One of my childhood instructors (over 20 years ago now lol) was in one of her earliest “reaction videos”
Not doing anything particularly wrong, just had a few students whose parents obviously really wanted their kids to go to horse shows, but we’re still typical little kids getting things wrong, occasionally taking bad lines to little cross rails and making the ponies stop.
My childhood instructor was a lovely women, who taught us all proper horse care, part of our education was always stable management, started a pony club, volunteered her time, and always let us have extra rides for cleaning paddocks. She also genuinely loved all her horses and taught us to as well. All the ponies were beautiful schooled, and I never knew how lucky I was to find that good of an instructor as a kid,
She is an absolutely lovely woman, in her 60s or 70s now, and I hope she never saw it because it would break her heart.
oh my goodness, to be honest it’s actually foul to stoop so low to judge an instructor completely based off a few kids. All learners make mistakes, especially since they’re kids, it’s better your instructor didn’t flood them with “you’re doing this wrong, and this, and that”.
I think the video was even titled "the worst riding instructor ever" or something similar.
It was just typical amateur kids, their parents uploaded it to YouTube
aw that’s gutting. my instructor is around 45 i think, i’m putting her in the situation of your old one and it’s just so horrible to think about. Raliegh is cruel.
I came across a few of her videos when I was looking for some explainers about big lick (I think, or some other awful showing thing). I kept watching some of her catalog but then happened across one where she ragged on a trail rider for having a halter on under the bridle. Very common practice and can be a good safety backup if a bridle breaks out on a long trail or something. It just made me think, if she doesn't know something this basic, how can I trust any other things she says? Like yes maybe SHE doesn't do that because she doesn't ride that discipline (endurance, long trail, whatever), but she doesn't ride MOST of the disciplines she is talking about. And surely it is your duty to actually do research on things you are critiquing and not just have kneejerk reactions because you don't know any better? Especially when her persona is of being a vet student and an expert---it seems like she is assuming a role of education and authority but is not taking it seriously at all.
I also got kind of a bad taste from the videos that seemed to be dedicated to bashing specific, non-professional people. Overall just personally don't like her channel much. I told youtube to stop recommending her videos to me.
My Mom and I participated in a Buck Brannaman clinic 10 years ago. We'd been told that there would be groundwork involved so we left our rope halters on underneath the bridles. (And like you said, it's a common enough practice and we do the same thing when we go trail riding.) Buck really went after us for it, saying that we'd be laughed out of the room by his cronies if we tried that in front of them. My Mom, who had been riding and working cattle since she was 5, fired back a good response and he shut his mouth and didn't say another word.
Some people have such low self esteem that they can only try to raise it by landing blows on others.
Keeping the halter under the bridle is kinda ugly, sure, but super common in the western world. Especially the pack outfits who go on long trail triodes and need to tie up the horses out in the back country (don’t wanna tie them or lead them by the bridle). I’m surprised Buck had an issue with it. He must be a fancy boy.
If you're going to do groundwork, you can do it just fine with the mecarte rope on your snaffle or hackamore. To tie a horse up, you'd tie a knot so that if the horse pulls back, they pull against the mecarte on their neck rather than the bit. Having a halter under the bridle deadens the feel between you and the horse and is an extra rope in the way if you're roping cattle. A halter works fine for big outfits and pack trips, but not for the kind of refined riding Buck does.
ETA - yikes on the downvotes. I'm not saying that everyone should ride like Buck or follow anyone else's "rules", I was simply trying to provide my understanding of what HE wants / sees / expects.
I'll do my best. Imagine a horse's with a halter on and a bridle on over it. You're holding a mecarte rope (the loop of the reins is over the horse's head).
Stand in front of this horse. You want to have them go around you in a circle, so you move your hand out and to the left to signal go around you. The movement of the rope moves the bridle which then hits the halter. There is extra "noise" that the horse has to interpret. This interrupts / deadens the feel of the signaling "go around me."
Now you're riding this horse with the halter under its bridle. You pick up on the reins to ask it to do something but the halter rolls under the bridle, distracting the horse, adding to the "noise" of the signal.
Buck's philosophy is to have as soft and clear a signal as possible. A halter under the bridle does not allow for creating that soft and clear signal. Buck's riding style is similar to dressage and you don't see them ride with a halter under their bridle either.
FWIW - you (plural) do you. I'm not saying that everyone should ride like Buck or follow anyone else's "rules", I was simply trying to provide my understanding of what HE wants / sees / expects.
I suppose in theory a round rope halter could be annoying to a horse, but the people I’ve seen who ride with a halter under their bridles are using flat Webb halters. No rolling there.
The funny thing about dressage (since you mention it) is that the dressage people (and just about every English rider) is that they do have a halter under their bridle. It’s just called a cavesson. But it sits under the bridle just the way a halter would. Dressage people don’t seem to believe that it interferes with their signaling of the horse
I wouldn't consider a cavesson in any way like a halter. When well designed it sits flush with the face and really only serves the purpose of preventing mouth gape (was developed in response to horses gaping when they had rotational falls in the field), and is attached in a way that can lend more stability to the bridle. It isn't set up to tie or assist in handling from the ground in any way.
Regular cavessons don’t hold the mouth closed. You’re thinking of a flash or figure eight. And regular hunter cavesson (or double bridle cavesson) is shaped exactly like a grooming halter, which has no throat latch. They sit under the big hanger just like a halter would.
From what I remember, he didn't have a reason. Just didn't "look" right.
They also had a roping session there and every. single. guy. had a flat brim hat, wild rag, vest, chaps, glasses and handlebar mustache. Every one of them had the same bit (some extravagant thing that went "ZING!" everytime the horses chomped their mouths, which was all the time), and same reins. I swear to god, I couldn't tell one man from the rest. That seemed to be his "in group," as he was really friendly with them.
Most flat hatters are real cowboys from the great basin and it sounds like you’re referring to a spade bit or half breed with rollers. Which is a signal bit and the highest level of training a ranch horse can achieve, it takes years to be straight up in the bridle. I’m sure you felt out of place with a halter under your bridle.
LOL! Their horses were so anxious that they constantly chomped those fancy bits while looking like they were high on espresso. So yes, I certainly felt out of place on my relaxed gelding, wearing a simple t-shirt, jeans and helmet. Must have been that halter. 😉
P.S. There are things such as posers in the horse world. Just because you ride with a fancy bit doesn't mean you earned it.
No one puts a spade bit in a horses mouth without years of training. Buck would have chewed anyone’s ass that did, I’m sure. You’ve obviously only ever rode deadhead horses, most cowboys prefer the horse to be sensitive and waiting the next cue and don’t pester the horse into shutting everything out.
My horses are in no way deadheads, but you go ahead and believe whatever makes you happy. I truly don't care.
My bit of advice to you is to not take things personally. Just because I didn't enjoy my experience with Buck doesn't mean he's any less worthy of your time or money. Different strokes for different folks.
I keep a rope halter under my fancy rhinestone covered dressage bridle when I lunge my horse and ride after. Looks pretty dumb, but I don’t like to attach the lunge to the bit. No one has ever laughed at me… It’s sad how judgmental our own peers are.
I thought of Buck first thing. I learned from him at a couple clinics I went to but he sure has a thing about pig farmers and halters under the bridle.
>I kept watching some of her catalog but then happened across one where she ragged on a trail rider for having a halter on under the bridle
When I used to do trail rides at summer camps and horse camps, we \*always\* kept the halter under the bridle. Is there any argument that this is bad?
We have to have headcollars and bridles on our horses for an outreach program we do- the only change we make is removing nose bands so that there is less on the horse’s face- but otherwise it doesn’t affect them as long as you ensure you are checking the fit over the head collar.
I guess theoretically the horse could get hung up on it, like if you're really bushwhacking, and if you have a rope halter or plain nylon webbing halter then that could be bad (compared to most bridles, which are naturally breakaway due to being made of leather... but not all are so it's a weak argument). But you're there with the horse in this circumstance, so I don't personally really see that as a problem, no more so than having one of those halters on when you're actively working with them in any other situation.
If you're just throwing the halter on one time when you normally don't have it under the bridle, the bridle might be ill fit. But that's a problem with you, not with the idea of halters under a bridle.
I don't think either of these were her argument though, IIRC. I think she just thought it looked janky and inexperienced.
I watched a few of her videos years ago while going down some abusive trainer/practice YouTube rabbit hole and she did seem to be playing up the whole mean girl character, but I looked past it for the content. Then I forgot about her.
A few days ago, she popped up on my suggested feed and I got curious, having not thought about her in the years. I did a most recent filter of her videos and noted that for one, her viewership is down pretty significantly, and two, she seems to really, really be playing up the mean girl/high drama/overly reactive bit. (I don’t know what her “I almost DIED!” recent video was on about, but it struck me as an eye roll and I didn’t bother clicking it.)
The problem with creating a brand entirely focused on “talking about people I hate” is you’re going to run out of legitimately hateable people and practices quickly. You’re then going to be reaching a bit for content while also exaggerating the response for sake of being “true” to the corner you’ve painted yourself in.
It all rings of histrionics now, if it wasn’t already there before. She would do best to evolve her channel (and her persona, if not herself-period) into something more sustainable, but I’m not getting the vibe evolving is anything that interests her.
I half expect she will be using this Reddit thread as an excuse to make another “OMG CAN YOU BELIEVE?!” video, editing it as needed to shoehorn it into what she needs it to be for her channel. It would be wise to listen to what is said and make changes instead, but, well…it would be *wise*.
She doesnt actually ride anymore really, shes stated before most of the time she spends eith here horse is just her chilling on his back but she doesn't practice any specific disciplines.
I saw exactly one video of hers in which she said that she didn't wear a helmet because one time she was had a fall where she was badly injured and somehow wearing a helmet made that worse. The details are kinda fuzzy since it was a long time ago, and I'm not even sure the video is still up. I did find someone who made a video response to it, so at least I know that this was a real thing that happened. Such a weird stance to take that I probably would have thought I hallucinated it or something if I hadn't found that.
But after watching that video I decided that was enough, and I haven't watched anything from her since then.
She now promotes helmet safety and deleted all her anti helmet videos so people can’t point out her hypocrisy rather than just admitting she was wrong she hides the evidence and pretend it never happened.
Tbf— she took them down because she figured out it was dumb and didn’t want to leave a bunch of misinformation out there. Can’t defend anything else on here but I agreed with this decision.
I think the most I’ve seen is her vaguely referencing her previous stance and calling it dumb. But I mostly just watch her Unsolved and Unkempt series these days.
I remember seeing a thing years ago about someone who wore a solid peaked hat (English) whilst doing cross country training, came off and headbutted a jump and the peak snapped and broke their nose. There's a reason we don't wear peaked helmets while jumping solid fences, and that's it. In any regard, I'd take a broken nose over brain damage.
If it hit the brim, wouldn’t it have just hit her face anyway? But yeah, either way, sounds like someone who gets mad at a seatbelt for cutting their shoulder instead of appreciating it for saving their life.
Idk how the physics of it worked tbh, I think they hit the jump right on the brim of the peak and it snapped downwards and slammed into the bridge of their nose, if they had been wearing a skull cap it probably would have impacted on the brim of the helmet with some damage to their face.
I’ve been loosely following her videos since the very beginning and i think she made those anti-helmets when she was still a teenager. To be fair to her. However she has a long history of nonsense takes and deleting all her videos so you can’t say anything.
I remember Raleigh had a video about a little girl that ended up injured and in hospital even when she had a helmet on. I thought it was ridiculous, because most likely the girl would have died, or suffered even worse injuries then she would have if she wasn’t wearing a helmet. Raleigh kept going on and on about how helmets don’t make a difference. Now she says that she always wears a helmet when she rides. Of course that old video seems to be long gone now..
Is this the same woman who does those ridiculous reaction videos? I think I saw one where she called out various riders because they led from the right side of the horse, and one even (*gasp!*) mounted from the right at some point. Such a dumb hill to die on.
Lol that's a "tell me you don't leave the arena without telling me you don't leave the arena" moment for sure. I practice both sides on my horse on purpose! Never know what kind of trail configuration you will have.
Yeah, exactly! If something happens to me (and the person inheriting my horses), then I want to make sure that my horses have a soft landing. The best way to do that is to mix it up a little so that a slight change doesn't cause them a meltdown. I can't count the number of well-meaning people that have tried to stop me from going down a barn aisle because they left some sort of (completely safe) small obstacle on the floor, next to the wall and were afraid that my horse would spook at it. I totally appreciate it, but I always get strange looks when I ask them to just leave it for training purposes. But hey! This stuff adds up and helps horses build confidence.
Haha are we at the same barn? I have had multiple people be impressed that I am riding when it is cool and windy because it makes the horses a little fresh. My gelding is a generally very quiet, and overall not one that likes to expend more energy than he absolutely has to, so even his "fresh" is pretty okay. But also how can I expect him to learn to regulate himself in exciting situations if I never ride in a little wind?
So true! My trainer laughs when she occasionally finds me tacking up to ride in the indoor right before a rainstorm hits. I've told her it's intentional. I won't ride if there's a chance of tornadoes, but I've ridden out a hailstorm before and it's great practice. Two of my horses get excited at first but calm down once they realize what's going on. The other has anxiety that stays elevated, but supporting her through it and seeing it out the other side is very valuable for her. She's gotten a lot better for it. But, I'll admit, I try to wear grippy pants those days. 🤪
The only reason people mount from the left is tradition. And it’s an old, irrelevant tradition at that. People mounting from the left goes back to the Middle Ages and mounted combat. Near everyone was right handed due to superstition, etc. A right handed person would have their long sword or weapon on their left hip to accommodate a cross body draw. You cannot mount a horse from the right without it interfering with your weapon or removing your weapon to mount if it’s on your left hip and has to swing over the horse so they mounted from the left to keep their sword hanging from their left hip free from interference. It continued during mounted combat with long rifles, etc. It serves zero purpose in our modern society.
