Horsey Germany

Cavallo magazine is a nice German all-around horse magazine (http://www.cavallo.de/) . They do monthly visits to riding stables and judge them based on the horses’ health, the trainer’s ability, and the overall riding lesson experience. I find these critiques fascinating. Once they found a stable that still employs tie-stalls, and the owner said “Those horses are in training for trailering.” Omgosh, if that isn’t a stupid lie. I think trailering training actually involves trailers!

So I was really interested to find a review of a stable that I had reviewed myself in the last year. It’s a DQHA stable near my home called Horsefield ranch. (Western stables try to have “cool” American names.) Here's their site: http://www.horsefield-ranch.de/. The trainer/owner of this place was such an egotistical, sexist jerk, I won’t go back there. I watched an entire lesson where he made a lady ride her Quarter Horse in circles at the lope, bent to the outside, spurring the horse continually. That horse had such a miserable experience. 

The trainer hooted/whistled when the lady riding took off her jacked and was wearing only a tank top. He mentioned something about her boobs. No way was I gonna get on a horse in front of this guy! He also made a rude comment about another Western trainer in our neighborhood who I know. He said, “Oh she slept with a cowboy once and she thinks she’s a Western trainer.” OK then.

Here's his picture from the homepage of his website.

Cavallo judged Horsefield ranch fairly, noting the horses’ health and such, but I had to laugh when I got to the evaluation of the trainer. He told the evaluator lady, “Oh, you don’t need to wear a helmet with my horses – my horses are all well trained!” She was pretty shocked by that attitude, and I have to say it’s familiar. Wasn’t it Pat Parelli who said you don’t need a helmet if your horse is well trained?

Anyway I’ll keep reading this magazine. It’s pretty good.

They recently had an article where someone using Rollkur and keeping the horse in a stall was punished with a 150E fine. Lack of turnout, rollkur,  and lack of contact with other horses is punishable by law. The Animal Welfare Regulation states that non-working horses get 2 hours of turnout per day, which could put large stables with many stallions out of business. We’ll see about that. When I see a photo like this one of Anky, given the chance, I'd want to ask her, "Do you even like horses?"

Also, in the fall of this year branding horses will be illegal. This is the natural fulfillment of the laws against docking and cropping dogs, I think. All horses must be microchipped. Animal rights people say it’s vanity to put a H for Hannoveraner on the horse, and that it does little to protect a horse from thieves. I think there’s a difference between the H and the entire registration number printed on a horse’s neck. Warmblood breeders are arguing that microchips can be botched and cause more stress than branding. Geez I wonder what a botched microchip looks like? For the record, I am not against branding horses in any way.

That reminds me, Totilas was in our little local paper last week. The headline was “Totilas is just a horse.” It was an interview with his trainer. I love that horsey stuff is news in Germany.