August 13, 2024 • 35 mins
Welcome to the Inscape Quest Podcast, where insightful conversations redefine perspectives. Join your host, Trudi Howley, as she engages with psychologist, dressage writer, and trainer Jane Karol in an exploration of recalibrating the sport of dressage.
In this episode, we delve into the global impact of a video featuring British dressage rider Charlotte Dujardin, released just prior to the Paris Olympics. Jane provides a nuanced look at human psychological responses, and the intricate dynamics within the dressage community.
We discuss the challenges of addressing vicarious trauma, the importance of constructive conversation, and the need for systemic changes to support both human and horse. Jane also emphasizes the profound beauty and connection possible in dressage, urging the community to foster positive interactions and maintain the sport's integrity.
Join us for an insightful discussion on how to support the dressage community, improve horse welfare, and ensure the sport's future remains bright and beautiful.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:04):
Welcome to the InScape Quest Podcast, where insightful conversations redefine perspectives.
I'm your host, Trudy Howley.
Join me in this episode as together with psychologist, dressage writer,
and trainer, Jane Carroll explores insights into recalibrating the sport of dressage.
(00:24):
We particularly talk about the global release of the video of British dressage
rider Charlotte Dujardin just prior to the Paris Olympics.
Jane, I'm so happy to have you back here on this podcast. Thank you for being here today.
Thank you so much for inviting me back.
When we last talked, we were actually thinking about having a part two.
(00:48):
And interestingly enough, the topic of conversation we were having earlier in
the year was about equine welfare and the human intersection of that,
particularly in the dressage world.
And that has become international news now.
I'm wondering if you might be able to just quickly recap some of the concepts
(01:12):
that we touched on earlier in the year.
I think the new Charlotte Dujardin having a really bad moment with herself and
the horse has made it so that dressage has come into the world,
a greater world, not just a dressage world, to New York Times and other places
(01:34):
because she's so famous.
And it's brought the art and sport of dressage into the world in a negative way.
Thankfully, we have Snoop Dogg to help us a little bit with the other side during the Olympics.
But sadly, this sport that can be absolutely.
Beauty and art form has come to people who have never heard of it in a negative
(01:57):
way from this video and this news.
And what we talked about for those people who have watched it,
and we talked about last time we met and spoke about vicarious trauma and how
some people will want to watch the video and some people won't.
But even just whether you've watched this video or you've heard about There
(02:17):
can be an experience of vicarious trauma versus direct trauma that's happening to you.
And the vicarious trauma, people are going to have different kinds of reactions.
Some feel agitated, anxious, aggressive themselves without actually consciously
knowing what's affecting them.
But in some way, watching a horse and other horrible things that we see on videos
(02:45):
can affect us very negatively.
We talked about the frustration with how do we take action when we have no real
understanding of what action we can take to stop something.
And if we're in the
situation we also spoke about how people in
(03:07):
power can take hold of that power over other people and we're all susceptible
to not taking action when we don't see a way to take it or we actually think
that the person might be right because they're in power.
Again, I won't go over all those things because we talked about them last time,
(03:29):
but we ended with a discussion of how to help ourselves in these situations,
how to help the dressage as a sport and art and how to help those in the sport, the trainers,
the riders, people who are adult amateurs and people who are just centered around
(03:51):
the owners of the horses, everybody involved in the sport.
How can we help our sport? How can we help the community instead of breaking ourselves down?
Because this sport is quite beautiful.
It is about the connection that we make with the horse.
Hopefully on the horse's terms and our terms that we come together,
(04:15):
be it animal and human, and we create a language together.
And that experience is absolutely profound. found.
We don't want to lose that to these really bad moments, possibly too many moments
like that from some individuals.
We don't want to lose our sport. We don't want to lose our place in the Olympics.
(04:38):
We don't want to lose the focus on the fact that this is an absolutely beautiful
way to be in the world with another species.
It can be. And as we see in these videos, it also can be as horrible as humans can be.
So the question is now, how do we as a community support each other and not
(05:03):
tear each other apart in this conversation?
How do we come and have a conversation and how do we help each other,
including the individuals who need the help, who are actually being aggressive
to the animals? Thank you, Jane.
And I think there have been a lot more people weighing in on the conversation now.
Some of those positions are somewhat extreme.
(05:26):
Some are sanctimonious. And I think it's really important that you named about
the pleasure and beauty of being with another species as energetic beings.
Horses are energetic beings as well, and there is a great deal of play and pleasure
that can be engaged with when you're in right relationship with the horse.
(05:51):
So I'm wondering, from your perspective as a horse trainer, as well as a psychologist.
What were your initial thoughts about watching the video from a training perspective
of Charlotte Dujardin? done?
My initial response to that video was that this is not normal.
(06:15):
This is not normal behavior for a trainer, especially one that's had the opportunity to learn from.
One of the greatest horse people probably in the history of human interaction
with horses, one of them.
There are a few, but Carl Hester, her mentor trainer, is a remarkable horseman.
(06:39):
So my first reaction was, whoa, this is not normal.
It's not just someone who got upset and hit a horse too hard or pulled on the mouth too hard.
We all do make mistakes. stakes and we hopefully
learned from them but this was not within
that kind of spectrum so
(07:01):
my first reaction was whoa this is surprising because Charlotte has been known
to actually be the icon the way horses are supposed to be trained of all people
it was surprising that she had this moment Or we don't know if she's done it
before. I'm not going to speculate on that.
But my biggest reaction was this is way beyond what I think the normal human
(07:29):
errors are in dealing with them.
My next thought was wondering and worrying about her,
because I think that if he got into a position where she was acting like that,
given that she has knowledge about how not to interact that way and how not to train that way,
(07:49):
then something must be on in a way with her,
not in a way that I would think of shaming her, but in a way that I worried
about. What is she suffering?