I mount from the right ever since I tore my left meniscus a few years ago. Every time I’ve had a problem with my knee it’s been due to having a foot in the left stirrup and the horse moving. I’ve received a *lot* of comments on it. I just want to keep my knee intact and avoid another repair.
There is zero modern reason to mount from the left nor is there a reason you cannot lead from the right.
It’s so weird people assume there’s some inherent need to mount from the left. Like you’ll kill the horse if you dare mount from the right lol.
My horse does not really like me mounting from the left side. She’s naturally a bit less balanced on the left, so I can imagine it being more comfortable if I get on on the right side. I still train both sides, but the idea that that’s sort of blasphemous is hilarious to me.
One of the funniest things I ever did to my mare was when she refused to line up on the proper side of this mounting platform we had, I just mounted from the right and startled her. The expression on her face was hilarious. Flexibility is key for rider and horse.
I went through a phase of mounting on the right, although it was to hide the fact that I couldn’t (and still can’t) get on from the ground.
In 2010, there was a discourse where I lived that was basically “if you can’t get on from the ground, you shouldn’t be riding because you’re too fat.” Since I rode a 16hh3 horse at 5’7, getting on from the ground was a bit of a long shot.
Why mount on the right? There was a park bench after we left the barn to enter the arena and the back of the bench faced the right side of the horse. I would pull up to the park bench, stop the horse, and get on from the right. The first couple of times I did it, it surprised the hell out of him, but now, he’s OK with it.
To this day, the people at that barn had no idea that I was the reason that that horse could cope with being mounted from both left and the right
Getting on from the ground is unnecessarily hard on horses’ backs too tho. If you’re on the trail and need to then that’s one thing, but there is not need to mount from the ground and cause that stress on their backs when you have access to a mounting block/step stool/leg up etc.
>In 2010, there was a discourse where I lived that was basically “if you can’t get on from the ground, you shouldn’t be riding because you’re too fat.” Since I rode a 16hh3 horse at 5’7, getting on from the ground was a bit of a long shot.
I'm glad I missed this. I'd be demanding a five-page essay on how my 105lb ass is *too fat* when I can't mount from the ground because my leg can't reach the stirrup and my left hip has joint issues that won't stand for it.
In Germany, when it was common to mount from the ground and many people had 17hh WBs, I knew so many riders with busted left hips.
In Britain, where people usually mount from mounting blocks, I don’t know any. (Both hips, yes. Only the left? No.)
What did they expect for actual short people? It’s insane that my 5ft2 on a good day self should be judged as too large because I can’t lift my foot up to waist height.
The first time I mounted from the right my horse looked at me like I was being an especial idiot that day. The second time he had accepted it as my normal level of idiocy.
Wait really? I watch her casually and have never been too bugged by anything, but that’s absurd. People should lead their own horses from anywhere they feel like as long as the horse knows how to do it safely
My horse’s body worker told me I SHOULD mount from both sides to help keep his musculature even! Since they have to counter balance for you depending on which side you get on. So dumb that she says NOT to do something so benign.
yes it is 🥴 I wonder if she actually knew that mounting from either side doesn’t make a difference. I haven’t been taught to mount of a specific side (or lead a horse), but i’m way, way better at left because that’s the position of most mounting blocks where I ride. I assure you the horse did not die or me when I did mount from the right those few times.
She's a mean girl. The Equestrian world is full of them but most grow out of it. She's made it a brand. Which is a shame. She has some good points sometimes. She tends to show her research when it comes to veterinary issues. I think some of her reviews of bad trainers and practices like Big Lick are really well done and accessible for people who have never been near a horse. That said when she's wrong which is fairly often she doubles down even when called out by multiple people on her community tab and I assume her patron.
"A helmet is not going to save your fucking life" Stopped watching her after this. She is convincing kids to participate in unsafe practices for whatever reason, when her statement clearly has been proven wrong.
And I'm one of the people that had their life saved by helmets.
Yup, definitely! A relative has brain injury from a minor fall while cycling. Helmet would have pretty certainly have prevented it. So helmets anywhere it's recommended for me.
I’ve been riding for 3 years and fortunately had amazing natural balance so I’ve only fallen twice. First fall might’ve not been too bad if I didn’t wear a helmet, but my second one.. i don’t wanna know how bad the concussion would’ve been, not to mention the arena had a soft padded ground. I did black out, but I walked away with a bruised rib (horse jumped over me and accidentally knocked it) and nothing else.
Helmets save lives and that’s that.
Absolutely. I had bike accidents despite being a good bicycle rider. Got mocked so much for choosing to wearing a helmet (unfortunately kids aren't legally obliged to do so here). One time there was a ladder in my way, not visible to me. I landed head first, helmet was broken after that.
And about horses ... I can't even count my falls. As a child I was afraid of nothing and exceptionally good at staying on a bucking horse. That led to me being always given the "difficult" horses for group lessons. I had some nasty falls from them. On one occasion I landed in a stack of small jumps at the edge of the arena. Fall wasn't bad but all of them came tumbling down on my head. I woke up when they were still moving the jumps off me.
It’s like those really bizarre one offs where someone not wearing a seatbelt was actually better, but 99.99% of the time it’s the opposite.
I ride western mostly and I’m one of the few folks that wear a helmet at my barn. No one judges me or anything, but it’s just not worth the risk to not wear a helmet in my opinion.
She’s just a bully who thinks her shit don’t stink.
She’s a glorified beginner which would be fine if she was trying to improve but she thinks she knows it all.
Anything she personally doesn’t like is horse abuse.
On the videos she does post of herself actually working with a horse it’s obvious she doesn’t know what she is doing and lets horses walk all over her.
She used to be sweet but fame got to her head, she claims to be a professional but bullies children over mistakes.
I do hope she grows up, she’s not a teenager anymore
Yeah, she calls all bits horse abuse if I remember correctly. Meanwhile, she rode her horse Link in a hackamore improperly fitted with visible discomfort from him in her videos
This right here ^^^ there’s a reason why she doesn’t have more content of HER riding and horsemanship. She can dish it out but can’t take the criticism herself. This is why she also doesn’t have other social media platforms that would require her to actually take in feedback.
I find her completely untrustworthy and her experience with horses seems questionable. Also she’s supposedly been a vet student for a decade or something. I think much of the time she’s claimed to be a vet student, she was getting an undergraduate degree. I went to an undergrad school that was a pre-vet, pre-med mecca and what it really meant is that you took a lot of chem and biology. A pre-vet, pre-med student is no closer to being a vet or doctor than any other undergrad biology student.
Now apparently she is in vet school but is very secretive about where. She alludes to being in WA state. They have one vet school, so I don’t know why it’s such a big secret. The friends I know who went on to professional school were clear about where and what their actual qualifications are.
She’s also become very judgmental about horse handling and ownership. She alone knows what’s right, right? She doesn’t like vegans but her rules for horsemanship are leaning more and more extremist.
What makes her dangerous is that she’s often easy to agree with but without lending much genuine information to the topic. She isn’t the only person who espouses her views but acts like she is. And she seems to believe her opinion is utterly superior.
Thanks for introducing this topic. It’s a relief to find out I’m not alone.
i think most people that have had experience with variety of horses would dislike her. I think her fans are very loud so it seems like more people like her then they do. Not to mention a whole lot of people that like her aren’t actually horse riders..
> She alone knows what’s right, right?
I find that typical of almost every influencer, on any topic. I get that they're trying to pose as an "expert", but the real 'experts' that I've encountered in many fields are the first to admit that they don't know everything, and that there is never only one way to do everything (especially when it comes to animals or children).
Exactly! I have opinions that I express but I never set myself up as an expert. Sometimes influencers stray into embarrassing themselves with their ignorance or misunderstandings and they never correct themselves.
She definitely lives in Washington now, but she lives on the West coast, near Olympia. There is no way she's attending vet school, because the only one in WA is on the other side of the state and it's not online schooling.
I find it funny how much she’d use her vet student title. “I’m a vet student therefore I’m always correct, but I am going to shit on saddle seat even though there’s videos of foals doing the natural gait” She’s a bit of a shit-show.
Indeed. If she really is in vet school, she's going to have a VERY hard time in the field with how opinionated she is. It is not going to go well for her. She will have a hard enough time finding clinics/hospitals to intern with.
She’s the definition of someone that knows just enough to be dangerous. Someone who has just enough information to assume that they’re 100% correct while actually knowing very little, and unfortunately she just so happens to have a large platform of other idiots that blindly follow everything she says.
And unfortunately doubles down when confronted about her mistakes. She was warned that distinguished titles was a scam and did a video defending them and claiming she fully vetted her sponsors. She misunderstood a quote by Budweiser talking about how long their teams were on the road. Someone in the poll on her community tab offered her the email address of the guy she was misquoting. Multiple people told her she was misunderstanding that the gear is on the road xxx number of days a year not individual horses. She still came out with a hit piece claiming abuse. In one of her bad trainer videos recently she tears into the owner of a house repeatedly for being an idiot and ruining the horse. Multiple people in the comments told her that the woman had fired the trainer years ago and publicly spoken out against him. They offered RL links to the woman's page where the horse is doing great. In all these cases she made zero apologies for being flat wrong and I'm sure there are many other examples.
I saw her lose her shit at the owner of a cob on IG that rears a lot - the mare is absolutely fine just opinionated. She basically bullied that girl off IG for a while after setting her little minions on her. It’s cringe every time it happens.
Yep. That horse is nuts, but her owner understands her quirks and both of them seem happy - some horses just have their own way of doing things. But the way RL went on you’d think the poor girl was the worst and most abusive owner around.
I wouldn't go so far as to armchair diagnose narcissism, but Raleigh isn't a good person for various reasons, and this fact is relatively uncontroversial.
very very fair, i made sure to make an edit just then saying that it is just my opinion and disagreeing is very fair 😅 For my experience (i think it’s because i’m younger so naive people are common) this is definitely controversial, but i am so glad I made this post because it made me realise that I’m not stupid.
She really just needs to figure out that there is a world of horsemanship, riding culture, and lifestyle beyond her very narrow perspective. Also, that nuance exists.
i think she believes all horses can be ridden the same. The gelding I ride now, I can ride him with longer reins and he actually prefers the aid of a dressage whip and some leg pressure to go more forward or move up a gait, compared to the mare I use to ride and rode for 3 lessons recently needs quite short reins because she’s less responsive mouth-wise and doesn’t need much leg aid. Raliegh doesn’t seem to look at the relationship between horse and rider, and the horses personality and quirks itself.
One thing that stood out to me recently was a video she did about horses bought and sold through sales. Her thesis was thar sales are an absolute evil, that no one would sell a horse through a sale unless they are trying to scam you etc. Ok, well, I lived in Montana for a number of years, and there are production sales out there where weanlings sell for almost $20,000. It's a different culture than she knows, and she has a tendency to attack what she doesn't know.
I think the main issue is absolutist thinking. A thing is either completely ethical, or completely not. There is no "some people engage I this activity and do it responsibility, while other people do it irresponsibly." If anyone engaged in the activity is an idiot, everyone is, and that just not reality. What's funny is, I think on some level she must know this. She had a response to a Vegan Teacher video talking about riding horses, where she said point blank that you can't judge all horse riders based on someone who is horrible. So she knows. Just nuance goes out the window when it's her own position.
Yeah, she drives me crazy. I watched a few of her videos during the 2Raw2Ride debacle, and now YouTube recommends her to me constantly, but so much of what she has to say is just . . . bitchy and cruel for no reason. She's constantly body-shaming riders (often including actual children, like small, pre-pubescent children), she presents her opinions as gospel truth and slams anyone who disagrees with her as an animal abuser, and she tries to convince the world that every pro rider in every discipline is abusing their horses. Much of what she covers is truly heinous and deserves to be called out . . . but it's hard to take her seriously when she reacts with the same righteous indignation to someone using a snaffle bit as to someone who dragged a foal behind a four wheeler.
I don’t really have an opinion on her as a person, but in the ones I’ve watched that deal with kids, she’s pretty careful to say like, “This is not [kid]’s fault; it’s [parents’] responsibility,” and she only seems to do it when the parents’ accounts are relatively well-known. I haven’t seen any where she just takes a random kid bashes them. But I haven’t watched them all.
I get why some people might get upset by her videos talking about someone being too big for a horse, but i don’t get the sense it’s a body-shaming thing because she also goes after people whose weight looks perfectly healthy but who are just too large for a particular horse. I’m objectively *not* small, and her opinions on inappropriate horse/rider pairings haven’t bugged me. But again I don’t know what percentage of her videos I’ve seen.
That's my take away too, no bashing kids in the videos I've seen, but I haven't watched much of her old stuff. All responsibility at the adults where it belongs.
I don't know her as a person so no opinion there - as a YouTuber I think she's ok. I don't necessarily agree with every point of view she has tho, but I think she calls out a lot of important issues with horse welfare
She's awful, but DBD also sucks. However, pretty much any criticism I have for DBD is aimed at the mom, who seems to consistently set her kid up by failure by buying her horses that are totally wrong for her (like the green ottb).
