Not been on for along time and I have some spare time on a wet Sunday afternoon so I started to think......(dangerous process)
Yesterday my daughter was invited to a childrens party at a local riding school , the sort where you pay for all the kids to have an hours ride and tea , cake and games.Now admittedly this place isn't BHS or ABRS approved.However I was shocked at the state of the horses and ponies.Whilst their condition was pretty average for the amount of work they were doing their feet were appalling.Most had been left in stalls or stables fully tacked up with tight girths and the nosebands and bits being used certainly seemed questionable to be used by beginers.The horses were constantly pulled in the mouths by leaders , encouraged to be smacked with the whip by so called instructors.From what I could tell on the 'proper lessons' instead of instructing ,the teachers were mearly directing traffic.
So here's the dilema though ...All the kids loved it...They loved the fun of seeing there friends win races , being in contact with the ponies and the thrill and excitement of it all.
I spent a while chatting to the mum who had organised the party who also had regular lessons there and whilst she could see my point of view about yes the kids are loving it but at the horses expense , she made the point of what else was she to do.They couldn't afford there own horse , financial , cost or experience and every other riding school around the area was no bettereven the BHS's ones.
Atleast here they could get to learn about how to ride and learn to be around horses.
So what is the answer.Is it possible to be able to have well cared for horses that dont get pulled around ect that people can still afford to go too.
It used to always be my dream to own a few school masters for people to come and have lessons on to futher their riding experiences but with the price of public liability , business rates , etc ect is it viable for anyone to be able to treat the horses really well , not work them into the ground and still cover costs or even make money ??? I'm not so sure or why aren't there more places doing it?
Okay , just my thoughts for today , anyone else with good experiences where kids can learn to ride in great environments and good role models ?
I've been thinking about your post for a few days and not sure I have anything to say that's very helpful but I'll post anyway!
From what you've said it sounds as though this school is "normal", it doesn't sound acceptable but then again it doesn't sound abusive in the normal sense of the word. Just a sad state of affairs which doesn't reflect the vast leaps forward that some areas of the industry (eg living conditions, hoof care, behaviour) have been able to make. That's not really surprising, when you think how the majority of privately owned horses have to suffer in exactly the same way, despite the owners claiming to "love" their horses.
I've been trying to think back to the various riding schools I rode at and comparing them with the place you mention. As a 12-13 yr old I wanted to gallop and jump as much as possible and I remember that one riding school (well actually a British Forces pony club in Germany but it amounted to the same thing) was fantastic in this respect. Our hacks tended to resemble "mock hunts" where the instructor would set off across the extensive, sandy/grassy army training area and we would fly over whatever part of the also-extensive cross-county course was closest. To be fair, the ponies all seemed to love this as well - provided we were riding reasonably competently. But one of my favourite horses was a bit "cold backed" and used to buck a lot, particularly if you touched behind the saddle. I'm now ashamed to say that we encouraged him to buck quite a lot, afterall it proved we were good riders, the instructor was impressed and it improved my ability to sit a buck no end. It never occurred to me (and certainly no-one ever told me) that he might be bucking because he was sore.
But gratuitous reminiscencing aside, an interesting observation that my mother made was that at about this time with this particular dare-devil type instructor, we kids were much more aggressive around the horses. That's how the instructor was and we unwittingly copied. When this woman left and was replaced, my mother found the atmosphere and our behaviour much nicer. We just thought the new woman was more boring because we might only pop a little cross pole out on hacks now. Of course, my opinion now is the opposite and I wish I could have had the same fun but not at the expense of the horses. The "boring" woman is still an old family friend and absolutely lovely!! Not remotely boring, she just cared more about the horses' welfare.
Having said this, all these ponies lived out, had no shoes and were worked on sand. They had no rugs and weren't clipped. They were all pretty healthy and I don't remember any of them getting laminitis or even injured etc. I would imagine this lifestyle was more for human convenience than welfare reasons but in the scheme of things I still think they had a pretty good life compared with many riding school horses. I'm not sure why it's so uncommon now - but I suspect that most riding schools have become so strapped for cash that they need to have more ponies than the land will support. So they can't offer the turnout. So then they have less healthy horses who develop physical and behavioural problems. So therefore they need to be "tougher" when the horses are "naughty". This is a bit of a gross generalisation but I can't help thinking it's true in many cases. Ironically, if they had fewer horses, more turnout and more awareness they may end up with fewer problems and so save themselves some cash.
