Horse Equality

    This weekend I attended a clinic taught by Sue Comming-Schultz. She is a renown trainer and care tacker of horses and has trained hundreds of world champions over her 40 years in the horse business. There were two things that really stuck with me from the clinic.
    One had to do with this quote by Anne Kursinski, "Natural talent, no matter how great, can't make up for a lack of basic knowledge and skill. Solid basics combined with real desire and commitment can make any rider a good rider." To train competitive show horses takes time, patience and discipline on the side of the rider. Horses are complex animals and before a person can attempt to train one they must know the mechanics behind their body movement and control. Without that the horse can be injured or broken. Horses are made of of thousands of tendons running through large muscles around a delicate skeleton and on top of this they are holding up the weight of a person. All these parts move in a specific way, so to be able to get the horse to do what the rider asks of them, the rider needs to know how all these parts come together. This knowledge is necessary so that you learn how to ask the horse correctly and properly. Injured horses come from this lack of understanding because trainers will not spend the time strengthening the horses body and learning the mechanics behind this body, since of these things aren't know then the horse will be asked to do something its body is not ready to do. Like Sue described it would be like me telling you that you are going to run the marathon when you have never run a day in your life. This training takes time so without the patience it can not be achieved even with all the talent in the world.
   Another was what I discovered on my own when I looked online. Sue told us that many of the broken horses she has seen over the years came from this lack of knowledge and discipline on the side of the rider/trainer. A largest topic in the center of horse abuse is on Tennessee Walkers. Tennessee Walking Horses are know for their movement because it involves legs that are flung high into the air and a low hind end. To some this looks "graceful" or "elegant", but to others its the pure sight of abuse. This high knee action, or "big lick" movement. is what causes the horse to lift their front legs high in the air is caused by a method called soring the horse. Soring is the act of using chemical agents, that are applied to the horses front hooves and absorbed by the hoof itself. These chemicals cause soreness and extreme pain in the hoof and around the ankle. Then metal chains are put around the horses ankles so that they bang that sore area with every step, and that makes every one agony. This is what causes the "big lick" movement because the horse doesn't want to put any pressure or weight on those front feet and so they lower their butt and carry 70% of their weight on their hind feet. Soring is illegal due to the Horse Protection law and societies are cracking down on the activity but it is still done. People will do anything to win, but I believe that nothing is worth torturing an innocent animal.I didn't realize till this weekend how badly we can hurt horses simply due to ignorance and lack of knowledge.

Soring Awareness Videos:
http://timesfreepress.com/videos/2012/mar/17/6007/
http://www.humanesociety.org/news/news/2009/09/cruelest_horse_show_091709.html