Thursday, 11 March 2010
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• VOLUME 41 • © HORSES For LIFE™ Magazine
Riding By Torchlight
February 2009
I’m waiting for spring. Looking out my window, dillydallying at my keyboard waiting for the words to come, I realize those words hold more meaning and reach out in a broader sense than I first thought. I’m not just waiting for the new grass to cast a green sheen over my dull brown pastures, and the leaves to unfurl on black barren branches. I am daydreaming of the tulips and crocus, hyacinths and daffodils pushing through the slowly warming earth of my mother's garden, a garden that lives on in my heart. And I am daydreaming of a new day for our dressage world, a day where the mere premise of such horrors as Rollkur is met with disdain and instant demise, a day where our sport is devoid of abuse, a world in which dressage fulfils the promise of the therapeutic sport that would be, that could be, art. The craft of Kings once more. If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, the cracks in the pavement must be filled with assumptions. I think it’s safe to say that we tend to assume that other people feel more or less as we do, behave as we would, and see the world as we do. And interpret basic concepts as we do. I am at times surprised at my own naiveté. Not to mention embarrassed by the assumptions I have made. Oh, the many, many assumptions that have led to my own personal versions of hell! One such assumption sat me down and spun my head around the other day. No, I did not require an exorcism, just a wake-up call. It was regarding one of the most basic rules of thumb that was drilled into me since the first day I was allowed to bridle a horse myself. It is so basic, so oft repeated, that I assumed it was more than a rule of thumb. That it was written in the great rule books of competitive dressage itself. The rule that a noseband, any noseband of any kind, should never be tighter than could easily allow two fingers to slide under it, thus allowing the horse to chew, and to swallow his spit. Amongst other - rather important - things… I have wondered often that the disregard for this rule was so openly flaunted, at barns and at shows. I have watched and winced as trainers, riders and grooms pulled and grunted and wrenched the mouth of a horse achingly shut. I have wondered at the ignorance this misuse and outright abuse of the noseband demonstrated, and that more isn’t made of this by the Technical Delegates at shows. But most of all, I have wondered that a ‘crank’ noseband, the most efficient way of breaking this edict, has become an acceptable, even 'in demand', instrument for application on this sensitive and hugely important area of a horse. The name alone has made me cringe from Day One, and I remember having to double check that was the actual name for it the first time I came across it. I could not believe its purpose could be so blatantly stated – and allowed by our ruling members. I could not believe it was so blithely brought forth in writing and through people's lips, with no thought for what it really meant. Padded noseband and chinstrap not withstanding, it still uses powerful force to wrench the mouth of the horse shut. Crank and spank takes on new meaning – and finds a new tool. Being a wordsmith, I wondered how exactly one defined the word crank, and what other words one might have picked to describe this ‘invitation to torture noseband’ (my definition). When has the word ‘crank’ ever been associated with anything positive except in its purely mechanical meaning, which would then be a neutral expression describing the job of a machine-driven instrument? Which in itself, benign as it is, strikes me as completely out of place in the vicinity of a horse. Interestingly – I think – there is no other word for ‘crank’ in my Thesaurus. It simply goes straight to ‘cranky’ and that’s it. I found that mildly amusing. I would likely be ‘bad-humored’ myself were I a horse in a tightly fitted crank noseband. My dictionary on the other hand, strikes me as eerily insightful right off the bat. And I quote : crank n. something twisted.
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An Equestrian Legacy