More social licence questions - Horseball

[ycbm]

An advert for people to join the UK Horseball team training squad has just appeared on Facebook.

While we're busy talking about abuses in top level dressage on another thread, should we really be using live creatures as a mobile climbing frame like this?

 

[webble]

No! I feel the same about vaulting too

 

[Goldie's mum]

We certainly do seem to have double standards. If I go for a trek I'm weighed & then I have to mount from a block so my weight is never asymmetrical - fair enough but it's also ok to do this..

 

[Crazy_cat_lady]

I really can't stand vaulting - multiple people, albeit very light ones, springing around and onto the horse which must spend half it's time on the lunge strapped down with side reins and probably bored as hell

 

[Cortez]

Oooh, I just love it when people decide to criticise sports they know nothing about……whilst happily doing sports that have just as many questionable implications.

 

[SEL]

There's a yard near me that plays horse ball - I think they'd all be splatted if they were at that angle! The horses appear to enjoy it. I was never a massive fan of polocrosse - lots of spurs and yanking horses around - but there was no denying how much fun the horses had. Jaded riding school ponies would come out looking 10 years younger if there was an evening polox session.

 

[MuddyMonster]

I knew a couple of horse-ballers. Horse's seemed to really enjoy it!

They were far lighter, more mobile & athletic than the average rider - including a far few competing in other disciplines. They used their own core strength rather than relying on the horse to help them balance - not something I can say for a lot of riders ...

I think it's good to question everything but based on what I've seen, I'd far rather a horse did horseball than be ridden by many examples I see at local dressage, to be honest.

 

[Ambers Echo]

The mounted games ponies I know seem to love it. The kids took their ponies to a few sessions through pony club and the ponies appeared to have a great time.

 

[HopOnTrot]

Mounted games on the list? Have you seen a mounted games rider? They’re all tiny and athletic!

DD had a lesson with a HOYS mounted games rider and she was wonderful, very different to me (a tall but lightweight adult) trying to vault on a pony.

 

[HopOnTrot]

DD has her first mounted games comp next month, I will report back on the crimes!

 

[AShetlandBitMeOnce]

I was thinking this the other day when a vaulting video came up on social media.. Correct, I don't know much about either sport, but I do know that repeated and significant asymetrical strain on a spine will do damage over the long term, it's doesn't require a genius to figure that one out.

Vaulting - we are told not to sit behind the saddle (or I was as a kid and mucking about on ponies) as it causes undue stress on the kidneys or lumbar spine, but it's okay to stand on the top of their pelvis and do a somersault and land directly on the spine.. Showjumping - consistent repeated sacro and hock issues, on a surface, with tight turns to screw up everything else.. Polo - more constant tight turns, loads of tack, asymmetry (I cannot spell that word and I'm too lazy to google it), Dressage - wide spread cruelty and repeated overload on just about every soft tissue and joint there is at higher levels, Cross Country - harder and harder questions, rotational risks, ever bigger jumps, Hunting - boggy ground, cantering on roads, bad ground for jumping..

If you think hard enough into it, it's a lose lose whatever sport you look at. You just have to mitigate what you can and listen to the horse if they object at any point.

 

[Mrs. Jingle]

Have none of you ever competed in Gymkhana? I think some of the images from that are far, far worse than those shown above. And before anybody states that it is only lightweight small children clambering about on the horses or ponies, that is not so, I gymkhaned from the age of about 5 and continued with adult gymkhana until I moved back here at 50. I always thoroughly enjoyed it, my ponies and later years my horses also thoroughly enjoyed it.

I think we are all getting a bit too precious now to be honest.

 

[MuddyMonster]

I was thinking this the other day when a vaulting video came up on social media.. Correct, I don't know much about either sport, but I do know that repeated and significant asymetrical strain on a spine will do damage over the long term, it's doesn't require a genius to figure that one out.

Vaulting - we are told not to sit behind the saddle (or I was as a kid and mucking about on ponies) as it causes undue stress on the kidneys or lumbar spine, but it's okay to stand on the top of their pelvis and do a somersault and land directly on the spine.. Showjumping - consistent repeated sacro and hock issues, on a surface, with tight turns to screw up everything else.. Polo - more constant tight turns, loads of tack, asymmetry (I cannot spell that word and I'm too lazy to google it), Dressage - wide spread cruelty and repeated overload on just about every soft tissue and joint there is at higher levels, Cross Country - harder and harder questions, rotational risks, ever bigger jumps, Hunting - boggy ground, cantering on roads, bad ground for jumping..

If you think hard enough into it, it's a lose lose whatever sport you look at. You just have to mitigate what you can and listen to the horse if they object at any point.

Ditto this entirely - you could overthink anything if you tried.

'Even' hacking could be considered hazardous and probably potentially 'bad' for horses, if you tried hard enough!