What kind of stress is she under?
What is causing so much something painful in her that she would actually not
be able to control and make a decision to train in a way that's get compassion
(08:14):
for the horse and thinking about what how a horse learns and how a horse is
going to feel in that situation.
And we can also talk about the fact
there was a rider on the horse so there was also a
blank i'm guessing i don't
know her and i haven't talked to her i want to make sure i'm not putting any
kind of thoughts or feelings into her that i have no clue about i'm just assuming
(08:37):
that there was a moment that she wasn't thinking the way she can think given
what she's accomplished and what what she's represented in the past and who she's learned from.
She created a situation for some reason that was aggressive to the horse and
put the horse in a very fearful situation.
(08:58):
And I imagine the rider felt fear, but I don't know.
But I would worry about that, not knowing how the horse is going to react to
that kind of training with the whip, what could have happened to the rider as well.
So there's multiple things going on here, and two of the parallel processes
are that the general public now knows what abuse looks like in terms of overdriving
(09:25):
a horse or perhaps any other animal,
and also acknowledging in this instance Charlotte and others as human beings
with their own mental health issues, perhaps.
And what was interesting is Lemieux, who was one of Charlotte's sponsors,
(09:48):
had put out a statement and in part it said, over the past decade,
we've worked closely with Charlotte and witnessed her contribution to the sport of dressage.
It is crucial to remember that behind it all, Charlotte is a real person facing
unprecedented pressures and challenges.
We hope the coverage of this story can be a force for greater good and improve
(10:12):
horse welfare in future.
And I thought that was a really important statement to have out there.
And you seem to be reiterating the piece of the human aspect of this story.
Yeah, I like the way they put that because they did not shame her.
They said she's an individual. individual i don't think a lot of people are
(10:35):
doing that online i think people are either.
Supporting her of course i'm not reading all of it but they're either sign of
saying supporting her and saying oh we all make mistakes or people are just
tearing her to shreds i think that most of those.
Pads are not helpful. I don't think supporting her and saying,
(10:58):
oh, we all make mistakes and we've hit, we all as trainers can't say that we
haven't hit a horse too hard or, and then you have many people going over the
things that they've done in the past.
None of which sound like this where they'll put that, put it out there almost
to be forgiven and to forgive her.
They'll put out some of the behaviors that they've engaged in,
but nothing I've read matches what I saw on a video.
(11:22):
So I don't think those things are the same. I don't think supporting her that way is helpful.
I also don't think tearing her to shreds is helpful to anything,
not the sport, not Charlotte, not us as a community.
To me, that's a repetition of abuse and it creates more abuse.
It creates more trauma. It creates more vicarious trauma because we're just
(11:45):
out there abusing each other and having no compassion.
Passion what i do think is helpful
is understanding that charlotte
for whatever reason needs help
i don't know what kind of help but that
for sure she's not proud of that video or her behavior and i'm sure she wasn't
(12:06):
proud of it at the time i'm sure she feels a lot of shame right now it's so
out there in the public and outside of the dressage world at this point that
she has to be suffering all of that.
But whatever it was that emotionally, neurologically, physiologically pushed her to that decision.
(12:28):
Not that I think it's a conscious decision, to take abusive action like that,
we won't understand that.
Carla needs to figure out what that's about. And we need to know that there's
a way forward for her, that she can understand what's going on,
what happened for herself,
(12:49):
and learn to have compassion for herself as we learn to have it for her.
I don't think we're ever going to know because it's her personal life and it's
her personal situation that brought her to that point. But I think there is
a way forward for her through learning about what caused it.
(13:10):
And then hopefully in the future, once she has an understanding of that,
helping the rest of us understand how not to get there.
Is it possible to broaden what you've already touched on and just touch in on personality traits?
Like if you have a trainer that's really narcissistic and is perpetually abusive
(13:33):
versus somebody who might lose it once in a while, but is not consistently showing up like that?
Yeah, I think that's a really good differentiation. differentiation i think
there are people who are narcissistic who aren't looking
at their own behavior who don't think there's anything wrong with
what they're doing who never regret their actions
(13:54):
when they know when they're clearly training in a way that has no empathy or
compassion for the horse or awesome their riders that's someone who is not going
to change their behavior because they're not interested in it they because they
see no problem then there are people who are,
and I think this is true of most of us, we go down the wrong path sometimes.
(14:19):
We have bad days. We're stressed out.
We say something that we didn't say in the way we wish we did to the person.
We might overreact to a horse with some fleeting anger in a way that's not helpful at all.
And then we will come back and be like, oh, I'm so sorry.
That was wrong of me. and then learn from those mistakes.
(14:43):
Learn how to titrate emotion and use it in a more positive way.
Learn the red flags of when anger or irritation or agitation is starting to
build and how to use our bodies to calm and then turn it into something positive.
(15:03):
Often we feel agitation for good reasons or anger.
And if we can look at those reasons and then
calm ourselves we often can have some effect
on the thing that's bothering us in a positive way for
instance if i flip this around if i see someone
who's doing something to a horse which is confusing
the horse and is somewhat not necessarily abusive but is not helpful and even
(15:28):
dangerous to them or the horse i can feel agitated and then i If I listen to
myself and not yell at the person and not rush in in a way that creates more of a problem,
I can calm down, take a breath,
and then teach so that it doesn't get repeated.
(15:48):
I think the people who are self-aware understand that they've caused pain in
either the horse or human, then there can be conversation and discussion.
That is not the same person who's narcissistic, doesn't think what they're doing
is wrong, never is looking for more information, and is never feeling regret for negative action.