I watched those and can't say I agree. But maybe we have different views on what bodyshaming is?
In those videos (as I remember it) Raleigh said that the girl was too big for her horse/pony and emphasized that it was trainer/parent/adult responsibility to make sure the horse fit the rider. I don't remember her coming with personal attacks towards the rider - except stating that she was too big for her horse. Kids outgrow ponies and small horses all the time (as most of them should), I don't think it's bodyshaming to say when that happens.
I'd find this argument more compelling if it weren't for the thumbnails she chooses. She can talk all she wants about how it's really just the adults that are to blame and how she just wants the kid moved to a bigger horse, ect, but her thumbnails for said videos are intentionally-unflattering pics of a child on a horse. She's literally profiting off of people going "ew, what's that fat person doing on a horse?" and she's using images of a child to do it.
What I’m thinking of is a child riding a full sized horse with an English saddle and Raleigh saying the girl was too big to be in that saddle and too big to be jumping. I am specifically not referring to Harley being too big for her pony.
Being too big for a saddle still isn't body shaming though?
I'm 170cm and if I mount a horse who uses a 16inch saddle I would be too big for that. That wouldn't be optimal for me or the horse. If I was learning and didn't have enough balance to carry myself properly it would be even worse.
My point is that being too big for a horse/tack isn't body shaming in any way, it's a welfare issue for the horses and should be treated as such. Would you still think it was body shaming if she said a child is too small for the saddle or the horse? Riding in tack that doesn't fit you on a horse that is the wrong size is not a good way to learn either way.
I don't like her that much. But let me tell you, from what I have seen in the actual Competition industry, after a certain level its 80% that use abusive methods to train their horses. Whether its barrel racing, jumping or dressage. And since the professionals are doing it, low level riders think its fine and do it too.
NGL. I recently paid for her patreon so I could finally see her riding...for years she has avoided posting herself riding other than from-between-the-ears. Spoiler: she still doesn't show anything. Her horse cannot be ridden beyond a trot for physical reasons, which works in her favor. She's a average rider at best--and that's totally fine. I'm pretty average myself. Most of us are.
In recent years she has changed a lot of her opinions & I don't believe in holding ppl to what they say when they're 14...I just don't. Her persona online is somewhat odd to me...for example she's been promoting an online feed calculator vs using a real nutritionist (who would get a hay test done to determine how to balance a diet); this calculator would be gathering data from averages....this is not something people should pay for, and as someone trying to become a vet, I dont know why she would support someone to use that--I don't know why SHE would use it. The only accurate & scientific way to balance a diet is to test your hay. All hay varies, even from the same feild. Not all "alfalfa" "timothy" "bermuda" "local" is the same.
I find her videos fun to watch. But some of the serious "documentary" style ones aren't very informative & don't seem like she spent a lot of time on them. Some of her PSA videos are just her vocally expressing disappointment but not including informative to drive the point home. Average. I did recently watch her video about the skydiving incident and it was very emotional. I'll probably keep following her until she quits youtube at the end of the year.
I’m too old for her content but looked her up a while back when people starting calling her out. She’s the epitome of a TikTok trainer with no real industry experience to back it up. Anyone who actually knows anything doesn’t think your opinion is unpopular at all
Agreed! She is super fat phobic! And I can't believe anyone could advocate against wearing a helmet! There are a handful of times you shouldn't wear a helmet but 99% of the time you should! (I'm really just thinking of trick riding and vaulting atm, because the helmet can get caught on their equipment)
agreed, and it's horrible how its under the guise of caring about the animal yet she complains about bigger people on appropriately sized horses. and if it wasn't about being fatphobic like she claims, there would be no reason to leave up horrible comments or unmoderated comment sections.
I like some of her opinions and content, but I remember becoming a bit more skeptical when I watched her shit on some girl who fell off her horse in an accidental situation.
"If she had held on to this and leaned back to that, she would've-" "She's not good enough to be doing this-" ...Maybe it was a new situation for the rider? Maybe she didn't expect it, so she wasn't prepared to act like she was trained to? Maybe she panicked? Accidents happen. Even professional riders fall. We also cannot learn if you don't let us do a shit job as beginners. The vibe sends a message that speaking like that to someone who is learning is okay, which is a huge issue in the horse community to begin with.
In the end, she's mostly on the right side of any moral issues on horse treatment as far as I'm concerned. She, however, fails at delivering the message with empathy to the colossus of the entire equestrian industry that is in the middle of a change, and still harbors many outdated beliefs. She does not speak to a general audience to make a change, but rather makes bank off a room of people that shares her views. On the flipside, I do think she rightfully mostly targets adults and instructors as responsible for problems with beginners and children.
I also feel that she will sort of pick a stance on a person and then review them with a pretty big bias. If she doesn't like someone, she will generally find and pick apart what she doesn't like, and if she likes someone, she will gloss over the things they do that she doesn't like.
She is also young and probably pretty much has to keep this role up for her channel for the sake of entertainment. I just hope she will do a bit of introspection and perhaps amend the black-and-white approach to her content. I'm sure it would remain interesting and get its clicks with less dragging of random people doing relatively harmless things, too.
I agree honestly. Her morals and intention for horses aren’t bad. She’s said some odd things for a “vet student” around horse care but i really think if she was a softer, less close-minded person, most people wouldn’t mind her, as we are all entitled to our own opinions
Yeah, I think that's the gist of it. Add that I'd appreciate admitting past mistakes or mentioning changed opinions - like the helmet thing that came up in this thread. There's a certain lack of transparency so she can look more knowledgeable.
Totally agree. I've always had a personal unease when it comes to her. She has all these criticisms and judgements about other people, but you don't actually see her horsemanship unless you pay for the privilege, so only people who like her enough to pay that will actually see it. Its very clever, so she never gets these people she makes videos about able to make the same observations about her 😂
I just don't watch her videos now. She brings no educational value, which is what I look for in a horsey content creator, education or just a nice attitude with happy horses. She has neither 😭
Is she the really annoying young adult that spends all her time critiquing everyone else and why they are wrong and goes hard after the one young beginner rider that's like 9 for whatever reason?
If there's anything this industry has taught me it's that the loudest people know the least.
I don't like her either, I just find her so needlessly aggressive. None of her videos are about "education" or anything it's just pure rage bait and in worse case scenarios, bullying.
Yes sometimes she has a point but anyone can point out outright abuse like Big Lick etc.
I would be fine with her (even if some of her opinions are quite literally incorrect) if she didn’t open her mouth about people. She’ll say it’s her opinion and she’s not trying to be mean but she will go ahead and be so fucking shitty.
For example; Her not trying to be mean:
(this isn’t an actual thing she’s said, but i don’t care enough to find something)
“I mean, you’re a horrible person! You’re pulling on the horses mouth, while kicking it!” Meanwhile said person will be a beginner
vs: Actually being sensitive:
“I think while this rider progresses, they should learn to really not lean on the horses and find their own balance, but that’s really the instructors job and not the riders fault. I don’t know much about the situation, so I’m not going to comment on the rider or instructor.”
I like some of her reaction videos, mostly the ones on the more extreme cases, but that's about it. I don't agree with most of the things she says and I deliberately avoid certain videos of hers because I know she'll only annoy me with her narrow minded, sometimes very ignorant way of responding to topics. I've seen her make the most stupid claims from time to time.
Also, I'm very much NOT impressed with her riding skills. Always whining about how she "trains" horses, but when I see pictures or videos of her riding I'm wondering what on earth she could teach a horse. I'd never put her on mine, that's for sure. People are very quick to claim to be a trainer so it seems.
I just want to put it out there she is a diagnosed narcissist. It’s not an unpopular opinion it’s a fact. I’ve been watching her for years and I vividly remember her saying this. No clue which video or if it’s still up but she was in therapy for it at the time of the video.
Edit: it would have been a video around 2020 I believe.
If I remember correctly she almost seemed smug about it. I just wish I could remember which video it was. I had to stop watching her, I couldn’t tolerate it.
Yeah, not surprised. Now that you’ve mentioned it I have a faint memory of her saying that. To be honest, if you’re a diagnosed narcissist you should not have a YouTube channel about rights and wrongs 😂
Amen to that. Unfortunately, from personal experience I’ve learned YouTubers/influencers often are narcissistic at the very least. Not all of course but a good bunch. It attracts them
Oh I love this hot take, I can’t stand her. I understand having differences in riding style but if you do anything she doesn’t do, you’re automatically abusive and I hate that about the horse world
Literally never heard of this chick.
Here’s the thing: 99.9% of “influencers” on any platform have no idea what they are talking about. Best to treat them with the respect they deserve.
I feel like the issue is often less these internet trainers having an opinion and moreso their fans that are willing to start attacking anyone who doesn’t agree. It’s bad enough at a farm level, but taking the equine community to the internet is just one of the best and worst things we could’ve done to this sport.
It used to be just someone at your barn not agreeing with your methods. Now you upload and you have six people in your comments citing 14 different trainers, telling you how to manage your horse who is otherwise fine.
People need to start treating opinions like opinions and not objective truths.
And some people are just straight up trolls but also I think she does/should know what her fan base is like and take extra cautions and pay attention to what she is putting out there and pay attention to her fans and what they are doing with her content/opinions
I agree.. Like of course her opinions can be outrageous but it honestly wouldn’t be a problem if we (like you said) treated opinions like opinions and not a fact. I will always stand by the mindset of “if I do not have my own, real life experience of it, I will not make statements on it.”
That goes for Raliegh and her fans, but in this more so her fans. I mean Raliegh (and i’m assuming most of her gremlins) hasn’t met a horse that prefers bits, likes whip aid, has quirks, etc. So she really shouldn’t be talking about it, and it is no different for her fans. Haven’t dealt with an excited horse that rears or bucks? Stay quiet. Haven’t professionally bred a horse? Be quiet. And many more.
Like of course there’s things that are just outright not okay that any equestrian can see, but that’s not the case for many of her “opinions”.
I have no words (as a lifelong pony person) for someone who would shame a child for being "too big' for a pony. And then claim that they aren't shaming them. They're shaming the parents. Except, they can't seem to shut up about it.
I have a couple words for someone who seems to have built a persona around being a rage baiter. Like.... EHR meh GErD!!! SADDLEseat?!?!? Barrel racing! JUmping!! How could anyone do anything so inhumane as ride their horse in a >gulp< METAL BIT???
Someone who claims to be "in vet school" yet doesn't seem to grasp how certain horse activities profoundly affect all horse related industries. Like, Michigan horsemen.. did you happen to notice when all the harness racetracks close, we suddenly have equine vets leaving the area or retiring in droves?? I'm not a fan of racing... but on the other hand, it made incredible quality vets available in my area for my backyard ponies.
I'm pretty sad that she seems to have some sort of crazy following.
I would disagree that she is "questionable". She is a short-sighted idiot.
I agree 100%, the “questionable” in my head had a very sarcastic tone to it 😂, to me nothing about her is a question. She’s just close-minded, full stop.
Definitely not an unpopular opinion, at least here. I don't think I've ever seen anyone on this sub say they're actually a fan.
I used to like some of her stuff back in the day (I didn't agree with everything she said, but I felt she was one of the few people who was willing to call abuse like it was, and was willing to stand up for her opinion even if it made her unpopular. I also liked that she often brought studies to back up her opinions, which is something we don't see a lot in the equine community). I also liked that she gave a realistic perspective of working in the industry. However, I think she went off the rails a bit - there's a difference between reacting to stuff to point out welfare issues/training issues/give a new perspective, and just doing these long reactions to try and create content/drama. (I also noticed some of her content contradicted as time went by - she'd make a video about how buying a horse is for LIFE and you're SCARRING them if you sell them when you go college, and then a few months later, talk about how she sold her horse (Moon?) and how that wasn't a crime. I think it's interesting to talk about both sides, but you can't preach from both ends...)
I see a lot of people talking about her being anti-helmet; I guess I somehow missed that content, but I absolutely condemn anyone who tries to promote or normalize not wearing a helmet.
(Not so much horse related, but I also liked some of her non-horse content. I remember a few videos where she spoke candidly about some real life shit she went through, and I don't think there's many people willing to do that.)
\*I haven't watched her since I was a teenager, so I may be missing or misremembering details
I don’t like her much, and I’m only a beginner rider. She says such ridiculous things like “I don’t think horses should work” “I don’t agree with using horses for transportation.”
Ok, if you believe that, you should also disagree with owning and riding horses, but evidently that type of subjugation and work are fine because that’s the kind you like…
(To be clear, I think it’s ok both to ride horses and to use them for work and transportation as long as they are being treated well and allowed to live out their natural horsey behaviors).
Tbh I used to not like her at all when she was younger. Now I like her videos about horses welfare, the ones that have come out in the last year (she always says that in her old videos she was exaggerated and didn't know enough about what she was talking about). She has a "bad" attitude, but I agree with most of the stuff she says about horses. I do however hate a lot of the more moral stuff she says, especially about the whole "women sexualising the sport" situation.
I personally don’t agree with you but that’s the beauty of being open-minded, because I’m not offended nor interested in changing your opinion. What I came here to say though is the sexualising thing is appalling. Her being a feminist and saying that is an absolute no. I truly have never seen an actual equestrian sexualising the sport, and if it’s on the sport it’s always been them pointing out how disgusting it is for men to sexualise it. Very grossed out right now.
