Another day, another high-level dressage rider being suspended for training abuses.
On June 19, the FEI announced that it had imposed a provisional suspension against Australian Olympic dressage rider Heath Ryan for horse abuse. The FEI, in conjunction with Equestrian Australia, is opening an investigation into Ryan after a disturbing, two-year-old video surfaced of him whipping a horse named Nico 42 times in training.
For his part, Ryan issued a lengthy response on his now-removed Facebook page stating that the 6-year-old horse belonged to a longtime friend of his and had previously put her in the hospital. As he’d been bred by Ryan’s own stallion, the trainer said he felt obligated to evaluate the gelding before sending it to the knackery, or slaughterhouse.
“I felt obliged to the horse to just have a look and see if it was possibly salvageable. Well did I get a shock and so the video. I have never ridden anything like it,” Ryan wrote on Facebook.
“I am so sad this was caught on video. If I had been thinking of myself I would have immediately just gotten off and sent Nico to the Knackery. That video was a life or death moment for Nico and of that I was very aware. I felt I genuinely had to try my very hardest to see if Nico would consider other options.”
Ryan added that after this video was filmed by “an unhappy ex employee,” Nico improved, and was able to be ridden “without the use of excessive driving aids.” Ryan added that he is now “thriving” under a different Grand Prix dressage rider.
While Ryan’s decision to essentially double-down in his response left many scratching their heads, it should be noted that after the video was released on June 12, Equestrian Australia reacted promptly. They quickly issued their own statement and imposed a provisional suspension of Ryan the same day.
Heath Ryan is at least the third Olympic-level dressage rider to come under scrutiny for alleged abuse in training scenarios in just the last three years. In November of 2023, Danish Olympic bronze medalist Andreas Helgstrand was banned by his Danish Ride Forbund national federation after a documentary crew for the undercover Operation X exposed the use of illegal training methods in his program.
And last summer, three-time Olympic gold medalist Charlotte Dujardin of Great British withdrew from the Paris Games contention and was later suspended for a year by the FEI after a video surfaced of her whipping a horse from the ground more than 20 times in training.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the call for change in high-level dressage has reached a deafening pitch, with a new FEI Working Group established earlier this year, and public protests by such prominent advocates as Blue Hors, which has temporarily withdrawn its horses from competition until new guidelines are enacted.
The Working Group—which has discussed such measures as optional double bridles, reducing noise levels and thereby stress in competition, and standardizing nosebands—hopes to establish concrete proposals for the FEI General Assembly this November.
In the meantime, and with yet another disturbing training video surfacing from a high-level professional, it begs the question: Just how normalized are these techniques among the elite set of riders that dressage sport has chosen to elevate?
To understand that question, and more, we first need to understand what we’re seeing in videos like these—hard as they are to watch—and where the line falls between simply incorrect training and abuse.
We caught up with Equine Ethologist Renate Larssen to learn more.
Trainers often use the term “shut down” to describe a horse that has stopped responding to pressure-release techniques in training. Can you explain what a horse’s brain is actually doing in these moments?
“Shut down” is a lay term often used to describe a horse that is in a state of learned helplessness. This means that the horse has learned, through repeated exposure, that they have no control over the outcome of a stressful situation and simply stop trying to respond to it.
This can happen in horses that, for example, have undergone incorrect pressure-release training, where pressure is applied erratically or continuously.
How can we tell when a horse is “shut down”?
To us, this can look like they no longer respond to our aids. These “shut down” horses still experience the same physical and psychological discomfort from the pressure, they are just resigned to it.
By contrast, what is the correct way to use pressure-release training?
Correct pressure-release training requires the trainer to have excellent timing and observation skills, so they can release the pressure immediately when the horse responds to it. This is how the horse learns what to do to escape or avoid the discomfort, and over time, this is how correct pressure-release training shapes the horse’s behavior. Failure to provide immediate release only teaches the horse that no matter what they do, they can’t get away from the discomfort, and so they eventually give up and stop trying.
Do you think Nico, the horse in Heath Ryan’s video, is shut down?
Looking at the video, Nico is, in fact, responding to the beating by kicking out at the whip and backing up. It seems to me like he was not shut down (yet), but just a frightened and confused young horse who didn’t understand what was going on or what was required of him.
What else do you observe in the video?
This is a situation where I think it is important to differentiate between unethical training and abuse. While unethical pressure-release training certainly is a major problem in the horse world, what Ryan is doing to Nico in the video is abuse. No training is taking place: the horse is not learning anything (except perhaps to associate people with pain and fear) and no pressure is removed strategically at any point.
Furthermore, if Ryan truly believed that Nico was experiencing learned helplessness, his decision to beat him repeatedly with a whip is even more shocking. He should have known that Nico, in a “shut down” state, would not be able to work out what to do to make the beating stop.
This goes without saying, but why are “techniques” likes these doomed to fail?
In terms of unethical training, using pain and fear as a way of coercing a response from the horse is not just unethical but also ineffective. High levels of psychological stress hamper both learning and problem-solving. There is also a risk that horses trained in this way will associate people with negative experiences, making them more fearful and suspicious of us.
I think many riders have had ‘communication failure’-type moments with horses, when what we’re asking them in training isn’t computing. What do we, as horse people, need to be thinking about in these situations?
A fundamental rule of ethical horse training is that whenever a horse presents with training issues, we understand that this is a sign that they are struggling in some way. It is our first duty as keepers and trainers to figure out how to help them feel better. The training is always secondary.
Whenever we have a “miscommunication” with our horses—meaning they respond in a way we weren’t expecting—it is because they are over their stress threshold, or because they didn’t understand our aids, or both.
What’s the best way to handle miscommunications in the moment?
The best thing to do in these situations is simply to stop what we’re doing and take a break. Take that time to think about what went wrong, and how we can adjust the environment to avoid it happening again.
Are there other reasons a horse might struggle to understand what we’re asking?
If it’s a sudden change in behavior, we should always suspect pain. Starting with a thorough vet check is a good idea.
Alongside identifying any physical issues, we should make arrangements to improve a horse’s everyday life by providing the “3Fs”: friends, forage, freedom. Having sufficient access to these three things lowers their stress levels, makes them more resilient, and improves their problem-solving abilities, which will set us up for training success.
Even if we think our horse already has access to all three, it is never a bad idea to take stock and see if there are any improvements we can make. Once the source of any pain has been addressed and the horse is settling into a more appropriate lifestyle, we can consider the actual training objectives.
And if/when all those things check out?
In most cases, we just need to go back to their foundation training and treat them like a young, green horse again. By going back to basics and building the training back up, bit by bit, we can identify any gaps in their education and avoid asking them to do things they aren’t ready for, or don’t understand yet.
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