(16:12):
Yeah, and the beautiful relationship of horses and humans being able to co-regulate
each other also has that converse effect that you're talking about,
that this idea of anxiety, anger.
And agitation are all normal and useful physiological and cognitive responses.
(16:38):
Responses, and at the same time, you said that we can ignore them or not pay
attention to them in what's a helpful way.
So I think just acknowledging that
horse riding can involve a lot of fine
motor skills and that physiological arousal
(16:59):
in terms of elevated heart rate or elevated
breathing those kind of things can
really affect the relationship with
the horse yes i love this this is so
wonderfully put the horses are heal our energy and we can feel theirs and how
(17:20):
we connect with that is why we're in relationship with them and as you're saying
There can be a process of co-regulation.
When the horse is feeling worried and agitated, we can help the horse calm down
and feel safe and trusting.
When we're feeling agitated and the horse starts to feel agitated,
we then can calm down and help the horse calm down and therefore help ourselves
(17:46):
calm down as well and come back to ourselves and rejoin with them.
They teach us so much about how to do that if we want to help them,
and then they help us in return. That is fantastic.
One of the most magical things I'd say about our relationship with horses and
why we do not want to miss or lose this relationship through dressage.
(18:10):
Because dressage, given that it's so much about fine motor coordination,
so much about small little movements that the horse reads and we read their
small little movements.
So the goal being that you can't even see the Apes given in the Grand Prix, in the Olympics,
that is the ultimate expression, one of them, of this close relationship where
(18:35):
each animal, horse and human, is reading each other's emotions and body language.
And it's interesting as well, because of these small little movements,
that dressage riders have a propensity to have more anxiety around that.
I think jumping is a lot more straightforward.
(18:58):
It's arguably more dangerous, but it's more straightforward.
I think the anxious overload can be a lot more prevalent in dressage.
I'm thinking also about the power dynamics of the relationship with the trainer
and the horse and the rider, and the rider's often paying good money to a trainer.
(19:22):
And there is this risk of
the horse being triangulated which is
something that can be a common
problem in human relationships and that is a self-protective mechanism and I'm
wondering do you ever come across that as a horse trainer that the horse could
(19:46):
get triangulated as a way of deflecting tension?
You're saying that the horse ends up getting the anger and frustration and the blame.
Yes, we see this all the time. And instead of the trainer seeing it as a place
where they might lack knowledge or the rider, where they might lack skill.
(20:08):
The way we triangulate and create an answer to that is often to blame the horse
not being smart enough or capable enough or responsive enough and being exactly what we want.
And this is where the word anthropomorphize actually gets problematic because
people will put thoughts and feelings into a horse in those situations that
(20:31):
the horse is clearly not feeling to the point where they're like,
this horse doesn't like me.
That might be true, but not in the way that a human experiences it.
The horse might just not feel safe or connected to the person.
But putting thoughts and feelings into the horse that just likely aren't there
can snowball into actions and reactions that can become abusive.
(20:57):
And another concept that does tie in with that is this idea of projection as well,
that we can project perhaps feelings of inadequacy or frustration consciously
or unconsciously onto perhaps the vet or the farrier or the saddler.
(21:18):
That the horse is acting out in a certain way when it's really what might be
going on with the triangulating dynamic or even just the dynamic between horse and rider.
Yeah, there's so many ways to blame other people and blame the horse.
And it's such a hard sport.
(21:39):
Everyone says dressage is such a humbling sport. And absolutely.
When we forget that it's always going to keep us humble, we will sometimes blame
everyone else for the problems, including the horse.
And that will create stress and agitation and likely action that's aggressive.
(22:01):
And it makes us blind to what's really going on with the horse if we really
focus, okay, does this horse have a physical problem?
And that's why it can't respond in In the situation on that video,
Charlotte was going for something in the horse, in the canter,
to get it to bounce off the ground more and jump off the ground more.
(22:22):
It is possible that the horse couldn't do it because there was something wrong
or confirmationally it just wasn't what the horse is capable of.
But the projection onto the horse and the way that was handled wasn't like,
okay, maybe there's something wrong.
On maybe we had to rethink this some of
(22:43):
the criticism of that video was
of the people taking the video people laughing and
so when i talk about triangulation you can hear the power dynamic there with
the trainer and then the people taking the video who i think were nervous possibly
where they were trying to process in some way laughing and then you had the
(23:04):
aggression onto the horse the
rider that does seem like a really small
moment of a triangulated process and i
don't think the people taking the video deserved all
the criticism they got too for laughing because it seemed more like a very strange
negative triangulated moment and their laughter seemed more nervous possibly
(23:30):
again i don't want to read into people's thoughts but it was such an extreme moment.
I don't know if we can really know what they were thinking. And I think shaming
them for that is also going down the wrong path.
And just to name also some ethical considerations of the age of some of the
(23:51):
people that might be involved in these kind of situations and videos that some
of them are minors and being mindful of that piece of it as well.
Yeah, definitely. I want to just name something else as well,
and this is not in any way to excuse abuse.
(24:12):
I think it's important to understand gender norms and how wonderful it is that
men and women compete equally in equestrian sports.
It's the only Olympic sport where that happens.
And also the idea that it doesn't matter how old you are, you can still compete in the Olympics.
(24:36):
It's not necessarily a young person's sport as well. And in terms of gender
diversity, animals don't care how you identify.
So there's really a lot of positives in the equestrian world.
And also, we need to be aware of how we view men and women in terms of norms.
(25:01):
Typically assertiveness and physicality in terms of being able to control strong,
powerful, sensitive animal could be seen to be something that's a little more masculine.
