Pinch boots, rapping and other forms of SJ torture

As an animal trainer I guess you use many techniques as many do and my argument would be that some have been given a bad name by their misuse however that does not stop them being a useful tool in the right circumstances and used in a non abusive way. People over the years hear the horror stories and think they are the norm! For example I have seen Rapping used in a way that no one could feel was abusive and it did what it set out to achieve, but I guess today you would send me to the tower for having witnessed it,however I will not accept abuse of any animal the abuse comes from the person using it not the technique per se!
 
I'm quite aware horses don't think like humans do.

However the point of this thread is that as the thinking humans it's up to us to ensure the horse doesn't get stamped on deliberately and that the accidental standing on is at a minimum with an eye to improving the rider at all times.
 
FfionWinnie said:
I'm quite aware horses don't think like humans do.

However the point of this thread is that as the thinking humans it's up to us to ensure the horse doesn't get stamped on deliberately and that the accidental standing on is at a minimum with an eye to improving the rider at all times.
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But in reality? You will see far more awful riding in the lower levels of equine sports- some have very very little desire to improve. Riders of 20+stone riding regularly with a complete disregard to the pain they are inflicting. Those children in the pony jump off at Olympia were almost all displaying dreadful riding.

It is no better or worse than people using pinch boots or any other method.
 
popsdosh said:
As an animal trainer I guess you use many techniques as many do and my argument would be that some have been given a bad name by their misuse however that does not stop them being a useful tool in the right circumstances and used in a non abusive way. People over the years hear the horror stories and think they are the norm! For example I have seen Rapping used in a way that no one could feel was abusive and it did what it set out to achieve, but I guess today you would send me to the tower for having witnessed it,however I will not accept abuse of any animal the abuse comes from the person using it not the technique per se!
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But often techniques that achieve results get misused to achieve more desirable results. I'll be honest I only have a passing connection with the showjumping world, but I fail to see how intentionally setting a horse up to hit a pole is an ethical training method. I may be oversimplifying as I've only had a fleeting dip into the world and decided I didn't like what I saw so left, and later did the same when my chosen part of the industry started to leave a bad taste in my mouth for similar reasons, so I'm obviously sensitive to intentionally causing pain.

But I'm now one of these amature horse owners, and my horse doesn't ever wear tack designed to cause pain, and is never forced to go a certain way. To my mind that is kinder. We will never ever do a grand prix dressage test or jump 1:40 but I feel it's a kinder partnership, even if I occasionally kick her on the bum getting on or go out of balance for a few strides. She's never set up to hurt herself or forced to wear tack that causes pain, that's the difference in my mind.
 
FfionWinnie said:
I'm quite aware horses don't think like humans do.

However the point of this thread is that as the thinking humans it's up to us to ensure the horse doesn't get stamped on deliberately and that the accidental standing on is at a minimum with an eye to improving the rider at all times.
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The fact still remains the horse being badly ridden by an insenestive novice feels pain and is effected by the pain in exactly the same way as the horse being ridden in pinch Boots .
 
Goldenstar said:
The fact still remains the horse being badly ridden by an insenestive novice feels pain and is effected by the pain in exactly the same way as the horse being ridden in pinch Boots .
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So basically no one should ever start riding ever again? And no one should ever ride again?

I mean every person who rides makes mistakes. Someone who says they don't is a liar. So we are all causing our horses pain and should stop. Someone above admitted that they can go out of balance on their horse at times which will cause him pain. We have all seen pictures of people on here jumping and getting it wrong so they have pulled the horses mouth. Should they never ride again?

Ffionwinnies point is we learn from our mistakes. Those riders using gadgets don't. They continue to cause the horse pain deliberately. They continue to put things onto the horse that will knowingly hurt it. Us novice riders make mistakes yes but we try to correct them and make sure we don't do them again.
 
popsdosh said:
Im not condoning anything but im not sure money is the driver for this either. In my experience most of these schooling methods get out of hand when the inexperienced people start using them as a short cut because they have seen a pro use them to correct an issue in a horse . To me having seen Rapping( not as its portrayed) used by some very experienced household names back in the past in controlled settings it is no worse than dressage riders schooling with long whips its all in the degree and to be frank the lower down the tree of experience you go riders do not understand the subtleties that are involved and thats when it becomes abuse to me.
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How is money not the driver when the aim of the pros/experienced household names using them is either to win more classes or sell the horse for more money? What other advantage is there of doing it?

Again as always I don't see why one bad thing means another bad thing cannot be discussed or are we back to the age old well you aren't pros/experienced enough so you cannot possibly judge a pro thing?
 
rachk89 said:
So basically no one should ever start riding ever again? And no one should ever ride again?

