I forget who made me aware of this situation originally, but there is a man, Todd Pierce, who has Riding High Ministries. From what I've been reading they mostly work in prisons and bull riding circuits, and operate their "seminars" under the banner of Trying To Encourage Real Masculinity In Our Culture Today Or Something by showing Todd Pierce "breaking" a wild colt.
(Spoilers, if you still refer to it as "breaking", you're doing it wrong.)
Taken off the "about us page" :
Our culture has done everything they can to suppress masculinity; but it is very much alive in these men. They are aggressive, reckless, vicious competitors, yet they are humble, compassionate and sincere. They believe manliness is the same as being Christ-like.Wow.
Better.
Seriously, wow. Where to begin? If these guys believe that an ideal (godly) masculinity can legitimately be aggressive, reckless, and vicious, their methods of horse training are probably going to follow those trends. Which does not bode well.
Let's begin with some definitions (thanks, Google!):
Aggressive:
--ready or likely to attack or confront; characterized by or resulting from aggression.
Synonyms: hostile, belligerent
--pursing one's aims and interests forcefully, sometimes unduly so.
Synonyms: assertive, pushy
Vicious:
--deliberately cruel or violent.
Synonyms: brutal, ferocious
Reckless
--(of a person of their actions) without thinking or caring about the consequences of an action.
Synonyms: rash, thoughtless
Okay. Now I'm going to try to explain what I believe this guy is thinking about these words, as a Christian, and explain why they are wrong. He probably is thinking that Christ is aggressive in the way He has conquered death, sin, and Satan. Here's the thing, though; if a Christian knows that God is creator of the entire world (including Satan... who is a fallen, created angel, not God's evil counterpart), and all-powerful, there is no "aggression" needed to conquer Satan or the suckiness of the world. Without going into all the theological hoopla of why the world sucks so much sometimes, basically keep in mind God did not create evil. People disobeyed God and sinned. That is why the world is messed up. But don't panic! He is in control and has a plan.
Anyhow, back to Satan... I'm likening this to someone whose infant is trying to bite the parent's finger. The parent needs no "aggression" to stop this. He or she simply removes the finger from reach and says "no." The parent is in complete control. Christ voluntarily came to earth as a person, born in very poor circumstances, and spent his whole life on earth healing people, giving them forgiveness and hope, free of charge, and then quietly went and died on a cross for them to seal the deal.
Sorry, that is not an aggressive life. Christ was not aggressive. The only times recorded that He got angry at people it was because they were trying to put themselves, their hypocrisy, and their made-up rules between sinners and Christ. And then he confronted them, but it was not for His own interests, it was on behalf of people He loved.
If we want to hammer this point home for good (wow, what violent phrasing!), Matthew 11:27-30 conveniently covered it, two thousand years ago. For context, Christ has been talking to his disciples and such about John the Baptist preparing people's hearts for Christ's coming, and then Christ prays to God, thanking him...
"My Father has given me all things. . . .
Come to me, all of you who are tired from carrying heavy loads, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, because I am gentle and humble in spirit; and you will find rest. For the yoke I will give you is easy, and the load I will put on you is light."
What's this? Simultaneously Jesus declares He already has control over everything--aggression is not necessary--and then sums it all up by straight-up offering rest and comfort in a domesticated animal-related analogy!
Booya.
I'm sorry, I can't do anything even vaguely redeeming with "vicious."
I think Todd probably thinks Christ is vicious on Satan or something, meaning He slams him hard for his disobedience and messing with us. But the actual definition of vicious is outside God's character: deliberately cruel.
Cruelty is having some sort of power over someone and using that to crush that person mentally or physically more than he or she would ever deserve. It is not gentle. It is not humble. It is brutal.
Proverbs 12:10: A righteous man regards the life of his beast, but the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel.
This commercial collectively made every horse person who watched it, cry.
Or at least tear up a bit. Like I just did, re-watching it.
I'll handle reckless just by sharing the rest of this story.
So this guy, Todd Pierce, posts a video on his personal FB page and it ended up going viral amongst a lot of horse people. Here is the video: Todd and his horse . Please go watch it. It's only 37 seconds.
Done? Okay, the video made me, and a bunch of other people furious. Here is everything wrong with this video that I can think of, seeing it, in no particular order. Firstly, this man is leading a men's retreat on horses in the woods. People who go on wilderness-type retreats are quite often not wilderness people. It is likely that a fair number of the men out here with him know nothing about horses, and need protection by having trail guides who DO know what they're doing. I was a trail guide for two summers. Believe me, you have to be super aware, communicate clearly and calmly, and sometimes definitely protect the public riders.
Lots of things can go wrong. Doesn't mean they will go wrong, but it does mean you have to be prepared for them, and do your utmost to protect against them.
