Horse Play - A Streethorsing Retrospective
- from WeSC
on Aug 25th 2009 - 100 Pictures / 0 Comments
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Streethorsing Introduction
"What they don’t even get is that we don’t even use the word use when it comes to horses"
These words are spoken by Ryan Galfando, the god-daddy of streethorsing, and "they" are the different groups of people, intellectuals, animal right activists and others, refusing to acknowledge streethorsing as a positive and completely separate way of horsing.
I will not be burning andy academic gun powder here, my standpoint is not relevant. What is important is that you, the reader, will get something that will help you create your own picture of this "manimal" phenomenon, known to some as streethorsing.
What Ryan Galfandos words are pointing at is what streethorses claim is unique to what they’re doing, and that is the no-master attitude towards their animals. They mean that they are bringing back a relationship between human and animal that is non-existent in the world today except for in the realms of streethorsing.
Streethorsers claim that what they’re doing is not a human making use of an animal but an animal and a human having fun together without either having to claim supremacy over the other. "In horse jumping, Ryan Galfando says, the horse jumps because he has been taught to do so from birth, not knowing any other option. It may experience the sensation of fun, but when it comes down, it is not fun the way a free individual experiences fun. Our animals are free, and we do things together like any other friends do things together. It is because we look beyond the boundaries of species that we can do things that were never thought possible before. Force can only take you so long, friendship can take you so much further."
These are the type of claims that have caused some people to kick out behind them so hard, crying that no such equal relationship is possible between humans and animals and that what the streethorsers are doing to/with their horses is nothing but animal torture under a subcultural flag of freedom.
But it has also produced much new historic research on the relationship between man and horse and these studies have shown that it was not until we began to live in houses that we got the idea that we should separate ourselves from animals. Before that, animals that we today refer to as domestic animals, horses, cows and pigs, were looked at as family members. This attitude kept the animals’ playfulness intact and many historical documents and paintings are now being considered with a new perspective, depicting humans and animals living, working and playing together.
But civilization moved on at its usual frantic pace and all of a sudden man and animal (with the exception of cats, dogs and canaries) were brutally separated. The relationship between bigger animals and humans was severely dmaaged. Now man had to use force to get to enjoy the horses strength, speed and grace. Relationships chilled, but as time passed, one early morning in the outskirts of central Houston, Ryan Galfando met his partner in life. Jobless, joyless and plain bored, Ryan had been walking around, kicking stones all night, when he heard splashing from an abandoned backyard. He looked over the fence, and in the rain filled swimming pool he spotted a little horse, swimming for its life. Ryan jumped in, calmed the horse down, got him out and took him home. He named the horse Poolman, and that as we all know, is the god-horse of streethorsing.
Poolman meeting Galfando is not just a lucky coincidence. It is also proof of what is known as un-urbanization, the fact that cities are growing so fast now that the surrounding countryside gets in the way and is blended in with the city. Poolman fell into the pool because he had escaped from a nearby farm that was not close to the city at all five years prior. Galfando says "It’s obvious that we can’t just keep pushing nature in front of us, sooner or later we’ll meet, and for me that moment was a beautiful one. Before that I was just a street kid"¦" Ryans’ meager means of living were the deciding factor that would eventually bring the two so intimately together. Sharing a few square feet behind a butchers warehouse, they slept, ate and later, when Ryan got a job as a paperboy, even worked together.
It was on those warm, starlit Texan nights that they would soon start performing what would later come to fill the lives of many urban youngsters and equally many horses. Ryan explains "when Poolmand got to know the city and my rounds, he found new routes, that were faster but at the same time much more daring. I never forced Poolman down a stair or up a wall. It was all his own initiative".
Mentioning the iconic moustache and asking about its status and origin, Ryan answers in an avoiding manner "go ride a horse down a rail in Philly and January and you will know why I carry this friggin’ snot-stopper".
Upon hearing those words I get the distinctive feeling that we, the outside world, might not yet have the power to penetrate muchfurther into this reclusive dominion of manes and men, and that only time has the ability to le tus know more.
Does the "hay-day" of streethorsing still lie ahead?
