Do you think that it's OK to whack a horse so hard that it...

Not unless it was to stop the horse from running under a train!

Not for me. Absolutely not.
 
Only if the whack was done (or genuinely believed to be needed) to protect people or other horses against harm; i.e. it was an emergency situation. Can you tell us about the circumstances?
 
Really, hitting them that hard is going to be no more "effective" than hitting them less hard so no imo, it's not. However accidents happen and it would depend on the circumstances before I would condemn someone for it.
 
No it's not ok but sometimes things happen that are less than ideal .
I marked J when I first got him with a spur .
I was mortified however I then realised that he's so thin skinned I can't even use suede chaps or boots with those little spur stands on the inside and I felt less bad .
Fatty has such strong skin and hair I could strap sand paper to my legs and get away with it .
It's easy to mark some horses with a whip and I suppose you referring to the napping thread earlier of course it's not 'right ' to hit a horse so hard you mark it but I doubt the person who started that thread will do it again in a hurry she was mortified .
 
Do you think any horse owner is going to believe that it's ok or is this thread just designed to cause a ***** storm?

My mare has two permanent raised scars on her rump that have so obviously (to me) been caused by a whip. I can only imagine that some idiot thought that hitting her that hard would make her lunge. It's the only situation where she could possibly ever have made anyone that angry.
 
I think that on reading the thread, I was more shocked by the later posters' placations. EG blaming the horse's breed, the fact it has thin skin or by saying that we've all done it.
 
I did feel like replying on that thread and saying we have not "all done it" however I expect the poster will learn from this mistake and avoid a repeat.
 
I started this thread because I didn't want to derail the original thread. I thought that a new thread would be better - maybe I was wrong?

No, I don't want to cause a **** storm, I was hoping for an adult discussion on the topic.

As I stated it was the later replies that got me more than the original post in that thread. I completely understand that the OP of that thread feels awful and is highly unlikely to ever mark her horse again.
 
She didn't get replies admonishing her because she was clearly upset that she had done it, had no intention of doing it and felt so bad that she was trying to do her best to find a way to make the horse comfortable. None of these things make it ok but they probably explain why people didn't jump on her.

Clearly she hit it too hard - she knows that.
 
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Moving away from that thread and taking the topic into a more general one...

Why is it that whacking horses is more acceptable than it is with other animals? Or do you disagree that that's the case? (I can't be the only person who's heard the phrase 'you've got a whip, USE it' when a horse is playing up.)

I've also been told by someone who really would lay into their horse if it misbehaved, that they wanted their horse to be more frightened of them than anything else. So yes, there are horse people out there like that, who don't feel bad about marking their horse.
 
Deltic Blue said:
I think it's a bit harsh to make a separate thread about this, the OP clearly felt horrible about the situation, and it was to stop the horse going down a ditch. These things happen, and she wasn't intentionally smacking the horse with the intent of hurting it!
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I agree with this.
 
selinas spirit said:
I agree with this.
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My intention was merely to start an adult conversation on the use/misuse of the whip with horses, not to have a go at the OP of that thread. Yes, this thread was inspired by the later justifications that were written on that thread. I do think that the topic does need discussing sensibly.
 
Faracat said:
Moving away from that thread and taking the topic into a more general one...

I've also been told by someone who really would lay into their horse if it misbehaved, that they wanted their horse to be more frightened of them than anything else. So yes, there are horse people out there like that, who don't feel bad about marking their horse.
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People like this make me sick.
I was always taught that a whip is there to back up your leg aids...not to just wallop the horse with when it "won't behave".
Some people think I'm a bit "fluffy" when it comes to things like this but I prefer my animals to actually trust me.
 
It isn't ok but I don't think I would vilify someone for it occurring once. Iirc it happened to me once, ages ago, the pony was freshly clipped, it went down shortly after (and he gave me a rollocking for it at the time, I apologised profusely we were friends again later). I might have done the same on the occasion we reversed into a large, vertical water filled ditch because of a plastic bag on the other side of the road but I wasn't quick enough- he was lucky and kept his footing on one hind and scared himself enough to get over the plastic bag and I pointed out, that just sometimes, I was right :p.