I actually started learning to ride age 11 when I went to a boarding school in England while my parents were abroad. Forget the normal sort of horror stories, I loved it, it was Enid Blyton in real life! The school had about 20 ponies and each had a couple of girls allocated to look after them. Needless to say I was loitering up round the stables from day 1 in the hope that I could get one of these jobs. I remember 2 ponies arriving for the beginning of term, a brown one and a white one (! Yup, that was the extent of my knowledge!). One of the girls looking after the brown one was leaving at the end of term and so it was agreed that I could help them and learn what to do for the following term. This pony, Gina, was "naughty" and "needed" smacking rather a lot. But I'm proud to say that at the tender age of 11, knowing nothing about horses, I was able to convince these other 2 girls that smacking didn't seem to be achieving anything, and if anything made things worse. They agreed to stop smacking her.
But sadly, I forgot this as I started to learn more about how to ride and how to treat horses "properly". We were all taught to ride with whips and it was very much the typical riding school type of environment. By the end of my second (and final) year at this school I was the typical pony club brat who never considered my role in things going wrong (although I also used to steal pony nuts out of the feed room to use as a reward so I can't have been all bad!). I rode Gina in a bending race at the annual school gymkhana - she hadn't done much bending but in practising for the big day she'd seemed to be very good at it. So I was expecting to win. We did really badly and when I asked the riding teacher "what had happened to Gina" she told me that I had been fighting her (as of course I had, yanking her mouth and not using my legs to steer). I think that was the first time I ever learnt that my actions were causing a pony to "misbehave" and even then I felt ashamed of myself. But why did it take me 2 years of regular lessons to learn this? Surely it is one of the most fundamental things and should be drummed into us all the way along?
If we want riding schools to change then it's got to be through a process of shaping the instructors' behaviour and creating a demand amongst the children for welfare to play a higher role. It won't change overnight but if enough children said they didn't want to use a whip then slowly it might force instructors to think of alternative ways of teaching. Especially if we simultaneously started to convince instructors that the whip wasn't teaching the horse the right answer. And teaching the "cause and effect" of everything we do around horses - eg people who are scared of their horse being forward-going and so cling on for dear-life, winding the horse up more; the kid getting upset because his horse keeps spinning round but is actually oblivious to the fact that one rein is much tighter than the other etc - these sort of really basic, almost cliched problems that come up again and again when children learn to ride. Yet unless they learn this sort of cause+effect level of behaviour I don't see how things will ever change. I think people need to understand why the horse behaves as it does before they can change what they do about it.
I took Jak to a mock (yup MOCK, no foxes involved....) hunt last week (absolutely fantastic fun, Jak loved it! And despite a few moments which, shall we say, "took me out of my comfort zone", the bitless bridle wasn't a drawback!) and it was fascinating to see how lots of people behave when so many of them are just pushing the limits of what they feel brave enough to do. Almost every time you saw someone getting pissed off with their horse for some misdemeanour, you could also see exactly what the rider was doing to cause the problem in the first place. Until this sort of lack of awareness is addressed I'm not convinced we'll be able to convince people to change the way they treat the horses.
What I can't decide though, is whether I would have been interested in learning about behaviour when I was 13-14. Or whether I would have still opted for galloping and jumping. I think it would have depended on how it was taught. If it had been a voluntary alternative to jumping I probably wouldn't have bothered. But I think it could be taught in a way that could fascinate children like I was, and simultaneously teach them a little more humilty as they continued to have lots of fun. I was never really taught to see the horse as a personality (although it was something that I'd done instinctively before all my BHS lessons drummed it out of me!) and so behaved accordingly. That is something that could easily be changed.
HelenW, are you there?? How does that nice riding school near you manage?
Ok, I'll be quiet now....
Catherine
This message has been edited by Brocksopp on Oct 10, 2005 2:03 PM
Here I am! But not for long because I'm off to Egypt tomorrow to forget about horses for a while.... not that I will because I'll be worrying about them!
The place near me is not a riding school as such. As far as I know they don't call themselves a riding school. I don't know much about it, only what my daughter's friend has told me. Basically you get one day at the weekend to start with and you stay all day and learn about pony care and don't actually start riding at first. All the basics are learned first. Whenever I drive past I see the girls and boys poo picking the fields and they always wear hard hats. In fact they aren't allowed in the yard without their hard hats on. I've been in there a few times and the set up seems quite good. The ponies live out. Some of the bigger horses have Cytek shoes I believe but the ponies are barefoot trimmed by a traditional farrier as the Cytek farrier made them all lame.... Another story!