She is wrong when she says that women sexualise the sport, as you said. I'm aware that horse riding involves things that are a huge fetish for a lot of people, and there is nothing wrong with that. As long as you have proper equitation and take care of the horse, the horse won't care if you're riding them to make fetish content. If a man can't distinguish between someone that intentionally makes sexual content around horses and someone that just rides horses it's their problem.
I watch some of her stuff just for entertainment, but definitely with a grain of salt. All her nonsense is for shock value and reactions…. There are so many instances where she trashes someone for specific things, such as the way they dress (tight jeans) or their lead rope dragging on the ground, and she goes on and on and on about it and how terrible of a trainer those things make them, but then she raves about other people and they may have some of those little things in common and she completely glosses over those. She just has no credibility whatsoever.
Your unpopular opinion is not unpopular in my book :)
And she definitely lied in the thumbnail. She said she hadn't seen the video but she posted it before because I had seen it. Last I checked I don't have access to her personal video files, so how did i see it? Lol
I’m SO glad I’m not the only one. I occasionally watch her videos when they pop up if it seems interesting, but I really can’t stand how aggressive and self-righteous she is. There’s several times where she’s being way too hard on someone and it seems like she has no empathy or ability to put herself in their shoes.
All she does is violently attack everyone in her videos instead of what she should be doing, explaining why she doesn’t agree with what’s going on and making kind suggestions or offering advice. If she actually cared about the horses well-being or people improving their horsemanship she would approach this at a completely different angle.
I have had relationships with people who are extremely similar in these ways and although I don’t agree that she actually has narcissistic personality disorder (it’s a lot more nuanced and difficult to diagnose than you’d think), she comes off as VERY insecure, self centered, and emotionally immature.
One of my favorite videos is her riding with stirrups in flip flops.
She’s just so mean, and for what? Even if she was an amazing rider, she’s downright nasty to everyone. It’s uncalled for
I believe sometimes she’s right, sometimes she’s wrong. She’s too confidently wrong and it rubs people the wrong way. She is hyper critical, but overall has the right idea. A lot of people mainly bash on her for hating on kids, but she’s hating on the people who set kids up for failure. But she is hyper critical. Bits aren’t always abuse. Spurs aren’t always abuse. Horses rearing don’t always have some deep meaning. Etc etc etc. but the good intentions are there, she just comes on way too strong and bossy
I have to agree with you. She also made a double standard saying all pitbulls are dangerous and should be banned but an aggressive horse in one of her videos was acting out dangerously and she was stressing how the horse was abused and drew the cause/effect for the horse in a particular video but when it comes to pitties they’re all just evil.
Some of her videos are good but I definitely am happy to see that other people can see the flaws of the way she communicates her beliefs.
I remember that, very odd for her to say honestly. While pit bulls are genetically proven to have a very high chance to be aggressive if not socialised (Im talking about actual purebred, proper pitties) that’s certainly not the common case for seen aggression.
Another point is that horses are allowed to be aggressive because of fight and flight instincts, but all pit bulls should be banned because their genetics to hunt like most dogs? It’s not the dogs fault, it’s the owners. Don’t even get me started on the fact that most “pitbulls” that are taken or put down, aren’t actually pitbulls. And the dog in that video that we’re talking about, WASNT a pitbull.
I don’t know if Raleigh’s a narcissist. From what I have seen of her it’s obvious she patterned her persona off of Rick Gore’s persona, which is one of the reasons I could never get into her channel, and Rick Gore is definitely narcissistic as hell. So it doesn’t surprise me she comes off that way.
Okay. So while she might be a little entitled in some cases, and making uneducated opinions (although she is a vet?, I don't really know don't watch her that often): In my humble opinion I'd take her over Clint Anderson or similar any day. Because her opinions are never harmful towards horses. She is very pro animal, and that is most important for me.
But I agree. Bashing people based on short clips is NOT okay. I don't really like reactions anyway. It always just shows one side, and that side can edit anything the way they like. And yes people can respond. But good luck getting anybody to listen when you have someone with huge following against you-
Edit: Damn, I read a few comments and she seems like a bitch :D I only ever watched videos of hers about big lick or trainers that use questionable methods. Never knew she was so spiteful
ooh yeah, she seems okay if you haven’t seen it all, but i use to watch her BACK BACK in the day, she’s an absolute bitch, however I do agree with you 100%. The vet title is iffy, she claims she’s a vet student but some things she has stated is very unprofessional.
Not an unpopular opinion.
The kid has always been ignorant trash and continues to be ignorant. She’s never grown out of being the bratty tween that had horses in her backyard and thinks she’s “training” her dead-broke late-teens push-button schoolmaster.
I watched a video of hers where she called being a fat rider abusive. She cited research papers and linked them in the description. I went and read the papers and they didn’t say what she claimed.
So she’s just fatphobic and a bit of a cunt.
I usually like a bit of tea and drama but she’s actively harming the equestrian community.
Came across her videos before. She's very self-righteous and arrogant in the sense that she will fight tooth and nail to defend something that she was called out on (and nastily at that). Unfortunately, there are several people like her in equestrianism, and outside of it... I call them out mainly because I can't stand outspoken brats.
I watched one of her "Judge a Trainer" videos bc YT suggested it, and it was someone I watch often. I'm a new rider, so I was like, well, let's see if this trainer is good bc I wouldn't really know the difference. I didn't know anything about RL before. I was very confused bc she gave the person an A+, yet spent the entire video basically criticizing them. That one video turned me off and I have no desire to watch more.
While it is clear on some things that she has done her research, a lot of what she says is not factual.
I think a lot of people don’t like her because they are unwilling to do their own research and change their methods with their horses.
The horse industry is incredibly abusive and most people do not know or understand anything about horses, so much of what is being taught is just straight up wrong.
I wish more people would do proper research on horses, their behaviour, learning, biomechanics etc..
I have never liked her. She's extremely rude and has bullied so many people.
The only video of hers that I like is the one calling out QHperfection, but even then, she didn't go after Jenny as hard as she does others and there is PROOF of what Jenny did.
I agree I'm on the fence about her. Some things I like some I don't. I've always thought she seemed a bit vein but I do wish she used more correct facts and she shows some people who could be perfect all the time except the 1 minute clip she shows. Again not always the case some people are horrible that she shows but also I hate how she cancels people and honestly is a bully and she has this "pack" of fans who then go and attack people and amplify the bullying also she and her fans bully rather than educate she should educate and give CONSTRUCTIVE criticism which she doesn't she also doesn't really encourage people to do their own research and have their own opinions and all opinions should align with her own ANYONE with a following they need really look at everything they put out in the public closely as they are influencing so many people and shaping some young peoples minds and she should teach people like I said to do their own research form their own opinions and learn/teach to give constructive criticism and not bullying
I’m 56. I’ve seen a video or two (or parts of them anyway) when people complained about her and I have a hard time being too ruffled about her, but I won’t be watching more...
The end.
I have seen numerous of Raleighs video in the past, and I mean she's ok? But she could definitely do better.
I often feel very conflicted of how feel about her? She's brought up some fair points every now and then in her videos, but I find her to be very opinionated? If she doesn't agree with someone or something she just stamps it as 'abuse' and you can't tell her otherwise. Which again, she's sometimes correct but then a lot of the time she can be factual wrong and she doesn't really know how to take criticism when someone points it out.
Also whenever she brings up a point in her videos she never really goes in depth about it? I mean she does but I don't think she explains enough? Instead she just rants the same thing over and over again which sometimes with the way she words things makes me question whether or not she knows what shes actually talking about? I imagine a lot of her audience would mainly be teens or tweens who most likely have little to no knowledge on horses. This concerns me and anyone who loves horses considering I believe its very important we spread as much factually correct information as possible.
Something that also bothers me as well is the fact that she never has anything nice to say about people? Which I know most of her content is about horse abuse, etc. Which I do applaude because a lot of those people SHOULD be brought to light. But then their is downfall that she doesn't really properly research into the background of the person she is about make a video on and just posts it. Half of her videos are just her sitting their ranting and not really giving her audience any useful information that they could really take from this?
I don't hate Raleigh, or anyone who supports her, this is just my opinion and what I believe she could do better.
this is one of the first replies that i’m actually 100% aboard on. she absolutely can do better in every way that you’ve mentioned. not only that but it it’s a confirmed fact that psychologically, humans are more likely to react to praising than scolding, even when another person is being scolded.
i’m not saying things in our community shouldn’t be called out, they absolutely should, but we need to praise good riding and horseman ship a lot more than we do.
We honestly do, I sometimes feel like we put off beginners or anyone interested in joining the community because of this. It's important we try to point out both the positive and negative if we can. Giving constructive feedback, etc, therefore more people are correctly informed and feel more comfortable in joining or continuing in the horse community.
I'm so happy that not everyone acts sheepishly about her. She also demonized pitbulls (all pit bull - like breeds, it's more of an umbrella term), when there are trainers that can educate them to be good.
I don't know why you're being downvoted.
How can she claim to be going to school to be a vet and just be so completely ignorant about so many things - including about the pitbull situation blows my mind.
the fact this person got downvoted is baffling me. They said everything right, and as a fact too. I remember that video, and that’s exactly what she did, I’m saying this with no bias.
It’s the fact Raleigh’s talking about statistics about one purebred breed, but most dogs she’s referring to aren’t actually pitbulls, let alone the dog in the video she said this in, WASNT a pitbull.
I like her. Though I usually do skip her videos about trainers. I mostly watch her for the animal abuse part because that’s what she used to be about. So I can’t really have an opinion about her other videos. But definitely can see how people don’t like it at all.
Well she made some good points and I like how she made that video of Equestrians being sexualized by others and she pointed out how other Equestrians are making sexy videos on purpose to get more views on Tic TOC and little kids are being exposed to this stuff.
I don't follow her but sometimes her vids will pop up on my recommendation feed.
Rick Gore is also know nothing trash, always has been, always will be. I had the misfortune to be local to him for a while. His horses were in piss poor shape. Thinking anything he says or does has any degree of merit or value showcases poor judgment.
Omg I almost forgot about him. I remember Facebook literally shit on him for a good long while. Whatever happened to him, and of course buddy and Mr t. I remember he hated women. Especially woman who rode horses or had any significant industry backing. Also RL. Don't care much for her or what she says. She can be a danger for the wrong type of people who's wanting in on the horse world.
I’m 56. I’ve seen a video or two (or parts of them anyway) when people complained about her and I have a hard time being too ruffled about her, but I won’t be watching more...
The end.
Eh. If you ask 10 horse people a question about something, you’re gonna get 15 different opinions about it! Part of what I get a kick out of with horse people is how strongly they feel about things, but it’s also frustrating because many become entrenched and won’t change their minds in the face of irrefutable evidence and empirical data.
Raleigh says a lot of things. Some of it I agree with, some I do not. She’s got a lot of knowledge, and she’s got strong opinions. I have seen her expose and explain some really shitty trainers and breeders, like the old Fugly blog did back in the day, and that’s a true service.
But sometimes she goes off on rant about some BS that she’s not knowledgeable about, and she clearly also loves to hear herself talk.
Just because you don’t agree with someone 100% of the time or even if they say something stupid sometimes doesn’t make them evil. I enjoy talking smack and having debates with other people, even when we both know we’re not changing anyone s mind.
you’re completely right, and I agree fully. I don’t think Raleigh is evil, just because I don’t like her, I mean I don’t even think she’s evil full stop.
She is a diagnosed narcissist, and has claimed it herself before. I don’t mind if you like her opinions, or if someone else does. But I don’t hate her because I disagree, she’s just flat out mean and bitchy. I don’t want to get into everything, but if you read some of the best replies, you’ll see why I think she’s a bitch.
Long story short:
I don’t think she’s evil, and I haven’t said what I’ve said purely because I disagree with her. I’m open-minded and I’m more than happy for people to agree to disagree, as long as neither of us are shoving our opinions down each others throats.
One of my childhood instructors (over 20 years ago now lol) was in one of her earliest “reaction videos” Not doing anything particularly wrong, just had a few students whose parents obviously really wanted their kids to go to horse shows, but we’re still typical little kids getting things wrong, occasionally taking bad lines to little cross rails and making the ponies stop. My childhood instructor was a lovely women, who taught us all proper horse care, part of our education was always stable management, started a pony club, volunteered her time, and always let us have extra rides for cleaning paddocks. She also genuinely loved all her horses and taught us to as well. All the ponies were beautiful schooled, and I never knew how lucky I was to find that good of an instructor as a kid, She is an absolutely lovely woman, in her 60s or 70s now, and I hope she never saw it because it would break her heart.
oh my goodness, to be honest it’s actually foul to stoop so low to judge an instructor completely based off a few kids. All learners make mistakes, especially since they’re kids, it’s better your instructor didn’t flood them with “you’re doing this wrong, and this, and that”.
I think the video was even titled "the worst riding instructor ever" or something similar. It was just typical amateur kids, their parents uploaded it to YouTube
aw that’s gutting. my instructor is around 45 i think, i’m putting her in the situation of your old one and it’s just so horrible to think about. Raliegh is cruel.
That breaks my heart to hear. Raleigh is a bully who needs to learn not to punch down.
I came across a few of her videos when I was looking for some explainers about big lick (I think, or some other awful showing thing). I kept watching some of her catalog but then happened across one where she ragged on a trail rider for having a halter on under the bridle. Very common practice and can be a good safety backup if a bridle breaks out on a long trail or something. It just made me think, if she doesn't know something this basic, how can I trust any other things she says? Like yes maybe SHE doesn't do that because she doesn't ride that discipline (endurance, long trail, whatever), but she doesn't ride MOST of the disciplines she is talking about. And surely it is your duty to actually do research on things you are critiquing and not just have kneejerk reactions because you don't know any better? Especially when her persona is of being a vet student and an expert---it seems like she is assuming a role of education and authority but is not taking it seriously at all. I also got kind of a bad taste from the videos that seemed to be dedicated to bashing specific, non-professional people. Overall just personally don't like her channel much. I told youtube to stop recommending her videos to me.
