In my wanderings
around the internet, I found this website called the Country Squire Magazine. A
British publication, it focuses on the British countryside.
Deborah Jane
Nicholas, apparently a frequent columnist, has had several articles published,
some of which I read, but this one I found rather unusual, if not depressing.
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| Clipped from the 1 Sep 18 issue of Country Squire Magazine, author deborah jane nicholas | |
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Nicholas says, in
essence, that horses do what we tell them to do. Period. She sniffs at the idea that horses willingly
do the strange things we ask of them. She says that horses don’t like us.
I’m really
surprised at the tone in her post, and wonder what sort of relationship she has
with horses.
Mind you, she
brings up good points. We ALL have met horses who don’t want to do what we ask
of them. Much of that comes from prior handling, I agree, but I’m also
convinced that in many cases, that’s just what the horse IS. You see it in ads
on the internet: “more whoa than go.” Just like people, there are jocks, like
Raven, and there are couch potatoes, like my first horse, McDuff.
Her point is that
many times, the rider or owner fails to take into account the horse’s reactions
to what we ask of them. For instance, she has a video of what can only be
called a moron. The moron-probably inspired by some Hollywood movie, runs at
the back end of a horse, attempting to mount it with a leap from the back. The
horse, being a sensible beast, sees this human running at him from behind-just
like a predator would-and simultaneously bucks the idiot off and gives a him a
good kick in the chest. The idiot had it
coming, as far as I’m concerned.
But then she shows
a photo of a very nice dressage horse with its ears pinned. She implies that
the horse is merely obeying, that he really does not want to be doing dressage.
That may be true in
this specific case, but how, then, can she explain Fuego de Cernada, aka Fuego
XII, a PRE stallion I’ve written of in the past. Fuego’s 2010 WEG freestyle
dressage performance could only have come from the stallion himself. I have
never seen an animal produce such an emotionally charged performance in my
life. You could see it: Fuego was doing it all on his own. He added so many
flourishes, so much emotion into his performance that he was,
counter intuitively, scored low. We in the audience boo’ed the judges scores. We
saw a horse that adored dressage, adored the adulation, soaked up the cheers
and pretty much, thoroughly enjoyed showing off. It was, after all, freestyle.
How does she
explain Beezie Madden’s fall from Authentic in the stadium jumping competition of the 2007 World Cup? The gelding
continued jumping the course, all by himself.
While I’ve never watched the Grand National, (a
steeplechase for my American readers) , I know that often, a horse will lose its rider and continue
jumping the course.
I’ve certainly seen racehorses continue the race after
losing their jockey. They win...and are elated! The horse doesn’t understand
‘disqualified’. He just knows he won!
How does she
explain Charlie, an OTTB in our barn who, if you put him in the round pen, will
lunge himself. You needn’t be inside the ring. You don’t even have to pop a
whip to get him going. He works himself. When he considers himself done, he
calls to a human to come get him.
How can any of these
actions be called ‘forced”???
The author also
mentions that she has yet to find a photo of a pony with its child owner that
looks happy.
I can understand
that. Children don’t usually have the experience of good hands and a good seat.
Children don’t think of a pony as being an animal. The pony is another child.
They treat it as a playmate. An adult who gives a child a pony must also teach
the child that the pony isn’t a toy, it is another living, feeling being, to be
treated with respect, kindness and patience. Note: the pony feels no such
restrictions, by the way.
The author goes on
to say that horses don’t like us. They don’t hate us, but they’d much rather
just be let alone.
I’m not too sorry
to say, that in my opinion, and experience, she’s wrong. Or perhaps she’s
confusing cows with horses. I have no experience with cows, but I’m certain
there are folks out there who will tell me their cow likes to be petted, sat
upon, maybe even asked for a piaffe. I’ve seen pictures of people riding
cattle, although it can’t be very comfortable. Cows don’t seem to have much in the way of
personalities. But that may be because we don’t normally think of a cow as
being a pet, like a horse. To be brutally honest, cows are..well, creatures
that we not only use their milk, but..we eat them. We don’t eat horses. They’re
too much like family.
