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#1 2009-08-16 06:49:49
Old fashioned values
I dont consider myself old, I am nearly forty though and have been involved intensly with horses and ponies since I was six. Back then it was a field shelter and paddock in an orchard. I learnt to ride the old fashioned way by getting to know what got results and I was taught how to fall off properly because my instructor said I was not allowed to use the horses body to stay on. It was balance stirrups and talent or the floor. We tended the needs of the horse and saught professionals to help with injury and ailment. Now here is my beef, where did all the wierdness come from, we didn't have crystals and reiki in our day and we thought laminintis was a rare condition. Saddles were refolcked once maybe twice a year and horses got shoes as soon as they needed them. Now instead of proven substantiable results we have all this new age stuff misleading and removing the real truth and talent in our new and old riders alike. Where did the need for this stuff come from. We no longer succeed as much at international competition because only the richest people with the largest number of horses go. The horse has become a disposeable item, just look at 'project horse' sites. WHATS GOING ON, where did the talent go? I think it's being stifled by the systematic removal of hard work, commonsense and introduction of uneccessary distractions. If a horse is injured dont get out the crystal, look at what we did wrong. I was told to never lay blame at the hoof but at the lump on the saddle.
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#2 2010-08-09 16:07:55
- smaarthorses
- New member
- Registered: 2010-08-09
- Posts: 1
Re: Old fashioned values
Or, are we perhaps getting better educated about these beautiful, thinking, feeling, emotionally aware creatures ?
In the "good old days" that you are refering to, horses were the only animal I was introduced to where I was handed a horse in one hand a whip to hit it with in the other. Sadly not much has changed for kids learning about horses in most riding schools even now.
We even make whips appealing to young girls by making them sparkly and pink.
Any time I see a horse being hit with a whip, or jabbed in the mouth, yanked on the headcollar etc, I only see anger in the persons eyes and fear and confusion in the horses eyes. Do we really think that is ok ?
Generally the timing of the use of punishers (that is what all of those things above are...we are so good as using the words 'no', and 'don't do that') is so poor and goes on for so long (even if just for seconds) that the animal has no idea what it was that they have been punished for. So much behaviour happens in just a few seconds and ALL of that behaviour is punished...how confused will that leave the horse ?!
As someone who has seen that there are better ways to train, manage and respect my horses, I feel that we have made great progress in understanding horses and how most traditional training is really about making them comply. Have you heard of conditioned suppression ?
I've spent a number of years now studying behaviour and learning theory and all that goes with it. By applying the principals to my horses I have discovered that they are amazing....they can problem solve, they can communicate with me, they have learned to respect me, we are training partners, and I can ASK them to do things and they will, I don't need to tell them. That is a partnership that I would not give up. I have a relationship with my horses that is based in mutual respect. As a result, when we get in a pickle, my horses look after me when most horses would run off.
Oh, and I still have to do all the hard work and toiling and at the end of it all the barn, the yard and the horses are shining and I go home filthy and exhausted. So not everything has changed 
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