The images in the following program are highly sensitive and may be as disturbing to viewers as they were to us. However, we have to show the truth about cruelty to animals, praying that you will help to stop it.

This is the Stop Animal Cruelty series on Supreme Master Television. This week Russian horse experts Alexander and Lydia Nevzorov discuss why equestrian sports are inherently exploitative and severely harm horses. Mr. Nevzorov, a professional horse trainer, journalist, film director and a former Russian parliamentarian and editor-in-chief of a Russian television channel, has written hundreds of newspaper articles, and is the author of the highly acclaimed book “Horse Encyclopedia.”

He also directed a much praised film of the same name. Lydia Nevzorov is a hippologist or one who specializes in the study of horses, an equine thermographist, or one who specializes in the thermal imaging of the musculoskeletal systems of horses, and the editor-in chief of the Nevzorov Haute Ecole journal and the NHE Equine Anthology journal.

The couple are co-founders of Nevzorov Haute Ecole, a very innovative horse training school in Saint Petersburg, Russia. The Nevzorovs and all the students and staff of the Nevzorov Haute Ecole do not ride equines or use any coercion when training the horses. The horses are treated as equals.

The Nevzorovs know that horses are very intelligent, fragile and sensitive. Participating in events such as horse racing, jumping, polo, western riding, dressage competitions, and circus performances, are enormously detrimental to a horse’s well-being.

The Nevzorovs’ extensive research and countless photographs clearly document the damaging nature of these so-called sports – images of horses writhing in pain, with fear and torment in their eyes, their bodies in agony from the straining of muscles, their mouths foaming with saliva and legs pouring with sweat.

Because, in the equestrian sport, the horse is exposed to one horrendous, in duration as well as brutality, effect. As a matter of fact, horses do not do sports. And whatever humans do to them, horses do not find it interesting. Nor do they need it, be it morally, psychologically, physiologically, anatomically or for any other reason.

Dressage is an event in which the equine is forced to perform unnatural, difficult, and often painful movements. During her training and performance, she is made to wear a tortuous metal bit in her mouth, causing excruciating pain to her delicate teeth, tongue, lips, and jaws.

All the dressage done to a horse, traditional dressage, is done with the help of a metal instrument placed in her mouth which is called a curb, a snaffle bit, mouthpiece and so on and so on. And this metal instrument causes different kinds of pressure to a minimum of six out of twelve cranial nerves, causing a trigeminal shock, thus creating terrible pain.

Those, who say that this has a minimal effect on the horse, in reality are simply not familiar with the equine anatomy and do not understand the pathways of the trigeminal nerves and basically all of the facial nerves’ branching in a horse's jaws such as the palate of a horse, the upper palate of a horse, on the tongue and so forth, and so forth.

In fact, the metal is a torturing tool, and it is clear that the person is manipulating his horse by causing pain in order to have some kind of questionable and quite strange enjoyment. But the pain in the horse’s mouth, and it is not simply a pain – it is a shocking pain.

In their investigations, Alexander and Lydia Nevzorov have discovered that 99% of sporting horses suffer from long-term damage to their backs. The pressure on the back is caused by two things: the saddle, held on by a painfully tight girth, and the rider’s weight.

We have spent a lot of time researching this issue. We did a lot of anatomical research, had many experiments and discovered the many consequences on the cutaneous maximus and on the cutaneous scalpo brachialis, which are the first underlying, and thinnest muscles that innervate the skin. When a fly lands on a horse, her skin twitches, and this is done by those upper skin muscles.

And I can tell you, that under the pressure of a saddle and the rider, practically all the vascularization, all the blood flow in those muscles stops for three to four minutes. At the beginning, the horse feels numbness, similar to the one when you keep your leg in one position for too long, and then everything turns into a dull pain, that eventually turns into a pain that does not go away.

In order to completely heal the back, and to completely remove all the symptoms, to completely get rid of the side effects of the de-vascularization of the muscle layer, it takes from one to one and a half years. Basically, after the person gets off the horse for good, it will take one and a half years until the moment when the horse will stop being disabled and having back pains.

Searching for powerful ways to demonstrate to others the immense suffering of the horses, Lydia Nevzorov learned thermography, an infrared imaging technique that is able to show the tremendous pressure and muscle pain horses endure.