I mean every person who rides makes mistakes. Someone who says they don't is a liar. So we are all causing our horses pain and should stop. Someone above admitted that they can go out of balance on their horse at times which will cause him pain. We have all seen pictures of people on here jumping and getting it wrong so they have pulled the horses mouth. Should they never ride again?



Ffionwinnies point is we learn from our mistakes. Those riders using gadgets don't. They continue to cause the horse pain deliberately. They continue to put things onto the horse that will knowingly hurt it. Us novice riders make mistakes yes but we try to correct them and make sure we don't do them again.
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Don't put stupid words in my mouth .
BTW How do you know people who do these silly foolish things to attempt to make horses careful don't learn the error of their ways .
I will repeat over and over again pain is pain to the horse it makes no difference to the horse what intent the rider has .
 
Goldenstar said:
The fact still remains the horse being badly ridden by an insenestive novice feels pain and is effected by the pain in exactly the same way as the horse being ridden in pinch Boots .
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Well if you want to look at it like that the pinch boot using pro at one time was the novice and unintentionally inflicted pain at that time however now is doing so deliberately so they are still worse than the novice who does it at one time unintentionally while they learn.
 
ester said:
How is money not the driver when the aim of the pros/experienced household names using them is either to win more classes or sell the horse for more money? What other advantage is there of doing it?
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Well if thats the case why are riders at the lower levels trying to use the same techniques?

And its ok judging everybody else as long as you are armed with the true facts. IE pinch boots do not cause pain! Otherwise nobody would ever put boots on a horse as they work in exactly the same way as any boot which will bring about a subtle change in gait. Weve all seen a horse with boots on for the first time and its reaction it is no different. If you used pinch boots all the time you would lose that effect. The old way used in Eventing was to just tighten up the boots before going in.
 
FfionWinnie said:
Well if you want to look at it like that the pinch boot using pro at one time was the novice and unintentionally inflicted pain at that time however now is doing so deliberately so they are still worse than the novice who does it at one time unintentionally while they learn.
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Its your perception they cause pain!
Pinch boots are not intended to inflict pain where do you get that from. most horses ive come across can have a fairly violent reaction to pain .
 
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FfionWinnie said:
Well if you want to look at it like that the pinch boot using pro at one time was the novice and unintentionally inflicted pain at that time however now is doing so deliberately so they are still worse than the novice who does it at one time unintentionally while they learn.
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They are not worse to the horse .
I would not let someone rap my horse and I would not let lots of the riders I see hacking about on his back either neither would be ethically acceptable to me .
 
Goldenstar said:
Don't put stupid words in my mouth .
BTW How do you know people who do these silly foolish things to attempt to make horses careful don't learn the error of their ways .
I will repeat over and over again pain is pain to the horse it makes no difference to the horse what intent the rider has .
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How are they stupid words? Please explain how a novice rider is meant to learn everything about horse riding without making a mistake and hurting the horse? Do you never make mistakes? I doubt it.

Pain is pain yes but there is a difference between knowingly causing it and unknowingly causing it. When you are knowingly causing an animal pain and don't care you are cruel no matter what your intentions. You are not fixing a problem. You are causing one.

I don't know if they learn the error of their ways. I don't know all of these people personally or follow their lives. If they do great. If they don't that's a problem.
 
rachk89 said:
How are they stupid words? Please explain how a novice rider is meant to learn everything about horse riding without making a mistake and hurting the horse? Do you never make mistakes? I doubt it.

Pain is pain yes but there is a difference between knowingly causing it and unknowingly causing it. When you are knowingly causing an animal pain and don't care you are cruel no matter what your intentions. You are not fixing a problem. You are causing one.

I don't know if they learn the error of their ways. I don't know all of these people personally or follow their lives. If they do great. If they don't that's a problem.
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So you are accepting that if a novice rider can cause pain ,they knowingly are no better than somebody more experienced using training aids
 
popsdosh said:
Well if thats the case why are riders at the lower levels trying to use the same techniques?
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Because they presume that if the pros are using gadgets, gadgets must be the only way to success because they presume pros are using them for a reason. Success is success at whatever level and will still give you that 'boost' which is just hormones and neurotransmitters :p. The fact that pros use such techniques just normalises it as the thing to do and you can see what effect normalisation has in sports with mass drug cheating problems.

But surely you cannot deny that the pros that are doing it are doing it for money? The non pros are doing it out of ignorance. I don't see that either is better or worse than the other.
 
rachk89 said:
How are they stupid words? Please explain how a novice rider is meant to learn everything about horse riding without making a mistake and hurting the horse? Do you never make mistakes? I doubt it.