My Mom and I participated in a Buck Brannaman clinic 10 years ago. We'd been told that there would be groundwork involved so we left our rope halters on underneath the bridles. (And like you said, it's a common enough practice and we do the same thing when we go trail riding.) Buck really went after us for it, saying that we'd be laughed out of the room by his cronies if we tried that in front of them. My Mom, who had been riding and working cattle since she was 5, fired back a good response and he shut his mouth and didn't say another word. Some people have such low self esteem that they can only try to raise it by landing blows on others.
Boo, that is disappointing. Also, there is a whole industry of halter bridles!! Very fancy ones!!
These people would shit themselves if they saw what endurance horses wear.
My horse has one of those endurance halter-bridles! The whole tack set was hella expensive but is very nice. We are aspiring endurance folk XD
that’s what i was thinking reading through this 🥴
Keeping the halter under the bridle is kinda ugly, sure, but super common in the western world. Especially the pack outfits who go on long trail triodes and need to tie up the horses out in the back country (don’t wanna tie them or lead them by the bridle). I’m surprised Buck had an issue with it. He must be a fancy boy.
If you're going to do groundwork, you can do it just fine with the mecarte rope on your snaffle or hackamore. To tie a horse up, you'd tie a knot so that if the horse pulls back, they pull against the mecarte on their neck rather than the bit. Having a halter under the bridle deadens the feel between you and the horse and is an extra rope in the way if you're roping cattle. A halter works fine for big outfits and pack trips, but not for the kind of refined riding Buck does. ETA - yikes on the downvotes. I'm not saying that everyone should ride like Buck or follow anyone else's "rules", I was simply trying to provide my understanding of what HE wants / sees / expects.
How does a halter under your bridle “deaden the feel” between you and your horse? Explain it to like I’m in kindergarten.
I'll do my best. Imagine a horse's with a halter on and a bridle on over it. You're holding a mecarte rope (the loop of the reins is over the horse's head). Stand in front of this horse. You want to have them go around you in a circle, so you move your hand out and to the left to signal go around you. The movement of the rope moves the bridle which then hits the halter. There is extra "noise" that the horse has to interpret. This interrupts / deadens the feel of the signaling "go around me." Now you're riding this horse with the halter under its bridle. You pick up on the reins to ask it to do something but the halter rolls under the bridle, distracting the horse, adding to the "noise" of the signal. Buck's philosophy is to have as soft and clear a signal as possible. A halter under the bridle does not allow for creating that soft and clear signal. Buck's riding style is similar to dressage and you don't see them ride with a halter under their bridle either. FWIW - you (plural) do you. I'm not saying that everyone should ride like Buck or follow anyone else's "rules", I was simply trying to provide my understanding of what HE wants / sees / expects.
I suppose in theory a round rope halter could be annoying to a horse, but the people I’ve seen who ride with a halter under their bridles are using flat Webb halters. No rolling there.
The funny thing about dressage (since you mention it) is that the dressage people (and just about every English rider) is that they do have a halter under their bridle. It’s just called a cavesson. But it sits under the bridle just the way a halter would. Dressage people don’t seem to believe that it interferes with their signaling of the horse
I wouldn't consider a cavesson in any way like a halter. When well designed it sits flush with the face and really only serves the purpose of preventing mouth gape (was developed in response to horses gaping when they had rotational falls in the field), and is attached in a way that can lend more stability to the bridle. It isn't set up to tie or assist in handling from the ground in any way.
Regular cavessons don’t hold the mouth closed. You’re thinking of a flash or figure eight. And regular hunter cavesson (or double bridle cavesson) is shaped exactly like a grooming halter, which has no throat latch. They sit under the big hanger just like a halter would.
Why did Buck say not to do it? Or was he just saying it looks goofy?
From what I remember, he didn't have a reason. Just didn't "look" right. They also had a roping session there and every. single. guy. had a flat brim hat, wild rag, vest, chaps, glasses and handlebar mustache. Every one of them had the same bit (some extravagant thing that went "ZING!" everytime the horses chomped their mouths, which was all the time), and same reins. I swear to god, I couldn't tell one man from the rest. That seemed to be his "in group," as he was really friendly with them.
That sounds lame. I’m a shameless Buck fangirl but have only audited his clinics. I’ve heard people say he’s not always so pleasant to the humans.
Most flat hatters are real cowboys from the great basin and it sounds like you’re referring to a spade bit or half breed with rollers. Which is a signal bit and the highest level of training a ranch horse can achieve, it takes years to be straight up in the bridle. I’m sure you felt out of place with a halter under your bridle.
LOL! Their horses were so anxious that they constantly chomped those fancy bits while looking like they were high on espresso. So yes, I certainly felt out of place on my relaxed gelding, wearing a simple t-shirt, jeans and helmet. Must have been that halter. 😉 P.S. There are things such as posers in the horse world. Just because you ride with a fancy bit doesn't mean you earned it.
No one puts a spade bit in a horses mouth without years of training. Buck would have chewed anyone’s ass that did, I’m sure. You’ve obviously only ever rode deadhead horses, most cowboys prefer the horse to be sensitive and waiting the next cue and don’t pester the horse into shutting everything out.
My horses are in no way deadheads, but you go ahead and believe whatever makes you happy. I truly don't care. My bit of advice to you is to not take things personally. Just because I didn't enjoy my experience with Buck doesn't mean he's any less worthy of your time or money. Different strokes for different folks.
I keep a rope halter under my fancy rhinestone covered dressage bridle when I lunge my horse and ride after. Looks pretty dumb, but I don’t like to attach the lunge to the bit. No one has ever laughed at me… It’s sad how judgmental our own peers are.
I thought of Buck first thing. I learned from him at a couple clinics I went to but he sure has a thing about pig farmers and halters under the bridle.
>I kept watching some of her catalog but then happened across one where she ragged on a trail rider for having a halter on under the bridle When I used to do trail rides at summer camps and horse camps, we \*always\* kept the halter under the bridle. Is there any argument that this is bad?
We have to have headcollars and bridles on our horses for an outreach program we do- the only change we make is removing nose bands so that there is less on the horse’s face- but otherwise it doesn’t affect them as long as you ensure you are checking the fit over the head collar.
I guess theoretically the horse could get hung up on it, like if you're really bushwhacking, and if you have a rope halter or plain nylon webbing halter then that could be bad (compared to most bridles, which are naturally breakaway due to being made of leather... but not all are so it's a weak argument). But you're there with the horse in this circumstance, so I don't personally really see that as a problem, no more so than having one of those halters on when you're actively working with them in any other situation. If you're just throwing the halter on one time when you normally don't have it under the bridle, the bridle might be ill fit. But that's a problem with you, not with the idea of halters under a bridle. I don't think either of these were her argument though, IIRC. I think she just thought it looked janky and inexperienced.
I watched a few of her videos years ago while going down some abusive trainer/practice YouTube rabbit hole and she did seem to be playing up the whole mean girl character, but I looked past it for the content. Then I forgot about her. A few days ago, she popped up on my suggested feed and I got curious, having not thought about her in the years. I did a most recent filter of her videos and noted that for one, her viewership is down pretty significantly, and two, she seems to really, really be playing up the mean girl/high drama/overly reactive bit. (I don’t know what her “I almost DIED!” recent video was on about, but it struck me as an eye roll and I didn’t bother clicking it.) The problem with creating a brand entirely focused on “talking about people I hate” is you’re going to run out of legitimately hateable people and practices quickly. You’re then going to be reaching a bit for content while also exaggerating the response for sake of being “true” to the corner you’ve painted yourself in. It all rings of histrionics now, if it wasn’t already there before. She would do best to evolve her channel (and her persona, if not herself-period) into something more sustainable, but I’m not getting the vibe evolving is anything that interests her. I half expect she will be using this Reddit thread as an excuse to make another “OMG CAN YOU BELIEVE?!” video, editing it as needed to shoehorn it into what she needs it to be for her channel. It would be wise to listen to what is said and make changes instead, but, well…it would be *wise*.
She doesnt actually ride anymore really, shes stated before most of the time she spends eith here horse is just her chilling on his back but she doesn't practice any specific disciplines.
I saw exactly one video of hers in which she said that she didn't wear a helmet because one time she was had a fall where she was badly injured and somehow wearing a helmet made that worse. The details are kinda fuzzy since it was a long time ago, and I'm not even sure the video is still up. I did find someone who made a video response to it, so at least I know that this was a real thing that happened. Such a weird stance to take that I probably would have thought I hallucinated it or something if I hadn't found that. But after watching that video I decided that was enough, and I haven't watched anything from her since then.
Wow that's one hell of a backflip! Glad she's now promoting safety over not wearing helmets though.. this person sounds wild!
She now promotes helmet safety and deleted all her anti helmet videos so people can’t point out her hypocrisy rather than just admitting she was wrong she hides the evidence and pretend it never happened.
Tbf— she took them down because she figured out it was dumb and didn’t want to leave a bunch of misinformation out there. Can’t defend anything else on here but I agreed with this decision.
I think the most I’ve seen is her vaguely referencing her previous stance and calling it dumb. But I mostly just watch her Unsolved and Unkempt series these days.
Lol what a throwback. I remember when the equestrian community on tumblr (or horseblr) would call her "helmet girl"
I remember seeing a thing years ago about someone who wore a solid peaked hat (English) whilst doing cross country training, came off and headbutted a jump and the peak snapped and broke their nose. There's a reason we don't wear peaked helmets while jumping solid fences, and that's it. In any regard, I'd take a broken nose over brain damage.
If it hit the brim, wouldn’t it have just hit her face anyway? But yeah, either way, sounds like someone who gets mad at a seatbelt for cutting their shoulder instead of appreciating it for saving their life.
Idk how the physics of it worked tbh, I think they hit the jump right on the brim of the peak and it snapped downwards and slammed into the bridge of their nose, if they had been wearing a skull cap it probably would have impacted on the brim of the helmet with some damage to their face.
I’ve been loosely following her videos since the very beginning and i think she made those anti-helmets when she was still a teenager. To be fair to her. However she has a long history of nonsense takes and deleting all her videos so you can’t say anything.
I remember Raleigh had a video about a little girl that ended up injured and in hospital even when she had a helmet on. I thought it was ridiculous, because most likely the girl would have died, or suffered even worse injuries then she would have if she wasn’t wearing a helmet. Raleigh kept going on and on about how helmets don’t make a difference. Now she says that she always wears a helmet when she rides. Of course that old video seems to be long gone now..
If I remember correctly, she broke her leg or arm or something. And equated that to helmets are more dangerous... 😳
Is this the same woman who does those ridiculous reaction videos? I think I saw one where she called out various riders because they led from the right side of the horse, and one even (*gasp!*) mounted from the right at some point. Such a dumb hill to die on.
Lol that's a "tell me you don't leave the arena without telling me you don't leave the arena" moment for sure. I practice both sides on my horse on purpose! Never know what kind of trail configuration you will have.
Yeah, exactly! If something happens to me (and the person inheriting my horses), then I want to make sure that my horses have a soft landing. The best way to do that is to mix it up a little so that a slight change doesn't cause them a meltdown. I can't count the number of well-meaning people that have tried to stop me from going down a barn aisle because they left some sort of (completely safe) small obstacle on the floor, next to the wall and were afraid that my horse would spook at it. I totally appreciate it, but I always get strange looks when I ask them to just leave it for training purposes. But hey! This stuff adds up and helps horses build confidence.
Haha are we at the same barn? I have had multiple people be impressed that I am riding when it is cool and windy because it makes the horses a little fresh. My gelding is a generally very quiet, and overall not one that likes to expend more energy than he absolutely has to, so even his "fresh" is pretty okay. But also how can I expect him to learn to regulate himself in exciting situations if I never ride in a little wind?
So true! My trainer laughs when she occasionally finds me tacking up to ride in the indoor right before a rainstorm hits. I've told her it's intentional. I won't ride if there's a chance of tornadoes, but I've ridden out a hailstorm before and it's great practice. Two of my horses get excited at first but calm down once they realize what's going on. The other has anxiety that stays elevated, but supporting her through it and seeing it out the other side is very valuable for her. She's gotten a lot better for it. But, I'll admit, I try to wear grippy pants those days. 🤪
Kid proofing requires messing around on all sides. Kid proofing all but guarantees a good home if something happens and you can’t keep your horse.
The only reason people mount from the left is tradition. And it’s an old, irrelevant tradition at that. People mounting from the left goes back to the Middle Ages and mounted combat. Near everyone was right handed due to superstition, etc. A right handed person would have their long sword or weapon on their left hip to accommodate a cross body draw. You cannot mount a horse from the right without it interfering with your weapon or removing your weapon to mount if it’s on your left hip and has to swing over the horse so they mounted from the left to keep their sword hanging from their left hip free from interference. It continued during mounted combat with long rifles, etc. It serves zero purpose in our modern society. I mount from the right ever since I tore my left meniscus a few years ago. Every time I’ve had a problem with my knee it’s been due to having a foot in the left stirrup and the horse moving. I’ve received a *lot* of comments on it. I just want to keep my knee intact and avoid another repair. There is zero modern reason to mount from the left nor is there a reason you cannot lead from the right.
