the REAL clinton anderson

Here's his response today, taken from his own website, to a story that went viral on Facebook after a woman posted a sad post on her Facebook page. Why? Because her horse went to Clinton Anderson's farm in Texas and never came home. He died. And no one seems to know exactly why. He was apparently "low-tied and left to graze." Now he's buried on Clinton's Texas farm.

I shared the story on Facebook because I recently got a Clinton Anderson catalog in the mail and was horrified to see the bull whips (used to crack beside your horse's head for desensitization), bits from hell, and the infamous "Patience Pole" - used to tie your horse after training so he "can process what he just learned."

Then the woman posted on her page that people should stop sharing the story because she'd heard from Clinton and he wanted her to stop the drama. (my paraphrasing)

A lot of people went to the woman's page and pointed fingers, saying it didn't add up, couldn't have happened, etc.

Except Clinton then posted his statement, which I have copied and pasted here. Tell me if you want your horse anywhere near this egomaniac.


by Clinton Anderson 28. March 2013 11:27

First of all, this is nobody's business other than mine and the horse's owner. If people would pay more attention to their own lives, their own horses and their own problems, the world would be a much better place. But there are too many looky-lous and sticky beaks that want to stick their nose in and stir up trouble when there's no trouble to be stirred up.

#1 People need to get a grip on themselves. Animals die. Humans die. It's called life. In fact, there's this bumper sticker that was invented that says "s*** happens." People put it on the back of their bumpers because that's what happens in life. It's called s***  and it happens. Sometimes it's somebody's fault, but a lot of times it's nobody's fault. Again, it's referred to as s*** happens.

#2 It's unfortunate that the horse died. Reality is we don't know how he died because the owner didn't want to get an autopsy. Horses die at my ranch. Yes, it's called life. We have 60 horses on the ranch, we have dogs and we even have cats. In fact, we had a cat fight in the barn last week, and one of them died. Shocking, yes. It's called life. Animals die. Yes, even Clinton Anderson's animals die. It's called life. I know this is shocking to know that as good as I am and as popular as I am and as famous as I am, my animals don't live forever either. Holy s*** , I must be human. For any moron that's getting his panties in a wad because a horse died at Clinton Anderson's ranch, get a life.

#3 It's unfortunate that the owner had to go and start this whole fire because I'm the one that has to go put it out. I've apologized to the owner; it's not my fault the horse died. It's not the owner's fault the horse died either. We don't know how it died. We believe it had something to do with either a brain aneurism or a heart attack because it died extremely quickly and there was no struggling involved. Reality is it was the owner's choice not to get an autopsy - she didn't want to get one.

I apologized to the owner; in fact, I've spoken with her on three separate occasions about this subject. We sent the owner flowers and we refunded all of the owner's money. I did everything I possibly could. In fact, I even offered the owner a Signature Horse free of charge. I went above and beyond to try to help her through the grieving process. A Signature Horse, with all its training, is worth $25,000. She declined the Signature Horse because she said the horse was too small. I had a horse picked out for her that was 14.1 hands high, and she didn't feel like a horse 14.1 hands high was worth having even though it was free and is worth $25,000. Just for the record, the lady is 5'9" and I'm 5'11", Mindy is 14.1. I rode Mindy in front of millions of people for 15 years and never had one email or comment that said I looked too big on Mindy. Just to set the record straight. But she didn't want the Signature Horse - no problem whatsoever. Since she didn't want the Signature Horse, I offered her the opportunity to send another horse to the ranch for the six-week program and we'd train it free of charge. Again, I went above and beyond to take care of a grieving customer.

I bent over backwards to take care of her needs, and now I'm having to fix this kind of bulls***  and I'm tired of it. So reality is if you think your horse is going to live forever, you're an idiot. Do we do everything in our power to take care of animals on the ranch? Yes, we do. The reality is every once in a while it keeps coming back to that bumper sticker "s*** happens." So people, get a life, get out of business that doesn't involve you and start focusing on your horsemanship and your own lives. When people start doing that, they'll have a lot more success with their horses, a lot more fun and a lot less drama. If it sounds like I'm irritated and I'm cranky about this, I am. All we've done is taken an unfortunate situation and turned it into circus and absolute mess. It didn't have to go this direction. This is my statement and this whole subject is done after this.