I became a thermographist. I started to study the horses with the help of the thermograph. We saw all the awful wounds, awful injuries under the skin that nobody sees. Here, for example, are only two pictures of a horse’s back. This is the back of a healthy horse, and the back of a horse that is working in this sport under a saddle.

The white color means terrible inflammation, very high temperature spot. This is the spine. This is the spinal cord. Compare both pictures. This is not hard to understand. Everything is very clear. Same with the legs… healthy – injured. Each vertebrae can be seen. The back and the back after the saddle. It is clear right away what injuries there are.

The hooves shouldn’t be shoed. I have one book dedicated to why the hooves should not be shoed. But of course, to have healthy hooves, the horse should not be in equestrian sports, and not be used in work or any other activity.

Through her project called the “Horse Revolution,” Lydia Nevzorov has been determinedly informing people about the inhumanity of all equestrian sports, primarily through pictures.

We have started the “Horse Revolution” movement. We started with showing snapshots, photographs and videos taken during horse racing that delight so many when they watch how a horse jumps over or does not jump over. They enjoy, clap their hands and give awards to each other, horse-covers, cups and so forth.

I started to take pictures. I was the first person in the world to take pictures and publish these pictures which were taken during these same races. Same horses, but from a different perspective. When it was obvious that there is blood coming out of the mouth that nobody is noticing, yes? When the signs of trigeminal neuralgia were seen, such as the sinking of the eyes and the shivering of lips. All of this is awful. All of this pain has physiological signs, which humans choose to ignore.

We did an experiment, which proved that one simple pull on a curb bit puts 300 kilograms of pressure on the horse’s jaw. It means that the pain is unbearable, shocking, and outrageous. But people hang a huge amount of straps. Where did this idea come from and for what? It is obvious, that if the horse would really want to jump, then it would not be necessary to put any of this on her head and use a whip.

While competing, horses are often whipped or spurred to run faster. The overload from running at top speed and sometimes tripping as well as constantly experiencing acute stress and panic cause equines to break their legs, tear their limbs, injure other body parts and become prone to diseases such as ulcers. The vicious ruthlessness does not end there.

All these are horrific things. We know that horses die, if not during each race, then every second race. If not on the racing line, then later, because they do not live long. Not even mentioning that these horses are bred in huge numbers to choose only three of them for racing, and to bring the rest to slaughterhouses, even if they are still foals. What for? They are saying that this is to improve the breed line, the selection and so forth. What for? Again for racing and for profit.

As equestrian sports cause so much pain and anguish to the horses, why do so many people enjoy watching these events?

As a rule, people do not know about it. They are trying to enjoy and accept the myth, a sugar sweet fairytale saying that all of this is normal, all is good, that it’s all acceptable and even more, that the horses love doing it. In reality, this is a most severe, most brutal torture.

I assume that our progress, the scientific evidence, the efforts made by the journalists , the efforts made by the normal people, will push the equestrian sport to the same place where we have now the dog fights, rooster fights, or any other fights. We’ll leave it to the most wretched, somewhere behind the garages, behind the heaps of scrap. I think that this is the future of the equestrian sports.

Through their steadfast efforts to alert the public about the barbarity of equestrian sports, Alexander and Lydia Nevzorov are making a difference.

It all started when Alexander made the movie “Horse Encyclopedia,” which caused a real furor in Russia. There were many changes. People stopped attending the so-called horse competitions, all kinds of horse jumping and racing. I don’t mean the horsemen, but specifically public attendance. They stopped, we can say, enjoying (watching the) horses jump. They started to realize, after watching this movie, that in reality, all of these cause horrible pain to the horse and it’s suffering and it is not entertainment.

A wonderful thing happened in the city of Samara (Russia). They had to close the hippodrome due to lack of profit. We also contributed to it because, indeed, less people started to attend all these competitions. They closed the hippodrome and instead started racing cars. They also compete and speed there, the same, but without horses.

Lydia and Alexander Nevzorov, we are very grateful for your noble work to continually better horse welfare. Your photography, scientific research, wisdom and determination are helping people to understand the savagery and suffering underlying equestrian sports. We look forward to a world soon in coming of global harmony, in which we enjoy and respect the beauty, intelligence and magnificence of horses and all other animals.

For more information on Lydia and Alexander Nevzorov, please visit www.NevzorovHauteEcole.com

Thank you for your company on today’s program. Enlightening Entertainment is coming up next, after Noteworthy News. May all horses enjoy a heavenly life on Earth.