Lately, I’ve been seeing a lot of horse ads and although I am by no means interested in buying a horse anytime soon, I read the ads just to see what people say about them. I’m very disheartened to be reading about more and more “over or through” types.
This is a phrase I first heard about eight years ago when we were horse shopping in Canada for my sister’s jumper. We went to a very big fancy barn to see a horse that was right on the upper cusp of our budget. He looked amazing in his sale videos and we were excited to meet him and see if he and my sister got along.
As with many trials, the seller started by having a trainer/working student ride the horse. After taking him around some smaller fences, the seller threw the jumps up to 1.40m to show us “what he could really do.” The rider and the horse were approaching this wide 1.40m oxer and there was some kind of miscommunication. Obviously since I wasn’t in the tack, I don’t know if the rider didn’t see a spot or what really happened. But the horse took off far too long, the rider came off, and the horse jumped but took of the top two rails with him. Before checking to see if the horse and rider were okay, the seller said “as you can see he is an over or through type.” Thankfully, the horse and the rider were okay, but we were mortified. (And, needless to say, we passed on the horse and the other horses the seller said had for sale.)
I know that some buyers look for horses that “will never refuse” and “never stop at a fence,” but that is just horrifying to me. Sure, there are horses that can be naughty stoppers that will slam on the brakes or run out of a jump, but most of those naughty habits are fixable by good riding and training. There is a difference between a horse who likes to stop and a horse who knows when to stop.
I like a horse that knows when to stop. I like a horse who knows that it’s not safe to leave from two strides out to a 1.40m oxer. I like a horse that will slam on the brakes rather than putting us both in danger when I don’t see a spot or haven’t ridden up to the jump correctly. For me, it is simply valuing a horse with self-preservation. I want a horse that knows if someone is galloping him towards the edge of a cliff he will say “absolutely not!” I want a horse that would stop and dump me in the dirt before having to go through what that horse did in Canada. I want a horse that will say “no.”
I know that is an unpopular opinion, but I never want a horse to be so submissive to me that he ignores his animal instincts and his gut when it comes to his safety. I would much rather have a horse that was afraid of the tractor and have to take the extra ten minutes to work him though that, then have a horse that doesn’t have any kind of trepidation. I would much rather have a horse that I had to work with to get to trust me in order to get around a course at a larger height than one who is blindly subservient and crashing through the fences. I would much rather have to become a better rider than have to rehab a horse from an injury caused by me pushing for a crazy long spot that wasn’t safe for him. That’s not to say that I want a horse that will stop whenever the spot isn’t absolutely perfect. I want a horse that trusts me and that I have helped instill enough self-confidence in for him to trust himself enough to know when it is safe to leave the ground. I want a horse with self-preservation!
Sure, my horse, Berkeley, will go a little long to a simple 2-foot vertical when I ask him to— he knows at that height, he can make that and do it safely. But he also stopped with me on a .90m course when I asked him for far too long a spot with far too weak a canter, and I patted him on the neck when he did. A horse that knows when to stop is a good horse. I don’t want an “over or through” type. I want a horse with self-preservation who values himself and me enough to know when to say “no.”