And how do we
view sports like this how
(25:23):
do we view equestrian sports where women are showing
up with more traditional masculine qualities as
it were we just need to be sensitive to that and at the same time not excusing
any abuse yeah it's a very interesting point that so many more women are in
the sport than men as we know many men are at the top of the sport and really the sport.
(25:49):
Should embrace both of the positive things about this sort of stereotypical
male attributes and female attributes not so much aggression obviously but this
sort of assertiveness and push to
connect with the horse,
not power over the horse, but by the power that's focused on connecting in harmony with the horse.
(26:14):
So that we can take these sort of stereotypical attributes, male,
female, and put them together, which is what the sport ideally should do.
So we have a drive forward that is a relational drive.
You have this sort of assertiveness, Not aggressive, but relational.
(26:34):
Bringing both male-female archetypal attributes together in one.
So if we think about that
riders in general can benefit from understanding their
own psychological tendencies and personalities and the way they show up on any
(26:54):
given day with their forces or what their negative interaction patterns might
be and use that to improve the relationship with the horse,
improve their competitive performance.
What about the practicalities of judging and equipment usage?
(27:15):
Do you think there needs to be rule changes there?
I think that some of the governing bodies are trying to figure out about how
to help people see the horse-human relationship that shows respect and harmony.
I don't think it's easy. I think it's very difficult.
If you look at the wealthier laws at the moment, when it comes to the relationship, there's like pages.
(27:43):
Rules about bits and mouth and what
the horse looks like physically and what they're eating and what make
each other taken care of but the part where it says horse
human relationship it says under that there is
no way to judge and that's what's
written on there i don't think i have the exact language but it's something
(28:04):
like there is no way to judge so yes we have a lot to do here judges have to
figure out how to see whether the horse is moving out of tension or relaxation
i don't think it should be all on the shoulders of the judges.
But that should be their goal.
I do think expanding some of the technical delegate work to be outside of the
(28:28):
competition arena, so people visit barns and they look at training programs as a way to do it.
I definitely think that in all of these committees,
there should be psychologists or clinical social workers on those committees
to deal with the human issue of how to work with horses in a way,
(28:50):
knowing it can be frustrating,
knowing it can be humbling, how to help people deal with their emotions and
use their intelligence in a way towards the development of the horse,
towards the benefit of the horse,
towards helping the horse just thrive instead of having the human emotion get
(29:11):
in the way of that to the spectrum of negative thought all the way to the sort
of more horrible action,
abusive actions or neglect.
Yeah, like you said, it's very important. And this idea of introducing a broader
perspective and how do you get rid of abuse if you're not addressing it in the barn,
(29:36):
and also, you know, encouraging owners to voice their thoughts to change the industry.
And that means addressing all these different power differentials.
And you named about the governing bodies and that they are making efforts and
perhaps it's not going far enough.
(29:57):
I think some of the ethics and well-being committees are equine focused and
there's no inclusion of rider trainer support there.
I do think what you're saying is essential to have it out there in conversation in the public domain.
And I also just want to acknowledge that there are people like Astrid Apples
(30:23):
from Eurodressage who's been very supportive of addressing these subjects and
allowing her communications to continue this conversation.
Conversation she's done a fantastic job putting
it out there being honest bringing out things that
some people might not want her to say
(30:44):
but she's always so clear and at the
same time points out what's going to help us out in terms of scope of change
just to recap on the conversation we've been having do you think a place to
start would be to develop organized conversations like
(31:05):
local chapters of dressage clubs and USDF chapters?
Could they support members by having group conversations?
Or do you think it needs to come from the top as well? Or do we do it from the
bottom and the top at the same time?
I think it's usually both. I think the federations and leaders are trying to figure this out.
(31:32):
And it goes slow because you're dealing with a lot of people.
I think that somehow, if we can gather people together,
either in small groups or with the GMOs, can guide some of these groups,
and then the larger conversations that people can listen into,
if we could have some transparency there, it would be awesome.
(31:54):
We could listen to what people are thinking on the level of the SEI and other
of the USEF, USDFs, and how to help the situation. That would be wonderful.
In that process, we have to be careful, as we've been talking about, of people shaming us.
Letting their anger become destructive in these situations, both to each other and to our sport.
(32:19):
Like Astrid finds a way to be honest, but productive and constructive.
I think there is a way to do that with the right facilitators of those conversations.
Thank you. I think that's really important. And so just recapping this idea
that we shouldn't be engaging in cancel culture and shaming people,
(32:42):
but continuing the conversation around equine welfare, which we now have a lot
more knowledge about than we did in the past.
And also bringing in the psychological piece of let's get clear about our emotions,
our habit patterns, our physiological responses,
(33:04):
and not bring those to the horse in a negative way so we can continue this beautiful
co-evolution that we've had with them for a long time.
Exactly. That's beautifully said. I think that this year, these abuse videos coming out can be seen.
(33:27):
We have to wonder why now? And why now?
Likely because we know so much more about how horses feel and how they experience
in the world and animals in general.
If you watch Instagram or YouTube, the videos that you see of animals show them
to be so much more intelligent than we have given them credit for before we
(33:51):
saw these videos over the centuries.
The more we learn about how animals feel and think and how intelligent they
actually are, that is, in a way, why I think this is happening now,
because we are so much more aware of the horses and the animals that we're around
all the time are feeling in a really deep way and that we are more like them
(34:17):
than we have said we are in the past, right?
We cannot be differentiated from the animals.
And so these videos in a way are out there, as I want to say this in a way that
makes sense, is almost a gift to us to say, hey, people are mad about this now
because we see them differently.
And now we can take action in a way we have never been able to do before.
(34:40):
These videos, these actions, they're horrible, but they They are going to give
us a way to take more action in a positive way for the benefit of ourselves
and the benefit of the animals.
