September 2007 • VOLUME 25 • © HORSES For LIFE™ Magazine

Tell us what you think!

Would you like to see more joy and fun in your riding?

What message would you like to share with Ross or with Manolo?

Do you agree that rollkur passes all international boundaries and that we need to speak up?

Tell us about your success!

What is dressage to you!

This month even before our issue was published we were getting passionate feedback on one of our articles.

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Messenger of Peace

Had a look - my sentiments entirely, I get so frustrated when people talk about how humans are more important than animals and that we should sort out the problems of humans first, only then can we help the animals. As if you can do one without the other, as if compassion and care and love can be restricted and selective like that, wearing blinkers (you call them blinders maybe?)! You know history is full of evidence that we in fact cannot do that, and that in order to be horrible to others, whether people, entire races, or animals, we have to in some way dehumanise them, in some way make them not what they really are. Thus the invading army will call the people they attack by many names, none of them humans - filth, dirt, animals etc. The nazis had many names for Jews - they would refer to them as sticks, rags, dolls, etc. anything but call them human beings. I believe that this is because otherwise they could not deceive their own minds into believing that it is OK to kill, maim, rape etc.Men who beat up their wives or kids call them names, they belittle and dehumanise them so that they can feel OK to go on bashing them about.

Some religions consider that animals do not have souls, and that they do not have feelings or feel pain like humans do. Convenient that, right? Free rein to kill, maim, treat badly, doesn't matter....when you get someone to admit that animals have feelings and feel pain they have to change their whole attitude to those animals. Inconvenient, right?

It's like the difference too between modern medicine and - say - homeo-pathic medicine: the one treats the ailment or injury in isolation, the other looks at the whole body and sees how one injury affects absolutely everything, both physical emotional and mental!!! How could it be possible for my broken arm not to affect my entire body and being? Treatment should of course involve the arm being set and put right, but it should also involve the rest of the body and the mind, too. I am convinced the injury heals better and faster that way.

Sorry, you have hit one of my raw nerves!

So I fully agree with your letter. The introduction is a tad long maybe, but on the other hand I hadn't heard about this award (I am shockingly ignorant of world affairs I know) so I found it very interesting and informative!

I often look at people at the barn and think hmmmmm, he or she would find Parelli work very difficult, or join-up Monty Roberts style, or TTTouches...because of his/her behaviour, irascibility, egotism, impatience with his/her partner, child, mother. So you begin to think, don't you, how does the individual have to gradually change in order to be able to do these other things, what has to change in me to put me in a place where I can achieve new goals? But most people don't want to change, many believe they cannot change, and in the end change is scary. As are the principles that you talk about in this editorial - think of the change there would have to be if we decided to respect horses really and truly...the money flying out the window, the ribbons pinned to someone else's bridle....lots of people will do anything, believe anything, convince themselves of anything to deny the need or the justifiablility of that change. Even by calling things by the wrong name."

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