 

[poiuytrewq]

These photos have really made me think. I have a bad something or other and i know if I'm not thinking about it my weight is probably not quite even and this worries the hell out of me. I've even questioned wether i should ride. I mean we are talking really minor, I've asked other people if its obvious and they say no.
Then you see stuff like that, which I'd never really thought about.

That first photo How is the horse even upright!

 

[AShetlandBitMeOnce]

These photos have really made me think. I have a bad something or other and i know if I'm not thinking about it my weight is probably not quite even and this worries the hell out of me. I've even questioned wether i should ride. I mean we are talking really minor, I've asked other people if its obvious and they say no.
Then you see stuff like that, which I'd never really thought about.

That first photo How is the horse even upright!

My understanding is that there is a strap that attached to the far side stirrup that attaches to the otherside under the girth so that it doesn't just pull on one side as much as it would appear, but spreads the 'leaning load' to both sides which is also why the stirrup doesn't just flip over the horses back. How effective this idea is anyones guess, you hang 10st of unstable weight thrown at some velocity off one side of anything, and I'm not sure how much an additional bit of leather is going to do

 

[criso]

Mounted games on the list? Have you seen a mounted games rider? They’re all tiny and athletic!

Not in the pony club I was in. The age limit for Prince Philip Cup was 14 and the kids in the team were all at the upper end of that. Of the ponies in the team only one was over 12hh. They were fit and athletic like most kids were but average not tiny. Tall enough to pick up dropped things from the floor.

It was a very competitive team and ponies and riders had fun though a friend's section A went from a well schooled restrained show pony to the sort that jogged everywhere when hacking.

 

[Needtoretire]

So what should we do with horses if we take out all listed below activities. The list is not how I view horse use I must add as a caveat, but likely how many other people do see it.

Racing - run to exhaustion, fatally injured common occurrence, started too young, generally stressed throughout and regularly given a thrashing for trying their hardest. Many not enjoying suitable retirement.
Hunting - carry fair amount of weight for many hours (few people take 2nd horses now), yanked around and galloped up roads.
Polo, vaulting, pony club games, horseball already mentioned
Dressage - much discussed welfare concerns, training methods, bits, spurs etc.
Show jumping as above
Eventing as above rolled up together
Police and military horses judged to be put in harms way and kept in inappropriate stables and routine.
Riding school horses, worked to death with endless unbalanced people hanging on their mouths.

We have driving left, but no doubt comments are made about endless trotting on roads, overchecks and big bits. Personally I think 4 in hand driving is the most amazing partnership between whip and his horses.

Liberty horses, never look that happy but who knows if they are, western horses/barrel racing/reining lots of weight on board with the cowboys, no idea why they need to slide and spin, not over pleasant to watch for me. Endurance horses no idea if they enjoy it but incidents in the Far East were not a great advertisement.

Hacking - overweight riders (me in older age) horses often not fit enough to do the work, road/traffic danger.

Field kept horses - fat and laminitis risk so they are kept in 4 strands of wire on a bare patch. So all we have left is breeding stock but that needs to stop because all it does is fuel all the above mentioned activities.

There is no doubt there is suffering and poor welfare in the horse world, especially in other countries where there are barbaric goings on. Perhaps our concern should be for them and not a horse having a run round a horse ball session for 30 minutes or a tired polo pony. The vast majority of owners care deeply for their horses and fund a huge industry.

 

[Mrs B]

I refuse to recognise the term 'social licence'.

If something is not illegal and my conscience is ok with it, that's fine by me and I don't a stuff what anyone else thinks.

 

[criso]

At the last yard I was at one of the teenagers played horse all to a reasonable level, had gone overseas with the team. They bought an Arab about 14.2 to train up and I didn't see anything that horrified me.

 

[Goldenstar]

Oooh, I just love it when people decide to criticise sports they know nothing about……whilst happily doing sports that have just as many questionable implications.

Yup so do I, and I will add those who no longer ride but did for years .

 

[Titchy Pony]

The hairy champion pony that I owned through my teenage years and I dabbled in as much as we could.
We did a bit of horseball for fun and he loved it, I could pick a ball of the floor with or without a saddle at all three paces (he was 147cm) and he'd actively aim for the ball. We did a bit of pony games and I could vault on and off him in canter, same again, he seemed to think it was fun. I taught my french riding instructor "ready, get set, go" to wind my sister up because her pony would take off like crazy when he heard them words. I never did vaulting with my pony (I never figured out how to lunge him without risking my life) but would merrily stand in the saddle to pick cherries to share between us. We also used to think is was great fun to chase ducks out of the arena when they got in the way. He also show jumped and evented to a higher level than anyone would have predicted. Variety kept him happy and in slightly less mischief than he would otherwise have made. In five years he was only ever lame from some foot abscesses, perhaps twice.
All that to say that even though we did all those "problematic" activities, he thrived on them.

I don't vault, but have read interviews of high level vaulters. They practice more off the horse than on it (which can't be said for most other horse sports and I think we could do with taking a leaf out of their book for that). Vaulting horses are rarely just vaulting horses, they hack and do other "normal" horsey activities like flat work. Vaulters will also train on multiple horses if they need to train more than once a week on an actual horse.