Wonderful, Jane. I think that's a really perfect place
to wrap up the conversation for today
and also with the invitation for others to reach out and contact us with questions
(35:08):
and thoughts to to continue this broader conversation and enjoy human-horse interactions.
Thank you so much, Trudy, for creating this space to talk about all of this. Thank you.
Thank you for listening into this episode of the InScape Quest podcast.
(35:30):
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us Instagram at inscape.com.
Welcome to the InScape Quest Podcast, where insightful conversations redefine perspectives.
I'm your host, Trudy Howley.
Join me in this episode as together with psychologist, dressage writer,
and trainer, Jane Carroll explores insights into recalibrating the sport of dressage.
(00:24):
We particularly talk about the global release of the video of British dressage
rider Charlotte Dujardin just prior to the Paris Olympics.
Jane, I'm so happy to have you back here on this podcast. Thank you for being here today.
Thank you so much for inviting me back.
When we last talked, we were actually thinking about having a part two.
(00:48):
And interestingly enough, the topic of conversation we were having earlier in
the year was about equine welfare and the human intersection of that,
particularly in the dressage world.
And that has become international news now.
I'm wondering if you might be able to just quickly recap some of the concepts
(01:12):
that we touched on earlier in the year.
I think the new Charlotte Dujardin having a really bad moment with herself and
the horse has made it so that dressage has come into the world,
a greater world, not just a dressage world, to New York Times and other places
(01:34):
because she's so famous.
And it's brought the art and sport of dressage into the world in a negative way.
Thankfully, we have Snoop Dogg to help us a little bit with the other side during the Olympics.
But sadly, this sport that can be absolutely.
Beauty and art form has come to people who have never heard of it in a negative
(01:57):
way from this video and this news.
And what we talked about for those people who have watched it,
and we talked about last time we met and spoke about vicarious trauma and how
some people will want to watch the video and some people won't.
But even just whether you've watched this video or you've heard about There
(02:17):
can be an experience of vicarious trauma versus direct trauma that's happening to you.
And the vicarious trauma, people are going to have different kinds of reactions.
Some feel agitated, anxious, aggressive themselves without actually consciously
knowing what's affecting them.
But in some way, watching a horse and other horrible things that we see on videos
(02:45):
can affect us very negatively.
We talked about the frustration with how do we take action when we have no real
understanding of what action we can take to stop something.
And if we're in the
situation we also spoke about how people in
(03:07):
power can take hold of that power over other people and we're all susceptible
to not taking action when we don't see a way to take it or we actually think
that the person might be right because they're in power.
Again, I won't go over all those things because we talked about them last time,
(03:29):
but we ended with a discussion of how to help ourselves in these situations,
how to help the dressage as a sport and art and how to help those in the sport, the trainers,
the riders, people who are adult amateurs and people who are just centered around
(03:51):
the owners of the horses, everybody involved in the sport.
How can we help our sport? How can we help the community instead of breaking ourselves down?
Because this sport is quite beautiful.
It is about the connection that we make with the horse.
Hopefully on the horse's terms and our terms that we come together,
(04:15):
be it animal and human, and we create a language together.
And that experience is absolutely profound. found.
We don't want to lose that to these really bad moments, possibly too many moments
like that from some individuals.
We don't want to lose our sport. We don't want to lose our place in the Olympics.
(04:38):
We don't want to lose the focus on the fact that this is an absolutely beautiful
way to be in the world with another species.
It can be. And as we see in these videos, it also can be as horrible as humans can be.
So the question is now, how do we as a community support each other and not
(05:03):
tear each other apart in this conversation?
How do we come and have a conversation and how do we help each other,
including the individuals who need the help, who are actually being aggressive
to the animals? Thank you, Jane.
And I think there have been a lot more people weighing in on the conversation now.
Some of those positions are somewhat extreme.
(05:26):
Some are sanctimonious. And I think it's really important that you named about
the pleasure and beauty of being with another species as energetic beings.
Horses are energetic beings as well, and there is a great deal of play and pleasure
that can be engaged with when you're in right relationship with the horse.
(05:51):
So I'm wondering, from your perspective as a horse trainer, as well as a psychologist.
What were your initial thoughts about watching the video from a training perspective
of Charlotte Dujardin? done?
My initial response to that video was that this is not normal.
(06:15):
This is not normal behavior for a trainer, especially one that's had the opportunity to learn from.
One of the greatest horse people probably in the history of human interaction
with horses, one of them.
There are a few, but Carl Hester, her mentor trainer, is a remarkable horseman.
(06:39):
So my first reaction was, whoa, this is not normal.
It's not just someone who got upset and hit a horse too hard or pulled on the mouth too hard.
We all do make mistakes. stakes and we hopefully
learned from them but this was not within
that kind of spectrum so
(07:01):
my first reaction was whoa this is surprising because Charlotte has been known
to actually be the icon the way horses are supposed to be trained of all people
it was surprising that she had this moment Or we don't know if she's done it
before. I'm not going to speculate on that.
But my biggest reaction was this is way beyond what I think the normal human
(07:29):
errors are in dealing with them.
My next thought was wondering and worrying about her,
because I think that if he got into a position where she was acting like that,
given that she has knowledge about how not to interact that way and how not to train that way,
(07:49):
then something must be on in a way with her,
not in a way that I would think of shaming her, but in a way that I worried
about. What is she suffering?
What kind of stress is she under?
What is causing so much something painful in her that she would actually not
be able to control and make a decision to train in a way that's get compassion
(08:14):
for the horse and thinking about what how a horse learns and how a horse is
going to feel in that situation.
