Howdy Friends!
Let’s be honest with ourselves. What, from the horse’s perspective, have we as advocates really accomplished in past decades? Thoroughbreds still started and raced before skeletal systems are even 60% mature—many broken down and discarded by age 3. Quarter Horses contorted in abnormal posture and gaits. Standardbreds and Saddlebreds twisted into bizarre posture, movement and head set. Tennessee Walking Horses still tortured beyond any ability to imagine a human could do this. Thousands of wild horses standing starving, freezing, blistering in ravishing sun in filthy holding pens. Rescues all across the country bursting at the seams with broken hearted, throw away horses. Breeders of all breeds still producing and producing. Auction houses flush with horses once magnificent, loved and pampered, now just so much waste to be discarded. People, sometimes well meaning people, care for and ride their horses in ways that break down their physical and mental well being. Poor fitting tack, harmful by ignorance or purposefully. Lousy housing, by ignorance or by design. I could, and probably should go on, and on. Let’s be honest with ourselves, from the horse’s perspective we’ve not done much. We serve the horses best by not blaming others, but looking in our own mirror. I learned decades ago in real estate sales, effort, no matter how valiant, means nothing without results. From the horse’s perspective there have been painfully few results. It’s not the horses fault, it’s not government’s fault, it’s those of us in the horse world who shoulder the blame—all of it. ~ Gitty Up, Dutch.