I think we should aim to keep as many horse activities alive as possible, so that horses and riders/drivers/handlers can find the one that suits them, so that horses have a "use", so that they don't only have "meat" as an avenue to survival. Because let's face it, animals that aren't "useful" to humans have a tendency to disappear. I also believe that we have a duty to mitigate any harmful influence of repetitive stress, whether that be hanging off the side, impact on landing or the strain of advanced dressage movements. That means offering horses a variety of work or activities, building up to what we require of them, both long term and in the warm up. If I hang of the side of my Old Lady, we're both likely to fall over because she doesn't have the muscle and the balance for it. If I hang off the side of Little Madam who is in regular work, I fancy my chances better. If I warm Little Madam up first and start with smaller leans, alternating to the left and the right, and build from there, I'm sure she would find it a lot more pleasant and it would have a lot less physical impact on her overall.

 

[SpeedyPony]

I think a lot depends on the conditioning of the horse- if you're always loading one side and not the other (I.e. mounting and dismounting from the left only) then it will start to have an impact, but if you build up the strength to support a rider leaning off the side and work at it evenly on both sides, I can't see that it would be a problem as they will build the muscle necessary to support that. Obviously there's the question of rider weight and fitness, but that is a problem across the board, even for happy hackers.

 

[maya2008]

I sold a 13.1hh Welsh B cross many years ago, to be a mounted games pony for a small adult. She had clearly stated she did NOT like any of the standard horse activities (hacking, schooling, jumping) because she actually didn't like doing anything alone, finding the world a little too scary and spooky without another horse right there with her. I had her checked over fully before she was sold, by a vet, to check there was nothing underlying to cause her spookiness, nothing found. I went to visit her at a competition (at the new owner's invitation) a few months later, to see her SO very happy. She was amazing at it, lit up at the sight of the equipment, and just loved her new job. It was the perfect fit for her, where other more staid activities just weren't her thing.

Walking down the road could get any of us killed, horse or human. Life is for living - why not do activities that both horses and humans clearly enjoy?

 

[Ambers Echo]

There are worse lives for horses than being kept fit and active in a job they enjoy. Even if wear and tear is a side effect of that job. Plenty of bored, sad horses out there with good joints but dull, restricted lives!

 

[Rowreach]

I think we need to be very careful here. Gratuitous cruelty we should all be ready to speak up about, across all equine activities, from the retired pony in the field to top level competition, I agree. But I still want to ride my horse.

Re mounted games, I'm more concerned at the mental effects of it on ponies than the physical tbh. Some of them end up with fried brains.

 

[irishdraft]

My friend's daughters have all done pony club games to a high level, now one of them is still going in mounted games at the age of 24, she is incredibly fit & athletic, she is European & world champion standard & travels all over the world doing mounted games. Her own ponies are not young ponies, all into their teens, they are fit and happy ponies, loving their job. It's so easy to put up photos that are a moment in time & then start taking the moral high ground. As for social licence I'm quite sceptical of it unless it's for racing & obviously hunting. People I know who are not horsy have no idea about horse sport and actually aren't that interested, too many other things going on in the world atm.

 

[Ratface]

An advert for people to join the UK Horseball team training squad has just appeared on Facebook.

While we're busy talking about abuses in top level dressage on another thread, should we really be using live creatures as a mobile climbing frame like this?

View attachment 135502

No, we shouldn't. It puts the natural balance of the horse's body and skeleton at too much risk of immediate pain and possible long-term damage.

 

[ycbm]

I think we need to be very careful here. Gratuitous cruelty we should all be ready to speak up about, across all equine activities, from the retired pony in the field to top level competition, I agree. But I still want to ride my horse.

I get what you're saying completely. I do think there's a point in the foreseeable future where the extraordinary cost of veterinary investigation and treatment for even quite trivial problems; the ever increasing social pressure to retire horses which can no longer be ridden instead of having them PTS; the increasing pressure on land combined with pressure in the other direction for horses not to be confined to stables; when horse owning with be only for the rich. At that point I think there will be demands that we stop keeping horses to ride for fun at all, which would of course mean that the number of horses bred will fall through the floor.
.

 

[coblets]

No, we shouldn't. It puts the natural balance of the horse's body and skeleton at too much risk of immediate pain and possible long-term damage.

Can people stop with the blind conjecture? The horses are trained for to adapt to the weight shift over an extended period of time, and have a varied lifestyle to ensure they stay fit and healthy.

Unless you’ve actually worked with horseball horses or otherwise know of empirical data on horseball horses you can’t be making claims that being used in the sport is abusive.

 

[Tiddlypom]

Hang on. One day it’s to be admired that it will be the little people who will bring the cruel farce that is top end dressage down.

The next day the same little people are being told to butt out of criticising horseball because they are not deemed to be knowledgeable enough .

Which is it, people?