@Impractical_Horsewoman Agree on all accounts!
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Oh Man… you tipped $1000 per groom? I’m feeling like a cheapskate right now 
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Now, now. If you want to play in a more expensive sandbox and then complain about being called “cheap” there (while letting us all know the eye-watering amount of money you are spending), why are you getting on others?
A little less judgment might suit you better.
OP, I kept tying to ask myself why all that you say you are missing or feeling is wrong with the sport turned into a self-esteem thing for you? I thought I just hadn’t understood your post.
My answer is that “Yes, I’m good enough.” And you can tell by checking out my horses. They are nicely broke. They are sound. They are not stressed out. They get to live in pretty natural conditions (and I more and more, I had to change my life in order to be able to get that for my horses… because most cities and jobs are not conducive to good horse keeping).
So ignore the sturm und drang of what everyone else is doing, and hold yourself accountable to your horses and the best horsemanship you know of.
And for you and the Pirate: If you all have the amount of wealth you do, y’all are not victims. Money is power in this country and you can quit paying for the bad treatment that you don’t like anytime you choose to.
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This, exactly. I spend a lot of time thinking that my poor mare bears the brunt of all the mistakes that I have made as her owner/advocate/steward. Not to mention my riding mistakes. Horses are so much more stoic and generous than we realize - it’s important to keep that in mind.
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So true. The economics of the mega circuit BNT paradigm are reinforced by the horses being disposable. Not new from my perspective just increasingly amplified. As expensive as showing the circuits is, it’s the recurring sales/commissions (disclosed and not disclosed) that are the really big bucks for the top of the sport.
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I get where you’re coming from, but I think horses are a drop in the bucket compared to the cattle industry. I dint think house people would be able to get most of the hay you buy without the underlying cattle needing it.
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LilRanger- here in the PNW, there is the export hay market, where most goes to Asia (especially WA’s alfalfa and timothy hays for dairy and horse consumption), and to the US markets outside the PNW. In Oregon, some of the same is true, but much of the quality orchard, alfalfa, teff and mixed hays are intended for the horse markets. The grass hays are graded into horse or livestock quality. All that beautiful hay in the feed stores and hay broker’s lots is horse quality, grown for that purpose.
My broker buys an entire ‘pivot’ from a farm that produces 80,000 tons of hay a year-- alfalfa (3-4 cuttings), orchard, and timothy/blue grass. This farm is also a beef production ranch, and they feed some of that to their herds, but most is sold as horse feed.
I feel like the cattle industry is indeed far harder on the environment than horses are-- the research supports that. Horse ownership and sports aren’t going anywhere, unless we let them. And we, as the drivers of that industry, need to be aware of the outside forces that either don’t or won’t understand what we do, as well as be aware of what outsiders looking in see. We can always do better, but at the end of the day, horses are adaptable, agreeable creatures who have lived and worked beside us for millenia. The life of a cared for horse today is infinitely better than when I started as an 8 year old with a pony living in a converted tree house!
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You are all forgetting that cattle feed people. In this country, horses do not.
There are few “working” horses left in the U.S. While many here consider horses a “necessity”, they are not truly. They are an expensive hobby.
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Say it again louder for everyone to hear.
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This well-written blog post explores some of the themes of this thread: happiness, empathy for your horse and for others, and not being concerned about what others think: Exploring The ‘Why’ For Riding - The Chronicle of the Horse (https://www.chronofhorse.com/article/exploring-the-why-for-riding/)
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I agree there is a horse market for most high quality hay, until there’s a wide spread drought, then all that hay seems to disappear unless you have a lot of money. And generally only cattle and race horse operations have that kind of money.
I say that because I’ve been though it. The year of the big drought there was not much hay to be had here in NM for any price. It was all being bought by big cattle operations or sold out of state to large buyers.
Happily my horses were not picky, and I’m willing to try a few different types of forage to supplement webbed I just couldn’t find any thing else to feed them. And the prices have never come back down, even though gas prices dropped and it’s raining again.
