02/08/2017
The real reason that leverage devices are actually so bad is because they can force the horse to stretch muscles to the point of tearing them, which causes intense pain to the horse, and they also can cause long term damage, both physical and emotional.
Why, then, do so many people slap horses into tight side reins, or German martingales, or bitting rigs, or draw reins (as shown here) or any other kind of device that uses the pulley principal to exponentially increase the strength of the rider or driver?
Number one, a lack of empathy for the horse. The rider can't feel it. You bet if someone put the rider into muscle tearing stretches, the way the Spanish Inquisition used to put people on the rack, they might get more of a clue what they make the horse feel.
Number two, it is a short cut. You can actually teach a horse to bend and stretch, if you do it a little bit at a time, so that the horse's range of motion increases gradually, as the muscle fibers elongate, but that takes too much time for uneducated riders to tolerate. It is so much easier and quicker to use force.
Number three, some highly successful riders and trainers use them. So, monkey see, monkey do.
Number four, few riders have had the training to even know how to teach the horse through the quiet methods of take and give, building into the horse, over time, the conditioned responses to soft aids. And, the saddest part, those "classical" methods are more available in 2016, through the vast resources of video and the internet, than they have ever been. There is so much less excuse for ignorance now than ever before.
But today, October 26th, 2016, you can bet that all over the world lots of poor horses will be cranked into various rigs, and the people who do it, if you were to question their methods, will have 101 reasons and excuses for being abusive. And will strongly deny that they are being abusive-----
