-This-is-the-beginning-of-the-end.html?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR3UO4eejf_84WOcKhWSIBocrZ3egOtf8lSZmovVI5I63A6Na8mTDqV0Kmw_aem_ZVlweiCgeYvWVAvUTUNvJw
It’s basically just a bunch of grown ass men with millions of dollars throwing a tantrum about measuring noseband tightness.
Modern dressage is truly rotten to the core
#I'll let this speak for itself#funny how they were trying to keep purchases from Helgstrand quiet ... oops maybe just don't buy horses from the horse abuser maybe????#modern dressage#horse welfare#Helgstrand#Isabell Werth#Jessica von Bredow-Werndl#sad about Jessica - she was another one I thought was okay but she's just throwing away horses and getting new ones a lot now
local-hellhound-steals-spaghetti reblogged
Disbelief of the day: grand prix dressage riders flipping out on FB about the new FEI noseband device because their horses are so head shy from abuse that they will not tolerate having the device put on them.
Honestly, their horses are so trigger stacked and constantly stressed out that it doesn't surprise me that their horses can't tolerate a small piece of plastic.
Isabell Werth is openingly saying that Wendy went from calm and relaxed in the warm up ring to pinning her ears at any horse that gets close to her.
Obviously, that's a sign of a very stressed out horse showing redirected aggression and defensive behaviour - likely due to the effects of chronic stress. It could also be a pain response, especially since she was fine before. But Isabell just says she's "arrogant and self-confident" because of her "success". And that this is totally normal for "successful horses".
It's so painfully obvious how much these people don't care about their horses as horses and just project whatever story they like onto them. Whatever deflection and anthropomorphism that feels the most comfortable to them.
Tbh the meltdown over a noseband measuring device probably has very little to do with the horses. It tells us a lot more about the riders who think it's completely normal that their top-level expensive Grand Prix horses are extremely reactive and can't cope with any new stimuli or someone touching their face.
And that's giving them the benefit of the doubt that they haven't been abusing their horses - which we know isn't the case for a lot of high profile riders, who have been teaching and coaching the other riders... who have also been caught abusing horses.
It just gets worse and worse...
wanted to share clips of this beautiful dressage test done in France. To a certain level you can perform your test without a bridle.
Anyway I’m still a horse noob so I don’t know too much theory but I know “acceptance of the bit” is generally considered a big part of English riding but I feel more inclined to work on riding on a loose rein lately. I like the concept of minimizing our restrictions on the way the horse can move his body during riding. Seeing that even the more advanced movements can be performed with minimal equipment just makes me feel good, I guess. I don’t think I’ll ever be this good a rider but I do really want to try and train Wonder to neck rein at least.
As someone who worked with horses for many years and studied equine science in university, I can say that "acceptance of the bit" is... kind of bs. So even if you're new to horses, OP, I'd say you're definitely on the right track of minimising your restriction of your horse's movements!
The only reason a curb bit was established in classical dressage was because you 1) proved that you could ride enough that you wouldn't hang off the horse's mouth and 2) you were probably going to be riding one handed and potentially be in a battle. Or just were showing off how fancy and powerful your horses were to the lords and ladies of the court.
But we know self carriage does not require a bit - self carriage is the result of the horse being built up correctly to lift their back, engage their core and hold themselves with the correct posture to carry a rider effectively. Self carriage is properly demonstrated when there is no pressure on the horse's mouth. Not when they're leaning into the bit or ducking behind it because it's too uncomfortable to "accept" the bit.
I heard a modern dressage trainer say, very confidently, that "some horses actually LIKE being behind the bit (aka their nose tucked towards their chest, compressing their windpipe, hyperflexing their neck muscles and causing long term damage to their nuchal ligament) - if your horse prefers to crank their head and neck into an uncomfortable and potentially painful position to avoid the bit in their mouth, maybe you need to be considering what on earth you are doing??
What we see in modern dressage is young horses bred for "flashy" gaits, that are not built up correctly, rushed into Grand Prix moves they're not ready for and forced into a "frame" by the curb bit. Luckily for these rich competitors, the double bridle is mandatory in most tests (though there may be some push to do tests in a snaffle now) - so they HAVE to use these horrible bits even though some horse's mouths can't even accomodate 2 bits without extreme discomfort.
