03/03/2025
Activism from the spectator’s seat
When I was a child, there was a common acceptance that “good riding” was pretty uninteresting to the mob. It never got any widespread mainstream attention or audience. Cut to… nowadays where riding, whether modern, academic, liberty or show has become such a spectator sport, such a shenanigan! Every performance out-entertaining the last one. This is obvious in some parts of the sport, but the basic problem is everywhere. Riding etc. has to tick the boxes for a good TikTok reel, which is a poor prism to bring out the color-spectrum of the fascinating interspecies communication that being with horses is (can be). Why? One thing… it conveys the time aspect of “growing together” poorly. Why did it become SO important, if the spectator was impressed, rather that how the horse was (clearly) feeling? I’d like to quote my own Code of Ethics: “I aim for harmony, which in this case is not in the eye of the beholder, but the truth the horse tells. His opinion is what matters most.”
In the equestrian scene today pointed fingers are flying around as if to mark the end of an era from every possible angle - away from one self👉👇👈👆. It’s the judges, no it’s the riders, it’s the system or the scientists. And what about the lack of objectivity and the greed. All of this play a role, but today I want to talk to us as consumers, because there our silence speaks very loud. And we DO have a voice and a vote to raise. Boycott and endorsement and where we continue to lay our money might not seem the loudest form of activism, because it takes a collective mobilization of many, but it has IMMENSE power!
The truth of the matter is that we all have to do better, think better, listen better and be better. And we have to choose better what we support and condone. I do not recognise the partnership between a person and a horse to hold ANY spectator driven value! I do not aspire to that kind of practice, where the showmanship is valued higher than the “horsemanship”, partnership and friendship. I will step away from those kind of expectation for myself and for others - to an even higher degree than I have done so already.
TBC👇