But an expensive hobby is not necessarily a bad thing. People drop loads of money on companion animals. One pug owner told me annual standard dental work was $1000 and was impressed horse dental work was just a couple hundred!
I do think that 150 years ago, overwork and underfeed was the risk for horses. These days horses can be pushed to athletic extremes that push their physical boundaries. Others of course are obese and founder
In this, horses mirror humans. 150 years ago many people were relatively underfed and over worked, you can see how skinny working men are in old photos and how old farm workers have crippled hands
Today humans are split between athletes performing at unheard-of levels, and diabetic obese couch potatoes. Well, and us ordinary fit enough ammies!
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Am I good enough for the top level Hunter/Jumper world in the USA? No, definitely not.
Am I good enough to own my own horse, care for my horses, train my horses, help my friends and fellow boarders with their horses and accept their help, lease someone else’s horse, determine vet care/ farrier care/ feed/ management/ etc, ride my horse in competition/ in lessons/ in clinics/ in the ring/ in the field/ down the road, etc… ?
Of course I am “good enough” for the equestrian world.
I confess to being baffled by the apparent lack of understanding of how large amounts of money affects things, displayed by those who can spend those large amounts of money on a luxury. Is it because other problems can be made to go away by throwing money at them?
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Wow is all I can say. Maybe have compassion for her. This post has made it all more clear how toxic and judgemental people can be in this sport. And they don’t want to “face the music” of what it actually is.
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For sure! That’s what they want! They overuse and abuse (in many cases) the horses, within a short period they break physically or mentally (or often times both) and then it’s starting all over again. It’s just extremely bizarre to me that people don’t catch on, but sadly I think it’s that most amateurs don’t want to see it. The top vets even say how many more injuries they see now and just overall lameness. TBH my feeling is horses are not meant to do what everyone is doing with them. Jumping and upper level of any horse sport is hard on them, but then add all the pharmaceuticals and the lunge line, and in and out week after week showing. It’s unsustainable for these poor animals. And the people I believe are all miserable because it’s their whole life. There’s much more to life than horses.
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So you’ve come back to horses a handful of years ago after being out of the sport for a good long while, it sounds, and you’re now qualified to diagnose most people in the sport as unhappy, and you wish that they could be as clear eyed as you about themselves and this sport, based primarily on your rose colored glasses of childhood pony riding. If you don’t think there was unhappiness, financial strife, and suicide, and substance abuse, and animal and people abuse when you were a child, maybe even in some of the people and animals you knew, I’d say that’s because you were a kid and didn’t realize it, not because it never happened.
The industry has problems, no doubt. I share many of your concerns, although I believe the causes are more nuanced and varied. If you’ve now found religion about your feelings about the horse industry and it makes you happy, that’s great. But I detect a little holier-than-thou in your posts and it makes me a little bristly.
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Absolutely agree. Coming back to anything as an adult can be disturbingly enlightening. What isn’t right is to think that because you(g) have realized there are Issues, that you(g) are now somehow better/more enlightened than everyone else. You actually are late to the party in that regard, usually. Just here on COTH is years worth of threads discussing these issues and cataloging the improvements that HAVE been made!
There is. Absolutely. And if Horses ™️ are burning you out (there is a LOT of burnout coming across in all your posts, even the ones where you say you’re happy in place), it’s okay to change something. Different sport, different level, different type of involvement. Even if that means getting out of horses entirely. It’s okay to realize that the Thing we defined ourselves by for so long is not bringing us fulfillment. Letting that go can be a bit scary, but you have to make changes for yourself - you can’t change everyone around you to Be Happy in the way you think is best, and you can’t change the Industry unless you are coming at it from the right frame of mind and understanding.
To change nothing while also claiming that everyone is Doing It Wrong and Is Unhappy… well, that’s not going to do much positive good, is it?
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