Horsey People

Ponies unite people across all cultures, nationalities and classes. The ludicrous English concept of an inherited "horsey" background is snobbish, stupid, inaccurate and morally repugnant. Horsemanship is no more upperclass than music or sex. In all three areas, the upper classes have had books written about their prowess, but that shows their financial clout with publishers rather than any innate talent. "Sexy" or "musical" provide no clues as to class, to pretend that "horsey" does, is plain stupid.

Go back 100 years and 95% of all horses were worked by the working classes. Riding and Carriage driving are upper class ways of demonstrating conspicuous consumption to the lower orders, but they were the activities of a tiny minority whose animals were looked after and trained by the working classes so the upper classes could show off their "skills"!
The British Horse Establishment preserves in aspic the "horsey" activities of the privileged few, Polo, Eventing, Hunting, Dressage, Thoroughbred Racing, Gymkhana, Carriage Driving, Hacking and Showing. Fine, if they want to run a re-enactment society so their members can pretend it is 1920 and everyone has servants, it is a free country.

Where they have gone too far is in pretending that their brand of Horsemanship is the only one. No group, dedicated to preserving the activities of a moneyed, leisured elite can honestly claim to represent ALL horse activities, yet that is exactly what the British Horse Society claim.
Working class horsemanship has left few records because working class horsemen were paid to do a job, and not paid enough to afford literary self glorification, but a few examples are preserved. "Half a dozen laden waggons" says Sir George Head "are dragged along the railroad to the particular drop then at work, by a stout cob, which is then ridden carelessly back again, barebacked by a small boy, at a shambling trot; notwithstanding that the interstices between the planks below admit, here and there, full two inches of daylight. However the pony proceeeds, clattering on unconcernedly, otherwise than by holding his snout close to the floor, the better and more cautiously to observe where to place his feet at every step.
.............The beast when I witnessed his performance, had only a halter on his head, without winkers, or any harness except collar and light rope traces. As soon as the boy had fastened the lock of the trace to the foremost waggon, the pony invariably turned round his head, as if to enquire whether all was ready,and then, exactly at the proper moment, commenced his march, the load, meanwhile, rumbling after him: arrived at the drop, the carriages being detached, he here stood jammed close to the wall; shewing perfect cognizance as the carriages passed him, of the degree of attention due to the various noises and manoevres going forward, and not only being aware when it was proper to step out of the way, but how long precisely it was safe to stand still."

This was at the Drops at Middlesborough, huge elvated buildings extending over the tidal mud into the Tees where coal from the Stockton and Darlington line could be loaded on ships before the docks were built. So a boy is handling one horse pulling half a dozen waggons, each carrying two and a half tons, in light coming up from the gaps in the floor boards, doing precision work in a cramped and unbelievably noisy environment, with just a halter and the permanent threat of maiming or death.
This is horsemanship at an incredible level to us today, yet in 1839, when T.H. Hair's Sketches of the Coal Mines in Northumberland and Durham was written, such natural horsemanship was obviously commonplace, but only among common people. Hair notes that the boy is only using a halter, no bit, no blinkers, no whip and relying on subtle communication cues and perfect trust between the pony and the boy. Yet only a few years later Anne Sewell would write Black Beauty in an attempt to wean the upper classes from their enthusaiam for bits, whips, bearing reins, blinkers, cruppers and the other devices the upper classes needed to drive an animal in fresh air and safe surroundings, while some underpaid boy could produce brilliant horsemanship in the dark and dust and noise and danger without all that nonsense.

I don't want to put ponies or children back is such appalling working conditions, but I can honour the skills, and most importantly, the bond built up between ponies and people. The boy and pony survived because they could trust each other, and that trust and friendship was all that made an otherwise hellish life bearable for both. If the boy survived long enough to have children, would you say they came from a "horsey" background? I would. Would they fit into the Pony Club? Only by denying their father's skills.

For example, here is a piece from William Fawcett extolling the virtues of the "horsey" set. "Above all, see that your instruction is given to you by instructors certificated by that excellent body the Institute of Horse, and not by grooms, whose ideas are hidebound by conservative traditions and who, more important still, cannot impart knowledge, and are, as a class, bad horsemen."
The British Horse Society is the result of amalgamating the Institute of Horse and Pony Clubs with the National Association of the Horse, and presumably full of people who are "as a class, good horseman". I may be being unfair, and the modern BHS may be a happy, egalitarian bunch, deeply upset by the snobbery of previous generations. But reading their Stable Management Manual, I doubt it.
"All these groups (of ponies) blend into one another but remember that Groups 1 and 2, the native ponies, are much better converters of food than their arsitocratic cousins." The BHS Complete Manual of Stable Management, 2000 AD Page 169

This ludicrously snobbish phrase "aristocratic cousins" apparently refers to "the more finely bred pony, such as Connemara, Arab or Welsh riding ponies." Aristocratic and finely bred pretty much sums up the agenda of the British Horse Society. The fact that both concepts are antiquated, inaccurate and exclude vast sections of the human and animal populations sums up the BHS.

"A well known saying is that "Blood carries weight". Thoroughbred and Arab horses have much denser bone structure than a horse of common breeding, ie of carthorse blood. Horses with this denser bone are capable of carrying more weight, relative to their size, than the commoner breeds."
The BHS Complete Manual of Stable Management, 2000 AD Page17
Typical, the lower classes continued to breed ponies in the Fells and Dales, the Highlands and Islands to haul lead and slate and peat and coal, and all the time they could have doubled thier workload if only they had used Arabs and Thoroughbreds. But that's the lower classes for you, "bad horsemen".
It is just about possible to laugh at the more stupid examples of snobbery, but some things are too much.
Take this section written for grooms looking after polo ponies.
"Any (polo) pony who stops eating should have his mouth carefully examined. Owing to the severe bitting used on some ponies there may be damage to the mouth which will make it reluctant to eat." The BHS Complete Manual of Stable Management, 2000 AD Page 168.

It just stops there. This is advice to grooms who may go on to work in a polo yard and it says the animals mouth may be damaged to the extent that it cannot eat by the "polo player". It doesn't recommend any treatment, or any course of action like kicking the polo players teeth in till he learns a tiny bit of consideration for his poor pony. You see Polo Players "are, as a class, ********* horsemen."

This combination of snobbery and casual indifference to cruelty is described on the back cover as "Essential reading for students taking British Horse Society examinations-invaluable to amateurs and professionals alike." I at least look at what the British Horse Society stands for before I turn nasty. The British Horse society have chosen to send me to Coventry because I won't go along with their "philosophy". They allow their members to libel and damage my business and treat me with contempt. Having studied their attitudes and manuals, I have to say I return the compliment.

For Henry's sake, and the sake of all the other "common" animals I work with, and for the sake of all the people who love ponies and are frightened off by all the snobbery, and cruelty. I will never subscribe to their society.