About once a year I like to go and see another type of trainer in action to see if there is anything I could be doing differently or anything I should pinch wholesale. I find it difficult to distil my feelings about what I saw on Friday evening but can say that it made me feel very uncomfortable and vaguely sick.
I envy the guy's ability to get on starters and ride them at walk and trot with an open rein and no tension. However I hate the practise of tapping, in this case with a piece of blue pole which he explained has a pointed end and a blunt end. This is used to stroke the horse and desensitise it as well as to tap or prod the horse, albeit lightly most of the time, on the barrel, bottom, shoulder and face in order to ask, then tell, it to move forward towards him or indeed away. Confused yet? Well the horses seemed to be at a loss. One minute they needed to be trotting around him in a tiny circle, the next they had to be still with a complete flexion of the head and neck. The message of the stick and his body language were often in complete conflict. I'll accept that most of the time he was fairly gentle but a lot of this work on inexperienced youngsters was done with reins attached to a bit. He also liked labelling the horses as 'obstinate' if they blocked him when he wanted to go down one side to tap them with the pole, I'd call the horse sensible.
There seemed to be little empathy and this was also reflected by some members of the audience who apparently found it funny when one horse stood flinching but taking it when he was tapping with he pole. Most disconcerting of all was when a break was called and he quietly set about pulling the youngest horse around in extremely tight circles by it's mouth clearly not imagining that anyone would watch or take photos. Sadly the photos are blurred through poor light but you can get the gist.
