03/05/2026
A nice read
Iâve learned more from horses whoâve said no than those that have said yes, Ann DeMichele writes.
Iâm a professional out of Northern Virginia. I grew up on a farm, and my mother is also a professional. I have three brothers who also competed in Showjumping. We all did pony club, steeple chased, fox hunted, showed in the hunters and jumpers, did a little dressage and Eventing. Pretty much everything you can do in an English saddle, weâve done.
Lately Iâve noticed something going around in the horse industry in todayâs age of, âthe customer is always rightâ and I donât really like itâthe idea that the horses should never stop.
Iâve had several professionals ask about my horses for sale, and Iâve seen many many posts looking for horses referring to this exact thing. Usually someone will say, I like your horses, they look like theyâll do the job, butâŚthey wonât ever stop, will they? Or an ad that says, âISO a jumper/Hunter/equitation/whatever horse for a kid/adult moving up learning to do the childrenâs/juniors/gymnastics⌠cannot have a stop.â
What is this?
Listen folks, I completely understand that no one wants their student to have to deal with a dirty stopper. Thatâs not fun for anyone. Itâs not conducive to learning. However, the idea that the horse cannot ever stopâeven when their life is in perilâis nuts. A horse is not a machine. They are not cars. We even have alarm systems on cars that warn us if we cross over the road unexpectedly or get too close to another car. Yet we expect our horses to just go? Always? Do we really want a living and breathing horse so automated that it jumps even when the rider is dead wrong?
I have to ask why. Why do you want that? Whatâs the point? Do we want our students to get better, or just think theyâre getting better? I have learned more from every single time a horse told me ânoâ than I have ever learned from the ones that saved my life when they should have said no.
When a horse says âNo, I cannot do that, letâs re-evaluate,â thatâs when the learning comes in! Thatâs when you can fix the problem.
Suzy, you were headed towards the standard.
Joey, you asked him to jump from east Egypt.
Janet, you had no canter.
Sarah, you werenât even close to straight.
Jeff, you were pulling on his mouth all the way to the fence.
And on and on and on.
Saying no is a good thing! An educated horse should not say yes when the person on top is constantly putting them in perilâespecially over a bigger fence. The trend that happens these days is that trainers have their clients purchase horses that can jump way bigger than the person riding, so these clients are completely over mounted. That makes a recipe for disaster.
Your client, who is bouncing as they post to the trot, should not be riding a horse that showed in the high amateur owners unless that horse is 20 and incapable of jumping anything bigger than 3â. This is a very dangerous sport, and giving people a false sense of comfort by having them purchase a horse that âwonât ever stopâ puts them and the horse in peril. You can put them in all the MIPS hats and air vests that you want, but that is not going to protect our most precious commodityâthe horse.
đ Continue reading this article at https://www.theplaidhorse.com/2021/06/15/horses-shouldnt-always-be-expected-to-jump/
𸠊 Carly Nasznic
