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Much like Black Beauty gave you an insight on the life of a 18th century horse, this post gives you an insight in the world of a 21st century sport horse. Due to my 34+ years of experience both in the Dutch and American equestrian world as an rider, owner and instructor, while importing, selling and showing Dutch Warmblood sport horses, my experiences visiting hundreds of breeding, training and showing barns, both in the US, in Germany and in the Netherlands, my experiences as a student riding with grand prix level riders and judges, I have first hand international, cross disciplinary knowledge of how horses are treated and regarded world wide, both at home and at the show grounds. I have attempted to use my insights to provide a minimally anthropomorphized point of view from the horse's perspective with science backing up my statements.
NOTE: Not all sport horses are treated like this. Not all horses see it this way. Not all riders do what is mentioned below. However, these practices are still prevalent on the horse-human interface. There is little transparency and show management is notorious for looking the other way when abuse is suspected. The audience is largely unaware these things occur in the equestrian world, especially those who attend without prior horse experience. I wrote this initially on my private facebook page to answer a friend's question of 'What does it mean to be a sport horse', and thought there might be a benefit to posting this in a public space as well. It is meant to provide people an opportunity to have an educated opinion regarding attendance and participation of top level equestrian competitions, to expand awareness of issues in horse well fare, and to push progressive motion toward increased well-fare for all horses.
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*** This blog post was published in the August 2018 edition of Natural Awakenings**
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 *** This blog post was published in the August 2017 edition of Natural Awakenings**
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