The requirement for the bit and the mythology around the bit is only because the elitist and the rich - the main class of people who are competing in competitive dressage, would not be able to rush their horses and make money off them if they didn't have all their harsh bits and training gadgets. They want to believe that there is nothing wrong with what they're doing. Even though their horses are hobbling with borderline lameness around the dressage arena with blue tongues from the pressure of the bit, flinging out hollow and tense bodies and barely able to shift their weight into their haunches for a proper piaffe.
I encourage new people to the hobby/sport to not let themselves be swayed into the culture of normalised abuse by coaches and trainers. Don't let anyone tell you that you "need" to use a particular piece of equipment or bit. Or that your horse is "going to waste" because you just like hanging out with them in the padddock or doing groundwork and clicker training instead of trotting around in circles.
Most horses actually don't like being ridden and would prefer to chill in a paddock with their friends all day.
Absolutely horrific horse abuse allegations coming from the groom of Evi Strasser - a Canadian Grand Prix Dressage Rider who was recently suspended by the FEI.
Considering how much they demonstrate their willingness to abuse their horses in plain sight with rollkur, severe bitting ect. It's unsurprising that this is happening behind closed doors.
When abuse in the name of training is normalised, this is how it escalates - especially when the abuser has power, money and influence.
Trigger warning for descriptions of severe abuse of horses (whipping, beating, deprivation, excessive force/rollkur/hyperflexion), emotional abuse, threatening of the whistleblower and coercive control.
People will really be accusing accredited zoological facilities that use positive reinforcement of abusing animals to “force them to perform” and then have a photo of them with a horse wearing a bit and flash noseband…
Sorry but your whole sport pretty much involves forcing an animal to perform. Like… I know we all want to say that horses enjoy being ridden but let’s be honest… a horse probably would rather not have a bit in their mouth and a strap that keeps their mouth shut so they can’t avoid it.
But these people are saying dolphins are being forced to do behaviours that are all trained using positive reinforcement. Something that the horse world is extremely averse to using because we can’t “just be feeding our horses treats all the time! They should just do their work because they love me!”
I don’t think realise the hypocrisy.
I don't know if this is something you'll be able to answer, but it's something I've been wondering for decades and I think you have the knowledge necessary for it.
So I used to ride horses for around 10 years, and when I first started to ride when I was around 8, when a horse was being super stuborn and didn't want to move. The riding instructor said it was okay to kick the horses as hard as I could (while I was sitting in the saddle) to get them moving, that they would bearly feel it cause they were so big, and their skin was thicker than ours.
And as a kid I trusted the adult instructor, but as I got older, and the more I interacted with horses and learnt how sensitive they could be to touch, I started to wonder if that was really okay, or if the only reason the horses seemed chill about it was cause they were used to it or something?
oh I just remembered a second thing I was wondering about, that same ranch also had a super old horse, I think he was in his 30s when I stopped going, was allowed to just wander around the ranch once he was retired, which I always sorta wondered if that was okay you know? he never seemed interested in leaving the ranch even tho there was nothing stopping him, and the part where cars could go was extremely small and they never went that fast anyways so I don't see why it'd be a bad thing, but I just couldn't shake the feeling it wasn't okay you know?
(I know these questions aren't about marine animals or even zoo animals, but I hope its okay for me to ask anyways, feel free to ignore if you want obvs)
Hi there! I don't mind horse questions - I used to work with them a lot and used to have my own horse!
I understand that feeling so well - there were so many times where I felt pressured to use excessive force with horses. Even with my own horse, because I was at the mercy of people who I thought knew best.
That's why I left the horse industry to work in the zoo and marine mammal field - so I could learn how to correctly, effectively and ethically apply positive reinforcement based training methods.
The last time I had a riding lesson was about a year ago. I wanted to give it a try again because I missed horses and it had been going fine. But the last time I was there, I left in tears because they put me on a horse that seriously needed to be retrained from the ground - and not be a lesson horse because he clearly hated it. I was not about to bully the horse into submission for the sake of getting my money's worth. I refused to "ride through" this horse's learned behaviour of stopping at arena corners and running my leg into the side of the arena. He wasn't listening to leg aids or rein aids. People had been riding him so inconsistently that he didn't even know what those signals meant anymore.
