21/08/2025
Riding is a privilege 🐴
One of the biggest contributing factors to poor welfare within the industry is this idea that horses are there to ride and that is their sole purpose and use. That if a horse possesses a back and isn’t dog lame then its fine to sit on them and that is our right, that’s what they’re for after all. I do not see horses in this way and I do not think we can be ethical if we continue to view horses through this lens.
Now don’t get me wrong, I love riding, but not at the expense of the horse.
Horses are not designed to be ridden and need careful, considerate training to prepare them to carry weight. Add to that the normalised ways of riding coerce horses into damaging postures and compensatory movement patterns that are causing wear and tear on their already compromised body. Much of the riding that we see today is taking from the horse.
Physical concerns aside, we have completely normalised chronically stressed horses, many horses live without their basic needs being met of socialisation, access to appropriate forage and freedom to move. Many horses are frequently moved on to new homes, being pulled away from everything they know repeatedly and having no control over what happens to them. This can be traumatic.
And then we’re back to the training methods of applying pressure until the horse does what we want, when the horse may not be in a space to be able to cope with training at all, so then we have to use more pressure. We now have a horse who has a very negative association with being ridden.
We’re riding horses who don’t want us to catch them in from the field when they see us.
We’re riding horses who move to the back of the box when they see their tack.
We’re riding horses we have to pin against a wall to mount.
We’re riding horses who are still nervous of us on the ground.
We’re riding horses who have “a bit of soreness” in their back every time the bodyworker sees them.
It is so normalised that the horse is there to ride, that we don’t see how illogical it is to get on their back when they’re clearly communicating they aren’t okay with this. Most of my clients who aren’t currently riding their horses, but happen to be on livery yards with others, are being constantly pressured to get back on their horses despite being perfectly happy with what they’re doing and minding their own business.
Riding is for us, not for the horse, and I think it is a privilege to be earned by building that relationship up with our horse and being considerate of their bodies.
I’d love to hear about what your favourite things are to do with your horses that don’t involve riding?
I’ll give you a few of mine.
🐴 I love sitting under the tree out on our track and just hanging out with the horses while they graze around me.
🐴 I love setting up enrichment playgrounds for my horses and watching them work out the puzzles and enjoy themselves.
🐴 I love taking my horses for hand walks and letting them forage through the hedgerows.
What are yours? 🐴