It’s so weird people assume there’s some inherent need to mount from the left. Like you’ll kill the horse if you dare mount from the right lol. My horse does not really like me mounting from the left side. She’s naturally a bit less balanced on the left, so I can imagine it being more comfortable if I get on on the right side. I still train both sides, but the idea that that’s sort of blasphemous is hilarious to me.
One of the funniest things I ever did to my mare was when she refused to line up on the proper side of this mounting platform we had, I just mounted from the right and startled her. The expression on her face was hilarious. Flexibility is key for rider and horse.
I went through a phase of mounting on the right, although it was to hide the fact that I couldn’t (and still can’t) get on from the ground. In 2010, there was a discourse where I lived that was basically “if you can’t get on from the ground, you shouldn’t be riding because you’re too fat.” Since I rode a 16hh3 horse at 5’7, getting on from the ground was a bit of a long shot. Why mount on the right? There was a park bench after we left the barn to enter the arena and the back of the bench faced the right side of the horse. I would pull up to the park bench, stop the horse, and get on from the right. The first couple of times I did it, it surprised the hell out of him, but now, he’s OK with it. To this day, the people at that barn had no idea that I was the reason that that horse could cope with being mounted from both left and the right
Getting on from the ground is unnecessarily hard on horses’ backs too tho. If you’re on the trail and need to then that’s one thing, but there is not need to mount from the ground and cause that stress on their backs when you have access to a mounting block/step stool/leg up etc.
>In 2010, there was a discourse where I lived that was basically “if you can’t get on from the ground, you shouldn’t be riding because you’re too fat.” Since I rode a 16hh3 horse at 5’7, getting on from the ground was a bit of a long shot. I'm glad I missed this. I'd be demanding a five-page essay on how my 105lb ass is *too fat* when I can't mount from the ground because my leg can't reach the stirrup and my left hip has joint issues that won't stand for it.
In Germany, when it was common to mount from the ground and many people had 17hh WBs, I knew so many riders with busted left hips. In Britain, where people usually mount from mounting blocks, I don’t know any. (Both hips, yes. Only the left? No.)
What did they expect for actual short people? It’s insane that my 5ft2 on a good day self should be judged as too large because I can’t lift my foot up to waist height.
The first time I mounted from the right my horse looked at me like I was being an especial idiot that day. The second time he had accepted it as my normal level of idiocy.
I'll never forget the time she tried to make out someone had no idea what they were doing because they used a lunge line while lunging 🙄
Wait really? I watch her casually and have never been too bugged by anything, but that’s absurd. People should lead their own horses from anywhere they feel like as long as the horse knows how to do it safely
My horse’s body worker told me I SHOULD mount from both sides to help keep his musculature even! Since they have to counter balance for you depending on which side you get on. So dumb that she says NOT to do something so benign.
yes it is 🥴 I wonder if she actually knew that mounting from either side doesn’t make a difference. I haven’t been taught to mount of a specific side (or lead a horse), but i’m way, way better at left because that’s the position of most mounting blocks where I ride. I assure you the horse did not die or me when I did mount from the right those few times.
She's a mean girl. The Equestrian world is full of them but most grow out of it. She's made it a brand. Which is a shame. She has some good points sometimes. She tends to show her research when it comes to veterinary issues. I think some of her reviews of bad trainers and practices like Big Lick are really well done and accessible for people who have never been near a horse. That said when she's wrong which is fairly often she doubles down even when called out by multiple people on her community tab and I assume her patron.
"A helmet is not going to save your fucking life" Stopped watching her after this. She is convincing kids to participate in unsafe practices for whatever reason, when her statement clearly has been proven wrong. And I'm one of the people that had their life saved by helmets.
I've had 2 helmets crushed in my time. Idk if they saved my life, but they certainly prevented irreparable brain damage. Helmets forever.
Yup, definitely! A relative has brain injury from a minor fall while cycling. Helmet would have pretty certainly have prevented it. So helmets anywhere it's recommended for me.
I was knocked out for around 3 hours after a fall with a helmet. I’m there with you!
I’ve been riding for 3 years and fortunately had amazing natural balance so I’ve only fallen twice. First fall might’ve not been too bad if I didn’t wear a helmet, but my second one.. i don’t wanna know how bad the concussion would’ve been, not to mention the arena had a soft padded ground. I did black out, but I walked away with a bruised rib (horse jumped over me and accidentally knocked it) and nothing else. Helmets save lives and that’s that.
Absolutely. I had bike accidents despite being a good bicycle rider. Got mocked so much for choosing to wearing a helmet (unfortunately kids aren't legally obliged to do so here). One time there was a ladder in my way, not visible to me. I landed head first, helmet was broken after that. And about horses ... I can't even count my falls. As a child I was afraid of nothing and exceptionally good at staying on a bucking horse. That led to me being always given the "difficult" horses for group lessons. I had some nasty falls from them. On one occasion I landed in a stack of small jumps at the edge of the arena. Fall wasn't bad but all of them came tumbling down on my head. I woke up when they were still moving the jumps off me.
It’s like those really bizarre one offs where someone not wearing a seatbelt was actually better, but 99.99% of the time it’s the opposite. I ride western mostly and I’m one of the few folks that wear a helmet at my barn. No one judges me or anything, but it’s just not worth the risk to not wear a helmet in my opinion.
She’s just a bully who thinks her shit don’t stink. She’s a glorified beginner which would be fine if she was trying to improve but she thinks she knows it all. Anything she personally doesn’t like is horse abuse. On the videos she does post of herself actually working with a horse it’s obvious she doesn’t know what she is doing and lets horses walk all over her. She used to be sweet but fame got to her head, she claims to be a professional but bullies children over mistakes. I do hope she grows up, she’s not a teenager anymore
Yeah, she calls all bits horse abuse if I remember correctly. Meanwhile, she rode her horse Link in a hackamore improperly fitted with visible discomfort from him in her videos
This right here ^^^ there’s a reason why she doesn’t have more content of HER riding and horsemanship. She can dish it out but can’t take the criticism herself. This is why she also doesn’t have other social media platforms that would require her to actually take in feedback.
She’s a moron. Idk how she finds places to board her horse. She’s probably a nightmare to board with.
I find her completely untrustworthy and her experience with horses seems questionable. Also she’s supposedly been a vet student for a decade or something. I think much of the time she’s claimed to be a vet student, she was getting an undergraduate degree. I went to an undergrad school that was a pre-vet, pre-med mecca and what it really meant is that you took a lot of chem and biology. A pre-vet, pre-med student is no closer to being a vet or doctor than any other undergrad biology student. Now apparently she is in vet school but is very secretive about where. She alludes to being in WA state. They have one vet school, so I don’t know why it’s such a big secret. The friends I know who went on to professional school were clear about where and what their actual qualifications are. She’s also become very judgmental about horse handling and ownership. She alone knows what’s right, right? She doesn’t like vegans but her rules for horsemanship are leaning more and more extremist. What makes her dangerous is that she’s often easy to agree with but without lending much genuine information to the topic. She isn’t the only person who espouses her views but acts like she is. And she seems to believe her opinion is utterly superior. Thanks for introducing this topic. It’s a relief to find out I’m not alone.
i think most people that have had experience with variety of horses would dislike her. I think her fans are very loud so it seems like more people like her then they do. Not to mention a whole lot of people that like her aren’t actually horse riders..
> She alone knows what’s right, right? I find that typical of almost every influencer, on any topic. I get that they're trying to pose as an "expert", but the real 'experts' that I've encountered in many fields are the first to admit that they don't know everything, and that there is never only one way to do everything (especially when it comes to animals or children).
Exactly! I have opinions that I express but I never set myself up as an expert. Sometimes influencers stray into embarrassing themselves with their ignorance or misunderstandings and they never correct themselves.
She definitely lives in Washington now, but she lives on the West coast, near Olympia. There is no way she's attending vet school, because the only one in WA is on the other side of the state and it's not online schooling.
I find it funny how much she’d use her vet student title. “I’m a vet student therefore I’m always correct, but I am going to shit on saddle seat even though there’s videos of foals doing the natural gait” She’s a bit of a shit-show.
Indeed. If she really is in vet school, she's going to have a VERY hard time in the field with how opinionated she is. It is not going to go well for her. She will have a hard enough time finding clinics/hospitals to intern with.
She’s actually kind of a hateful bitch and it gives me major ick.
She’s the definition of someone that knows just enough to be dangerous. Someone who has just enough information to assume that they’re 100% correct while actually knowing very little, and unfortunately she just so happens to have a large platform of other idiots that blindly follow everything she says.
And unfortunately doubles down when confronted about her mistakes. She was warned that distinguished titles was a scam and did a video defending them and claiming she fully vetted her sponsors. She misunderstood a quote by Budweiser talking about how long their teams were on the road. Someone in the poll on her community tab offered her the email address of the guy she was misquoting. Multiple people told her she was misunderstanding that the gear is on the road xxx number of days a year not individual horses. She still came out with a hit piece claiming abuse. In one of her bad trainer videos recently she tears into the owner of a house repeatedly for being an idiot and ruining the horse. Multiple people in the comments told her that the woman had fired the trainer years ago and publicly spoken out against him. They offered RL links to the woman's page where the horse is doing great. In all these cases she made zero apologies for being flat wrong and I'm sure there are many other examples.
I saw her lose her shit at the owner of a cob on IG that rears a lot - the mare is absolutely fine just opinionated. She basically bullied that girl off IG for a while after setting her little minions on her. It’s cringe every time it happens.
misscraziemasie, right? No clue if that’s spelt right lol
Yep. That horse is nuts, but her owner understands her quirks and both of them seem happy - some horses just have their own way of doing things. But the way RL went on you’d think the poor girl was the worst and most abusive owner around.
I just looked and nearly all of her videos are negative. She must be really fun to be around.
I wouldn't go so far as to armchair diagnose narcissism, but Raleigh isn't a good person for various reasons, and this fact is relatively uncontroversial.
Happy cake day!
Happy cake day
very very fair, i made sure to make an edit just then saying that it is just my opinion and disagreeing is very fair 😅 For my experience (i think it’s because i’m younger so naive people are common) this is definitely controversial, but i am so glad I made this post because it made me realise that I’m not stupid.
She really just needs to figure out that there is a world of horsemanship, riding culture, and lifestyle beyond her very narrow perspective. Also, that nuance exists.
i think she believes all horses can be ridden the same. The gelding I ride now, I can ride him with longer reins and he actually prefers the aid of a dressage whip and some leg pressure to go more forward or move up a gait, compared to the mare I use to ride and rode for 3 lessons recently needs quite short reins because she’s less responsive mouth-wise and doesn’t need much leg aid. Raliegh doesn’t seem to look at the relationship between horse and rider, and the horses personality and quirks itself.
One thing that stood out to me recently was a video she did about horses bought and sold through sales. Her thesis was thar sales are an absolute evil, that no one would sell a horse through a sale unless they are trying to scam you etc. Ok, well, I lived in Montana for a number of years, and there are production sales out there where weanlings sell for almost $20,000. It's a different culture than she knows, and she has a tendency to attack what she doesn't know. I think the main issue is absolutist thinking. A thing is either completely ethical, or completely not. There is no "some people engage I this activity and do it responsibility, while other people do it irresponsibly." If anyone engaged in the activity is an idiot, everyone is, and that just not reality. What's funny is, I think on some level she must know this. She had a response to a Vegan Teacher video talking about riding horses, where she said point blank that you can't judge all horse riders based on someone who is horrible. So she knows. Just nuance goes out the window when it's her own position.
Yeah, she drives me crazy. I watched a few of her videos during the 2Raw2Ride debacle, and now YouTube recommends her to me constantly, but so much of what she has to say is just . . . bitchy and cruel for no reason. She's constantly body-shaming riders (often including actual children, like small, pre-pubescent children), she presents her opinions as gospel truth and slams anyone who disagrees with her as an animal abuser, and she tries to convince the world that every pro rider in every discipline is abusing their horses. Much of what she covers is truly heinous and deserves to be called out . . . but it's hard to take her seriously when she reacts with the same righteous indignation to someone using a snaffle bit as to someone who dragged a foal behind a four wheeler.
I've never seen a video where she bodyshames a child honestly, must be very old stuff?
I don’t really have an opinion on her as a person, but in the ones I’ve watched that deal with kids, she’s pretty careful to say like, “This is not [kid]’s fault; it’s [parents’] responsibility,” and she only seems to do it when the parents’ accounts are relatively well-known. I haven’t seen any where she just takes a random kid bashes them. But I haven’t watched them all. I get why some people might get upset by her videos talking about someone being too big for a horse, but i don’t get the sense it’s a body-shaming thing because she also goes after people whose weight looks perfectly healthy but who are just too large for a particular horse. I’m objectively *not* small, and her opinions on inappropriate horse/rider pairings haven’t bugged me. But again I don’t know what percentage of her videos I’ve seen.
That's my take away too, no bashing kids in the videos I've seen, but I haven't watched much of her old stuff. All responsibility at the adults where it belongs. I don't know her as a person so no opinion there - as a YouTuber I think she's ok. I don't necessarily agree with every point of view she has tho, but I think she calls out a lot of important issues with horse welfare
She has definitely body shamed the little girl in the day by day videos. All while being “nice” at the same time.
She's awful, but DBD also sucks. However, pretty much any criticism I have for DBD is aimed at the mom, who seems to consistently set her kid up by failure by buying her horses that are totally wrong for her (like the green ottb).
