Should there be a limit on how many times a horse can compete at each show?
It’s a question that often comes up during the U.S. Hunter Jumper Association’s Town Hall forums, as it did again on Monday night.
“Each barn, each trainer, each owner is going to have their own standard of how much is too much for their horse, but I don’t think it’s a bad idea to at least get a loose idea of what that actually looks like,” observed the moderator, USHJA President Mary Knowlton.
It is impossible to address the issue with a definite number. As one commenter noted, three classes over cross-rails is very different from three classes at 1.45 meters.
But problems can arise when one horse is being shared by several different riders, perhaps as an effort to cut costs.
Mary asked, “Is it okay to do 12 cross-rail classes, six cross-rail classes? Where is the line between horse welfare and being big brother? What is enough? Do we write a rule for that?
As always, the concern is not only safety, but also how horse sports will be perceived, especially in the age of cellphone videos when the public (most of whom likely have no horse knowledge) can record what is happening, which then can spread like wildfire.
“Social license to operate is a real thing, a thing by which our beloved sport could be no more. It’s something we’ve got to face up to,” Mary warned.
As German magazine editor Jan Tonjes, president of the International Alliance of Equestrian Journalists pointed out in a recent interview in The Horse, “In general we need to communicate better that this welfare of the horse is paramount, is really more than just another sentence,”
An anonymous caller to the town hall asked, “Do people put horses first? Is their welfare number one? Answering that is step one, an important but not easy one to address.”
Lucie McKinney, a judge, pointed out, “One of the issues with horse welfare is bravery.”
Mary agreed, “Silence equals complicity.” She added how wrong it is to “just turn a blind eye to it.”
Lucie gave the example of how she spotted a horse who was competing that wouldn’t pick up the right lead, a sign of being sore. She called the steward over and noted that horse “did not get to show again in my ring.”
Another key topic is the new rule that will make it mandatory for every horse that is schooling or being longed at the showgrounds to wear a number for identification.
Steward Bev Bedard called it, “a rule that is going to be difficult for some people.”
There are many reasons why the rule is needed, but as Bev pointed out, when the question is, “Who is that person lying on the ground and the horse running free dragging a longe line,” the number will hold the answer.
Mary, however, is “fairly certain big barns will send out grooms to longe with random numbers,” and Bev suspects that is true. She’s just hoping “the rule will be respected and people will step up and do what they’re supposed to do.”
It was also suggested that if a groom is longeing a horse and doing something he shouldn’t be doing (such as having a bag on the end of the longe whip), the best thing to do, rather than speaking to the groom, may be to speak to the trainer with a request to address it.