Death By Hanging

That should be their punishment. They must think it's super fun to not breathe. Almost like that trend of "self-strangulation" So close to death then they (sometimes) cut themselves free. Wow what a rush! Yeah, not for your horse asshole!

The Rollkur- it has made a lot of waves recently! But why??? Let me explain; Rollkur or over-bending your horse is causing them damage to their entire body. Over-bending inflicts acute pain, chronic pain and nerve pain (neuralgia). Its victims exhibit fear(because they can't fucking breathe) and mental stress (because they can't fucking breathe). In addition, by locking-up the neck, a horse is partially asphyxiated, unable to see properly and unbalanced. Over-bending increases the likelihood of accidents for both horse and rider. In the long-term, the practice probably causes permanent structural damage to many parts of the body, including the trachea, lungs and spine. Without question, it injures the bars of the mouth, teeth and skull. Boy that sounds fun!

The over-bent position of the head is the end result of a training regime based on persistent bit pressure without release, coupled with the horse's understandable efforts to evade the bit. Evasion of the bit is not a vice. It is a horse's way of avoiding pain. In the absence of release from the rider, the over-bending method trains a horse to provide its own release. Initial pressure results in initial flexion. Persistent pressure results in increasing degrees of flexion, until finally the horse's chin is on its chest and has nowhere else to go. The pain of the bit may have been temporarily avoided at each stage, only to become permanent at the final stage and be accompanied by neck and back pain.

You know when a horse has nowhere to go they'll panic and try to find a way out to safety they'll flip over, fall down, or collapse and let me tell you that I hope they kill you when they do.

OK, now when I see these "Trends" I often wonder:

A-Who came up with this lame ass idea?

B- Who thinks this actually looks good??

C- Who thinks this actually is helping you (your horse) in the long run or at all??

I found this off a website that is highly against the Rollkur. It's quite interesting, this is what they found as far as people trying to rationalize the Rollkur

Rationalization for over-bending (Hey TX here, rationalizing? They are douche' bags let's read on)

Three reasons are voiced, though there may be additional unspoken arguments

1. Proponents of the over-bending method of training for dressage maintain that they are suppling the horse's neck and 'rounding' the back(and breaking it). In practice, what I suggest they are doing - albeit unintentionally(oh it's intentional) - is soring their horse's mouth. Rather than suppling the neck and making it flexible, lithe and relaxed, over-bending is more likely to produce muscle strain, skeletal damage and joint injury. 'Rounding of the back,' achieved by dropping the head and pulling on the nuchal and supraspinous ligaments, is not 'collection,' which is only achieved after years of athletic training. True collection is the result of the patient development of a horse's overall fitness and, in particular, fitness of its back and abdominal muscles. The objective of such training is to enable a horse that is naturally balanced at liberty, to remain balanced (i.e. 'collected') when (unnaturally) carrying the weight of a rider. As a sore mouth, a stiff spine, and the imbalance of over-bending are not helpful preliminaries to athletic performance, a secondary purpose of this article is to explore what it is about over-bending that explains its promotion as a training technique.

2. Another reason advanced in support of over-bending is to produce a horse with 'brilliance,' 'expression' and 'drama.'(Pain is dramatic after all) Such an aim is in direct contravention of the FEI Guidelines that call for a calm horse but apparently this is not what the judges are rewarding. It seems that 'spookiness' is considered to add drama to a performance and is a quality favored by judges. If this is what is required to win, then causing pain and/or the fear of pain by soring a horse's mouth is, I agree, a most effective way to make a horse 'spooky.' Over-bending will undoubtedly make a horse nervous and apprehensive far more successfully than it will supple a horse's neck. An over-bent horse is frightened to stretch out its neck, as it has learnt that this will result in a severe pain in the mouth. A pain in the neck is the lesser of two evils. But a frightened, nervous and anxious horse (often unfairly labeled as 'highly-strung') is insecure, unstable, and unsafe to ride. The pain of a bit in the mouth or the fear of such pain rings an alarm bell in the brain. Why riders should want to do this is mystifying unless it is to satisfy a sadly misjudged and faulty standard of performance.

3. A third reason stated is that because horse breeders in the last decade have succeeded in producing such large and powerful horses, new and more powerful methods are required for their control. (It's because they suck ass at riding, they should go back to their S & M chambers) This argument, born of a misunderstanding of horse behavior and the belief that greater pain equates with greater control, is no more valid today than it was in medieval times when it was thought that in order to control the big warhorses that had been bred, larger and fiercer curb bits were needed. Over-bending has a long history. It is repeatedly illustrated on the Bayeux tapestry, embroidered c.1080. But successful communication between horse and rider comes from cooperation not coercion. We should be seeking methods of communication, not control. The smallest of horses cannot be controlled by a rider's force or by conditions that are incompatible with equine exercise physiology and psychology.

4. An unstated reason that may be connected with the one above is that 30 minutes of warm-up exercise in the over-bent position will cause fatigue and render some horses easier to control in the arena (Again you suck ass at riding).

That is truly torture like I've never seen! Now it IS against FEI rules, and also the racing and jumping industry is trying to put the kibosh on it, but it's a tricky thing to regulate when people school like this at home for hours... Trust me when I tell you that there is a VERY special place in Hell for you. And I hope you burn well there...