Williams Lake Trail Riders Association

Happy Thanksgiving 🦃

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Dr Shelley Appleton Calm Willing Confident Horses Educator, Horse Trainer, Podcast co-host () and Writer. I bridge the gap between practical wisdom, experience and science. I am a thought leader, pragmatist and can make complicated ideas easy to understand.

20 Ways to Ruin Your Horse, According to Someone on the Internet🍿
A comprehensive guide to being wrong about absolutely everything.

I recently asked horse people to share some of the conflicting advice they've received about caring for, managing and training their horses.

And holy moly, what a magnificent collection of mutually exclusive certainties we've accumulated.🤯

It turns out that almost everything you do with a horse is wrong. Not just mildly wrong, either. We're talking morally reprehensible, scientifically indefensible, spiritually bankrupt and quite possibly a violation of the Geneva Convention.😱

The really impressive part is that the person telling you you're wrong is invariably absolutely certain they're right.

So, in the interests of fairness, inclusivity and offending absolutely everyone equally, I've compiled a collection of 20 ways you can apparently ruin your horse.🔥

How many of these arguments have you encountered?😜

1.Shoes are cruel. Barefoot is cruel. Boots are unnatural. Glue-ons are cheating. Traditional farriers are dinosaurs. Barefoot trimmers are cult members.

2.Treats are scientifically proven training tools. Treats are bribery. Treats create dangerous horses. Treats build trust. Food rewards are essential. Food rewards are manipulative.

3.Bits responses can be well trained into communication. Bits are medieval torture devices. Bitless is ethical. Bitless is dangerous. A snaffle is gentle. A snaffle can be severe.

4.Horses need rugs. Horses don't need rugs. Rugs destroy thermoregulation. Not rugging is neglect. A clipped horse must be rugged. A healthy horse can regulate its own temperature.

5.Unlimited hay is essential. Unlimited hay causes obesity. Restricting hay causes ulcers. Obesity causes laminitis. Horses must eat constantly. Horses must not overeat.

6.Ride into the contact. Never ride into the contact. Contact creates balance. Balance creates contact. The horse must seek the bit. The horse must never feel the bit. Your hands must be soft. Your hands must be effective.

7.Round pens create communication. Round pens are the best place to start a horses training. Round pens create learned helplessness. Sending a horse away establishes leadership. Sending a horse away is emotional abandonment. Turning to face you is respect. Turning to face you is avoidance.

8.Be the leader. Don't be the leader. Be a partner. Be a guardian. Be a friend. Never be a friend. Establish boundaries. Never impose your will. Earn respect. Respect is a human construct.

9.Nosebands. One finger. Two fingers. No fingers. No noseband. Anatomical noseband. Cavesson. Flash. Drop. Loose is kind. Loose is dangerous.

10.Dental tools. Power tools are dangerous. Hand tools are outdated. Sedation is essential. Sedation is unnecessary. Equine dentists are experts. Only veterinarians should touch teeth. Horses survived millions of years without dentists.

11.Start riding at two. Start riding at four. Wait until seven. Early exercise strengthens bones. Early exercise destroys joints. Young horses need work. Young horses need to be left alone.

12.Stabling is cruel. Paddocks are dangerous. Track systems are revolutionary. Dry lots are essential. Small paddocks are prisons. Big paddocks are injury factories. Horses must live in herds. Horses need individual management.

13.Feed magnesium. Feed turmeric. Feed salt. Feed oils. Feed herbs. Feed gut supplements. Feed joint supplements. Don't feed supplements because supplements are unnecessary.

14.Your horse is naughty. Your horse is frightened. Your horse is traumatised. Your horse is testing boundaries. Your horse is expressing its truth. Your horse is reflecting your childhood wounds. Your horse needs a stronger leader. Your horse needs you to regulate your nervous system.

15.Never accept no. Always accept no. Wait for a genuine yes. Let the horse choose. Never force anything. Teach the horse to comply. Honour its autonomy. Respect its boundaries. Get some help to learn to train properly.

16.Chiropractic. Osteopathy. Massage. Acupuncture. Craniosacral therapy. Myofascial release. Masterson. PEMF. Energy healing. Bodywork is essential. Bodywork is a waste of money.

17.Train every day. Train twice a week. Train for five minutes. Train for an hour. Always finish on a good note. It doesn't matter if you finish on a good note. Rest is essential. Consistency is essential. Repetition builds understanding. Repetition creates boredom.

18.Hands wide. Hands narrow. Hands high. Hands low. Inside rein. Outside rein. Never pull. Always maintain contact. Open your rein. Never open your rein.

19.Pressure is communication. Pressure is coercion. Escalating pressure is essential. Escalating pressure is abuse. Rewards create willingness. Rewards create dependency. Never punish. Always correct. Be consistent. Be flexible.

20.Horses need leadership. Horses need connection. Horses need attunement. Horses need autonomy. Horses need boundaries. Horses need freedom. Traditional horsemanship is outdated. Natural horsemanship is unnatural. Science-based training is the answer. Science doesn't understand horses.

AND THE WINNER IS...

Absolutely nobody.

Because whatever you're doing with your horse, there's someone on the internet who is absolutely certain you're doing it wrong.🙄

Of course, some of these disagreements are legitimate, some depend on circumstances, and some are complete bo****ks. The trick is learning to tell the difference.😎

NOW IT'S YOUR TURN!

What's been missed from the list? Add your favourite contradictory horse advice to the comments. Let's see how long we can make this ridiculous list.😆

Collectable Advice 312/365. 🤓

Don't confuse conviction with competence.

