May 2008 • VOLUME 33 • © HORSES For LIFE™ Magazine

Have just discovered your magazine - wonderful, especially exposing the appalling hyperflexion issue. I live in the South West of France, is it possible to receive a printed copy of your magazine by post. I like the web but prefer to read and feel a magazine in my hand! Look forward to hearing from you.

On Challenging the Concepts of Join Up:
I really enjoyed this article which put into words exactly what I have been feeling on this concept. Great to see there are like minded people out there.

Hello,

I have just finished reading the Riding by Torchlight - Perception article of the April 2008 edition. I am moved to say what a wonderful piece of writing this is. I too seek learning from my horses and in pursuit of classical riding.... I try to keep them all in a way that gives them a natural herd life with company of their own kind, never caged or shut in, barefooted, saddles well fitted, ridden with a soft, elastic contact (not perfect as I am only a novice but aware all the time I am riding), ridden to encourage the horse to develop the ability to collect and carry more weight on the haunches so avoiding the damage that my weight on their backs might bring if I do not carry myself properly. I have been sneered at by some for using a bit, mostly of the gentlest kind too. I think the insights and experiences of the writer are wonderful and I wish I had could benefit from training with this person. Its so wonderfully frank and honest and just so sensible about everything. Please pass on my thoughts the the author, I feel so much the same way about things and its just great to have another crystalise those things I have considered. Brilliant magazine too..... as always.

Kindest regards, Marianne

I want to thank you for the article about the breeding with warmbloods and the problems associated with the direction that things are going. I was interested that you began with the example of what has happened with dogs...I have three retired racing greyhounds, and when one compares the hounds bred for racing vs. the ones bred for showing, you see two very different examples of the breed. For instance, the show dogs often have breathing problems because the rib cage does not have enough spring to accommodate the lungs, but a well-sprung rib cage is considered a flaw for an AKC greyhound...they want the deep chest, but they want it narrow. How ridiculous is that!!! The race dogs have relatively few physical problems if they don't get injured...they usually have bad teeth because they don't get regular dental care (unlike racehorses), but other than that, they are strong and beautiful creatures who tend to die of "old-age" diseases like cancer and not some weird physical defect bred into the breed. I currently have 13 year-old brood matron who is just now showing some signs of age...she raced for five years and was bred for four before I adopted her. She's an example of what breeding for function creates...a strong and healthy animal! When I got my first horse, I got an ex-racehorse who had raced until he was almost seven. Warmblood enthusiasts discouraged me from any Thoroughbred for many reasons and told me a horse with a career that long would likely be broken down, but in fact he's been pretty sound most of the time, especially compared to some of the very expensive horses owned by the people who were discouraging me from getting him. He's been a great partner and teacher, and I have learned more from him than I ever could have learned from a less forward type of horse. People admire him wherever we go, though, and I think part of why he is visually appealing is that he is put together right for a specific purpose that has nothing to do with human fashion whims. Warmblood fans will ooh and ahh over him and then look very disappointed to learn that he is a Thoroughbred! I wonder if part of why he feels so right underneath me is because his breeding comes from RIDING horses and not PULLING horses or some mix of the two. There is a point where design and function should meet, and nature has always found the right mix and does really well without human intervention. Anyway, I could go on and on about this, but you put into words what I have often argued (mostly in my own head because these arguments rarely accomplish much in reality) about the problems with breeding for a certain look...you're likely to wind up with problems nature weeded out long ago. (But hey, if your horse bred for blue eyes winds up with trouble due to a lack of pigment around the eye, you can always fix that with the new horse eye permanent makeup/tattooing technique!)Thank you for your magazine and for articulating so many good points in this and other articles!

Brilliant, well done!!!!

Hi

I recently subscribed to your magazine after a month or so of looking at the publicly available parts of the e-zine... and I must say it is well worth the money. I can sit during my lunch hour going back over the past issues, and while away a (normally) happy hour reading about other people's experiences and thoughts on the equestrian world of today.

I firmly believe that the way to figure out what's working and what's not is to observe the horse, they don't lie, they're highly predictable in their behaviour (according to the set of rules that govern what it is to be 'Horse') and they are the best teachers we have available to us - we just need to apply our "greater intellect" to listen and problem solve our way around the obstacles. They are subtle animals, they are responsive and quick to forgive us our trespasses - which unfortunately has contributed heavily to the current state of competition riding practices. I don't think one particular sport is more guilty than another... or at least I didn't until I read an article in the Nov 2007 edition about the latest bridle *approved* by the FEI dressage committee.

I had to check it wasn't the April 1st edition... or that I had somehow stumbled upon a spoof article. Surely it cannot be, no-one in their right mind would even have developed this "gimp mask" for the ridden equine, much less approved its use under any ridden conditions, much less for competitive professional use? You know - those professional riders with strings of highly bred, highly trained horses... the "experts" on their "well behaved" mounts. Those ones!?! Are they really so afraid of what their abuses and short-cut training techniques have done to the seemingly endless patience of their specially-bred, extremely docile warmbloods that they need to consider employing even more force to their already overburdened systems in order to achieve "lightness" to the "aids". Ha!

So whilst my brain is still playing catch-up (and I don't think it wants to comprehend this recent bombshell) I thought I'd just right you a little email.

