Glass Ceilings for Horses?

Now that woman are going to be allowed to become Bishops what does it mean for our female friends in the equine world? 

Have you ever stopped to think how much discrimination there is towards a female horse?

I've personally experienced yards that refuse to take mares, or yards who accept mares but put them in the furthest away field far away from everything and everyone else.  There are yards who turn out geldings together and mares together all separated as if this is some clever plan failing to see it defies nature and there is nothing clever in going against nature.

I've heard people say that mares are too"mare-ish", "disrupt the yard", "upset geldings" and are an all round "pain in the...."!

 

When Grace came into my life a number of well known, high profile riders warned me, without seeing the horse, that “mare’s rarely do well at high levels of dressage”.

I bought Grace regardless, knowing as I do that doing well in dressage is such a small part of why I have horses in my life.

However, I started to wonder if there was such a thing as “Arena Discrimination” and hence the reason why there aren't many mares competing at the top of the Dressage world?  I have concluded the problem actually runs a lot deeper than being confined to the competition arena,  and in fact starts way before we trot up the centre line! 

Personally, I have always had both mares and geldings right from childhood and had never experienced horror stories from either gender, and until now, had never stopped to think gender could be a factor in how I experience horses.

Sadly, when buying Grace I experienced this blatant discrimination as if facts were being stated, not opinions, and it reminds me of the inherent bias against female children in Asian countries,  where they are ‘de-prioritized and devalued’, from birth.

Business woman Dame Stephanie Shirley featured in the Daily Mail this week wrote about how she had to face daily discrimination being the only girl at a boys school and it made me think about what and how our horses experience during training, especially if the horse is a Mare. 

In the world of horse training I hear so many trainers putting undue emphasis on a mare “being a mare” when explaining an apparent lack of attention, willingness to submit, or other training problem.  It's delivered with a tone of voice that suggests either "I did warn you" or "what do you expect, from a mare?"

How about we look for other explanations beyond gender?  

Surely with all our intelligence and collective horse experience over the decades, we can come up with other more plausible characteristics that may influence a horse’s train-ability, beyond hormones. 

Here are some alternatives:

Age and Expectations! 

       

      Do we really consider it reasonable to expect a 4, 5, 6 or 7 year old horse (still growing physically) to knuckle down to hours of schooling with ten stone on their back, without loosing concentration or willingness to obey?  

 How well do our own children cope with intense lessons, homework, schooling, tests and repetition at a similar age in their development? Most children's attention wanders on a minute by minute basis and they don't have the added pressure of a survival instinct coursing through their veins assessing their personal safety with every stride they take!

     Time and Place!  

      Have you ever noticed how some days you wake up feeling great and other days you don't!  

  For some reason, (not always clear to us why..) we wake up just feeling ‘off’, or a bit unsure of what the day has in store.  Is it really that hard to imagine that a horse may similarly suffer from ‘off days’?  Given that everything we do with them in a domesticated routine is ‘away from their basic nature’, it seems more than a little likely that our great days won’t always coincide with theirs.    

      Surely a horse can have a 'bad day' too? A little respect and humility towards their desires might go a long way in developing a partnership.

  Strengths!

      Just like you and I , every one has a skill or talent and a set of individual strengths.  We also have limitations.  Horses are born horses; not athletes,  ballet dancers or show jumpers.  Many can develop into fine athletes, learn to perform ‘equine ballet’ on cue, and excel at jumping.  The simple truth however is that  I doubt they live their lives hoping they'll be featured in the next issue of Horse and Hound magazine having won the latest Regional Trophy!  

Most horses want and expect to live a simple life as a horse - not as a glass ornament, indoor pet, machine, possession or 'human in fury clothes'!

      Whether we as humans, aspire success, fame and fortune in our own careers and lives won’t always predicate whether we achieve it.  Often the talents we have at school don’t apply in our later chosen career or lifestyle, or we have to experience life before we even discover what our true talents are.  

      Talents can be realised, or remain dormant, and success can even come to those who seemingly have very little in the "Talent Department". It's the same with our horses.  Some horses excel if given time. Different horses will need different amounts of time to find a way to co-exist with a human dictated lifestyle, to develop their talents and to merge them with ours.

The Human Factor!

How about if the lack of trainability or submission from our horse is about us more than the gender of the horse? 

If we are honest with ourselves, don't we all at some point suffer from a dose of lazy thinking!  We actually stop thinking for ourselves, stop being curious and stop looking for a more honest conclusion to problems and their root cause.  
 
Put simply, we are "excuse junkies" (just glance through a daily newspaper at all the headings full of blame). We love to latch onto excuses given to us by our esteemed trainer - who after all, knows everything right?

Excuses give us a "way out" an opt out from taking personal responsibility.  And, what can be better than having at your finger tips an excuse that you  can use over and over again, and can't do anything about?  Once a mare, always a mare, there's no horse transvestites out there to my knowledge in the equine world!  This gives us an inbuilt 'trump card' to any problem we care to chuck it at.

If you have ever been discriminated against because of something you could not change, reflect back for a moment on how that felt.   The powerlessness, the injustice, the loss. Sadly, whether it's in the dressage arena or the Board Room, any and all discrimination has little to do with the gender, age, nationality or disability.  It has everything to do with us!  It is a projection of our own fears, closed mindedness and prejudice, being displaced on another being; human or horse. 

For an animal loving nation I find it hard to understand how we can so readily discriminate against female horses and yet not do the same with our dogs, cats, rabbits or lamas.   I am not advocating that we suddenly turn on our bitches and does.  But maybe the inconsistency can help us stop and think for a second, especially as many of us with Mares will also own Bitches.

If we go around believing that "Mares are just too difficult..." to train, turnout, board etc it simply means we have ran into difficulties and used gender to rationalise it away, instead of looking beyond what seems like a convenient 'obvious' truth.  It is not!
   
Don't let laziness, a lack of imaginative, or others opinions limit what your mare is capable of in the arena, nor keep her from having the lifestyle she is entitled to.  

So much is possible for each individual human, horse, dog or cat if we start to see each as an individual and not a gender blob which must begin with giving thought, proper thought to each and every challenge we encounter.