From what I have been told, the children are not allowed whips and if anyone is seen 'hitting' a pony, they are in big trouble.
I think the children then go on to learn to ride eventually so they start at the very beginning and learn how to brush, muck out, poo pick, clean tack etc before they are allowed to get on.
I think this is a great idea. So many children just turn up at riding schools and get on and then hand the pony back. They don't have a hope of learning any other stuff because it's just not on the agenda.
Horse Rangers is the only place I have heard of like this. Lucy (my daughter) has been to a few riding schools in the past that were awful and I remember one time when one pony wouldn't jump and chucked the rider off, the instructor eventually caught the pony and gave it a mega beating. All the ponies knew what was going to happen because you could see them all panicing and trying to get away from the instructor. All the children were really frightened as well. The instructor had obviously done it many times before. Perhaps the owner of the stables didn't know what she was like. I never took Lucy back there and unfortunately I should have complained at the time but was so shocked I didn't know what to say. The other mums in the gallery were shocked as well but whether any of them complained/did anything about it, I'll never know.
It's a big shame that all riding schools are the same. I think anyone would be hard pushed to find anything different but what can be done about it, I don't know.
I think, as you say Catherine, that most children have an affinity with animals and wouldn't naturally 'hurt' them but their instinct is drummed out of them in the traditional riding schools.
We have a number of children on our yard and I am pleased to say that none of them use whips or are deliberately horrible to their ponies because they know I would be very cross with them. Even the adults look quite scared of me if I catch them doing anything I don't approve of..... I'm really not that scarey, they probably just get fed up of my lectures! The children (and adults whether they like it or not!) also have the advantage of my guidance and they are very understanding of their ponies behaviour and needs etc.
However, saying that, my daughter's friend is having lessons on her horse at the local riding school and they have told her to wear spurs and use a whip. She knows I don't approve but there's only so much I can do/say before I have to shut up.
Hi
I know this post is quite old but not being on for some time it attracted my attention when looking through the posts.
Its an interesting debate and something that I am very interested in. I have been teaching for quite some time now (classical and more recently behavioural instruction). I am not a BHS instructor (albeit fully insured as an instructor) but I have recently bitten the bullet and started to train for the BHS qualifications.
I have to say that this is a huge comfort zone stretcher! I spent quite some time looking around for somewhere to train becasue the 'bog standard' BHS riding schools just, lets be honest, put the fear of god into me! After some deliberation I opted to attend a college to do the training as things seemed slightly more barable. But, it amazes me the attitude taken and expected to be taken towards the poor horses who have the burden of looking after the students.
Every day I attend I question whether I can carry on with the course as my values are gone against more and more. From riding with a whip to using a brush behind a horse to get the 'challenging' horse to load, things just keep getting worse and worse. I had a word with myself at the beginging of the course and decided (rightly or wrongly) to go along with what was expected, afterall any attempt to question is usually frownd upon and stamped out - the way I look at it is that you need to put your head down and just get on with it, earn your stripes and go for the kill later on.
So why do I keep it up I ask myself as I write this? Quite simply as I feel that it is really the only way to make for change. I've come to the conclusion that I have to make friends with the enemy or be forever 'unheard'. I have made a pledge to every horse that I have to work with in the godforsaken ways I do on the course, to get the highest qualifation possible to give me the best chance of being able to get my voice heard.
It saddens me when i teach both adults and children just how uninterested many are in understanding their horses. The majority of people in our world seem to want to run before they can walk or even sit up in some cases and it is the horses that are always made to suffer. We need to start to educate from a young age and as the place that HelenW talks about in her post, take things right back to basics. People need to slow down and realise that riding and working with horses isn't just about them but a partnership between man and beast. But to educate the children we also need support from the adults and this is where I think it could take some time.
Of course children want the thrill of riding (just as many adults) and maybe I was very odd when I first went for a riding lesson, but I never expected to get on a horse on the first day - believe it or not I thought I would be sat in a classroom learning about things like tacking up and parts of the bridle - boy I was proven wrong! The thing is though, that if more and more places take on the ideas of the school/place HelenW mentions, it will become more and more acceptable to children as with adults and who's to say that there are not more people out there who started their riding lessons with the ideas I had of my first lesson?
I don't think there is any real easy solution to this problem, we just all have to do our best to set the right example and lead the way to what we can only hope will be a better world for generations of horses to come.