That's when people often will get out the whips and spurs to escalate those "aids". Because if all you're using is negative reinforcement/positive punishment and the aversive isn't working, you have to make that aversive even more uncomfortable/painful and "make them do it!". That's where things start to get really nasty, that's when conflict behaviours come up like rearing, bucking, bolting.
This animal was stressed, I was frustrated. He wasn't in a state to learn, he needed a break. He needed a chance to relearn those skills and be taught how to enjoy being ridden again. I refused to get into a fight with this horse. That isn't how I train and it won't be how I ride, either.
But horse riding is so heavily aversive based that escalation of aversives is just standard practise in riding schools.
When you were asked to kick harder, you were being asked to escalate the pressure for a horse that probably had become desensitised to softer leg aids. Lesson horses put up with so much incosistency, it makes sense that they get so "dull" to the aids.
There's also the issue of learned helplessness. When animals (and people) are put in a situation that they can't escape from, they give up trying to do so. They just sort of... tune everything out and become dull to any sort of learning process. It's sad because a lot of horses that people say are "bombproof" are just in a state of learned helplessness.
Horses absolutely do feel those kicks and they do not actually have "thick skin". They have thinner skin and even more nerve endings in their skin than we do!
The escalating use of force for "stubborn" horses is a symptom of an outdated industry that's still stuck in eltist tradition and would rather put a piece of twisted wire into a horse's mouth and spurs on rider's boots than re-teach skills from the ground or use positive reinforcement (treats are so taboo with horse people - they way they react, you'd think you'd brought a weapon into the yard and not a bag of carrots lol)
As for the wandering around? It's not ideal, sure. There's a certain amount of complacency in just expecting a free roaming animal not to leave the area. I guess as long as they're not standing in traffic/being a hazard/getting hurt it's okay but definitely not how I would be keeping my animals.
Anyway that was kind of long winded but I hope that helped!
Is it okay for people to ride horses in shallow water with dolphins closeby? I don't know a lot about horses but I saw a tiktok of someone doing that and it got me curious. It's my understanding that horses spook very easily, so couldn't a dolphin potentially get injured?
It depends a lot on the interaction itself. If people on horseback are following and chasing dolphins trying to forage close to shore, that could be scaring fish away and be classed as harassment.
If the horse is moving along the shore and dolphins are following it along, that could be okay. It would probably be safer to move the horse out of the dolphin’s path and into shallower water so they’re not too close to each other. It could absolutely get dangerous for both dolphins and horses if either one spooked or aggressed at the other.
Keeping to the rules of marine mammal interaction is important in all scenarios. Just like you’re not allowed to swim after/chase a dolphin on foot, the same applies to if you’re riding a horse.
And the horse themselves should be relaxed and comfortable in water - a spooked and panicked horse forced to contend with novel stimuli would be a danger to anyone around them.
Horses have the ability to think and plan ahead and are far more intelligent than scientists previously thought, according to a Nottingham Trent University study that analysed the animal’s responses to a reward-based game.
The horses cannily adapted their approach to the game to get the most treats – while making the least effort.
“Previously, research has suggested that horses simply respond to stimuli in the moment, they don’t proactively look ahead, think ahead and plan their actions – whereas our study shows that they do have an awareness of the consequences and outcomes of their actions,” said the lead researcher, Louise Evans.
The three-stage game involved 20 horses, who were initially rewarded with a treat merely for touching a piece of card with their noses. Then, in the second stage, researchers started switching on a “stop light”. The horses were only given a snack if they touched the card while the stop light was off.
At first, they ignored the light and carried on indiscriminately touching the card, regardless of whether or not the light was on.
But when, in the third stage, researchers introduced a penalty for touching the card while the stop light was on – a 10 second timeout during which the horses could not play the game at all – the team found there was a sudden and highly significant reduction in errors by all the equine participants. The horses started correctly touching the card only at the right time to get a treat.
“That timeout was enough to immediately get the performance out of them that we wanted,” said Evans. “That was enough for the horses to go: ‘OK, let’s just play by the rules.’”
