Working Towards Finding Commonality

… in which Cameo Miller stirs her thoughts and ideas to see what rises to the top.

By Cameo Miller

Illustration by Bethany Caskey

There is a lot of talk about how divisive the world is right now. We see it everywhere and all around us. Some people say we need to come together again, but what they really mean is that we need to agree with their view of how things should be. There are others who are really talking to each other to see where the points of agreement are, where we can actually find realms of accord. I wish for “a kinder, gentler” world. And I will do my part to try to listen and find those elusive points in many areas of my life. I hope you will too. But there is one area that we might all be able to begin to do this in—our equine world.

We each have our areas of expertise which we have chosen to be devoted to, our own favorite training methods, and our own pet peeves about those who do things differently. This so often leads us to then denigrate those in other disciplines as well as some in our own discipline. Perhaps we need to make a point to also find those bits that we can agree with in each discipline. Is that person a ‘dressage queen’ (no matter what sex they are), or are they someone who has worked diligently to learn skills first written about by Xenophon in 300 BC and refined to help strengthen and supple each horse ridden? Is that cowboy someone who ‘breaks’ horses, or someone who has learned to be partners with their horses in the work they have done on ranches for hundreds of years; work which requires the horses have great endurance and be as smart and focused as their riders? Do endurance riders enjoy putting themselves and their horses into overly strenuous and sometimes dangerous situations, or are they the ultimate athletes who train both themselves and their horses to be as fit and alert as possible? I know very little about saddle seat riding other than hearing the horror stories about soring and maiming that some do as they chase awards. So I did what I hope you might do if you don’t know much about some discipline. I called an ARIA colleague who is a saddle seat expert. As I suspected, there are only a very few perverse miscreants as is true in all the disciplines. When I asked her what was wonderful about saddle seat riding she said “EVERYTHING”. I was able to get her to be a bit more specific—“it’s exhilarating, exciting, and very high energy. An adrenaline rush.” She explained that, unlike the quiet of the dressage ring, saddle seat riders want the crowd to cheer loudly. Sounds like a variation of those horses and riders who enjoy combined training—a huge adrenaline rush. And for those who enjoy some adrenaline without quite as much risk there is the love of taking flight provided in hunter/jumpers. I learned something about a discipline I know little about; we can all learn if we reach out with an open mind.

There are harmful and hurtful practices in each discipline and I truly hope we can all agree that those are not acceptable and should be abolished. If anyone needs to harm a horse to accomplish their goals then one of three things is wrong: 1) the horse is in the wrong job and being asked to do something it is not suited for, 2) for the person’s own reasons they are asking more of the horse than it is capable of doing, 3) the person is looking for power, glory, monetary rewards, or something that has nothing to do with what the horse actually needs.

You don’t need to begin working with a new discipline and you shouldn’t overlook what is wrong in any discipline, including your own. But we can recognize what is good, valuable and worthwhile about each one. We can say what is good out loud when we talk to each other. Susan Harris was the best person at this that I’ve ever known. I believe she had ridden and driven each discipline that ARIA offers except for mounted patrol officer, she literally wrote the books for pony club, and was one of the first to embrace western dressage. She could always find something good to say about any part of the equine world. I miss her, but would like to propose that we try to emulate her as we seek to find the positive in our equine world and diminish the negative.

Perhaps, if we can begin to do this in our corner of the world, we can then expand it to encompass more parts of our lives. Perhaps, this can be the start of healing the tears in our society. We may not be able to solve everything that is wrong in the world, but we all have a choice now about what happens in our own little part of the world. We can choose to widen the divide, or we can choose to find some commonality in whatever areas that we occupy. Every journey begins with a single step, and every reconciliation begins with those who are willing to really listen with an open mind. Not to give up your own values, not to change who you truly are, but to work towards creating that “kinder, gentler” world we would all like to live in.

About the author:

Cameo Miller is a Masters-level clinical psychologist and a Level IV ARIA Certified Instructor based in Michigan. She is a member of the ARIA Evaluation Panel and an ARIA National Test Center Administrator.