Pain is pain yes but there is a difference between knowingly causing it and unknowingly causing it. When you are knowingly causing an animal pain and don't care you are cruel no matter what your intentions. You are not fixing a problem. You are causing one.

I don't know if they learn the error of their ways. I don't know all of these people personally or follow their lives. If they do great. If they don't that's a problem.
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They are stupid words because that is NOT what GS is saying. It is perfectly feasable to learn to ride PROPERLY, without causing distress to horses on a continual basis. No one can say they haven't given the occassional poke or inconvenience, but that is very different to habitually riding in ill fitting or inapropriate tack, to riding when overweight or very unbalanced, to hauling on the reins, etc. THAT is ignorance, and it can be just as cruel as inflicting pain deliberatly.
 
popsdosh said:
So you are accepting that if a novice rider can cause pain ,they knowingly are no better than somebody more experienced using training aids
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No because how can they know? They are learning they don't know what they are doing is wrong. You can't expect them to know everything straight away. I would however expect a professional to know that rapping is cruel. I wouldn't expect a novice person to be able to do sitting trot perfectly straight away because they can't. They will bounce around. You teach them how not to.
 
Cortez said:
They are stupid words because that is NOT what GS is saying. It is perfectly feasable to learn to ride PROPERLY, without causing distress to horses on a continual basis. No one can say they haven't given the occassional poke or inconvenience, but that is very different to habitually riding in ill fitting or inapropriate tack, to riding when overweight or very unbalanced, to hauling on the reins, etc. THAT is ignorance, and it can be just as cruel as inflicting pain deliberatly.
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And a novice rider wouldn't know that if they aren't taught would they? Do you expect them to know how to fit tack? If they are taught correctly then they will cause the horse no pain through learning. But otherwise it is unknowingly causing psin. Its still not fine but they do need to be taught what to do.
 
fburton said:
Doesn't the BHS have a guiding principle that would prohibit this sort of thing (probably not as strong as the Oath that vets take but similar in intent)? If not, should they?
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I am not aware that in general Rapping is banned ,I know the disciplines dont allow it in warm up . I think it can only be dealt with under animal welfare laws and to be frank there are so many different degrees I dont see it could be.

I want to make it very clear I dont condone it but have seen it done where the horse was not even aware of what was happening it was that skillfully done. I suppose if it is banned maybe so should all riders whose horses have cricket scores SJ. However an experienced trainer would only ever use the technique with a horse that is naturally careful as thats the only one you will influence to improve its technique

I
 
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ester said:
Interstingly the minutes from this IEOC meeting suggest a study was being done to determine if pinch boots were 'abuse of the horse' I wonder what the results were.

http://www.ieoc.info/sites/default/files/IEOC-Minutes-Badminton-2013.pdf
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Logic says they were not an issue otherwise they would have been banned by now which maybe proves a point after all they banned weighted boots that worked in a similar manner. It may however be to do with interpretation because a layman would find it very difficult to distinguish between them and standard fetlock boots .
 
I think there are two issues really, the latter might be more relevant to weighted boots but both are important for sport, abuse of the horse and 'performance enhancement' therefore making the competition unfair. It was interesting to read quote from what some of the pros thought anyway!

I'm not sure my logic says that, my logic would say only one lot of research, probably low number of horses etc might not have been enough to draw sufficient conclusions ;). There are a couple of papers about (most include weighted too) but nothing I have access to.
 
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rachk89 said:
No because how can they know? They are learning they don't know what they are doing is wrong. You can't expect them to know everything straight away. I would however expect a professional to know that rapping is cruel. I wouldn't expect a novice person to be able to do sitting trot perfectly straight away because they can't. They will bounce around. You teach them how not to.
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But it's all irrelevant for the horse on the receiving end of the treatment .
the horse doesn't care what the person thinks only what they do .
 
rachk89 said:
And a novice rider wouldn't know that if they aren't taught would they? Do you expect them to know how to fit tack? If they are taught correctly then they will cause the horse no pain through learning. But otherwise it is unknowingly causing psin. Its still not fine but they do need to be taught what to do.
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There are a lot of novice owners out there who know full well their saddle is not a good fit, but aren't prepared to put up the cash to sort it out. Go down to your local unaff. Sj circuit and look at the amount of horses in ill fitting tack/boots/complete with overweight jockeys - it's not that they're all unaware, they are just choosing to be ignorant, and in my mind that is deliberate. I told a teenager last week out hunting that her saddle was too big for her horse - she knew, she was getting a new one for her birthday in May...
 
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