And we can also talk about the fact
there was a rider on the horse so there was also a
blank i'm guessing i don't
know her and i haven't talked to her i want to make sure i'm not putting any
kind of thoughts or feelings into her that i have no clue about i'm just assuming
(08:37):
that there was a moment that she wasn't thinking the way she can think given
what she's accomplished and what what she's represented in the past and who she's learned from.
She created a situation for some reason that was aggressive to the horse and
put the horse in a very fearful situation.
(08:58):
And I imagine the rider felt fear, but I don't know.
But I would worry about that, not knowing how the horse is going to react to
that kind of training with the whip, what could have happened to the rider as well.
So there's multiple things going on here, and two of the parallel processes
are that the general public now knows what abuse looks like in terms of overdriving
(09:25):
a horse or perhaps any other animal,
and also acknowledging in this instance Charlotte and others as human beings
with their own mental health issues, perhaps.
And what was interesting is Lemieux, who was one of Charlotte's sponsors,
(09:48):
had put out a statement and in part it said, over the past decade,
we've worked closely with Charlotte and witnessed her contribution to the sport of dressage.
It is crucial to remember that behind it all, Charlotte is a real person facing
unprecedented pressures and challenges.
We hope the coverage of this story can be a force for greater good and improve
(10:12):
horse welfare in future.
And I thought that was a really important statement to have out there.
And you seem to be reiterating the piece of the human aspect of this story.
Yeah, I like the way they put that because they did not shame her.
They said she's an individual. individual i don't think a lot of people are
(10:35):
doing that online i think people are either.
Supporting her of course i'm not reading all of it but they're either sign of
saying supporting her and saying oh we all make mistakes or people are just
tearing her to shreds i think that most of those.
Pads are not helpful. I don't think supporting her and saying,
(10:58):
oh, we all make mistakes and we've hit, we all as trainers can't say that we
haven't hit a horse too hard or, and then you have many people going over the
things that they've done in the past.
None of which sound like this where they'll put that, put it out there almost
to be forgiven and to forgive her.
They'll put out some of the behaviors that they've engaged in,
but nothing I've read matches what I saw on a video.
(11:22):
So I don't think those things are the same. I don't think supporting her that way is helpful.
I also don't think tearing her to shreds is helpful to anything,
not the sport, not Charlotte, not us as a community.
To me, that's a repetition of abuse and it creates more abuse.
It creates more trauma. It creates more vicarious trauma because we're just
(11:45):
out there abusing each other and having no compassion.
Passion what i do think is helpful
is understanding that charlotte
for whatever reason needs help
i don't know what kind of help but that
for sure she's not proud of that video or her behavior and i'm sure she wasn't
(12:06):
proud of it at the time i'm sure she feels a lot of shame right now it's so
out there in the public and outside of the dressage world at this point that
she has to be suffering all of that.
But whatever it was that emotionally, neurologically, physiologically pushed her to that decision.
(12:28):
Not that I think it's a conscious decision, to take abusive action like that,
we won't understand that.
Carla needs to figure out what that's about. And we need to know that there's
a way forward for her, that she can understand what's going on,
what happened for herself,
(12:49):
and learn to have compassion for herself as we learn to have it for her.
I don't think we're ever going to know because it's her personal life and it's
her personal situation that brought her to that point. But I think there is
a way forward for her through learning about what caused it.
(13:10):
And then hopefully in the future, once she has an understanding of that,
helping the rest of us understand how not to get there.
Is it possible to broaden what you've already touched on and just touch in on personality traits?
Like if you have a trainer that's really narcissistic and is perpetually abusive
(13:33):
versus somebody who might lose it once in a while, but is not consistently showing up like that?
Yeah, I think that's a really good differentiation. differentiation i think
there are people who are narcissistic who aren't looking
at their own behavior who don't think there's anything wrong with
what they're doing who never regret their actions
(13:54):
when they know when they're clearly training in a way that has no empathy or
compassion for the horse or awesome their riders that's someone who is not going
to change their behavior because they're not interested in it they because they
see no problem then there are people who are,
and I think this is true of most of us, we go down the wrong path sometimes.
(14:19):
We have bad days. We're stressed out.
We say something that we didn't say in the way we wish we did to the person.
We might overreact to a horse with some fleeting anger in a way that's not helpful at all.
And then we will come back and be like, oh, I'm so sorry.
That was wrong of me. and then learn from those mistakes.
(14:43):
Learn how to titrate emotion and use it in a more positive way.
Learn the red flags of when anger or irritation or agitation is starting to
build and how to use our bodies to calm and then turn it into something positive.
(15:03):
Often we feel agitation for good reasons or anger.
And if we can look at those reasons and then
calm ourselves we often can have some effect
on the thing that's bothering us in a positive way for
instance if i flip this around if i see someone
who's doing something to a horse which is confusing
the horse and is somewhat not necessarily abusive but is not helpful and even
(15:28):
dangerous to them or the horse i can feel agitated and then i If I listen to
myself and not yell at the person and not rush in in a way that creates more of a problem,
I can calm down, take a breath,
and then teach so that it doesn't get repeated.
(15:48):
I think the people who are self-aware understand that they've caused pain in
either the horse or human, then there can be conversation and discussion.
That is not the same person who's narcissistic, doesn't think what they're doing
is wrong, never is looking for more information, and is never feeling regret for negative action.
(16:12):
Yeah, and the beautiful relationship of horses and humans being able to co-regulate
each other also has that converse effect that you're talking about,
that this idea of anxiety, anger.
And agitation are all normal and useful physiological and cognitive responses.
(16:38):
Responses, and at the same time, you said that we can ignore them or not pay
attention to them in what's a helpful way.
