03/13/2020
I couldn't of said it better myself. ❤
Horse Shows used to be a “progress test” for riders, a way to see how you compared to other riders in order to improve yourself as a horseman. More often than not, today horse shows ARE the goal for riding. The horse professional, be it trainer, instructor or coach, makes much of his money at and because of, horse shows. This causes trainers to find the fast track, the easy way, the short cut for their students, in order to get their student on the show circuit faster. Students don’t learn how to work through problems. They learn how to replace problems with a better horse. They don’t develop an eye for distances. They count strides. They don’t develop a base of support. They lay on their horses over fences.
Judges reward bad training techniques and short cuts because they are obligated to place classes. And competitors do what it takes to win. If a slow canter placed this week, next week the horses will be cantering even slower. If the winner’s horse had its face on the vertical this week, next week the horses will be slightly behind the vertical. Trainers copy to win without knowing what they copied and they teach these short cuts to their students. Instead of giving students the tools that are required to train a horse and to ride well, our riders are becoming gimmick professionals. The crutches become the way to ride and copy cat riders and trainers turn them into fads. Fads, crutches, gimmicks, and short cuts lead to cruel training practices and quick fixes.
The result of not educating our future riders in classical principals, of turning our sport into an industry that is motivated by money, and providing quick fixes and fast tracks, is that we have diluted U.S. Horsemanship. U.S. Horsemanship is no longer the envy of other countries. And our equestrian venues have become increasingly dangerous to the point that we are killing horses and their riders. Teachers and instructors are the people who have the most powerful influence over the upcoming generation of horsemen and women. Unless instructors choose to develop depth in their own education and unless instructors are willing to slow down and teach the foundation to their students, U.S. Horsemanship will continue on it’s downward spiral.
“Life is cause and effect. In other words, sooner or later, you do sit down to a banquet of consequences.” Quoted from “What it Takes to be Number One” by Vince Lombardi
In a Chronicle of the Horsearticle “Values- And Boys- Are Hard To Find On Our Horse Show Scene” George Morris wrote “Money and greed are the worst problems that have crept in to what I used to think of as my sport. I’m afraid unless our society has a big shock, that money will be the eventual ruination of this sport as we once knew it.”
"Unless teachers review the classics of riding and jumping literature on a regular basis, they will become stale and fall prey to fashions and fads.”
Article written by
~Barbara Ellin Fox
