Liberty horses

Got to admit I grew up riding at a yard that did displays including liberty work and used love liberty and circus acts but I wasn’t keen. I’m not sure if my opinions are changing as I get older but I didn’t like the dog being stood on the horses stomach.
 
I’m not watching but I’ve often thought the same about liberty horses!

A friend had access to the warm up at Olympia a few years ago and said the worst behaviour she saw was the liberty act that year, close to abuse. Similarly I watched the warm up of a well-known tackless ‘high school’ rider at a champions tour comp once and her hands on the very large curb bit were harsher than anything I saw from the SJers that night.

My conclusion was that the performance doesn’t necessarily reflect the training…
 
Haven’t seen it, but have seen a lot of liberty performances with tense looking horses. The cynic in me wonders whether most of these ‘trainers’ could do what they do without relying heavily on learned helplessness.
 
Whenever I've seen these demos I always feel the same as the other posters here, yet I love watching the Facebook videos of Emma massingdale and her ponies so wonder why they pick the overly drilled, shut down ones for the show, or maybe Emma is very media smart, I don't know..
 
fankino04 said:
Whenever I've seen these demos I always feel the same as the other posters here, yet I love watching the Facebook videos of Emma massingdale and her ponies so wonder why they pick the overly drilled, shut down ones for the show, or maybe Emma is very media smart, I don't know..
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Love love love Emma Massingale but I don’t think she trains her horses up to the “show stopping stunts with 10+ horses” level expected of liberty performances these days.
 
fankino04 said:
I'd still rather watch that, uts got a much more cutesy feel and her Christmas ad this year was amazing.
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Me too but I suspect that less horsey people (or generally people who care more for the sport than the horse) may not appreciate her and how she does what she does as much. Everything’s about looking flashy these days.
 
OH who is non horsey and having to endure hours of coverage as I'm watching it said he thought circuses were banned and this guy was effectively doing what is in a circus...

Didn't Lorenzo used to do exciting but pleasing to watch routines? He was years ago though so can't fully remember him, also Jon Francois Pignion?

I'd rather see more dog agility I really enjoy watching it as the dogs are having a fantastic time. Perhaps some fly ball or some as that's exciting to watch, or some scurry racing?
 
He had a chestnut Arab with him the other day. They all looked angry then but I think they grey all look utterly enraged tonight. Even the dog didn’t appear to want to be involved from the short clip I saw of it today. I had to stop watching ?
 
I haven't seen the ones mentioned but I do find the Arab's I have known quite enjoy liberty stuff but most of the things I have seen people do is nothing like you would see at a display, I do a bit of it with mine but I would describe it as having a play about with them and they seem to enjoy it and get quite excited by it, I only do it for about 10 minutes tops at the end of a lunge sometimes.
 
I watched it this evening and live in person yesterday and to be honest I didn't think they looked nearly as angry as I was expecting them to from comments online. I think they can look like that when concentrating I see it very often with lots of different liberty workers (and even mine sometimes).

The only annoying thing was it was the same routine I watched at SICAB about 3 weeks ago ?
 
shortstuff99 said:
I watched it this evening and live in person yesterday and to be honest I didn't think they looked nearly as angry as I was expecting them to from comments online. I think they can look like that when concentrating I see it very often with lots of different liberty workers (and even mine sometimes).

The only annoying thing was it was the same routine I watched at SICAB about 3 weeks ago ?
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I skipped them tonight as I watched them on Saturdays programme and like you I don't think they looked as angry as I expected them to based on comments, and also thought they were probably concentrating. I was expecting the chestnut to be charging at him mouth gaping based on the comments!

I didn't like the dog on their tummies though
 
Fern007 said:
I thought the same. I thought he was going to get trampled a couple of times. I also didn't like the dog jumping on the horses stomach.
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Me neither!
fankino04 said:
Whenever I've seen these demos I always feel the same as the other posters here, yet I love watching the Facebook videos of Emma massingdale and her ponies so wonder why they pick the overly drilled, shut down ones for the show, or maybe Emma is very media smart, I don't know..
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i had her out to my nervous highland. Let’s just say she wasn’t all that sympathetic.
 
I have not seen this year's display but in the past I have found this sort of act really quite distressing to watch.
What brought tears of emotion to my eyes was the display by the Mounted Police when I went a few years ago, they were happy and interacted with no signs of displeasure.
 
shortstuff99 said:
I watched it this evening and live in person yesterday and to be honest I didn't think they looked nearly as angry as I was expecting them to from comments online. I think they can look like that when concentrating I see it very often with lots of different liberty workers (and even mine sometimes). ?
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I wondered this too - whether they were concentrating faces. There was a *lot* of ears back and tail swishing but I figured that if they were really that upset, they would act out? So maybe it was something else. I don't know. But it was a bit odd to watch. I much prefer Emma and her happy Shetlands, they always look like they're having such a good time together.
 
So glad that other people didn't like this display. I was fully expecting one of those horses to have a real go at him at some point and the dog looked really unhappy. In fact the only time the dog looked happy was when it was herding the horses out of the ring. All in all I really didn't enjoy it and didn't see the point of it.
 
Concentration involves the ears facing the direction of the cues - so may be facing back. However they shouldn’t be pinned back and there certainly wouldn’t be tail swishing if a horse is just concentrating. Other issues like tense facial muscles and nostril dilation I can’t imagine anyone was close enough to see reliably.

As for acting out if upset, that’s the whole point of why people use learned helplessness. Horse cannot comprehend that they could act out (and achieve any favourable outcome).
 
I didn’t watch the display but have seen many similar ones. Most of these shows have been performed many, many times and I’d imagine the horses are just fed up with being chivvied around. I don’t understand why you’d expect them to be relaxed; it’s not exactly the sort of thing most horses do for recreation.
 
He was worse the year he brought friesians and more dogs. He was twitching chests to get one to lie down (I saw several performances and the horse seemed less inclined as time went on).
Given that we are all horse people if that happens I'd much rather they go oh well not feeling it today and move onto something else rather than labouring an uncomfortable point. - I did feel the same about the cavalry one who also wasn't keen on going down on saturday evening either.
It bugs me that when they advertise/announce it it's always about amazing 'bond'.

They do always seem to want to bring people in from overseas (and the same people time and time again until they retire) when we have people in the UK who could come up with something better/equivalent and just as entertaining.
 
ester said:
He was worse the year he brought friesians and more dogs. He was twitching chests to get one to lie down (I saw several performances and the horse seemed less inclined as time went on).
Given that we are all horse people if that happens I'd much rather they go oh well not feeling it today and move onto something else rather than labouring an uncomfortable point. - I did feel the same about the cavalry one who also wasn't keen on going down on saturday evening either.
It bugs me that when they advertise/announce it it's always about amazing 'bond'.

They do always seem to want to bring people in from overseas (and the same people time and time again until they retire) when we have people in the UK who could come up with something better/equivalent and just as entertaining.
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Or maybe this sort of show is just circus and we don’t really want that here anymore so we?
 
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