News and Reviews
Unbridled!
Canberra's inaugural festival of the horse and music, Unbridled, was a huge success. Quality equine participants, horse handlers, musicians and other presenters, gathered at Thoroughbred Park on Saturday 15 November 2014 providing a variety of entertainment for keen locals and others travelling in to Canberra from surrounding communities. Many breed groups were represented - from miniatures to heavy horses, paints to walers, brumbies to standardbreds. Two arenas were in operation - the main arena hosted displays and demonstrations of various equine sports and the Horse Quarter, a smaller arena, showcased educational demonstrations and smaller acts. It was a special bonus to be able to listen to and speak with internationally renowned professor of equine behaviour and welfare, Paul McGreevy, who's graphic photographs of the damage that tightened nosebands can inflict on performance horses will not easily be forgotten. It was also a priviledge to watch one of Australia's leading, ethical horse handlers, Greg Powell, his horse Ben, and kelpie Bob (er.. Robert when he had to be reminded..) go through their paces. To see Greg and Ben executing two-time flying changes across the arena whilst saddle-less, bridle-less and neck-rein-less was something to admire and aspire to - no bit, no nosebands, no excessive poll flexion, no rider interference. This was a true partnership between a man and his horse.
In a world first, Unbridled was the first equine festival to adopt the International Society for Equitation Science's Code of Conduct for ensuring the welfare and safety of performance horses and riders at a public events. Congratulations to the organisers - getting an event of this type off the ground is no small feat, particularly as it was held just a week before Melbourne's Equitana, which no doubt influenced the reduced number of retail exhibitors at Unbridled. Hopefully future Unbridled festivals will be able to avoid this type of clash. My view is that Canberra is particularly well placed both economically and geographically for an annual equine event such as Unbridled that could equal or exceed Equitana's popularity. Only time will tell.
ISES update
The 10th International Conference of the International Society of Equitation Science (ISES) was held in Denmark from 7 - 9 August 2014. The Conference theme was Equine Stress, Learning and Training and Abstracts from the conference are now available for download.
ISES conferences offer an outstanding international platform for scientists and professional practitioners to present and discuss research related to the field of equitation science. The ISES mission is to promote and encourage the application of objective research and advanced practice, which will ultimately improve the welfare of horses in their associations with humans.
The 2015 conference will be held in Vancouver, Canada from 6-8 August and its theme will be Ethical Equitation for all Equestrian Disciplines - Breaking Barriers and Building Bridges. Visit the ISES website for updates on Upcoming Conferences.
AHWWT goes international
The Australian Horse Welfare & Well-being Toolkit, was presented, along with the Horse SA workshop outline, to the British Horse Society National Safety Conference in March 2014. Apparently it was very well received and, as a result of this presentation, Horse Welfare Officers for events and activities now being considered for the UK.
Australian Horse Welfare and Well-being Toolkit (AHWWT)
As a part of its Horse Welfare strategy, the Australian Horse Industry Council (AHIC) has developed this guide for horse organisations and event based horse welfare officers. The Toolkit was developed in association with Horse SA (the lead author and project manager), Racing Victoria, Anthony Hatch, Central Queensland University and Equestrian Australia in 2013 and covers such topics as hot weather procedures, preparing a horse incident management plan, handling deceased horses with dignity. It contains training, templates and contact information for relevant organisations. This is a great little booklet filled with very useful strategies for the welfare of our horses during sport competitions. The Australian Horse Welfare and Well-being Toolkit can be downloaded free of charge from AHIC.
Icelandic Horse Trainer Criticized
The Horse Front section of the December/January 2013/2014 issue of hoofbeats contains a disturbing article about Icelandic Trainer, Iben Andersen who has shocked sectors of the equine and veterinary community by his inhumane method of lying down a horse. The article is not a pleasant read and the horse in question must have suffered considerably during the long, drawn-out process. I do not question the views of the Icelandic veterinary authorities who have stated ‘they regard this method as a rough violation against the horse and find it unacceptable and in disagreement with the country’s legislation of animal welfare’. Moreover, I do not question leading Australian equitation scientist Dr Andrew McLean’s statement ‘tying a horse’s leg up is an unnecessarily harsh thing to do for training purposes, and there are far better ways to achieve training outcomes’. What must be questioned in this article, however, is the statement ‘hobbling a horse with one leg is a training technique that has sometimes been attributed to certain forms of natural horsemanship’. Unfortunately, this is a broad statement and the text does not provide any underpinning evidence. Moreover, it essentially tars all horse men and women (‘natural’ or otherwise) with the one brush. This is akin to one or two Dressage trainers employing Rollkur as a training technique and extrapolating this to be 'a method sanctioned by certain forms of Dressage training’. It would be more accurate to say lying down a horse in this way is a method chosen by some horse trainers and not a method adopted by Natural Horsemanship (or any other horsemanship labels). Such statements do nothing to try to bridge the gap between English and Western riding disciplines, they simply reveal the author’s ignorance.
