A Canadian friend was telling about the horrible spectacle of a western trainer who slammed his horse onto the ground and then placing a foot on the horse head was lighting up a cigarette proud of his domination. Blinded by his pathetic ego the man was not even capable to realize that his demonstration was showing the magnitude of his intellectual deficiency rather than his skill. The same pity arises from interviews of riders overstressing the upper half of their horse neck, which does not have enough muscle mass or ligament to support the stress and try to explain that their horse loves it.
 
 
 
The spectacle of the "blue tong video" is horrific. The horse's tongue is dead, the horse's brain is dead and from the view from behind at the canter, the hocks are dead too. All problems result from the hyper-flexion of the upper neck. The horse upper neck is very weak. The horse does not have the capacity to oppose great resistance nor support much stress in this area of the neck. Once trapped in hyper-flexion the horse has no way out. The sole defense mechanism left is shutting off the brain and survives the abuse.
 

Refusals can be perfectly all right.
For show jumping riders it is very important that the horses do not stop in front of the jumps but learn to jump no matter what type of scary and colourful jumps the course designer has come up with.
But is it enough just to jump or is it important HOW the horse jumps the fence?
And are we maybe hindering our future wish to produce clear rounds and win prices if we focus too much on the horse not refusing to jump in the beginning of its jumping and show career??
The writer of this article thinks so and that's why she very often allows the young horses to refuse at the jumps for the very first couple of horse shows.

 

READ ON 

Since preventing a problem is less costly than repairing lameness,

Jean Luc's lessons can save you thousands of dollars.

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Clinics are usually week-end events: Friday, Saturday, and/or Sunday. (Minimum 2 days.)

A traditional clinic day is 8 private 1-hour lessons.
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I am emailing you to thank you for the much inspiration I've been getting through your website and for the great job you both do in educating people and enabling them to improve soundness and welfare for their horses.
 
I signed your petition on the ban for Rollkur, since I've been working against it for as much as possible here in Denmark. I've been working with the 2 journalists from Epona.tv that documented the Blue Tongue and, at a great personal expense, I participated in a Danish tv show (sports program) that documented the use of Rollkur in professional sports.
 
Being a former top 100 showjumping rider of the FEI worldranking list and a member of the Danish national team, many of the poor examples in the tv show were former close colleagues and off course they were all very upset, because the hyperflexion is SO common that almost NO ONE rides properly anymore.  Through my process of educating myself and learning more about the anatomy and biomechanics of the horse I have been chocked to realise HOW poorly we educate and treat competition horses L Though I was known as a very sympathetigue rider and have received awards for great horsemanship at top level I also trained in draw reins and with the horses noses tugged in (not as drastically as P Kittel in the video, but still) because that was the way to do if you wanted ribbons.
 
I am now on a path trying to produce a group of competition horses (showjumpers) that can perform with hopefully no or very little stress and tension. I am trying to take a very different route and for example I'm bringing young horses to shows only riding in the warm up area or entering a class without jumping, only to make them quiet and comfortable in the ring. In Denmark we don't have very many regular practise shows so this must be done at the smallest regular shows, but still creating quite a fuzz. It's quite interesting how the lack of nosebands, loose or soft reins and treats in the showring can facilitate aggressive behaviour from other riders ;-)    (see attached photo of a 4-year-old in a warm up ring)
 
At the 2009 ISES conference in Sydney I gave a speech about my journey into a different (better/more ethical) way of riding. How we actually remove ourselves further away from the goal of producing clear rounds by hyperflexing the horses and installing a deep association between the flight response and the jumps, when we push to hard to avoid refusals in the beginning of their career.  I've attached an article that I've written about the subject of horses that run in the showring if you are interested in reading it. Please bear with me in regards to grammar and spelling ;-)
 
Through my latest work I've encountered many horses that seem to have been rushing to the jumps due to more physical reasons though. I work closely with a Danish vet and a very competent equine chiropractor and I've been successfully retraining horses with soundness issues, getting them fit, sound and performing well. Some of them have not seen a jump for many months where we've been doing ground work and retraining with poles; on the lunge line and light work under saddle in a long frame and when they finally get back into jumping, the running issues are drastically reduced and in some cases completely gone even though there has been no actual training other than improving physical capability.
 
Anyways, I did not intend to make this email all about me (but did anyway)  I again really want to thank you for the great work that you do and let you know that you inspire many many riders and horse trainers around the world. The horses truly need people like you and I hope to be able to participate in a clinic and meet you at some point.
 
Very best regards
 
Susan Kj�rg�rd