So I think just acknowledging that
horse riding can involve a lot of fine
motor skills and that physiological arousal
(16:59):
in terms of elevated heart rate or elevated
breathing those kind of things can
really affect the relationship with
the horse yes i love this this is so
wonderfully put the horses are heal our energy and we can feel theirs and how
(17:20):
we connect with that is why we're in relationship with them and as you're saying
There can be a process of co-regulation.
When the horse is feeling worried and agitated, we can help the horse calm down
and feel safe and trusting.
When we're feeling agitated and the horse starts to feel agitated,
we then can calm down and help the horse calm down and therefore help ourselves
(17:46):
calm down as well and come back to ourselves and rejoin with them.
They teach us so much about how to do that if we want to help them,
and then they help us in return. That is fantastic.
One of the most magical things I'd say about our relationship with horses and
why we do not want to miss or lose this relationship through dressage.
(18:10):
Because dressage, given that it's so much about fine motor coordination,
so much about small little movements that the horse reads and we read their
small little movements.
So the goal being that you can't even see the Apes given in the Grand Prix, in the Olympics,
that is the ultimate expression, one of them, of this close relationship where
(18:35):
each animal, horse and human, is reading each other's emotions and body language.
And it's interesting as well, because of these small little movements,
that dressage riders have a propensity to have more anxiety around that.
I think jumping is a lot more straightforward.
(18:58):
It's arguably more dangerous, but it's more straightforward.
I think the anxious overload can be a lot more prevalent in dressage.
I'm thinking also about the power dynamics of the relationship with the trainer
and the horse and the rider, and the rider's often paying good money to a trainer.
(19:22):
And there is this risk of
the horse being triangulated which is
something that can be a common
problem in human relationships and that is a self-protective mechanism and I'm
wondering do you ever come across that as a horse trainer that the horse could
(19:46):
get triangulated as a way of deflecting tension?
You're saying that the horse ends up getting the anger and frustration and the blame.
Yes, we see this all the time. And instead of the trainer seeing it as a place
where they might lack knowledge or the rider, where they might lack skill.
(20:08):
The way we triangulate and create an answer to that is often to blame the horse
not being smart enough or capable enough or responsive enough and being exactly what we want.
And this is where the word anthropomorphize actually gets problematic because
people will put thoughts and feelings into a horse in those situations that
(20:31):
the horse is clearly not feeling to the point where they're like,
this horse doesn't like me.
That might be true, but not in the way that a human experiences it.
The horse might just not feel safe or connected to the person.
But putting thoughts and feelings into the horse that just likely aren't there
can snowball into actions and reactions that can become abusive.
(20:57):
And another concept that does tie in with that is this idea of projection as well,
that we can project perhaps feelings of inadequacy or frustration consciously
or unconsciously onto perhaps the vet or the farrier or the saddler.
(21:18):
That the horse is acting out in a certain way when it's really what might be
going on with the triangulating dynamic or even just the dynamic between horse and rider.
Yeah, there's so many ways to blame other people and blame the horse.
And it's such a hard sport.
(21:39):
Everyone says dressage is such a humbling sport. And absolutely.
When we forget that it's always going to keep us humble, we will sometimes blame
everyone else for the problems, including the horse.
And that will create stress and agitation and likely action that's aggressive.
(22:01):
And it makes us blind to what's really going on with the horse if we really
focus, okay, does this horse have a physical problem?
And that's why it can't respond in In the situation on that video,
Charlotte was going for something in the horse, in the canter,
to get it to bounce off the ground more and jump off the ground more.
(22:22):
It is possible that the horse couldn't do it because there was something wrong
or confirmationally it just wasn't what the horse is capable of.
But the projection onto the horse and the way that was handled wasn't like,
okay, maybe there's something wrong.
On maybe we had to rethink this some of
(22:43):
the criticism of that video was
of the people taking the video people laughing and
so when i talk about triangulation you can hear the power dynamic there with
the trainer and then the people taking the video who i think were nervous possibly
where they were trying to process in some way laughing and then you had the
(23:04):
aggression onto the horse the
rider that does seem like a really small
moment of a triangulated process and i
don't think the people taking the video deserved all
the criticism they got too for laughing because it seemed more like a very strange
negative triangulated moment and their laughter seemed more nervous possibly
(23:30):
again i don't want to read into people's thoughts but it was such an extreme moment.
I don't know if we can really know what they were thinking. And I think shaming
them for that is also going down the wrong path.
And just to name also some ethical considerations of the age of some of the
(23:51):
people that might be involved in these kind of situations and videos that some
of them are minors and being mindful of that piece of it as well.
Yeah, definitely. I want to just name something else as well,
and this is not in any way to excuse abuse.
(24:12):
I think it's important to understand gender norms and how wonderful it is that
men and women compete equally in equestrian sports.
It's the only Olympic sport where that happens.
And also the idea that it doesn't matter how old you are, you can still compete in the Olympics.
(24:36):
It's not necessarily a young person's sport as well. And in terms of gender
diversity, animals don't care how you identify.
So there's really a lot of positives in the equestrian world.
And also, we need to be aware of how we view men and women in terms of norms.
(25:01):
Typically assertiveness and physicality in terms of being able to control strong,
powerful, sensitive animal could be seen to be something that's a little more masculine.
And how do we
view sports like this how
(25:23):
do we view equestrian sports where women are showing
up with more traditional masculine qualities as
it were we just need to be sensitive to that and at the same time not excusing
any abuse yeah it's a very interesting point that so many more women are in
the sport than men as we know many men are at the top of the sport and really the sport.
(25:49):
Should embrace both of the positive things about this sort of stereotypical
male attributes and female attributes not so much aggression obviously but this
sort of assertiveness and push to
connect with the horse,
not power over the horse, but by the power that's focused on connecting in harmony with the horse.
