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Have you felt judged for your desire to investigate the physical reasons for your horse’s behaviour or performance? Have you felt ridiculed, as though you aren’t brave enough to ride your horse through it? Have you been told to ‘just kick on’, or that you ‘just need to be tougher’?
Dr. Rosie Jones-McVey is one of my heroes. Her kindness, sense of fun, and love for life inspire me. I’m lucky enough to class her as a friend. Here are some wise words from Rosie, taken from her contribution to the book ‘Harmonious Horsemanship’, which I co-authored with Dr Sue Dyson.
“Empathy is often described as the capacity to put yourself in someone else’s shoes. This means that you can understand the suffering of another person and so, be motivated to help. But of course, for it to be of any use to that suffering person at all, it is important that we don’t just imagine ourselves in their shoes – and join them in their woe. We have to imagine a different role for ourselves, as the one who can provide some sort of solution. To be a helpful empathiser, we don’t just need to equivocate ourselves with others, we need to recognise our capacity to be something important to them – an advocate, helper, supporter, protector, or whatever else. In order to understand our roles in relation to one another, people use stories. These are not always the sorts of elaborate, formalised, stories that are written in books or told by the fireside. They are also fleeting, subconscious meaning-making mechanisms. When a man comes into a bank wearing a balaclava and carrying a swag sack, we can easily make sense of how to read his character and what it means to us – we quickly and subconsciously put him into a story and can tell the sort of thing that is going on. Characters in stories relate to one another. I call this, ‘contingent characters’ because they can’t make sense without one another. So, for example, Romeo needs Juliet to make sense. Or, when I think of my children, I evaluate myself as a mother, but when I think of my studies, I understand myself quite differently. What does this have to do with our relationship with horses? When we think about our horse’s character, we are always, subconsciously, at the same time, thinking about who we are in relation to that. If we describe the horse as ‘crazy’, we might well be thinking about ourselves as brave or resilient in handling him. If we describe the horse as childlike, we are probably emphasising our responsibility towards him as maternal/paternal. This means, in order to allow ourselves to recognise that a horse is in pain, we need to be ready to recognise what that would mean for who we would need to be. (Authors’ comment: This means that the rider, having recognised that their horse is in pain, may need to change their mindset, for example to alter their aspirations for the horse.) During my ethnographic fieldwork among British horse riders, I noticed horse owners would interpret similar veterinary advice very differently. Sometimes, riders failed to acknowledge there could be pain in their horse, because they were not ready to acknowledge who they would have to become if this were the case – a carer, perhaps, rather than a competitive partner. It is a good idea to check in with yourself – what stakes do you have invested in the idea that your horse is pain free? Or, in contrast, what stakes do you have invested in the idea that your horse is in pain? Perhaps it is easier to recognise yourself as somebody who can provide physical care than somebody who can handle behavioural issues? Most people tend to be happier, if honest with themselves, with one or other story, while of course, in most cases, it is rarely a simple case of behaviour OR pain. This is not just a new way to talk about ‘projection’. Because, with the term ‘projection’ the suggestion is that we can somehow cleanse ourselves of that and look at the horse completely ‘neutrally’. It can’t be done. If we are going to ethically relate to them at all, we are going to invest in the way our characters relate to one another in meaningful plots. The trick, then, is not coming at this with no investment, but checking in that we can be flexible in accepting a different story if the need arises, and not becoming stuck in identifying our horses in line with our own comfortable corresponding identity.”
I needed to read Rosie’s contribution more than once, but the more carefully I read it, the more it made sense. We want to be able to fix problems. If there’s a problem with our horse, so often we would much rather blame it on ourselves, or the tack, or the farrier, or the coach than believe that our horse might be in pain. We seem to think it’s easier to fix ourselves, get the tack checked, change the farrier, or talk things through with our coach than to investigate potential pain in our horses. Perhaps we’re right. Veterinary investigations into ‘performance problems’, as opposed to ‘lameness’, can be difficult. But, as every single one of the guest contributors to my book ‘Brain, Pain, or Training?’ pointed out, the first port of call when there is a problem should be to check for physical issues. This might mean calling the vet, or the physical therapist. In the UK, that might be a Chartered Physiotherapist or a Registered Animal Musculoskeletal Therapist. It might indeed mean getting the saddle checked, or ordering foot balance x-rays so that the farrier has a greater awareness of what’s going on inside the foot and limb that he’s fitting a shoe to.
To give you a taster of the depth and breadth of Dr Jones-McVey’s work, here’s the ‘Simple Summary’ from an open-access article published in the journal Animals in 2021. The grand-sounding title is ‘An Ethnographic Account of the British Equestrian Virtue of Bravery, and Its Implications for Equine Welfare’.
Simple Summary
“Bravery is an important virtue for British horse riders. This article is based on 14 months of ethnographic research, in which I spent time with 35 horse riders, observing their day-to-day lives and recording their riding lessons, competitions and ‘yard chatter’ in field notes and by Dictaphone. I found that when riders were fearful, they were often ridiculed, excluded and belittled. Riders’ capacity to be brave became an issue particularly when horses were thought to be defiant. Riders tried to overcome their ‘confidence issues’ by ‘getting tough’—on both themselves and on their horses—often at the demand of their instructors. When fearful riders sought alternative explanations for problematic equine behaviour (such as a veterinary diagnoses), other riders judged them as avoiding getting to grips with the ‘real issues’ (their horses’ defiance, and their own fear). Programs that aim to help riders to develop confidence without instilling a sense of ‘battle’ with the horse, and without ridiculing the rider, are likely to have positive implications on equine welfare and human safety.”
It’s not ok to keep riding our horses through problems without checking for physical issues. If your gut tells you something isn’t right with your horse, trust your gut. All too often, I see videos on social media of riders ‘rehabilitating’ horses who have apparently been given the all-clear in terms of physical pain. I spend my life looking for signs of pain in ridden horses, and I’m here to tell you that most of the ridden horses in these videos display pain behaviour. Just because we can’t find the source of the pain doesn’t mean pain doesn’t exist. We all know that not all disabilities can be seen. A similar thing applies to pain – we can’t always find out what’s wrong. But, as the saying goes, if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it just may be a duck. If the horse is demonstrating pain behaviour, then it’s highly likely that the behaviour (or poor performance) is caused by pain.
The Ridden Horse Pain Ethogram is a science-backed way of checking that your horse is comfortable in his ridden work. The ethogram consists of a list of 24 behaviours. If eight or more of these behaviours are shown in ridden work, it’s likely that the horse is in pain. If you’d like to use the Ridden Horse Pain Ethogram to assess your horse’s ridden behaviour, you’ll find all the information you need at the Harmonious Horsemanship website, including a free downloadable PDF with a table of the 24 behaviours.
Sue Palmer MCSP, aka The Horse Physio, is an award-winning author, educator, and Chartered Physiotherapist. Sue specialises in understanding the links between equine pain and behaviour, focusing on prevention, partnership and performance. She promotes the kind and fair treatment of horses through empathetic education, and is registered with the RAMP, the ACPAT, the IHA, the CSP and the HCPC.
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Horse Health Check: The 10-Point Plan for Physical Wellness
Head to Hoof: An Introduction to Horse Massage
Horse Massage for Horse Owners
Stretching Your Horse: A Guide to Keeping Your Equine Friend Happy and Healthy
Kissing Spines In Horses: Preventive Measures and Long-Term Management Solutions
Harmonious Horsemanship, co-authored with Dr Sue Dyson
Understanding Horse Performance: Brain, Pain or Training?
Horse Massage for Horse Owners
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© Sue Palmer, The Horse Physio 2024