For anyone who cares, here are Clinton's sponsors. Let them know what you think about a trainer who writes this after a horse dies in his care.

AQHA, ABIequine (arena drag equipment), ADM (Grostrong feed), Behlen Country (farm/ranch equipment) Classic Equine (leg protection) Horse & Rider magazine, Cashel Insurance, Martin Saddles, NRHA, NRCHA, Ritchie (waterers), Safe-guard (dewormer), Smart-pak (supplements) Standlee (hay products), Stephenville Chamber of Commerce, Vetericyn, and Vet-rap

AND AN ADDENDUM 2/7/15:  Someone named Wanda Covington sent a private email, not a very nice one, asking if I "get money for this." 

No, I do not. I was trying to think who in the world might pay me to write about things I see in the horse world and to preserve things big-name "trainers" say and post so that when their publicists advise them to remove the offensive verbiage folks can still google and find their own words. 

The only group I can come up with who might pay me to write this stuff is the horses themselves. 

My take remains the same here. If you live with horses and you want to have a partnership with one or more of them, go elsewhere than CA's "training" to obtain it. I think if you study animal behavior and read the latest research on animals and emotions and the exquisite sensory mechanisms of prey animals and then apply what many call the "golden rule" you will end up in a similar mindset as me. Horses deserve kind, humane treatment. They deserve credit for their intelligence, sensitivity, and the fact that they carry us around on their backs and do our bidding for the most part. They are not there to be "broken" and if we dominate them and treat them like machines that speaks far more about us as people than it does about them. 

CA offers a primitive, dominating, ego-driven method of being with horses that is so behind the times it's an embarrassment. It's past time for him and everyone who uses these methods to evolve and grow. If your relationship with horses has to do with power and control the best thing you can do is take a break, get some therapy, and fix your own issues.

The Goddess Turns Thirty

Tomorrow Salina turns 30 years old. She was born in Germany to two Hannoverians, Kurtisane and Salut, and was branded as well as entered into the Main Mare Book as she got older and went to inspections.

She was imported as a brood mare to the U.S. Somewhere along the way she was trained to at least fourth level dressage, lost an eye, and developed arthritis in both knees.

When she was 23 she came to live with us on November Hill. I have said before: I saw her photograph and fell in love with her spirit and personality, and although originally I thought she would be a therapy horse for my clients, in the end she has turned out to be a therapy horse for me.

She can be high-strung, is very opinionated, and has been high maintenance from the beginning. She gave me some of the most advanced rides of my life, taught me about hoof abscesses, senior feeds, arthritic joints, helping horses get up when they can't do it on their own, and is teaching me now about Cushing's disease.

She became, early on, my sister in spirit at the barn. If anything goes on here and I don't know about it, she tells me. She has come to my bedroom window in the night and woken me with her insistent, urgent, whinny. On many occasions I have felt pain in my own body at the site of her aches and pains.

The most important thing and the first thing she taught me was to center myself when asking for anything from a horse.

She is wise and beautiful and we love her.

Happy birthday, Salina! I'll add a birthday portrait tomorrow, but wanted to get this up today.

first day of spring is officially here

And it has dawned colder, grayer, and much less spring-like than yesterday. So I'm going with the thought that at least here on November Hill, yesterday was the first day of spring.

It was sunny and warm without being hot. I spotted one fly but there are notably no carpenter bees out yet, which makes me wonder what winter weather we might still have in store. The carpenter bees seem pretty savvy about calling it correctly.

I woke up yesterday determined to get in a leisurely groom and ride with Keil Bay no matter what else had to go undone to make it happen. After breakfast tubs I let him eat a little hay in the barnyard while I did a few small barn chores, and then brought him to the barn aisle. He's shedding now, and his winter coat is holding on to all the dust he's packed in by rolling, so I went at him head to tail with four different combinations of brushes and curries. This felt so good to him he licked and chewed and soft-snorted with great satisfaction.

He requested a sheath cleaning and got one. He requested an under the tail cleaning and got one of those too.

He got a face wash with a warm wet cloth and even loved that!

I was happy to see healthy hooves, even with the on/off saturated ground we've endured the past two months.

