Gaslighting a jumping horse
The German Equestrian Federation will ban "Touchieren" but not acknowledge that it is abusive
The German Equestrian Federation (FN) released a statement today saying they will ban “Touchieren”, i.e. hitting a horse’s legs during jumping training to make it jump higher. They will not, however, acknowledge that it is inherently abusive.
For the last 30 years, German riders have been allowed to hit their horses’ legs during jumping training. The purpose is to make the horses think they banged into the obstacle so they jump higher the next time.
But they’re not allowed to hit hard. Just medium. Hard enough to be unpleasant so the horse tries to avoid it by jumping higher, but not so hard that it is too unpleasant and becomes abuse. The first case is called “Touchieren”, or touching, the latter is called “Barren”, or rapping.
Does the distinction seem confusing to you? Well, you’re not alone. It was confusing to Ludger Beerbaum, too. In January, he faced a storm of indignation after the German TV channel RTL aired footage of him indisputably hitting a horse on the legs during jumping training.
The debate that followed revolved around whether this was a case of rapping, which is forbidden under German regulations, or touching, which is not. Was it a hard hit or a medium one?
The FN, realizing the contentiousness of the issue, finally decided to ban both methods. The discussion had been going on for over a year, but it’s reasonable to assume that the Beerbaum scandal expedited the process.
In an interview with the German equestrian magazine ReiterRevue, the head of education at the FN, Thies Kaspareit, explains the decision (my translation): “It is possible to make mistakes when using the touching [method]. This method allows almost no margins of error. Small deviations can have negative effects for the horse.”
Basically, touching is being banned because it’s too difficult to distinguish it from rapping.
Soenke Lauterbach, the secretary general of the FN, explains in the same interview why touching was allowed in the first place (my translation): “Touching is about creating a tactile signal. When performed in a professional way, it sensitises the horse through targeted touching of the legs during the jump. It stimulates the experienced and highly trained horse to heighten his attention and coordination. A base of trust between horse and rider is an absolute prerequisite.”
Unfortunately, this shows a poor understanding of the effects of rapping and touching on the horse. In their official statement, the FN even makes a point of defending the method (my translation): “The professional use of touching in accordance with the guidelines is, in the opinion of the German Equestrian Federation, not an animal welfare issue”.
While it is good that the practice will be banned, it is disheartening that the governing body of one of the world’s largest equestrian nations doesn’t see anything wrong with it. The distinction between rapping and touching is pointless; they’re essentially the same method, and they’re inherently abusive. To understand why, we first need to understand how horses experience jumping.
First, we have the approach to the obstacle. Horses have almost 360-degree vision, with two exceptions – right behind them and right in front of them. They can compensate for this by moving their head up, down and to the sides to adjust their field of vision. If they want to gage distance and depth, they need to see an object with both eyes. Because of this, horses will raise their head when approaching an obstacle – to keep it in their field of vision and to judge how far away it is1.
Then we have the take-off. Because of the placement of horses’ eyes, the obstacle disappears from their field of vision just before they jump. They jump it from memory, based on the observations and calculations they were able to do during the approach.
Finally, we have the landing. Horses land with one leading and one trailing foreleg, just like when they canter. The trailing foreleg takes the brunt of the impact with the ground, which can be more than double the weight of the horse – on that one leg! One study found a peak force in the superficial digital flexor tendon of 13.9 kN, the equivalent of 1,400 kg2. Given this, it isn’t at all surprising that tendon injuries are common in jumping and eventing horses.
To sum it up, horses aren’t built for jumping. They struggle to see the obstacle when approaching it, they are forced to jump it from memory, and they are prone to injuries when landing.
Given how difficult jumping is for them, the last thing we want to do is gaslight them into not trusting their own judgement, right?
And yet, that is the very point of rapping and touching – you “trick” the horses into thinking they miscalculated the height, conditioning them to jump even higher next time.
That’s what makes these methods inherently abusive, regardless of whether you hit hard or not. It is unethical to take away the horses’ power to correctly assess and navigate a dangerous situation.
Jumping is stressful for horses. We ask them to do something they are not biologically equipped for. From animal behaviour research we know that there are two things that lessen the emotional fallout of a stressful situation: control and predictability. Rapping and touching take away both. The horses have no control over how high they need to jump to clear the obstacle, and no ability to predict the height of the obstacle.
Touching and rapping are both emotional abuse, regardless of the intensity of the hit or any pain it causes. Neither method belongs in modern, science-based horse training.
It’s good that the German Equestrian Federation will ban touching. It would be better if they did it for the right reason.
Murphy et al., 2009
Meerhoek et al., 2001