08/30/2022
I am overwhelmed, no, stunned at this latest move by one of horse sport’s major governing bodies. Have you been watching the news? The NRHA - National Reining Horse Association, a worldwide organization, has just okayed the use of Sedivet within thirty minutes of competition.
What does this tell us?
It finally, finally gives us permission to do whatever is necessary to win by showing man’s mastery over nature. Gone are the days of sparkling eyes and beautiful energy. The people who call the shots are saying that we want the heads down, the staggering steps, the dropped pen*ses dripping urine, the horses who crumple after a set of spins…
Sedivet, of course, is at its name hints. A sedative and preanaesthetic in horses, it is used to facilitate handling, examination and veterinary treatment. Now, it can add to its uses as a drug to mask a horse’s energy, lookiness, trainability and showability in competition. It is now a legal way to strip a horse of all his inherent qualities and dignity. A way to make him put his head down and take whatever we dish out.
Now we can show horses who are sore, without anyone being the wiser.
My newsfeed is showing a few top trainers openly calling, “What the actual hell, NRHA?” A very few. Mostly, it is filled with appalled horse(wo)men sharing videos that should have the owners and trainers disbarred from competing ever again, in my mind. This proof of drugging in competition is so revolting, I had to quickly turn off the first video I saw. If you are interested, you will have no trouble in finding the Sedivet story online.
In the name of balance, I have tried and tried to look up reasons why this would ever be considered ethical. Perhaps to mask a horse who is sore? To ensure the safety of someone who is overmounted? To make the sport more beautiful if we can’t see these horses openly resist in the warm-up pen? Nah, none of it makes any sense.
Drugging horses is not limited to reining, don’t kid yourselves. We see it in the lowest levels of 4H competition, never mind events that have prize money in the millions, or where little hunter ponies and pigtailed princesses are pitted against one another (on ponies that are insured for more than a modest house). One thing we know for certain. Anything beautiful will be turned to dreck the minute we involve a pile of money. And so it is, for the horses in sanctioned reining competition.
The crickets sounding forth from the industry pros—in all breeds and disciplines—is very telling. By their silence, it tells us that most of these pros are fine with drugging their horses.
I don’t know about you folks, but I am ashamed for my fellow man. I’ve watched these horses curl into themselves, lower and lower, in order to win. Bred smaller and smaller, started younger and younger, so often carrying overweight men… and now, this.
When will our abusing horses ever end?
