Wow – the firestorm around the whole Katie Monahan-Prudent clinic in Florida has exploded all over the internet with horse people from every corner of the world having an opinion to non-horse people and activists having an opinion. But here are my thoughts on the whole thing. I grew up in the 80’s riding under some very tough, but fair instructors. They would definitely tell you when you did something wrong, but here’s the thing, I was never called a birdbrain or demeaned but I was held accountable. I was probably very lucky because I saw many instructors scream and demean students from the rails at shows. When I started teaching, I decided I didn’t want to be that instructor who screamed at people. And to this day I don’t. Any of my former students will tell you that if I yell it’s because you’re about to do something that is going to get you killed. My students did very well in the showpen – one even went on to teach a stint at Ohio State in the equine program and continues to be a huge force in the industry. But here’s what I’ve learned in 40 years of teaching – each kid and each horse is different, and they all learn differently. Some kids can handle the kind of harshness that Katie was handing out – some can’t – and now that I have been working to my degree in psychology, I can say that kind of training is detrimental. It’s a form of emotional and psychological abuse. I know I know – there are some out there saying “It’s a tough sport so toughen up” or “Today’s kids are being coddled” etc, etc, ad nauseum. But here is the thing that we’ve learned since the days of being screamed at – our brains don’t process the information when we are put in a fear response. Our bodies go into that fear response and we’re on a 1500 lb prey animal that feels that, and their instinct becomes to run away too. There’s a reason equine-related therapy has become a big thing in the field of trauma therapies, it’s because equines mirror our emotions, and what I saw watching that video was exactly that – those horses were mirroring their riders’ emotions – the more they got yelled at and frustrated the worse the horse got. Wyatt Webb was the founder and program director of the equine experience in Miraval Arizona for 25 years and his insights have helped many over the years. Webb said “You’ve been taught to believe that something is wrong with you. We have a shame-based, fear-based culture, and to connect with anyone, you’re going to have to acknowledge that in you and begin working on it.” And he is right – as a child of Gen X we were told to “knock it off before I give you something to cry for” and to be “seen and not heard” – talking about your feelings was a major no no – seriously Gen Xers are probably some of the most trauma ladened out there. I know I had a lot to unpack as an adult and had to learn healthy techniques for dealing with things – which is why I chose to go into psychology. But it was Webb’s book “It’s Not About the Horse” that not only changed my outlook on my own self-reflection – it made me a better instructor – I knew my horses – watching them I could tell what was going on with my riders. But all this just circles us back to – we need to do better; we need to be better. We can be tough, but we don’t have to shred a person’s self-esteem in the process. As a collective, we need to call out those who need to be better – just because they are a big name doesn’t mean they can’t make a mistake. We need to remember that these riders are the next generation to continue our sport and if we take away their passion and they leave then we are slowly but surely causing the slow death of the sport we all seem to love.
Appy Riding,
Tracy