I think I was not the only person shocked by the relative leniency shown by the FEI towards Heath Ryan, though they found him guilty of horse abuse, his 18 month suspension was only six months longer than the one they gave Charlotte Dujardin for what appeared a far less level of abuse. What Dujardin was doing was nasty and deserving of rebuke but at least you could see what she was asking the horse to do. I defy anyone to see any training objective in Ryan’s attack, unless you accept the mad fantasy that beating a horse up days, weeks? after it has done something bad can teach it not to do it again, and it is disturbing that some of Ryan’s supporters want to argue this, that he was changing the poor creature’s behaviour for the better. Really?
It’s not just the gratuitous brutality shown on the Ryan video, it’s also the complete ignorance of the principles of horse training evident in the apologia he issued.
We are blessed in Australia to be the home of the world’s leading theorist of scientific horse training, Tasmanian born Andrew McLean.
One of Andrew’s earliest and most important campaigns was against anthropomorphism – the tendency to assume horses and, for that matter, dogs and elephants, thought just like humans. Oh my rider is punishing me that must be because I was naughty yesterday I must be good today.
In the statement he released after the video appeared widely on the internet, Ryan claimed that in fact he was saving the life of the horse. The stallion had attacked its owner and was headed to the abattoir as a result, Ryan’s appalling beating of the horse taught it the error of its ways and it was now a nice submissive dressage horse!
Do we have any proof of the original savage behaviour or of the new reformed behaviour?
In his discussion of training methods Andrew does leave a place for negative re-inforcement but with several provisos. It must be proportionate (that rules out Ryan’s attack) but, much more importantly, it is only a useful training tool if it occurs exactly at the time of the behaviour you are seeking to eliminate, not a minute later. Beating up a horse days after an alleged offence (and I find this puzzling – horses just don’t attack people) does nothing whatsoever to eliminate the unwanted behaviour. If you think it does you have no understanding of the correct principles of animal training. – CH
Here is a very important article by Andrew:
https://www.horsemagazine.com/thm/2021/11/andrew-mclean-on-the-crucial-first-training-principle/
video of incident