Photographer: The Jens
Art Director: Erik Rune
Writer: Martin Karlsson
"What they don’t even get is that we don’t even use the word use when it comes to horses"
These words are spoken by Ryan Galfando, the god-daddy of streethorsing, and "they" are the different groups of people, intellectuals, animal right activists and others, refusing to acknowledge streethorsing as a positive and completely separate way of horsing.
I will not be burning andy academic gun powder here, my standpoint is not relevant. What is important is that you, the reader, will get something that will help you create your own picture of this "manimal" phenomenon, known to some as streethorsing.
What Ryan Galfandos words are pointing at is what streethorses claim is unique to what they’re doing, and that is the no-master attitude towards their animals. They mean that they are bringing back a relationship between human and animal that is non-existent in the world today except for in the realms of streethorsing.
Streethorsers claim that what they’re doing is not a human making use of an animal but an animal and a human having fun together without either having to claim supremacy over the other. "In horse jumping, Ryan Galfando says, the horse jumps because he has been taught to do so from birth, not knowing any other option. It may experience the sensation of fun, but when it comes down, it is not fun the way a free individual experiences fun. Our animals are free, and we do things together like any other friends do things together. It is because we look beyond the boundaries of species that we can do things that were never thought possible before. Force can only take you so long, friendship can take you so much further."
These are the type of claims that have caused some people to kick out behind them so hard, crying that no such equal relationship is possible between humans and animals and that what the streethorsers are doing to/with their horses is nothing but animal torture under a subcultural flag of freedom.
But it has also produced much new historic research on the relationship between man and horse and these studies have shown that it was not until we began to live in houses that we got the idea that we should separate ourselves from animals. Before that, animals that we today refer to as domestic animals, horses, cows and pigs, were looked at as family members. This attitude kept the animals’ playfulness intact and many historical documents and paintings are now being considered with a new perspective, depicting humans and animals living, working and playing together.
But civilization moved on at its usual frantic pace and all of a sudden man and animal (with the exception of cats, dogs and canaries) were brutally separated. The relationship between bigger animals and humans was severely dmaaged. Now man had to use force to get to enjoy the horses strength, speed and grace. Relationships chilled, but as time passed, one early morning in the outskirts of central Houston, Ryan Galfando met his partner in life. Jobless, joyless and plain bored, Ryan had been walking around, kicking stones all night, when he heard splashing from an abandoned backyard. He looked over the fence, and in the rain filled swimming pool he spotted a little horse, swimming for its life. Ryan jumped in, calmed the horse down, got him out and took him home. He named the horse Poolman, and that as we all know, is the god-horse of streethorsing.
Poolman meeting Galfando is not just a lucky coincidence. It is also proof of what is known as un-urbanization, the fact that cities are growing so fast now that the surrounding countryside gets in the way and is blended in with the city. Poolman fell into the pool because he had escaped from a nearby farm that was not close to the city at all five years prior. Galfando says "It’s obvious that we can’t just keep pushing nature in front of us, sooner or later we’ll meet, and for me that moment was a beautiful one. Before that I was just a street kid"¦" Ryans’ meager means of living were the deciding factor that would eventually bring the two so intimately together. Sharing a few square feet behind a butchers warehouse, they slept, ate and later, when Ryan got a job as a paperboy, even worked together.
It was on those warm, starlit Texan nights that they would soon start performing what would later come to fill the lives of many urban youngsters and equally many horses. Ryan explains "when Poolmand got to know the city and my rounds, he found new routes, that were faster but at the same time much more daring. I never forced Poolman down a stair or up a wall. It was all his own initiative".
Mentioning the iconic moustache and asking about its status and origin, Ryan answers in an avoiding manner "go ride a horse down a rail in Philly and January and you will know why I carry this friggin’ snot-stopper".
Upon hearing those words I get the distinctive feeling that we, the outside world, might not yet have the power to penetrate muchfurther into this reclusive dominion of manes and men, and that only time has the ability to le tus know more.
Does the "hay-day" of streethorsing still lie ahead?
Photographer: The Jens
Art Director: Erik Rune
Writer: Martin Karlsson