One of the most useful things you can learn in about working with horses is that the answer to many questions is "it depends." It depends on the horse, the circumstances, the skills of the person involved and what they're trying to achieve. Terribly inconvenient for anyone selling the one true way.🫣

Of course, that doesn't mean every opinion is equally valid. Sometimes the evidence is clear, and sometimes people are MSUing (ie Making S**t Up).The trick is developing enough knowledge, experience and critical thinking to recognise the difference, rather than outsourcing your judgement to whoever sounds the most confident.✊

IMAGE📸: Most likely a internet expert🙃

The Ethical Horse - An Investigation into Use, Welfare and Our Own Blindspots🔥

[A serious look in the equestrian mirror. 🤔]

There is a popular accusation in the equestrian world that some people are using horses for their own gain. Racehorses are used to make money. Dressage horses are used to win ribbons and build reputations. Reining horses, showjumpers and performance horses become vehicles for human ambition. It is not difficult to find examples where that ambition has come at a considerable cost to the horse, and increasingly, people are questioning whether sporting achievement justifies that cost.

But there is something about this argument that has been bothering me. The people doing the accusing are using horses too.

I started looking into this because I wondered whether we have created a false moral divide between people who use horses and people who supposedly put the horse first. The more I investigated it, the less convincing that distinction became.

Horse ownership is already an extraordinary exercise of human power. We buy horses, put them behind fences, choose their companions, control their reproduction, determine what they eat, decide how much they move, transport them and ultimately make decisions about when their lives end. It is worth contemplating how differently we might view this if the animal behind the fence were a bird in a cage. The comparison is not one of equivalent welfare. It is a comparison of autonomy. In both cases, humans have decided that another animal will live within boundaries of our making because having that animal provides something we value.

I don't believe this means horses cannot have very good lives in domestication. I believe they can. Nor do I believe that riding, training or asking horses to perform physical tasks is inherently unethical. What matters is whether we have sufficient understanding and awareness to assess the life the horse is actually experiencing. Modern animal welfare science gives us increasingly sophisticated ways of doing that by examining nutrition, health, environment, behavioural opportunities, social relationships and mental state. Good welfare should be something we can reasonably demonstrate, not something we simply declare because our philosophy tells us we are kind.

That distinction becomes particularly interesting when we look at the other end of the equestrian spectrum. A growing part of horsemanship culture rejects achievement-focused training in favour of connection, emotional awareness, nervous-system regulation, relationship and personal growth. There is nothing inherently wrong with any of those things. What interests me is the moral story that can become attached to them: using a horse for performance is exploitation, while involving a horse in our emotional development is somehow fundamentally different.

I am not convinced it is.

If my horse helps me win a championship, I have benefited from my horse. If my horse helps me feel emotionally regulated, discover myself, heal old wounds, find belonging or become a more enlightened human being, I have also benefited from my horse. The currency has changed, but the horse remains involved in a human project.

Research into human behaviour makes this particularly interesting. Psychologists have studied moral grandstanding, where moral discourse can also become a means of establishing social status. Researchers have also examined moral hypocrisy, where appearing moral to ourselves and others can become more important than accepting the costs associated with living according to the standards we espouse. Neither phenomenon tells us the motivations of individual horse owners. It does give us reason to be cautious when a particular philosophy of horsemanship becomes evidence of our own moral goodness.

There is another uncomfortable assumption worth examining. Asking less of a horse does not necessarily mean providing better welfare. Domestic horses can be remarkably sedentary. Australian GPS research found paddocked horses travelled considerably less each day than the free-ranging horses studied. Exercise influences metabolic and musculoskeletal health, while obesity and insulin dysregulation are significant welfare concerns. This does not mean horses must be ridden, competed or conventionally trained. It means that not exercising a horse cannot automatically be presented as kindness. Welfare has to be assessed through what is happening to the horse, not inferred from the owner's philosophy.

Perhaps that is where the whole argument has gone wrong. Racing cannot point to performance and declare that a successful horse must therefore have good welfare. Dressage cannot use ribbons as evidence of it. But neither can alternative horsemanship point to connection, choice, emotional awareness or asking less and assume the moral high ground.

We are all getting something from horses. I certainly am. Horses have shaped my career, friendships, interests, learning and a substantial part of my life. Pretending otherwise would not make me more ethical. It would simply make me less honest about the arrangement.

Perhaps the useful lesson is to become suspicious whenever our philosophy makes scrutinising everyone else easier than scrutinising ourselves. Instead of asking whether another group uses horses, we could ask harder questions of our own practices. Does my horse have companionship, movement, appropriate nutrition, physical health and opportunities to behave like a horse? Is my training developing physical capacity and understanding, or merely achieving something I want? Am I interpreting what I see in the horse, or projecting a story onto it? Have I mistaken my good intentions for evidence of good welfare?

We do not need to stop riding horses to ask those questions. We need to keep asking them precisely because we ride, train, own and love horses.

The opposite of exploitation may not be non-use at all. It may be responsibility. And perhaps the greatest warning sign is not that someone else has a different philosophy from ours, but that our own philosophy has made us certain we no longer need to question ourselves.

Collectable Advice 309/365.

If this made you uncomfortable, good. Share it. We could all do with checking our own moral high horse.😎

https://equusmagazine.com/horse-care/is-it-ever-too-late-to-suture-a-wound-closed?fbclid=IwZnRzaAUx8GhleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBwZG9mBWZkaWQWUPz0r-3OLnKZAOabccfT8tM8aWR5OXNydGMGYXBwX2lkCjY2Mjg1NjgzNzkAAR7CpqrWGS3cXhGlrJ8nL-wRoA5KY1jXqX2aW-QAHcw7XuHsA0lMu7eXHMeIog_aem_GzC8N9CogjC1Q614NmNasQ

Is it ever too late to suture a wound closed? Several factors help a veterinarian to determine whether it’s advisable to suture a horse’s wound closed or leave it open.