They do not seem to care that they are yanking on the horse’s most sensitive mouth with a leverage bit. They do not seem to care that they are spurring the horse carelessly and excessively. They do not seem to care that the horse is willing to accept these abuses without striking out violently.
I’ve received several requests to write about my impressions of Clinton Anderson and his Down Under Horsemanship… but the truth is that if I were asked to give my impression about every clinician out there my blog would be full of the same repetitious posts warning of salesmen. In my mind, not only Clinton Anderson but, almost every clinician out there is little more than a salesman working away to sell a product and turn a buck.
Don’t get me wrong, there are many who are good-hearted and honestly believe in what they are selling, and then there are others who know that what they are selling is a pile of rubbish but continue selling it anyhow.
It’s easy to talk about Rollkur from a distant point of view – perhaps not with a clear-cut opinion, but certainly a disjointed and ‘objective’ one. What isn’t easy is to address Rollkur when you’ve seen the effect it has; not on the horses who are succeeding and making money for their international-celebrity riders but, rather, on the horses who didn’t make the cut.