In July of 2014 I was visiting my boy in Kent, WA and attending my favorite street fair event, Cornucopia. On Sunday we were at the parade and I filmed the Dancing Horses which at the time I thought were very cool so I put the video up on YouTube for my blog.

Through the years the video has been viewed over 30,000 times, been up-voted 139 times, down-voted 20 times and has 19 comments. A lot of folks have very strong opinions about the mistreatment of the horses as a means to make them perform. As a result I eventually formed the opinion that what I witnessed that day was perhaps animal cruelty, until this morning when Barrel Racing Liston left a long and very thoughtful comment defending the practice.

Here's the video:

Here's the comment:

 I understand people have their different opinions on these type of things , but yes. Their is cruel people who unfortunately train their horses in a cruel way. But their is also those who care and are patient on training their horses. Also just because the people in this video are mexican, dont go and hate on mexican people who have dancing horses. More of the dancing horse industry, treats their horses well. I own a horse that is a 6 yr old andalusian stallion, I've owned him his whole life. He started dancing when he was around 2, he started moving by himself in the round pen when we turned on music. Now most of the time he hears music, he starts to dance. He loves dancing. Now to the bits and spurs. Bits arent necessary but not all horses can be ridden without them. Not all horses behave the best without a bit, it gives more command and direction. Also, not all bits are horrible. As a matter of fact, the bits us mexican use are very light and we have a scroll thing on them that the horses can play with when it's in their mouth. Also, using bits depends on the hands of the rider and the horses mouth. Spurs; not necessary but useful for direction and an extension of the foot. Now luckily, these people arent jabbing the spurs on the horses side. Barrel racers usually use spurs kick a lot so they are causing the horse more pain. Think about other sports and such that also use spurs and bits before you hate on horse dancing. :'))

Here's the Original Post from my BusDriverJim blog.