Alex at Harmony Horses

Still going strong my beautiful Dahlia

Just another day in Paradise East side

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8 Top Tips for Equestrians from Dr. Temple Grandin 8 Top Tips for Equestrians from Dr. Temple Grandin

It didn’t compute for me, 70 years ago, just how little force was necessary to get a calm and well trained horse to go along with the signals/aids of a rider.

I weighed maybe 95 pounds, wore sneakers, had a halter and a leadrope for steering and stopping, and I could ride Paint for miles and had zero need of whips, spurs, severe bits to get along with him.

But then came years of Kool-Aid, all those sayings that were so normal back then, “Show that horse who’s boss” being the essence of that training concept. And for too many decades I bought into all of that, until I gradually began to question and to think, “There has to be a better way than force to get along with horses.”

I had already known that when I was 11, but then I forgot, for years and years, something I had already experienced.

Now fast forward 7 decades to 2023 when the equestrian press is teeming with all sorts of responses to a European trainer getting captured on camera using forceful means, like that is some deep dark secret. Be real. Lots of force is employed every day, and I get it because I did it, too.

You either learn better ways or you resist learning them, because in 2023 there are enough quiet trainers, the ones like Carl Hester, Buck Brannaman, whose methods are widely available on Google to any who want to use quieter methods.

But today, December third, 2023, plenty of horses will still be ridden with big sharp spurs, harsh bits, draw reins, all that apparatus of force, and some of that will be done by the very people who are vilifying the guy who got caught on camera.

Being gentle with horses is a choice. You decide to or you don’t, pretty simple. It took me way too many decades to relearn something I sort of already knew.

Wow

Uncut grass keeps the soil at 19.5°C
A grass cut at a level of 10 cm maintains the soil temperature at 24.5°C
Bare soil in the middle of summer rises to more than 40°C

That is why it is important to make this knowledge visible.

Rodney Animal Rescue - Adopt Bella! | Trade Me Marketplace Bella 13hh approx. 2-3 yr. old Appaloosa x filly. Bella came into our care at Rodney Animal Rescue when she was found roaming on public roads along with ...

Wow. This is powerful, eye opening and a little sad. This is why I’m not in the business of buying and selling horses...instead, I would much rather educate equine enthusiasts about just how sensitive horses truly are...

“Most horses pass from one human to another - some horsemen and women are patient and forgiving, others are rigorous and demanding, others are cruel, others are ignorant.

Horses have to learn how to, at the minimum, walk, trot, canter, gallop, go on trails and maybe jump, to be treated by the vet, all with sense and good manners.

Talented Thoroughbreds must learn how to win races, and if they can't do that, they must learn how to negotiate courses and jump over strange obstacles without touching them, or do complicated dance
like movements or control cattle or accommodate severely handicapped children and adults in therapy work.

Many horses learn all of these things in the course of a single lifetime. Besides this, they learn to understand and fit into the successive social systems of other horses they meet along the way.

A horse's life is rather like twenty years in foster care, or in and out of prison, while at the same time changing schools over and over and discovering that not only do the other students already have their own social groups, but that what you learned at the old school hasn't much application at the new one.

We do not require as much of any other species, including humans.

That horses frequently excel, that they exceed the expectations of their owners and trainers in such circumstances, is as much a testament to their intelligence and adaptability as to their relationship skills or their natural generosity or their inborn nature.

That they sometimes manifest the same symptoms as abandoned orphans - distress, strange behaviors, anger, fear - is less surprising than that they usually don't.

No one expects a child, or even a dog to develop its intellectual capacities living in a box 23 hours a day and then doing controlled exercises the remaining one.

Mammal minds develop through social interaction and stimulation.

A horse that seems "stupid", "slow", "stubborn", etc. might just have not gotten the chance to learn!

Take care of your horses and treasure them.”

- Jane Smiley

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