I presume it is more acceptable becasue they have several hundred kilos on most other animals we handle. Plenty of 'encouragement' goes on with cows at times. I think it goes wrong/gets too much when we react in a scared instead of the ideal manner.
 
I have found that an upset horse doesn't learn and that if a horse is upset, you need to calm it down and only then you can train it. So I don't personally believe that whacking an upset horse will be helpful for anyone. So unless it's a life or death situation, there are better and more effective ways to deal with the situation.

Yes, horses are big, but they are as a general rule extremely biddable if they are trained correctly and have no physical issues.
 
No it is never right though accidents do happen. I have marked a horse. A tb at work that just would not walk to the gallops. He retired soon after through injury but in reality he absolutely hated racing and had become very, very sour of it. I took him home and he lived a happy retirement as a field ornament for 8 years.

Did I intend to mark him? No, I would never intend to. In all honesty I didn't even know I had the strength in me to mark a horse.

It is taken very seriously in racing when a jockey marks a horse, they get a few days ban from race riding. You may not think a few days is much but if you think the average jockey ride 4-5 horses a day in races that's £600-700 a day he is losing just in riding fees let alone any prize money he may have won. You get a 3-5 day ban and that really adds up!

Some horses are easier to mark than others and a warm horse with its heart rate up and blood pumping will be much easier to mark than your fat dobbin standing in a field eating grass.
 
As a normal part of riding no you should never mark a horse, however in an emergency I will do anything to get me and the horse out of it alive and if that means a raised welt then so be it.
I have only ever marked a horse with a stick once and it was my own horse who had decided that standing on his hind legs in the middle of a 60mph busy road on a blind bend was a good idea. He would not stop with normal encouragements and I was terrified that any second we would be plowed into by someone doing 60mph so I smacked him very hard with my schooling whip it left a mark but it resulted in him shooting to the other side of the road and he never again thought about rearing!
 
Maybe we need to start a thread called 'do you think its ok to judge people, when they have already judged themselves and feel awful' :) just saying.
 
WandaMare said:
Maybe we need to start a thread called 'do you think its ok to judge people, when they have already judged themselves and feel awful' :) just saying.
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I'm going to repeat it again. I started this thread because of some of the REPLIES to that thread, not the OP.

If you want to start your own thread with your suggested thread title, go ahead. :)
 
I do wonder how much of the less admirable attitudes found within the horse world are left overs from the horse's history as a working animal and cavalry animal?

It was certainly something that came into my mind when I listened to Lucy Rees' discussion on the topic of vices that was on Epona TV.
 
No of course it's not ok. We don't all do it and it's wrong. However the person in original thread knew she had done wrong and was upset. Don't think she would have posted otherwise.
For the purpose of the discussion though, is it right to hit horses to make them run faster as in racing? Imagine the uproar if greyhounds were hit to make them run faster.
Is it right to hit a horse to punish it for refusing a fence?
 
No, I don't think it's ok. In the many decades I've been riding I can honestly say I've never marked a horse .
 
Faracat said:
I have found that an upset horse doesn't learn and that if a horse is upset, you need to calm it down and only then you can train it. So I don't personally believe that whacking an upset horse will be helpful for anyone. So unless it's a life or death situation, there are better and more effective ways to deal with the situation.

Yes, horses are big, but they are as a general rule extremely biddable if they are trained correctly and have no physical issues.
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That's all well and good but when you have a horse who's promptly reversing their behind into oncoming traffic/a ditch etc. then safety for the horse and rider comes first.

I don't care if it hurts them in that instance as long as it gets us both out of harm's way.

I've had one who was a chronic napper and sometimes a sharp smack was the only thing that would make him shoot forward and avoid us flipping down a 6ft ditch.

I'm definitely all for sitting it out and that's 100% my preferred method of dealing with it. But sometimes need's must.

The only time I will ever hit a horse is if other people, the horse, or other horses are in danger.

Saying that, I've never left marks and I'd feel awful if I did. This thread is a bit petty.
 
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