I am a big fan of the Dog Whisperer Show on the National Geographic Channel. Cesar Millan has worked closely with dogs for many years and studied the behaviour of dogs, particularly in packs. One of his key phrases is pack leader and this should be the owner not the dog! His formula of exercise, discipline and affection are successfully repeated over and over again with a range of problems. It is amazing to see how quickly most dogs respond to his methods. He is also very good at breaking the bad news to people that their dog’s problem is often created by their behaviour, and does this in such a way that they listen to and accept his advice.

I have seen occasional TV programmes and read a book about The Horse Whisperer about his approach to breaking in horses. His methods are based on a close study of the behaviour of horses in the wild. I have not seen his methods applied to some of the common horse vices.

I would be interested to see how well Caesar’s methods or ideas could be applied to horses as they are also pack animals. Horse owners recognises that there is a pecking order in every group of horses and this is evident when watching horses out in a field, particularly at feeding time. While many owners do spoil horses to some degree, this is not usually to the same extent as some dog owners. Horses also usually get regular exercise so that leaves discipline as the potential cause of many problems. Certainly horses do develop bad habits and vices over time.

I go through spells of having difficulty catching my horse, usually in the summer when grass is much more interesting than exercise. As I follow him around the field, I can’t ignore he fact that he has the upper hand and is the pack leader. There is certainly no-one else to blame as I’ve owned and looked after him since he was a 3 months old foal! I have often wondered what advice I would receive from the animal behaviourists on how best to correct this plus how I helped to created this problem.

I was surprised and disappointed to see recent reports in a UK newspaper about an alleged doping during a junior showjumping competition. This was a BSJA Junior Showjumping Championship in Jersey and as such quite a major event for the area. I know from my own experience that most competitors and parents take their competitions seriously given the time, effort and money involved, but this is still a long way from doping horses or ponies to influence the result.

It is reported that the mother of one of the competitors was seen feeding mints to some of the ponies prior to the competition. A couple of the ponies became unsteady on their feet. It was alleged that this could be a fast acting sedative Acetylpromazine (ACP), and a mint and blood samples were sent away for analysis. Due to safety concerns, the competition as cancelled.

The mother is reported to be ill due to stress. I find this response a little strange as if I was wrongly accused of something, I would be mad but know that the analysis would prove me right and then the allegations would have to be withdrawn.

The latest update is that analysis has indicated the presence of ACP. The police are not going to press any charges but BSJA will review this. There are no rules in the BSJA Rulebook to cater for such an event so it will be interesting to see how they deal with this problem.

It seems that parents are increasingly more competitive than their children. An incident involving a father running onto a US Football field to karate kick another player who had done a late foul on his child has recently been shown on US TV. These are both supposed to be hobbies which should be fun to take part it, so why is it now important to the point where injuring someone is even considered as an option. Both of these events occurred around September 11th 2006, which I would hope would put the importance of hobbies into proper perspective.

I was recently in the UK during the 2006 Land Rover Burghley Horse Trials. I have always enjoyed watching the event on the TV but at the same time am aware how much smaller the fences look on TV compared to real-life. Most of the event horses and riders make it look very easy, yet there are always a few mistakes resulting in heavy falls to remind everyone that 3 Day Eventing is a very unforgiving sport, particularly with the cross-country phase.

The winner this year was Lucinda Fredericks and the little mare Headley Britannia who was thought by the owner to be too small to compete at this level. She was one of only a few mares in the competition and the first to win in 33 years.

However, I think the main story relating to this year’s event was the potential for Andrew Hoy. to win $250,000 if he won the Burghley event, in addition to two other major events in Lexington and Badminton. He looked likely to win at the end of the first two phases as he had horses placed both fifth and first. Unfortunately he had a number of fences down in the show-jumping and ended up in second and fifth place. The prize money for winning Burghley was 40,000 GBP, so $250,000 represented a massive amount of money for the sport and it was therefore disappointing that he was unable to win this special prize. Hopefully it will be won soon as Pippa Funnell completed this hat-trick of wins three years ago.

The prize money in equestrian events is very low compare to the costs to buy, own, train and compete a horse. Only a few major events actually have significant prizes. A Young Event Horse competition at Burghley had a first prize of 50 GBP, which is much more in the usual range of winnings. I remember reviewing a BSJA winnings list in the 90s and it appeared that only 30-50 of the top horses would actually pay for themselves. This was not taking account of sponsorship which is again limited to the major professionals and household names. This is in stark contrast to other sports where prize money is at ridiculously high levels - golf, tennis etc. Even though the latter are more popular sports, there still seems a very wide gap. How many major sports would view $250,000 as a significant amount?