Instead, Todd, without thinking, put himself, his horse, and all of those men and their animals in danger. You saw that horse careening around and running into the camera man? They were extremely lucky nobody got seriously hurt (except Todd, who apparently tore a ligament in his knee--more on that later). So if Christ gave his life to protect and care for us, this guy did the opposite, and put everybody and all the animals he was in charge of in danger.
Secondly, you know how people wear ear plugs when they fire guns?
Photo of Garrett by Dan Straite.
Yeah, well guess what--a horse's ears are much more sensitive than a person's. They're prey animals, and are super aware--listening and looking--ALL the time. You can give horses commands in quiet, low voices, and they do just fine. People who do hunt off a horse's back (and care about the horse!) will put earplugs in the horse's ears. Firing a gun three feet from this horse's ears was cruel. The horse was, apparently, young, and hadn't been trained about gunfire. If you have a good relationship with your horse and are gentle, it is fairly simple and straightforward to teach a horse not to be afraid of loud noises. But it has to be done patiently and kindly. This man failed miserably. This horse, if anything, just learned that gunfire is horrifying and the best reaction is definitely to freak out, pitch the idiot off your back, and get the hell outta there.
Being a cynical and terrible person, my first analogy to this "desensitizing" Todd performed was wondering if his way of "desensitizing" his virgin bride on their wedding night (I have no idea of his marital status, I'm just making all this up) was to just pound her as hard as possible and assume she'll still want a round two!
Seriously.
So anyhow, a lot of people got really mad about this (one of my big rage-inducers was seeing all the comments on the original video where (obviously ignorant) people thought the whole video was hilarious, and not, you know, HORRIFYINGLY DANGEROUS AND CRUEL), and I heard a rumour that Todd took the video down. But obviously he didn't, if it's still up where I could link to it. However, a few days afterwards he posted a status that ran thusly:
"Specific prayer request from Todd: Two days ago, Colton and I were horseback riding in the mountains when a young fox ran out and the colt I was riding threw a fit. As a result, I got bucked off and tore a ligament in my knee. ... etc"
Yeah, sure. A fox. Okay, assuming this story is true, and he was unharmed by that terrific fall in his major fail video, it still speaks volumes that he hasn't yet responded to everybody getting on his case about his bad horsemanship. Know what it speaks to? pride. But definitely not humility, that he supposedly believes in.
Also, yes, horses are prey animals and dangerous because they're hyper-aware and startle easily. BUT, here is the thing. Accidents happen, yes, but if you have a solid relationship with your horse, that animal trusts you. You've taught it not to be afraid of sudden sights and sounds, you read the horse's body language and brain really well, and if your horse does startle at a fox or whatever, you really shouldn't have an issue. You exhibit no fear, and the horse, which trusts you, picks up on that immediately. Sure, the horse may shy away from the fox a couple steps. And maybe you'll fall off if you weren't prepared. But throwing a fit like the one in Todd's video? Getting bucked off? That's YOU doing something wrong.
Which moves me into my final part of this rant. Horses are not evil. They are not malicious. They are just horses. Some are smart, some are dumb. But they all think like horses, not people. If a horse hates a certain type of person (men who wear hats, men in general, women in general, etc) it is because that animal has suffered trauma at the hands of a person fitting that description. It doesn't even have to be the person doing something wrong. The person could slip in the stall with the foal and accidentally bring a water bucket down on the foal's face and now that foal is terrified of water buckets and people in its stall and will misbehave, sometimes dangerously. The person didn't do anything cruel, but the person was still responsible for what happened.
Yet on this seminar page Todd Pierce uses a horse to teach the people that they are sinful and need to be obedient and accept Jesus ("my son"--see how Todd Pierce is making himself into God the father, here?):
"The horse was spectacular. She was a three year old beautiful, well bred black beauty. Despite her pedigree, she was nothing but a prideful, rebellious filly that bucked and kicked to express her strength. Once she realized her way wasn't working and she saw I was waiting, she received my son and was made new. . . People saw the Truth and were set free."
(mistakes his)
Look, I get that masculinity in our culture is hard to define nowadays and a lot of people think it means being a dick to everybody and never letting anybody see you cry.
So true.
And that is not good.
HOWEVER. Christians wishing to change that need to get over their own masculine hurdles. Todd Pierce is probably a very nice guy who loves his family and really does love Jesus. He is also reckless with other people's safety, does not consider the comfort of his animals, and can't spell (that last one is obviously his worst transgression). Nobody is perfect, especially Christians, but if you see something wrong in society, you need to make darned sure your solution doesn't have the same problems, slapped on a Jesus banner. So masculinity in secular culture is lacking in respect and care for others? Maybe you should focus on making sure your own approach isn't suffering from the exact same problems, just directed elsewhere.
Thank you, and now I will go get dressed and start being productive with my day.
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