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| Arab showing (I'm not commenting on this specific horse!) |
There's a well used phrase, "People look but they don't see", which describes how people can observe something but not really see what is actually happening or understand the means by which something may have been achieved. Horses can be trained to do amazing things but the methods used to get them there either before or during an event, can be good or bad. With the great tolerance for bad practices even in public, you wonder what has gone on at home; horses hit or wearing mean gadgets, schooled using violent or abusive techniques both in the warm up arenas and even in the ring. Fantastic then to see that at long last, Princess Alia Al Hussein, a governor of the Arab Horse Society, is reported in today's Horse and Hound as castigating handlers for abusing horses. My friend Jenny went to Poland this summer and was absolutely dismayed at what she saw at an Arab Show there where the horses were gorgeous but the handling was not. It's a sad fact that horses look extremely beautiful when they are frightened - all of their flags flying - we have to recognise what we are really seeing and stop supporting events where this is the case.
If you can bring yourself to watch what happens:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=jW_kWUip7TQ&feature=player_embedded
From C: "Oh my goodness, just read your BLOG without my glasses and was horrified to read
handlers being "castrated" for mishandling their horses . . . glasses on and all
was revealed "castigated" . . . mind you, some may deserve the former
interpretation . ...Cheery pip"
