Don't confuse Dressage with Rodeo
Fellow Activists:
Some among us equate all equestrianism to rodeo. This is a big
mistake. It is big because it involves the human-equine relationship in
its entirety, and has far reaching implications to human-animal
relations, and the concept of Animal Rights itself.
As you can see from the video of this magnificent equestrian
performance (http://beboframe.com/FlashFrame.jsp?Size=S&FlashBoxId=3309347442),
to compare dressage ("dress-AAGE" - highly refined human-equine
partnership of European origin) to rodeo (you know what it is) is like
comparing light and dark, white and black, day and night, humaneness and
cruelty.
Also, note that compassionate riders always pet their horses on the
neck after performing together, and the horse does really and deeply
appreciates it and is happy with the whole experience (in a way that
only empathetic "horse people" can perceive). It is not a rule that a
rider must pet a horse after a performance; it just somehow always comes
out from the heart. I can tell horse-centered riders and self-centered
riders by the presence and absence of this seemingly insignificant act.
The dressage rider in this video went one further - he hugged his horse
- on world TV. In contrast, I have never seen a rodeo rider pet their
own broncos (and calfs and bulls)!
The kind of riding and training that I know and do does not involve
"breaking" the horse (as per western movies); it is a gradual and
progressive "gentling" of the horse along request and communication
lines and based on mutual respect and trust (something like the Horse
Whisperer's).
I have seen some self-appointed AR-high-priest chastize horse-people
in general for practicing human domination of equus. They even criticize
human guardianship of cats and dogs as a matter of human domination of
animals. Will the same few please welcome the mice and rats and
cockroaches and centipedes and racoons and skunks and deer back into his
house, which occupies their epochs-old homeland by force and pesticide?
Such an unwarranted holier-than-thou attitude, if influential, alienates
the non-horse-people from the horse-people among us, based upon
self-righteousness, self-unawareness, self-contradiction, a lack of
self-reflection and hypocrisy. If one goes overboard with ones theory,
one becomes illogical and causes the entire movement to lose
credibility.
Anthony Marr, founder
Heal Our Planet Earth (HOPE - www.HOPE-CARE.org)
Western Canada Anti-Sealing Coalition
www.MySpace.com/AnthonyMarr
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