Posts Tagged ‘mexican rodeo’
I blame Dancing With the Stars for this
In recent years, not only have our TV sets been inundated with has-been celebrities dancing in ridiculous outfits, but Youtube and all the horse sale sites have been similarly plastered with “dancing horses.” In case you’re unfamiliar with the training – and I use the term lightly – employed to teach a horse to “dance,” here is a prime example.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzI5EXS-eSs&feature=related
Typically, the horse is tied between posts and then flicked with a whip to encourage him to “dance.” Another view that allows you to see the particularly shitacious shoeing job and hear the whistle of the whip.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IF8E3UCkTcw&feature=related
All so that a human can get on him in a … WTF! shanked bit and do this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zr2CPy-j-AE&feature=related
Oh, and of course the goal is to sell him … for $1800. Did I mention he is all of 18 months old and still a stallion?
http://www.horsetopia.com/for-sale/classifieds/ad422149
As with most types of abuse against horses, not only are the adults doing it, they’re teaching it to the kids so that the next generation can create even more pissy, sore, lame horses. The Kill Buyers of America thank you for your support!
http://horsetrainersfromhell.blogspot.com/2008/09/teaching-young-riders-to-be-abusive.html
And why wait with the horses too…let’s just put a kid on them as a foal and start with the beatings.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0hIqVx54Yo&feature=related
Now, I know someone will pop up and announce that you can train a horse for this kind of “dancing” without abuse. OK. Can you post a video of that? All I ever see is someone whipping on a horse in cross-ties, and that’s not training.
I think of all of this as trailer-park dressage, wanting to approximate some of the movements but skip the years and years of training, but even in the proper dressage world, we have some serious problems. There’s no point in reinventing the wheel here, so I’ll simply show you a site that has done a great job of discussing the abuse issues – Dressage Disgrace. I’ve talked about rollkur before and my opinion hasn’t changed. It isn’t more right to crank the horses head to his chest in dressage than it is to tie it that way in some AQHA show barn or bit him up that tight in a Saddlebred barn. It’s always wrong and it is always likely to create a sore neck, sore jaw, and a pissy horse.
Bottom line, it takes many years of patient and slow training to create any of the “dancing” movements properly. You don’t ask it of a two year old, and you don’t shortcut your way to it with a set of cross ties and a whip. This is absolutely beautiful: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPCuo6dxoCY. Note how soft the reins are! How quiet the ride! How the horse looks relaxed – he’s concentrating but he’s not angry or stressed out. Now that’s how you do it right. Too bad so many are too f’ing lazy and/or untalented to achieve this and the result is a stream of discarded lame, traumatized horses that will wind up as a steak. Just sickening.