Instantly switching strategies in this way indicates horses have a higher level of cognitive reasoning than previously thought possible. It suggests that, rather than failing to grasp the tenets of the game, the horses had understood the rules the whole time but, astutely, had not seen any need to pay much attention to them in the second stage.
The study itself is open access:
Evans et al.. 2024. 'Whoa, No-Go: Evidence consistent with model-based strategy use in horses during an inhibitory task'. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 277. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applanim.2024.106339
The highlights are given below:
- Model-based learning investigated in horses during a Stop-Signal inhibitory control task.
- Horses trained to inhibit touch response to a target when a light cue was present, using positive reinforcement (+R).
- Horses responded indiscriminately to stimuli during initial 3 sessions of Stop-Signal.
- A further 3 sessions with positive reinforcement plus negative punishment (+R/-P).
- Immediate reduction in errors was observed (p=0.02), providing evidence consistent with model-based cost-benefit analysis in horses.
This is a really interesting study but I'm skeptical that it demonstrates "thinking ahead". It feels more like the result of -P (the time out) and the horse's motivation to participate increasing.
The study itself also discusses how arousal and the result of the timeout causing increased arousal/stress may have also been a factor.
But I'm all for studies into horse cognition and this is a fantastic start! It's just typical for media to misinterpret the results/discussion of an animal cognition study. Planning ahead and thinking strategically are such massively subjective terms and this study barely scratches the surface of those concepts.
In an addition of: horse people are incredibly desensitised to the improper use of gear and do anything they can to justify tight nosebands or use of nosebands in general
“I only use it for looks!” Yeah no don’t do that
Are you that shit scared of your horses and think they’re out to kill you if you don’t control them with a tight noseband? Do you think that tight noseband is keeping you safe??????
Why do you think the horse is putting their tongue over the bit????
???? It does what now? How ??? That’s not how physics works
Oopsie! It’s soo funny when my coach cranks my horse’s noseband up tight so they can’t open their mouth/breathe properly (and we wonder why it’s tight noseband galore in the Olympics!)
Why is your horse stressing about a bit moving in their mouth????? You should be getting his teeth checked not strapping his mouth shut!
You love your high and tight noseband but I doubt your horse loves their mouth strapped shut!
Jfc it’s so disturbing how casually these people admit to using tight nosebands as bandaid solutions to poor training/riding or potential health issues.
And disclaimer I’m not anti noseband entirely but these comments were on a video of someone showing off their tight noseband with a 1 finger vertical width and saying that it was the “correct” way.
Damn I guess the equine and equitation scientists and horse welfare studies were wrong…..
Btw when you look at photos of horses in equestrian sports, keep the Equine Pain Scale in mind. There's a lot to be said about horses being extremely good at masking pain and discomfort as a prey animal. If they screamed when they were in pain, I wonder if some methods and certain types of tack would have ever been allowed at all...
It is actually wild that PETA is doing a better job policing the equestrian side of the Olympics than the FEI is.
The FEI issued a warning to the Brazilian eventer using rollkur only after PETA kicked up a fuss about it. They ignored initial reports about it.
But FEI is still allowing for tight or poorly fitted nosebands, used against their guidelines.
The dressage should be interesting since we have a lot of riders competing who have left their horses with blue tongues due to lack of oxygen from hyperflexion/compression on windpipe and tight nosebands.
We also have the queen of Rollkur, Isabel Werth competing on a Helgstrand horse. And she had the gall to publicly criticise Charlotte Dujardin and act all “holier than thou” about the sport as if she’s never abused her horses. The other irony is that she’s competing on a horse from a stable who had a huge abuse scandal just last year.
The hypocrisy and welfare washing continues. And the sport continues to lose more social support.
Damn the competition hasn’t even started yet and we have yet another horse abuse allegation.
Hitting a horse’s legs as they jump to make them jump higher next time (‘rapping’) is unfortunately not uncommon practise. This guy just got caught doing it.
Not always but if you see horses over jumping everything or kicking out as they land, they may have had history with this technique.
I’m glad that whistleblowers are coming forward and I hope the trend continues. This is probably the best time to bring something forward because the FEI simply can’t ignore it (like they always do) with the Olympics committee breathing down their necks.
Hyperflexion and Rollkur already being used in Paris. But the FEI won’t do anything about this, they’ll just continue to say how good they are at protecting horse welfare.