20/01/2024
Calling a spade a spade
Sometimes I think that in the equestrian world, we are very good at using euphemisms. According to the Oxford dictionary, a euphemisms is “a mild or indirect word or expression substituted for one considered to be too harsh or blunt when referring to something unpleasant or embarrassing.” An example would be “he passed away” instead of “he died”.
Equestrian language is full of euphemisms. We say the horse is “ a little off behind” instead of “lame”, “a bit wobbly” instead of “lacking stability”, “a bit chubby” instead of “overweight”, “a bit stiff” instead of “crooked”. We call it “stall” instead of “cage”.
We say “encourage him to move forward” instead of “hit him with the whip”, “come through with the inside rein” instead of “pull on the rein”, “don’t let him get away with that” instead of “punish him”, “more leg” instead of “kick him hard”.
A lot of the instruction we see is a plain call to abuse of the horse, yet, because of the language we use, we justify it in front of ourselves and others.
A lot of it also has to do with the fact that we interpret the horse’s behaviour to fit our opinion or attitude. We might say the horse is “full of itself” when it is actually overwhelmed or scared, “lazy” when it doesn’t want to move due to pain, “fooling us” when in fact it doesn’t understand what you want.
Calling a thing by its proper name gives it power. I think many riders instinctively know that the tales they are telling themselves about their horses are not right, but they do it anyway because it sounds better than the alternative - that something might actually be wrong. Both we and the horse are mammals with a sophisticated nervous system and we can relate to each other. I think many people have the right feeling or intuition of things, but because of the habits of language use in the equestrian world, we are less likely to call it by its name and thus become less aware of it.
I think most riders do not want to abuse their horses. And yet, we see it happening all the time. If your instructor were to say “now cause him pain with the spur” you might actually think about what you are doing there instead of when you hear “encourage him with the spur”. And if we stop telling ourselves some nice sounding tales about our horse’s behaviour and instead describe it for what it is, we would come one step close to understanding them better.
I think that as instructors, we should be honest to our students and call certain actions for what they are. And as students, we should question the way our instructors sweet talk things to us in order to make us do things we don’t want to do.
Language has power. Being aware of that might help changing things for the better for the horses.