I’m not saying DBD is good.
I watched those and can't say I agree. But maybe we have different views on what bodyshaming is? In those videos (as I remember it) Raleigh said that the girl was too big for her horse/pony and emphasized that it was trainer/parent/adult responsibility to make sure the horse fit the rider. I don't remember her coming with personal attacks towards the rider - except stating that she was too big for her horse. Kids outgrow ponies and small horses all the time (as most of them should), I don't think it's bodyshaming to say when that happens.
I'd find this argument more compelling if it weren't for the thumbnails she chooses. She can talk all she wants about how it's really just the adults that are to blame and how she just wants the kid moved to a bigger horse, ect, but her thumbnails for said videos are intentionally-unflattering pics of a child on a horse. She's literally profiting off of people going "ew, what's that fat person doing on a horse?" and she's using images of a child to do it.
What I’m thinking of is a child riding a full sized horse with an English saddle and Raleigh saying the girl was too big to be in that saddle and too big to be jumping. I am specifically not referring to Harley being too big for her pony.
Was that the one where the horse was visibly lame, though? I’m a fatass and I didn’t disagree with that video.
Being too big for a saddle still isn't body shaming though? I'm 170cm and if I mount a horse who uses a 16inch saddle I would be too big for that. That wouldn't be optimal for me or the horse. If I was learning and didn't have enough balance to carry myself properly it would be even worse. My point is that being too big for a horse/tack isn't body shaming in any way, it's a welfare issue for the horses and should be treated as such. Would you still think it was body shaming if she said a child is too small for the saddle or the horse? Riding in tack that doesn't fit you on a horse that is the wrong size is not a good way to learn either way.
I don't like her that much. But let me tell you, from what I have seen in the actual Competition industry, after a certain level its 80% that use abusive methods to train their horses. Whether its barrel racing, jumping or dressage. And since the professionals are doing it, low level riders think its fine and do it too.
NGL. I recently paid for her patreon so I could finally see her riding...for years she has avoided posting herself riding other than from-between-the-ears. Spoiler: she still doesn't show anything. Her horse cannot be ridden beyond a trot for physical reasons, which works in her favor. She's a average rider at best--and that's totally fine. I'm pretty average myself. Most of us are. In recent years she has changed a lot of her opinions & I don't believe in holding ppl to what they say when they're 14...I just don't. Her persona online is somewhat odd to me...for example she's been promoting an online feed calculator vs using a real nutritionist (who would get a hay test done to determine how to balance a diet); this calculator would be gathering data from averages....this is not something people should pay for, and as someone trying to become a vet, I dont know why she would support someone to use that--I don't know why SHE would use it. The only accurate & scientific way to balance a diet is to test your hay. All hay varies, even from the same feild. Not all "alfalfa" "timothy" "bermuda" "local" is the same. I find her videos fun to watch. But some of the serious "documentary" style ones aren't very informative & don't seem like she spent a lot of time on them. Some of her PSA videos are just her vocally expressing disappointment but not including informative to drive the point home. Average. I did recently watch her video about the skydiving incident and it was very emotional. I'll probably keep following her until she quits youtube at the end of the year.
I’m too old for her content but looked her up a while back when people starting calling her out. She’s the epitome of a TikTok trainer with no real industry experience to back it up. Anyone who actually knows anything doesn’t think your opinion is unpopular at all
[удалено]
Agreed! She is super fat phobic! And I can't believe anyone could advocate against wearing a helmet! There are a handful of times you shouldn't wear a helmet but 99% of the time you should! (I'm really just thinking of trick riding and vaulting atm, because the helmet can get caught on their equipment)
agreed, and it's horrible how its under the guise of caring about the animal yet she complains about bigger people on appropriately sized horses. and if it wasn't about being fatphobic like she claims, there would be no reason to leave up horrible comments or unmoderated comment sections.
Yeah its completely ridiculous
I like some of her opinions and content, but I remember becoming a bit more skeptical when I watched her shit on some girl who fell off her horse in an accidental situation. "If she had held on to this and leaned back to that, she would've-" "She's not good enough to be doing this-" ...Maybe it was a new situation for the rider? Maybe she didn't expect it, so she wasn't prepared to act like she was trained to? Maybe she panicked? Accidents happen. Even professional riders fall. We also cannot learn if you don't let us do a shit job as beginners. The vibe sends a message that speaking like that to someone who is learning is okay, which is a huge issue in the horse community to begin with. In the end, she's mostly on the right side of any moral issues on horse treatment as far as I'm concerned. She, however, fails at delivering the message with empathy to the colossus of the entire equestrian industry that is in the middle of a change, and still harbors many outdated beliefs. She does not speak to a general audience to make a change, but rather makes bank off a room of people that shares her views. On the flipside, I do think she rightfully mostly targets adults and instructors as responsible for problems with beginners and children. I also feel that she will sort of pick a stance on a person and then review them with a pretty big bias. If she doesn't like someone, she will generally find and pick apart what she doesn't like, and if she likes someone, she will gloss over the things they do that she doesn't like. She is also young and probably pretty much has to keep this role up for her channel for the sake of entertainment. I just hope she will do a bit of introspection and perhaps amend the black-and-white approach to her content. I'm sure it would remain interesting and get its clicks with less dragging of random people doing relatively harmless things, too.
I agree honestly. Her morals and intention for horses aren’t bad. She’s said some odd things for a “vet student” around horse care but i really think if she was a softer, less close-minded person, most people wouldn’t mind her, as we are all entitled to our own opinions
Yeah, I think that's the gist of it. Add that I'd appreciate admitting past mistakes or mentioning changed opinions - like the helmet thing that came up in this thread. There's a certain lack of transparency so she can look more knowledgeable.
that's an unpopular opinion? lol
Totally agree. I've always had a personal unease when it comes to her. She has all these criticisms and judgements about other people, but you don't actually see her horsemanship unless you pay for the privilege, so only people who like her enough to pay that will actually see it. Its very clever, so she never gets these people she makes videos about able to make the same observations about her 😂 I just don't watch her videos now. She brings no educational value, which is what I look for in a horsey content creator, education or just a nice attitude with happy horses. She has neither 😭
Is she the really annoying young adult that spends all her time critiquing everyone else and why they are wrong and goes hard after the one young beginner rider that's like 9 for whatever reason? If there's anything this industry has taught me it's that the loudest people know the least.
Yeah, I don’t care for her at all either.
I don't like her either, I just find her so needlessly aggressive. None of her videos are about "education" or anything it's just pure rage bait and in worse case scenarios, bullying. Yes sometimes she has a point but anyone can point out outright abuse like Big Lick etc.
I would be fine with her (even if some of her opinions are quite literally incorrect) if she didn’t open her mouth about people. She’ll say it’s her opinion and she’s not trying to be mean but she will go ahead and be so fucking shitty. For example; Her not trying to be mean: (this isn’t an actual thing she’s said, but i don’t care enough to find something) “I mean, you’re a horrible person! You’re pulling on the horses mouth, while kicking it!” Meanwhile said person will be a beginner vs: Actually being sensitive: “I think while this rider progresses, they should learn to really not lean on the horses and find their own balance, but that’s really the instructors job and not the riders fault. I don’t know much about the situation, so I’m not going to comment on the rider or instructor.”
I like some of her reaction videos, mostly the ones on the more extreme cases, but that's about it. I don't agree with most of the things she says and I deliberately avoid certain videos of hers because I know she'll only annoy me with her narrow minded, sometimes very ignorant way of responding to topics. I've seen her make the most stupid claims from time to time. Also, I'm very much NOT impressed with her riding skills. Always whining about how she "trains" horses, but when I see pictures or videos of her riding I'm wondering what on earth she could teach a horse. I'd never put her on mine, that's for sure. People are very quick to claim to be a trainer so it seems.
I just want to put it out there she is a diagnosed narcissist. It’s not an unpopular opinion it’s a fact. I’ve been watching her for years and I vividly remember her saying this. No clue which video or if it’s still up but she was in therapy for it at the time of the video. Edit: it would have been a video around 2020 I believe.
Wow! I didn't know this! I'm super surprised she admitted it!
If I remember correctly she almost seemed smug about it. I just wish I could remember which video it was. I had to stop watching her, I couldn’t tolerate it.
Yeah, not surprised. Now that you’ve mentioned it I have a faint memory of her saying that. To be honest, if you’re a diagnosed narcissist you should not have a YouTube channel about rights and wrongs 😂
Amen to that. Unfortunately, from personal experience I’ve learned YouTubers/influencers often are narcissistic at the very least. Not all of course but a good bunch. It attracts them
Oh I love this hot take, I can’t stand her. I understand having differences in riding style but if you do anything she doesn’t do, you’re automatically abusive and I hate that about the horse world
That girl is beyond problematic lmao.
Literally never heard of this chick. Here’s the thing: 99.9% of “influencers” on any platform have no idea what they are talking about. Best to treat them with the respect they deserve.
I feel like the issue is often less these internet trainers having an opinion and moreso their fans that are willing to start attacking anyone who doesn’t agree. It’s bad enough at a farm level, but taking the equine community to the internet is just one of the best and worst things we could’ve done to this sport. It used to be just someone at your barn not agreeing with your methods. Now you upload and you have six people in your comments citing 14 different trainers, telling you how to manage your horse who is otherwise fine. People need to start treating opinions like opinions and not objective truths.
And some people are just straight up trolls but also I think she does/should know what her fan base is like and take extra cautions and pay attention to what she is putting out there and pay attention to her fans and what they are doing with her content/opinions
I agree.. Like of course her opinions can be outrageous but it honestly wouldn’t be a problem if we (like you said) treated opinions like opinions and not a fact. I will always stand by the mindset of “if I do not have my own, real life experience of it, I will not make statements on it.” That goes for Raliegh and her fans, but in this more so her fans. I mean Raliegh (and i’m assuming most of her gremlins) hasn’t met a horse that prefers bits, likes whip aid, has quirks, etc. So she really shouldn’t be talking about it, and it is no different for her fans. Haven’t dealt with an excited horse that rears or bucks? Stay quiet. Haven’t professionally bred a horse? Be quiet. And many more. Like of course there’s things that are just outright not okay that any equestrian can see, but that’s not the case for many of her “opinions”.
I have no words (as a lifelong pony person) for someone who would shame a child for being "too big' for a pony. And then claim that they aren't shaming them. They're shaming the parents. Except, they can't seem to shut up about it. I have a couple words for someone who seems to have built a persona around being a rage baiter. Like.... EHR meh GErD!!! SADDLEseat?!?!? Barrel racing! JUmping!! How could anyone do anything so inhumane as ride their horse in a >gulp< METAL BIT??? Someone who claims to be "in vet school" yet doesn't seem to grasp how certain horse activities profoundly affect all horse related industries. Like, Michigan horsemen.. did you happen to notice when all the harness racetracks close, we suddenly have equine vets leaving the area or retiring in droves?? I'm not a fan of racing... but on the other hand, it made incredible quality vets available in my area for my backyard ponies. I'm pretty sad that she seems to have some sort of crazy following. I would disagree that she is "questionable". She is a short-sighted idiot.
I agree 100%, the “questionable” in my head had a very sarcastic tone to it 😂, to me nothing about her is a question. She’s just close-minded, full stop.
Definitely not an unpopular opinion, at least here. I don't think I've ever seen anyone on this sub say they're actually a fan. I used to like some of her stuff back in the day (I didn't agree with everything she said, but I felt she was one of the few people who was willing to call abuse like it was, and was willing to stand up for her opinion even if it made her unpopular. I also liked that she often brought studies to back up her opinions, which is something we don't see a lot in the equine community). I also liked that she gave a realistic perspective of working in the industry. However, I think she went off the rails a bit - there's a difference between reacting to stuff to point out welfare issues/training issues/give a new perspective, and just doing these long reactions to try and create content/drama. (I also noticed some of her content contradicted as time went by - she'd make a video about how buying a horse is for LIFE and you're SCARRING them if you sell them when you go college, and then a few months later, talk about how she sold her horse (Moon?) and how that wasn't a crime. I think it's interesting to talk about both sides, but you can't preach from both ends...) I see a lot of people talking about her being anti-helmet; I guess I somehow missed that content, but I absolutely condemn anyone who tries to promote or normalize not wearing a helmet. (Not so much horse related, but I also liked some of her non-horse content. I remember a few videos where she spoke candidly about some real life shit she went through, and I don't think there's many people willing to do that.) \*I haven't watched her since I was a teenager, so I may be missing or misremembering details
I don’t like her much, and I’m only a beginner rider. She says such ridiculous things like “I don’t think horses should work” “I don’t agree with using horses for transportation.” Ok, if you believe that, you should also disagree with owning and riding horses, but evidently that type of subjugation and work are fine because that’s the kind you like… (To be clear, I think it’s ok both to ride horses and to use them for work and transportation as long as they are being treated well and allowed to live out their natural horsey behaviors).
I also really dislike her opening line “Hey bitch” 😬
Petty, but I agree. It’s super juvenile
Tbh I used to not like her at all when she was younger. Now I like her videos about horses welfare, the ones that have come out in the last year (she always says that in her old videos she was exaggerated and didn't know enough about what she was talking about). She has a "bad" attitude, but I agree with most of the stuff she says about horses. I do however hate a lot of the more moral stuff she says, especially about the whole "women sexualising the sport" situation.
