Twinkle Star Stables

“Someone is going to get hurt!” Oh cool, as opposed to traditional horse sports where bitted bridles prevent everyone from injury? Oh wait…

“Well, the horses aren’t in frame or self carriage” They’re moving with more rhythm and balance than Grand Prix dressage horses. Head carriage is not an indicator of hind end engagement.

“Not every horse can be ridden without a bridle!” Not every horse can go to competitions and not every horse will excel at every sport. That doesn’t mean those competitions or those options shouldn’t exist.

And honestly it’s telling how defensive people are about bits and bridles. No one is saying you can’t use them - but if the so-called “elites” of the equestrian sport are only able to achieve their results due to their tack, then I question what it means to be competing at the higher levels.

I mostly hear statements like this when the topic of privileged equestrians comes up. The kind of people who board at a stable where turnout, feeding, mucking, etc is all taken care of, all of the owner does is come to the stable, tack up, ride, and then return the horse to the stall.

Or the kind that neglects things like proper feeding, turnout, etc because they only own a horse because they want to ride them.

I'm not part of his basic care routine beyond paying for it to be done. I can't; I'm allergic to his food, I'm disabled in ways that limit my energy, I can't function waking up earlier than 8am, I can't go out in certain weather conditions. Without full-care board, it would be logistically impossible for me to own a horse.

I even used to be the kind of person who only came to ride. I was taught that was the part of his basic care that I was personally responsible for. I would push myself to ride even when I was too exhausted to be a good rider for him, because I was taught that's what he needed. I wasn't taught any other ways to give him exercise.

That's different now. I go out to give him massages and walk him like a dog and play clicker training games. We ride only when it's beneficial for both of us, never when either of us isn't feeling up for it. But these are things I never would've been taught. I had to figure them out over time while owning the horse. I wish they were taught, but that's unfortunately not reality yet.

People who don't prioritize and provide for the horse's wellbeing shouldn't own horses, but that priority can happen in different ways. Sometimes it's doing the basic care yourself every day, sometimes it's paying people you trust to do it for you. Sometimes there are things you learn through trial and error to improve over time; that doesn't mean you should've never owned the horse, it means the experts in your life overlooked those things while teaching you.

It stops me from doom scrolling: can't go on social media if my hands are full of yarn.

It gives me a sense of agency: a lot of things are messed up in a way that's beyond my control, but I can make something that didn't used to exist. It's evidence that I'm alive and I can impact the world, even if the impact is small.

It builds my tolerance for mistakes: I grew up a perfectionist , which is really bad for my wellness and my ability to complete tasks. But crafts are a great source of low-stakes mistakes to help me learn how to handle imperfection. And while there are certainly mistakes I'll always fix, I also have many opportunities to decide a mistake is acceptable and leave it in favor of getting to the finish line.

It interrupts rumination: even if I'm still chewing on some troubling news, it's not front of mind if I need to focus on getting this seam straight or whatever

It helps me meet good people: although there are obvious exceptions, I've found most craft-centered spaces (IRL and online) to be full or supportive, kind, helpful people in all walks of life

It encourages a growth mindset: I'm always learning new things in crafting, and that builds my identity as someone who can grow and improve.

I think it's easy to feel discouraged when the horse says "no" so clearly. I definitely did. I felt the same way that one time when I scratched her belly and she bit my ass, and when she balks or doesn't listen while I lead her to/from pasture, and when she doesn't come when I call. But I think that's anthropomorphism. Horses are so clever and expressive, it's second nature to project some level of human thought onto them.

But we can't do that. They're grazers, they're perissodactyls, their brains don't work the same way as ours. When a horse is given a verbal or visual command, it can take up to 13 seconds for it to fully process. Horses can't plan far ahead. Horses don't have a theory of mind. Horses quite literally live in the moment, because they're primed to eat whatever's on the ground and to run from immediate threats. Horses don't think like people. They don't think "this person didn't see me flattening my ears because they're bent down, so I should probably nudge them to get their attention." They think "this person rudely ignored my flattened ears, so I should probably make my intentions clearer by biting."

When I hosed her down today, I took several breaks to comfort her, because she really doesn't like the water. But I also had to get the shampoo rinsed out, and I don't have all day. At one point, I dragged it out longer than I maybe should've, and when I didn't respond to her first signals that she was uncomfortable, she lifted a foot in my direction. She didn't even kick at me, but when you're a comparatively tiny person next to a draft horse 10x your mass, a lifted foot can feel like a mortal threat. This is the kind of stuff that leads to human/horse miscommunication and to communicative horses being labeled as mean.

I'm sorry but that's usually not a horse being mean - that's a horse who's in pain.

Stomach ulcers are extremely common in stalled horses (depending on the barn the incidence of stomach ulcers can be anywhere from 30% to 100% - there are virtually no barns where <10% horses have stomach ulcers).

Stomach ulcers are painful, and that pain is exacerbated by the tightening of the girth. When horses are in acute pain, they aren't gonna be polite. Even if the horse has been cured of ulcers, it may still associate the girth with that pain and have a strong reaction to it.