Ep. 50 Patrick King Horsemanship and Dressage

Patrick King is our first guest to come back and be on the podcast for a second time. He’s a Classical Dressage clinician and trainer who also has a background in the more foundational type of horsemanship taught by one of his early mentors, Ray Hunt.
Patrick and I talk horses, but a big chunck of this episode goes into the recent controversy of Olympian and recently embattled Dressage Rider, Charlotte Dujardin. Having conversations about abuse and things that need to improve within our industry is very difficult to do. I play the devil’s advocate in several places throughout this one and I hope that it’s apparent what we are trying to get at. Yes, there are still things that are occuring that need to stop or be improved. Some of those things are a lot more obvious than others. Many common practices that people do routinely, believing that they are doing what’s “best for the horse” could similarly be looked at as abuse, as many of us, and research backs that those practices certainly aren’t what’s “best for the horse”. We take a look at some standards, and I’ll flatly state that Patrick and I do not see completely eye to eye on all of this stuff.