Since I forgot to bring out his sheepskin saddle pad, we rode with the one dressage pad that happened to be in the tack room (I keep them inside after washing). It was the first dressage pad I bought when Keil Bay came to live with me, and it is as soft as a rag now - no tears or damage but so soft it doesn't stand up at all at the withers. I use it as a cover for his saddle when I'm washing the actual saddle cover.

But I figured it would be a good test of current saddle fit - and of general back comfort on his part.

We had a long ride at the walk with a little spontaneous trot thrown in by Keil once we'd warmed up. For the most part it was wonderful. There were no noticeable issues. The wind gusted a little as we went into the arena, but it was no big deal. Keil was soft, alert, and warmed up into a really beautiful stretching walk. We did changes of direction across the diagonals, a few 20m circles, a few 10m circles, serpentines, and just a little bit of leg yield. Everything felt terrific.

Sometimes when we ride at just the walk the entire time it feels like we're not in the arena but traveling together, on a journey out in the world someplace, alone with the landscape. There were birds singing and squirrels rustling and we watched and listened and walked on and on. The way I imagine it might have been before automobiles, when people traveled on horseback.

The only question being: do we travel well together? And yes, we did. 

I was happy to see that the saddle pad didn't slip at all, and the dust pattern was balanced and even from front to back and side to side.

Most of the ride we were kept company by the handsome chestnut Cody, who stood with his head hanging over the arena fence, his eyes on us the entire time. I considered getting his halter on and letting him pony along with us, but knew he'd get his own ride later in the afternoon. It felt like he intuited that we were indeed "traveling" and wanted to be with us along the way.

It was one of those days, not unusual, where I kept noticing how handsome the Big Bay is, how expressive, how cooperative, how perfect. And on this first day of spring I feel again that I'm the luckiest woman in the world to have this horse as my equine partner.

I sure hope he feels the same about me!

Fiona and the Water Horse, coming very very soon!

Do horses make fools of us? Or do we do that just fine by ourselves?

I commented on a blog yesterday that horses do what they do. We humans are really good at making fools of ourselves, like in the video shown of a girl hitting her horse with a crop after she fell off over a jump.

I'll state it more strongly here: horses do not make fools of us. They live under the thumb of our care, our idea of horse management, the training we put them through, and the rides we give them. For most horses in the world, they don't get a say in any of the above.

They eat what we feed them, live in the conditions we create, get training based on the "knowledge" of whatever trainer we hire or our own, and endure ride after ride in which we sit on them and expect them to carry us around arenas, over jumps, on trails, without doing any of the instinctual responses they carry in their very DNA.

If we come off over a jump, if we come off during a spook, if we don't win the blue ribbon, if the horse doesn't go forward, if the horse chews something we value, if the horse kicks in a stall door, if the horse develops vices due to being bored our of his mind, or kept in perpetual pain due to untreated injuries/conditions - whatever the horse does or does not do, our response to that is in fact OUR RESPONSIBILITY.

And if we choose to act like fools, then guess what? We are fools.

The horse has nothing to do with it.

There is no excuse for going after a horse with a crop or whip or any other object. NONE.

I've smacked rumps and necks and shoulders with the palm of my hand, and I'm not proud of that. There are better ways to deal with issues, mostly boundary issues, that come up between horses and riders. I've tossed an empty water bucket at the pony's butt when he whirled it at me one time and I'm not proud of that either.

But I have never, ever, nor can I imagine doing it, taken a whip or a crop and gone at a horse with it. If  your anger gets to that point you need to step way back and take a good hard look at your own anger issue, because you do have one.

Pretending this kind of outburst is a one-time thing simply perpetuates the behavior. We who ride horses, live with horses, love the things that our horses allow us to do, like enter shows and win ribbons and trophies, have a responsibility to report the behavior of fools when we see it.

Show the horror you feel. Speak out to the rider. "Stop hitting that horse" is simple and direct, and even if you aren't prepared to intervene further, it lets everyone in the area know that what you are seeing is not okay. Report to the show manager. Nothing is gained by walking past and hoping it's a one-time thing.

The truth about horses is that they teach us about ourselves. They teach many of us that we too have the capacity to act like fools. They teach some that they have deep and underlying issues that need to be addressed with a mental health professional.

If we take responsibility for the times we act like fools, we become better people. And that's a gift our horses give to us. We should treat them like princesses and kings. We should throw the whip away and say THANK YOU. Thank you for helping me learn who I am and who I want to become.