It's been quiet around here lately, but today I break the silence to say “WTF internet?”
This might be a complete joke of a video, but it is terrifying to know that someone, somewhere is probably doing this very thing right now to their horses.
If you can't understand why this is problematic, you should not be working with horses. Period, end of story.
Video Transcript
This week we did a video of Susan Jaccoma having some issues with her horse in the Prix St George, with its tongue hanging out the side of its mouth and some questionable blue tongue action.
And, what I discovered was that we have a lot of Susan Jaccoma fans that follow our YouTube channel. And a lot of people responded to me saying that she's a light-handed Classicist. I'm not even sure that's a word… but, as many of you know I actually had the opportunity to train and ride with Susan Jaccoma for about 18 months.
So, I wanted to show you one of the tips and tricks that I learned while riding with Susan Jaccoma, in how to become light-handed and still have a submissive horse when you're dealing with a hot horse in, as many of these upper-level horses are.
This was one of the tips and tricks that I learned while I was riding with Susan Jaccoma.
Now, you are going to need a cavesson. Regular, old cavesson. You are going to need a curb chain. You can pick these up at any store for about ten dollars. And, some electrical tape.
So, the first thing that you're going to do is that you want to attach one end of the curb chain, and you kind of want to center the curb chain over the nose for your horse. So once you get it kind of centered, you're gonna attach one end of the curb chain to the cavesson using your electrical tape.
Now the key here is to use electrical tape, that way when somebody's walking by or drives by on the road, it actually just looks like the cavesson. Tips and tricks.
So, if you're at a private barn, maybe not electrical tape, but it's easy to come off, um, and it kind of looks like the bridle.
Once you have one side of this chain fastened, you are going to decide how harsh you want this chain to be. And how, ultimately, submissive you want your horse to be. Now, this chain will work if you keep it flat among the horse's nose, okay.
So, horses, if you look at some of the charts and diagrams on their noses, um, their olfactory senses are along their nose. And this is actually one of the most sensitive areas. So just by leaving the chain flat, as you can see in this here, it will work.
Now, if you want your horse to be extra super submissive, you're gonna to add a couple of twists to this chain. So, we're just gonna to do that, and what you see here is I'm gonna to fasten the other end of this chain, but, what you can see is how rough and bumpy that is going to be against your horse's nose.
So, I'm just going to fasten the other side of this curb chain.
Now that you've both sides of this curb chain fastened, with the amount of severity that you want in the noseband, you're actually going to cover up the rest of it. Just to provide, um, some stability for the chain so it stays under the noseband. And now, remember again, once it's under there you're gonna actually to do the noseband up super, super tight so the horse is submissive the entire time you're riding, and you shouldn't have to use much of the reins.
So I'm going to cover this entire thing up and show you what it looks like.
Alright, so from the front, this just looks like an entirely, you know, noseband maybe that needs repairs if you're looking close up. But from afar, you're actually not gonna to see that this noseband is any different than any other noseband that people would ride with. But underneath, if you look at how bumpy and rough that is, that is where your submission comes from.
Now, personally, I have actually never used this on a horse. And whether you want to or not, is entirely your choice.
But I do know that a lot of people were talking about, um, keeping it light-handed and submissive. So I wanted to show this trick with you because I learned it from Susan Jaccoma and nobody else in 30 years of riding horses has ever shown me this trick.
So, it's up to you whether you want to use this or not. But be careful, know that your horse's nose is sensitive.
Here's the video mentioned of Susan Jaccoma that shows significant problems with the horse's mouth:
Is this tip really from Susan Jaccoma?
Whether this is an actual trick taught to her by Susan Jaccoma is up for speculation.
That being said, I would not be surprised if it was true. I've been shown some pretty horrible tips and tricks from top trainers over the years, in the private setting of their own training facilities. Know that what's presented to the public is often very different from what they practice at home.
What are your feelings on the accusation against Susan Jaccoma, and this “tip” in general?
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It wouldn’t shock me in the least. Spent one summer as a working student in a high level Dressage (show) barn and I saw and heard it all. The stories I heard from other riders, the grooms behind the scenes at shows…..yeah I’m sure someone somewhere has done this. I can’t speak to the trainers guilt. I just know how far we fallen. It’s all about money.
It is the same in any other descipline of riding people want a quick fix , instead of taking the time to train a horse correctly. So sad for the poor horse, there needs to be better checks at horse shows for this kind of stuff and judges need to disqualify any competitor that is caught being unduly cruel to their horse.
My thought is Indont know Susan Jacoma, have never trained with her and have never seen her compete so I have absolutely no reason to believe this so-called “tip” came from her. And nether does anyone else. Even suggesting it’s true is completely unprofessional and irresponsible.
What I do know is that the video’s creator has a personal beef with Jacoma, and has used DressageHub many times as a public forum to humiliate people she doesn’t like or she feels have wronged her in some way. Yet astonishingly, she then claims the same people are “bullying” her.
The fact that this video was created by DressageHub makes me believe the “tip” almost certainly didn’t come from Jacoma.
I have heard the same thing about Dressage Hub and a woman with an ax to grind re Susan Jaccoma. Thinking logically, it is highly unlikely that taping up a noseband with a chain under it is going to look “normal” and unobtrusive. Which leads me to think that the rest of the video is just as ridiculously unlikely to have come from a “tip” from Susan Jaccoma.
I have seen this trick used by a highly regarded international show jumper :/ I was working at a venue, stewards were alerted and came down hard, earned her she was only allowed to continue that weekend as the bridle wasn’t on the horse but that all her tack would be being checked. All because her groom was struggling with two horses and handed one to me as she signed an auto graph you’ll be surprised what these people are willing to do to win. That said I saw a lot more cruelty in dressage rings and warm ups even at local levels.
You really need to research this whole situation to understand what is going with this woman. Even putting it up there as a possibility undermines your credibility.
Why is that? She’s been competing for over a decade without improvement, skipping lower levels and just dropping in at upper levels. What more of this situation do I need to understand? I can see plainly with my eyes that the horse is miserable, and is quite rightly so because of how she is behaving in the saddle.
Back story on the woman is nothing more than a distraction from what the facts show. The fact is that this was a terrible ride.
As for integrity, you can think what you like in that regard, I’m not here to make you feel better, I’m here to say that gross mistreatment of the horse is not okay. I suggest you read the Fine Print.