Re: RC: Re: Re: Re: Stallions in endurance riding

[SandyDSA@aol.com]

In a message dated 1/7/2002 7:28:13 AM Pacific Standard Time, Ksmuts@sarcc.co.za writes:


> She had the stallion on about a 15-foot lead, and proceeded to
> turn her back on him and give him most of that lead as she talked to me.>>
>
> Exactly my point.  When I'm in a crowd, or even just with one other horse, I may be talking to somebody, but I always have Ibn in sight


So...help me here - just when would someone consider it safe or appropriate horsemastership to let ANY horse dawdle around in public places - or actually anywhere - on a long lead (read, can get hung up in, can egt away from handler, can get close enought  strike to kick or bite....). We just don't do that ever, with any horse not just our stallion. As I tell our students - ANYTHING can go wrong when you do everything RIGHT. WHY would you increase the bad odds by doing something stupid? It just doesn't make sense.

It certainly is a call to education for people - a lot of people who fell in love with the sport before they had a horse never truly LEARNED about the horse - its nature, instincts and behaviors (or physiology either) and this lack of education causes a ton of trouble. It matters not if one can really "stick a horse", but it matters if they can see a horse who is getting into metabolic trouble, can feel a slight limp, knows better that to tie a horse to a trailer on a 12 foot line, 15 feet from another rig, and then unhook their truck and go into town for dinner. :) Sometimes it IS a bad stallion, for whatever reason. Usually it is bad horsemastership from people who  should be under instruction for a couple of years - and should NEVER own a stallion.

S