That said, if it is deemed necessary to lie a horse down, there is a humane way to do this and the principal first rule is the same as teaching an unwilling horse to load onto a trailer - never attempt such an activity as a professional demonstration. The number two rule is the horse’s leg must never be tied up – as Dr McLean says ‘it can be dangerous for the horse as many horses fight so hard they can break their legs’. Such an activity is best delivered to a horse incrementally, using protective leg gear, soft (but strong) ropes that can be released instantly, taking as much time as necessary and using both positive and negative reinforcement techniques. As such, this is not an exercise for an inexperienced horseman or woman.
Equitana 2013 - Sydney, NSW
The annual visit to Equitana never disappoints particularly as it provides us all with a (possibly unintended) informal, longitudinal study of the evolution of products, processes and services that underpin the leisure horse industry in Australia.
It was hard choosing between the many excellent presenters and clinics on the day I attended but I have chosen two to review here. The first was Ken Falkner’s Bridging Western & English demonstration. Ken’s demonstration was quite informative as he showed his audience how the dressage movements of the Western-trained horse are essentially the same as traditional dressage movements with differences being in the order of training. Dressage movements are largely taught under saddle, slowly, methodically and more sequentially. They are also trained more along straight lines and on large circles. With the Western horse, however, often these movements are introduced through groundwork. The Western horse trainer will spend a lot of early time in the stop, rein-back, disengaging the hindquarters, moving the front end around the hindquarters, yielding the shoulders and lateral movements. Western dressage trainers spend more time attending to the placement of each foot and are less focused in getting the horse ‘on-the-bit’ which comes much later and more gradually than in English dressage. Both of these training types are, however, simply ‘different roads to Rome’ and I perceived this was the message that Ken Faulkner wished his audience to understand. If, like me, you have had the pleasure and privilege of observing US horseman Buck Brannaman riding his Western-trained horse in the dressage movements, you will know what I mean.
Now this might seem to be a mischievous comment, but I think Ken missed a really good opportunity in his demonstration. As superficial as it might appear, there does exist a prejudice about Western regalia amongst some of the English riding fraternity (and no doubt vice versa). For a more dramatic effect, therefore, I would have liked to have seen Ken and his beautiful horse decked out in English riding attire for this demonstration! On a more serious note, however, I believe the audience’s most enduring memory of Ken’s time-slot was his partner Kathy’s demonstration that a trained horse can change and maintain bend throughout the head, neck and body without the need for physical control of the head. I truly believe the audience was witnessing the future for most equine pursuits.
I was keen to observe Dr Andrew McLean’s demonstration too. Dr McLean enjoys a growing profile as an equine trainer using evidence-based training practices; he has authored a significant number of scientific papers and books and he has been a successful equine competitor in eventing, jumping and dressage. Unfortunately, however, his demonstration was with a very nervous horse that had been ill-prepared for the Equitana environment and the situation didn’t improve during his allotted time. Moreover, there did not appear to be anything new in the techniques Dr McLean was demonstrating except for a substitution of scientific language for the lay terms most of us use and understand. This was a great pity because Dr McLean and his professional efforts have an enormous amount to offer the equine/human communities, particularly as they relate to the ongoing welfare of the horse.
In summing up my Equitana 2013 experience, I am sad to say there remains a gulf of difference generally between how the horses of the so-called English disciplines handle the totally unnatural Equitana environment (fear, uncertainty, tending towards flight) compared with the so-called Western-trained horses (calm, accepting, focused). This is not due to differences in the breeds, it is due to the overall training and exposure experiences of the former group and it is my view much work needs to be done here.