(26:14):
So that we can take these sort of stereotypical attributes, male,
female, and put them together, which is what the sport ideally should do.
So we have a drive forward that is a relational drive.
You have this sort of assertiveness, Not aggressive, but relational.
(26:34):
Bringing both male-female archetypal attributes together in one.
So if we think about that
riders in general can benefit from understanding their
own psychological tendencies and personalities and the way they show up on any
(26:54):
given day with their forces or what their negative interaction patterns might
be and use that to improve the relationship with the horse,
improve their competitive performance.
What about the practicalities of judging and equipment usage?
(27:15):
Do you think there needs to be rule changes there?
I think that some of the governing bodies are trying to figure out about how
to help people see the horse-human relationship that shows respect and harmony.
I don't think it's easy. I think it's very difficult.
If you look at the wealthier laws at the moment, when it comes to the relationship, there's like pages.
(27:43):
Rules about bits and mouth and what
the horse looks like physically and what they're eating and what make
each other taken care of but the part where it says horse
human relationship it says under that there is
no way to judge and that's what's
written on there i don't think i have the exact language but it's something
(28:04):
like there is no way to judge so yes we have a lot to do here judges have to
figure out how to see whether the horse is moving out of tension or relaxation
i don't think it should be all on the shoulders of the judges.
But that should be their goal.
I do think expanding some of the technical delegate work to be outside of the
(28:28):
competition arena, so people visit barns and they look at training programs as a way to do it.
I definitely think that in all of these committees,
there should be psychologists or clinical social workers on those committees
to deal with the human issue of how to work with horses in a way,
(28:50):
knowing it can be frustrating,
knowing it can be humbling, how to help people deal with their emotions and
use their intelligence in a way towards the development of the horse,
towards the benefit of the horse,
towards helping the horse just thrive instead of having the human emotion get
(29:11):
in the way of that to the spectrum of negative thought all the way to the sort
of more horrible action,
abusive actions or neglect.
Yeah, like you said, it's very important. And this idea of introducing a broader
perspective and how do you get rid of abuse if you're not addressing it in the barn,
(29:36):
and also, you know, encouraging owners to voice their thoughts to change the industry.
And that means addressing all these different power differentials.
And you named about the governing bodies and that they are making efforts and
perhaps it's not going far enough.
(29:57):
I think some of the ethics and well-being committees are equine focused and
there's no inclusion of rider trainer support there.
I do think what you're saying is essential to have it out there in conversation in the public domain.
And I also just want to acknowledge that there are people like Astrid Apples
(30:23):
from Eurodressage who's been very supportive of addressing these subjects and
allowing her communications to continue this conversation.
Conversation she's done a fantastic job putting
it out there being honest bringing out things that
some people might not want her to say
(30:44):
but she's always so clear and at the
same time points out what's going to help us out in terms of scope of change
just to recap on the conversation we've been having do you think a place to
start would be to develop organized conversations like
(31:05):
local chapters of dressage clubs and USDF chapters?
Could they support members by having group conversations?
Or do you think it needs to come from the top as well? Or do we do it from the
bottom and the top at the same time?
I think it's usually both. I think the federations and leaders are trying to figure this out.
(31:32):
And it goes slow because you're dealing with a lot of people.
I think that somehow, if we can gather people together,
either in small groups or with the GMOs, can guide some of these groups,
and then the larger conversations that people can listen into,
if we could have some transparency there, it would be awesome.
(31:54):
We could listen to what people are thinking on the level of the SEI and other
of the USEF, USDFs, and how to help the situation. That would be wonderful.
In that process, we have to be careful, as we've been talking about, of people shaming us.
Letting their anger become destructive in these situations, both to each other and to our sport.
(32:19):
Like Astrid finds a way to be honest, but productive and constructive.
I think there is a way to do that with the right facilitators of those conversations.
Thank you. I think that's really important. And so just recapping this idea
that we shouldn't be engaging in cancel culture and shaming people,
(32:42):
but continuing the conversation around equine welfare, which we now have a lot
more knowledge about than we did in the past.
And also bringing in the psychological piece of let's get clear about our emotions,
our habit patterns, our physiological responses,
(33:04):
and not bring those to the horse in a negative way so we can continue this beautiful
co-evolution that we've had with them for a long time.
Exactly. That's beautifully said. I think that this year, these abuse videos coming out can be seen.
(33:27):
We have to wonder why now? And why now?
Likely because we know so much more about how horses feel and how they experience
in the world and animals in general.
If you watch Instagram or YouTube, the videos that you see of animals show them
to be so much more intelligent than we have given them credit for before we
(33:51):
saw these videos over the centuries.
The more we learn about how animals feel and think and how intelligent they
actually are, that is, in a way, why I think this is happening now,
because we are so much more aware of the horses and the animals that we're around
all the time are feeling in a really deep way and that we are more like them
(34:17):
than we have said we are in the past, right?
We cannot be differentiated from the animals.
And so these videos in a way are out there, as I want to say this in a way that
makes sense, is almost a gift to us to say, hey, people are mad about this now
because we see them differently.
And now we can take action in a way we have never been able to do before.
(34:40):
These videos, these actions, they're horrible, but they They are going to give
us a way to take more action in a positive way for the benefit of ourselves
and the benefit of the animals.
Wonderful, Jane. I think that's a really perfect place
to wrap up the conversation for today
and also with the invitation for others to reach out and contact us with questions
(35:08):
and thoughts to to continue this broader conversation and enjoy human-horse interactions.
Thank you so much, Trudy, for creating this space to talk about all of this. Thank you.
Thank you for listening into this episode of the InScape Quest podcast.
(35:30):
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