Originally published on Substack
Show Me the Science — No. 1
We like to believe that if a horse is going well, it must be well.
While researching my book I uncovered a paper published 15 years ago, in 2011, when Paul McGreevy, Andrew McLean, Paul Buckley, Fiona McConaghy and Caroline McLean published "How riding may affect welfare: What the equine veterinarian needs to know" in Equine Veterinary Education.
This paper asks a question most riders avoid: not whether riding can harm horses — but how much harm we are already normalising.
Most everyday riders never see this science — not because it doesn't exist, but because it was never written for us. Research in equitation and animal welfare is built for academic systems. It's published in journals, written in technical language, and rewarded through citations and grants — not clarity or reach.
So it ends up behind paywalls, buried in databases, written in a way riders don't read. And when it does surface, it often challenges tradition — how we ride, who we trust, what we believe works. That makes it easy to ignore.
This is not a welfare blog, a rant, or an activist pamphlet. It is a sober paper in a veterinary education journal, written to tell equine vets they cannot simply keep performance horses in work without confronting the damage ridden work can do.
Why This Paper Exists
The authors start with a blunt observation: most equine vets are hired to keep horses doing their jobs.
That focus means obvious injuries get attention, while quieter insults to wellbeing are treated as background noise.
Ridden work can injure horses. But more often, it wears them down quietly — through chronic stress, discomfort, and confusion that never quite becomes a crisis.
A key example is physiological stress from inhumane or unclear training. This isn't just a horse having a "bad day." Sustained stress suppresses immunity and slows tissue repair, making horses more vulnerable and slower to recover.
Welfare is not a luxury. It feeds directly into health, performance, and risk.
The Two Types of Damage
The paper separates harm into two broad categories: musculoskeletal — the visible strain and injury — and physiological — the internal cost of how the horse is trained and managed.
Physical damage is easier to see.
Physiological damage is quieter. It lives in the nervous system. And it often comes from the same pattern: pressure that never truly switches off.
You can have a horse that looks sound enough — but has never been allowed to reset to calm.
Training and Chronic Stress
Poor training is not just ineffective — it's a welfare problem.
Inconsistent pressure. Overlapping aids. Signals that never resolve.
From the horse's perspective, this isn't communication. It's unsolvable.
And when pressure doesn't resolve, the horse doesn't habituate — it stays vigilant.
That's where behaviour starts to make sense: bucking, rearing, napping, bolting, or the opposite — dullness, shutdown, robotic compliance.
Not "naughty." Not "lazy." Indicators of a system under strain.
Gear and Gadgets
The issue is not equipment itself — but how it is used.
Bits, nosebands, reins, saddles: all can create inescapable pressure when applied without understanding learning.
Mechanically held positions. Contact that never releases. Pressure the horse cannot escape.
Forward is not proof of comfort. If the pressure never switches off, the problem isn't solved — it's contained.
The Uncomfortable Reality
Vets are caught in a bind. They are responsible for the welfare of the horse — but their business depends on the people who own it. Their patients can't choose them. Their clients can leave.
So every decision sits between two loyalties that don't always align: what is best for the horse, and what keeps the relationship intact.
Most navigate this in good faith. But the structure creates a quiet, constant pressure to compromise.
For riders, this paper is an invitation to reconsider what feels "normal."
Not just how your horse goes — but how it learns, how it lives, and whether your aids ever truly resolve.
Because across training, equipment, and medication, the same pattern appears: pressure that never switches off.
McGreevy and colleagues are not arguing against riding. They are arguing for riding that takes the horse's whole experience — body and mind — seriously.
In the fifteen years since this paper was published, has your vet ever framed your horse's training and management in these terms?