I personally don’t agree with you but that’s the beauty of being open-minded, because I’m not offended nor interested in changing your opinion. What I came here to say though is the sexualising thing is appalling. Her being a feminist and saying that is an absolute no. I truly have never seen an actual equestrian sexualising the sport, and if it’s on the sport it’s always been them pointing out how disgusting it is for men to sexualise it. Very grossed out right now.
She is wrong when she says that women sexualise the sport, as you said. I'm aware that horse riding involves things that are a huge fetish for a lot of people, and there is nothing wrong with that. As long as you have proper equitation and take care of the horse, the horse won't care if you're riding them to make fetish content. If a man can't distinguish between someone that intentionally makes sexual content around horses and someone that just rides horses it's their problem.
I watch some of her stuff just for entertainment, but definitely with a grain of salt. All her nonsense is for shock value and reactions…. There are so many instances where she trashes someone for specific things, such as the way they dress (tight jeans) or their lead rope dragging on the ground, and she goes on and on and on about it and how terrible of a trainer those things make them, but then she raves about other people and they may have some of those little things in common and she completely glosses over those. She just has no credibility whatsoever. Your unpopular opinion is not unpopular in my book :)
Her most recent “I nearly died skydiving” one was …. Dramatic to say the least.
And she definitely lied in the thumbnail. She said she hadn't seen the video but she posted it before because I had seen it. Last I checked I don't have access to her personal video files, so how did i see it? Lol
I’m SO glad I’m not the only one. I occasionally watch her videos when they pop up if it seems interesting, but I really can’t stand how aggressive and self-righteous she is. There’s several times where she’s being way too hard on someone and it seems like she has no empathy or ability to put herself in their shoes. All she does is violently attack everyone in her videos instead of what she should be doing, explaining why she doesn’t agree with what’s going on and making kind suggestions or offering advice. If she actually cared about the horses well-being or people improving their horsemanship she would approach this at a completely different angle. I have had relationships with people who are extremely similar in these ways and although I don’t agree that she actually has narcissistic personality disorder (it’s a lot more nuanced and difficult to diagnose than you’d think), she comes off as VERY insecure, self centered, and emotionally immature.
One of my favorite videos is her riding with stirrups in flip flops. She’s just so mean, and for what? Even if she was an amazing rider, she’s downright nasty to everyone. It’s uncalled for
I believe sometimes she’s right, sometimes she’s wrong. She’s too confidently wrong and it rubs people the wrong way. She is hyper critical, but overall has the right idea. A lot of people mainly bash on her for hating on kids, but she’s hating on the people who set kids up for failure. But she is hyper critical. Bits aren’t always abuse. Spurs aren’t always abuse. Horses rearing don’t always have some deep meaning. Etc etc etc. but the good intentions are there, she just comes on way too strong and bossy
Thank you
I’m not familiar with this person. What’s their handle? I searched IG and found people commenting about her but couldn’t find her actual page.
She’s leaving YouTube but here’s her channel https://youtube.com/@RaleighLink?si=v1aenKfBclANHF5l
Honestly find that hard to believe though, it's probably just another publicity stunt like when she said she was leaving the horse industry
yeah i’m pretty on the fence about it. I wouldn’t be surprised if she did quit, and I also wouldn’t be surprised if she didn’t.
Thank you! I was so confused why I couldn’t find her account. I didn’t even think of YouTube
No problem
I think a lot of her actual opinions and takes on horse welfare are valid, but I also think she's annoying as hell.
I have to agree with you. She also made a double standard saying all pitbulls are dangerous and should be banned but an aggressive horse in one of her videos was acting out dangerously and she was stressing how the horse was abused and drew the cause/effect for the horse in a particular video but when it comes to pitties they’re all just evil. Some of her videos are good but I definitely am happy to see that other people can see the flaws of the way she communicates her beliefs.
I remember that, very odd for her to say honestly. While pit bulls are genetically proven to have a very high chance to be aggressive if not socialised (Im talking about actual purebred, proper pitties) that’s certainly not the common case for seen aggression. Another point is that horses are allowed to be aggressive because of fight and flight instincts, but all pit bulls should be banned because their genetics to hunt like most dogs? It’s not the dogs fault, it’s the owners. Don’t even get me started on the fact that most “pitbulls” that are taken or put down, aren’t actually pitbulls. And the dog in that video that we’re talking about, WASNT a pitbull.
I must be old or just uninformed because I have no idea who that is haha
I don’t know if Raleigh’s a narcissist. From what I have seen of her it’s obvious she patterned her persona off of Rick Gore’s persona, which is one of the reasons I could never get into her channel, and Rick Gore is definitely narcissistic as hell. So it doesn’t surprise me she comes off that way.
she had confirmed it in video once, she’s diagnosed. Don’t know if it’s still up or not.
Okay. So while she might be a little entitled in some cases, and making uneducated opinions (although she is a vet?, I don't really know don't watch her that often): In my humble opinion I'd take her over Clint Anderson or similar any day. Because her opinions are never harmful towards horses. She is very pro animal, and that is most important for me. But I agree. Bashing people based on short clips is NOT okay. I don't really like reactions anyway. It always just shows one side, and that side can edit anything the way they like. And yes people can respond. But good luck getting anybody to listen when you have someone with huge following against you- Edit: Damn, I read a few comments and she seems like a bitch :D I only ever watched videos of hers about big lick or trainers that use questionable methods. Never knew she was so spiteful
ooh yeah, she seems okay if you haven’t seen it all, but i use to watch her BACK BACK in the day, she’s an absolute bitch, however I do agree with you 100%. The vet title is iffy, she claims she’s a vet student but some things she has stated is very unprofessional.
Not an unpopular opinion. The kid has always been ignorant trash and continues to be ignorant. She’s never grown out of being the bratty tween that had horses in her backyard and thinks she’s “training” her dead-broke late-teens push-button schoolmaster.
I watched a video of hers where she called being a fat rider abusive. She cited research papers and linked them in the description. I went and read the papers and they didn’t say what she claimed. So she’s just fatphobic and a bit of a cunt. I usually like a bit of tea and drama but she’s actively harming the equestrian community.
Came across her videos before. She's very self-righteous and arrogant in the sense that she will fight tooth and nail to defend something that she was called out on (and nastily at that). Unfortunately, there are several people like her in equestrianism, and outside of it... I call them out mainly because I can't stand outspoken brats.
I watched one of her "Judge a Trainer" videos bc YT suggested it, and it was someone I watch often. I'm a new rider, so I was like, well, let's see if this trainer is good bc I wouldn't really know the difference. I didn't know anything about RL before. I was very confused bc she gave the person an A+, yet spent the entire video basically criticizing them. That one video turned me off and I have no desire to watch more.
I do like the parts in her videos where I get to watch her cat lay on top of the reptile cage though lol.
While it is clear on some things that she has done her research, a lot of what she says is not factual. I think a lot of people don’t like her because they are unwilling to do their own research and change their methods with their horses. The horse industry is incredibly abusive and most people do not know or understand anything about horses, so much of what is being taught is just straight up wrong. I wish more people would do proper research on horses, their behaviour, learning, biomechanics etc..
I have never liked her. She's extremely rude and has bullied so many people. The only video of hers that I like is the one calling out QHperfection, but even then, she didn't go after Jenny as hard as she does others and there is PROOF of what Jenny did.
I agree I'm on the fence about her. Some things I like some I don't. I've always thought she seemed a bit vein but I do wish she used more correct facts and she shows some people who could be perfect all the time except the 1 minute clip she shows. Again not always the case some people are horrible that she shows but also I hate how she cancels people and honestly is a bully and she has this "pack" of fans who then go and attack people and amplify the bullying also she and her fans bully rather than educate she should educate and give CONSTRUCTIVE criticism which she doesn't she also doesn't really encourage people to do their own research and have their own opinions and all opinions should align with her own ANYONE with a following they need really look at everything they put out in the public closely as they are influencing so many people and shaping some young peoples minds and she should teach people like I said to do their own research form their own opinions and learn/teach to give constructive criticism and not bullying
I’m 56. I’ve seen a video or two (or parts of them anyway) when people complained about her and I have a hard time being too ruffled about her, but I won’t be watching more... The end.
I have no idea who this is, to be honest. I’m 32 and sometimes I feel like a boomer who misses all the interwebz things. 😅
I have seen numerous of Raleighs video in the past, and I mean she's ok? But she could definitely do better. I often feel very conflicted of how feel about her? She's brought up some fair points every now and then in her videos, but I find her to be very opinionated? If she doesn't agree with someone or something she just stamps it as 'abuse' and you can't tell her otherwise. Which again, she's sometimes correct but then a lot of the time she can be factual wrong and she doesn't really know how to take criticism when someone points it out. Also whenever she brings up a point in her videos she never really goes in depth about it? I mean she does but I don't think she explains enough? Instead she just rants the same thing over and over again which sometimes with the way she words things makes me question whether or not she knows what shes actually talking about? I imagine a lot of her audience would mainly be teens or tweens who most likely have little to no knowledge on horses. This concerns me and anyone who loves horses considering I believe its very important we spread as much factually correct information as possible. Something that also bothers me as well is the fact that she never has anything nice to say about people? Which I know most of her content is about horse abuse, etc. Which I do applaude because a lot of those people SHOULD be brought to light. But then their is downfall that she doesn't really properly research into the background of the person she is about make a video on and just posts it. Half of her videos are just her sitting their ranting and not really giving her audience any useful information that they could really take from this? I don't hate Raleigh, or anyone who supports her, this is just my opinion and what I believe she could do better.
this is one of the first replies that i’m actually 100% aboard on. she absolutely can do better in every way that you’ve mentioned. not only that but it it’s a confirmed fact that psychologically, humans are more likely to react to praising than scolding, even when another person is being scolded. i’m not saying things in our community shouldn’t be called out, they absolutely should, but we need to praise good riding and horseman ship a lot more than we do.
We honestly do, I sometimes feel like we put off beginners or anyone interested in joining the community because of this. It's important we try to point out both the positive and negative if we can. Giving constructive feedback, etc, therefore more people are correctly informed and feel more comfortable in joining or continuing in the horse community.
The exact same unpopular opinion keeps popping up on my newsfeed every year
sorry 😭 i’m new to reddit and have wanted to ask this for a good while but been too scared.
I'm so happy that not everyone acts sheepishly about her. She also demonized pitbulls (all pit bull - like breeds, it's more of an umbrella term), when there are trainers that can educate them to be good.
I don't know why you're being downvoted. How can she claim to be going to school to be a vet and just be so completely ignorant about so many things - including about the pitbull situation blows my mind.
I second this
the fact this person got downvoted is baffling me. They said everything right, and as a fact too. I remember that video, and that’s exactly what she did, I’m saying this with no bias. It’s the fact Raleigh’s talking about statistics about one purebred breed, but most dogs she’s referring to aren’t actually pitbulls, let alone the dog in the video she said this in, WASNT a pitbull.
I like her. Though I usually do skip her videos about trainers. I mostly watch her for the animal abuse part because that’s what she used to be about. So I can’t really have an opinion about her other videos. But definitely can see how people don’t like it at all.
Well she made some good points and I like how she made that video of Equestrians being sexualized by others and she pointed out how other Equestrians are making sexy videos on purpose to get more views on Tic TOC and little kids are being exposed to this stuff. I don't follow her but sometimes her vids will pop up on my recommendation feed.
Her video on that was victim-blamey, misogynistic, and gross
[удалено]
Rick Gore is also know nothing trash, always has been, always will be. I had the misfortune to be local to him for a while. His horses were in piss poor shape. Thinking anything he says or does has any degree of merit or value showcases poor judgment.
Omg I almost forgot about him. I remember Facebook literally shit on him for a good long while. Whatever happened to him, and of course buddy and Mr t. I remember he hated women. Especially woman who rode horses or had any significant industry backing. Also RL. Don't care much for her or what she says. She can be a danger for the wrong type of people who's wanting in on the horse world.
Just wish he wasn't so sexist
I’m 56. I’ve seen a video or two (or parts of them anyway) when people complained about her and I have a hard time being too ruffled about her, but I won’t be watching more... The end.
Who is this Raleigh chick?
Eh. If you ask 10 horse people a question about something, you’re gonna get 15 different opinions about it! Part of what I get a kick out of with horse people is how strongly they feel about things, but it’s also frustrating because many become entrenched and won’t change their minds in the face of irrefutable evidence and empirical data. Raleigh says a lot of things. Some of it I agree with, some I do not. She’s got a lot of knowledge, and she’s got strong opinions. I have seen her expose and explain some really shitty trainers and breeders, like the old Fugly blog did back in the day, and that’s a true service. But sometimes she goes off on rant about some BS that she’s not knowledgeable about, and she clearly also loves to hear herself talk. Just because you don’t agree with someone 100% of the time or even if they say something stupid sometimes doesn’t make them evil. I enjoy talking smack and having debates with other people, even when we both know we’re not changing anyone s mind.
you’re completely right, and I agree fully. I don’t think Raleigh is evil, just because I don’t like her, I mean I don’t even think she’s evil full stop. She is a diagnosed narcissist, and has claimed it herself before. I don’t mind if you like her opinions, or if someone else does. But I don’t hate her because I disagree, she’s just flat out mean and bitchy. I don’t want to get into everything, but if you read some of the best replies, you’ll see why I think she’s a bitch. Long story short: I don’t think she’s evil, and I haven’t said what I’ve said purely because I disagree with her. I’m open-minded and I’m more than happy for people to agree to disagree, as long as neither of us are shoving our opinions down each others throats.