Horses have personalities. They have
opinions, feelings, a sense of humor. They have favorite people, other animals,
other horses. They can differentiate between intentionally inflicted pain from the
accidental. I’ve apologized to my horses when I’ve done something hurtful and
they certainly seem to understand. Or perhaps I’m so tuned to the equine
persona that I can see personalities where Nicholas cannot.
Nicholas states
that the only reason a horse comes to you in the pasture is because it hopes
you have food.
Isn’t that a thing
all in and of itself? Isn’t 'hope'
something a thinking, emotional being does? Cows don’t come up to you hoping for a carrot.
They just look at you. The horse, at least, has learned that you come bearing
gifts.
But what if...as in
the case of Raven...you don’t have a treat? What is it, then, that makes him
nicker a hello and come up to me when I enter the paddock with a halter? The
halter means ‘we are going to do something’. What it might be, he doesn’t know,
but it’s probably ‘being ridden’. A horse that didn’t want to be ridden would
run away from me. A horse that didn’t know me would just stare at me from the
far end of the paddock.
Even the oldest horse can outrun us any day
of the week. Why does this horse...and virtually every other horse I’ve ever
owned or leased, or even just made friends with..come to me when I clearly have
something in mind for it?
Is it “like”???
How does the
author explain the gauntlet I must run every time I go to retrieve Raven from
his paddock...that being Laddie, the gigantic eventing OTTB. I must go through
his paddock in order to get to Raven’s.
I’ve never petted him, handled him, and
certainly never given him treats. Still,
Laddie is right there at my elbow as I pass through his paddock. I have to shoo
him away. He WANTS pets, he wants to interact. The look
in his eye as Raven and I walk past him can only be described as envy. He wants to work. His owner studiously avoids
him, so is it loneliness? He has horses all around him. Has this horse, a
racehorse/eventer who has spent his entire life working with people want to?
How does she explain
the Arabian stallion I massaged the day before a 100 mile endurance ride? His
owner told me, I have to ride the hell out of this stallion or he’ll ride the
hell out of me. The next day, I was working with my vet as a scribe when the
stallion came in, lame, at the first 25 mile vet check. He’d been quicked three
days earlier when he was re-shod. Despite being lame, the stallion did NOT want
to quit. No, no, no, he insisted, get aboard Dad and let’s GO. He refused to
get on the horse ambulance, he wanted to GO. He said so plainly, I can do this. I
can. I want to.
We’ve all seen
horses express refusal to do something: bore out at the track, refuse a jump,
buck off a person they don’t want to carry.
These are actions
of thinking, aware creatures, not slaves. I feel very sorry for Nicholas. She sounds as if she read Descartes and
believes what he said: that animals are merely animated machines, incapable of
love, friendship, even, believe it or not, pain.
This isn’t to say
that horses are incapable of disliking people. Rebel, a PRE cross in our old
barn, definitely disliked people. He’d never been hurt or abused while in that
barn but he was dangerous and ultimately put his owner in the hospital.
I owned (well, he
was the ex husband’s horse) an Appy/TB cross gelding, Smoke, who also
disliked..one could even say hated..humans. We'd never hurt him, but at some time in his past, he had been mistreated, and from then on, he then hated every human. He definitely tried his best to hurt US. He was truly an evil-minded horse
who had vices the likes of which I’d never seen before and hope to never see
again.
Both those horses
could have been poster children for the author’s post.
But those horses
were few and far between the hundreds of horses I’ve known. Yes, I’m going to
break the rules and be anthropomorphic. Horses are incredibly good judges of
humans. Like humans, they are self-aware. They have opinions, can hold grudges,
fall in love, be mischievous, curious, easily frightened or brave as lions, be
lazy or workmanlike, have hobbies, keep pets, everything that enables a
creature to be an emotional one. Now that we know that dogs can be autistic, I
bet horses can even be mentally ill, just like humans.
I wish I could
remember where I read it, but one man wrote that horses invited us into THEIR
world, not the opposite. We become members of THEIR herd.
I don’t know how
many horses she’s met that demonstrate hatred or dislike of humans..but I
wonder if it’s the HORSE that is the problem.
I have a feeling
it’s the author, not the horse.