Firstly, thank you for publishing the article (which amongst others happily take on the "establishment" norms... or at least what is rapidly passing for normal!) - I was unaware of this particular recent horror. There are times when I just detune myself from the reality of what is going on in the equestrian establishment world, because frankly it horrifies and depresses me. Only to come back and find it's gotten worse since I last looked. The fact that the FEI approved the practice of Rollkur sent me off the deep end, and it still makes me incredibly angry and sick to my bones. In the light of that, you would think the gimp mask (sorry, I cannot even think of it as a bridle) was a relatively easy pill to swallow - but even I didn't think they'd stoop that low. How laughably naive of me.

Secondly, it is to encourage those that are willing to write about these subjects (and more importantly publish them!) and encourage open and honest debate, rather than closing down any protest with "it's the way it's done" type ripostes. I like the fact that other people get angry about these horrific developments... it means I'm not alone in feeling and thinking this way. Some of my equestrian friends have sympathy, or go some of the way down the path of "good grief, what are they doing?", but then seem to accept it... and I just can't do that any more. I've given up riding because the establishment practices depress me so much and I'm currently not in a position to own and keep my own horses in the way I would need to in order to live with myself. But the system has to be changed from the inside out, I can't lend weight to my arguments when I can't prove that "my way" works as I don't have the living breathing proof. I know there is a better way, I know it is possible as others have done it... and more power to them I say.

Lunch hour has nearly gone, so I'd better sign off now. Thanks for the magazine, thanks for the thought provoking articles, thanks to fellow readers, contributors and letter writers... hopefully one day the few will become the many, and the tide will turn back in favour of the horse's welfare. Until then, remember that horse welfare in the UK was turned around on the back of a children's book (Black Beauty by Anna Sewell if you're scratching your head right now). That story made ordinary every day people sit up and think - and more importantly instigated a dramatic change to what was and was not acceptable in the treatment of the equine... it has been done before, it can be done again.

Deborah Norris
Engineer and Hippophile

It is important to differ between the process and the behavior join-up, also called hook on. The horses I have raised all "join-up" and follow me by nature, without having to do any training process, it is a natural behavior having the horse look up for your support and follow you. Some years ago I started a pasture raised 5 year old. We had only access to his pasture and to be able to catch him to be able to start the training process I had to start having him hook on in this quite large area. After that I got his trust and that was of great help in the training process of this very sensitive horse. This "pasture join up" is the original join up described by James Rarey in the 19th century. You use the natural herding instinct and personal zones of herbivires, not a foal behavior. Horses also use this instinct in about the same way especially stallions and cutting horses and even bull-fighting is said to depend on it. If you use a small pen it is necessary to not stress the horse and chase him, he doesn't have to run at all. What matters is to get the horse's calm and focused attention which is necessary to do any training at all. The person you probably is thinking about obviously know his task well, but he is a business man. He thus makes a show out of it, and in this show he has things happening too fast, the horses are not relaxed, and he does short cuts in the training process. Inexerienced persons doesn't see that and obediently go and buy the books and equipment sold there and this is the total meaning of the show, but it is not horsemanship. He has not invented join-up, as it is an ancient knowledge, but he is quite good at selling it!

Ulrika in Sweden

Susannah Cord writes so well, with such a piercing honesty, that each and every time I read any of her articles I end up with a lump in my throat and tears in my eyes. Why? Because through that piercing honesty she taps into the suffering of so many horses and their imprisonment in that suffering, showing that horses rely for their safety comfort and wellbeing on a spark of humility in humans that is so rarely there, a tiny crack of open-mindedness that is so often firmly plastered over with expediency.

Keep writing please Susannah, you lend an articulacy to all of us so that when we are engaged in discussion with poor horsemanship and blind management we can borrow your silver tongue and become more convincing, on behalf of the horses!

S

I'm fixed and, as usual, transfixed by the latest issue. I'm a long time member of the 'choir' and feel so lucky to have discovered your magazine; can't even remember how I did. I admire your courage in confronting head-on the serious issues of our world, tho' sometimes you and your authors make me think we need to just turn them out in the pasture forever and not complicate their lives (or ours). But it's just all so compelling, made more so I think when sticking to the truly classical tradition. And, Super Prix is a hoot!! Thanks much.

Susie

Super Prix! the drawing caught my eye first, and the text made my laugh continuously, yet at the same time I was feeling the irony in it and saying: I hope they do not see it, somebody might actually take the idea and put it to work.

An outstanding article in a outstanding magazine. Congratulations!

Hernan

Editors Note: Would it not be ironic if we see Bruzzles come out as the next humane and kind system of training our horses.

April issue is excellent. My sentiments exactly regarding 'join-up' I recall seeing one of the demos early on with a very laid back young Irish mare nibbling Monty's jacket as he tried to send her away! I've often thought that 'join-up' was inappropriate with most of our British horses as they joined up at weaning although it has its uses with some older spoilt animals.

hi !
i love your magazine but don't like to read it online... will you ever become a paper magazine ? i'm sure i'm not the only one that think it's not confortable to read it on a computer screen... but congratulation anyway for the uncredible quality of your article. i wish i would skip my subscription to Dressage XXXXXX for going with you... but on paper... sob sob.

cheers !

madeleine

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