This is a documentary that came up in my fb newsfeed.
Platinum Ticket
It is the story of Platinum Ticket and how he went from race horse to jumper to feed lot.
The first think you do is jettison the âbunkâ language that has infested animal ownership.
Animals are chattels (i.e., property).
There is no such thing as a âpet parent.â There is such a thing as an âowner.â
There is no such thing as ârehoming.â There is a thing called a âsale.â It is the mirror image of a thing called a âpurchase.â
Animals, being property, have no rights. People, being people, have responsibilities (moral, ethical, and legal).
Some of those responsibilities are the proper care of property such that the public welfare is not adversely affected by the way property is cared for.
Following these principles will not mean and end to animal abuse. But neither will couching reality in high sounding terms.
G.
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Itâs also true that even a winning race horse has no market value once he stops racing and canât be bred (a gelding).
Sound ex race horses are typically sold to riding homes very cheap or free. Then the horse may if all goes well have a second career as a jumper. But again there is no market value for a jumper once he breaks down. I have a young coach friend who got starry eyed over picking up $60,000 warmblood jumpers for $1 because theyâd broken down, and rehabbing them. In both cases there seems to be both mental and physical things going on that have ended up keeping the horses out of regular use.
Ironically itâs the high dollar athletic horses that first, get injured, and second, are too hot to ever make nice ammie horses, that have these big drops in market value.
Your nice ranch broke trail riding QH might have a long useful life as a recreational trail horse and his value might stay in the $3000 to $5000 range until extreme old age. If he belongs to a one horse ammie he may get a responsible retirement.
So unfortunately high value as a yearling is no lifetime protection for a TB.
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I have a hard line stance on rehoming. I have done it once. My first OTTB became too dangerous to ride so he was a pasture ornament. When I enlisted in the Navy I took a massive pay cut and could no longer afford my horses. One, I sold to a friend and my OTTB went to another friend who used him as a babysitter for her babies. Beyond someone needing retired, pasture sound horse that I trust implicitly, I will euth every time.
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I agree with the above posters. While I have felt emotionally connected to all my horses, I am not so anthropomorphic as to consider them my children!
This reflects the recent thread on TB sport horses, as well as the article in COTH about older horses (see R hand side bar). I feel that it is our responsibility to both properly care for them and to do our best to ensure that when they are sold or given away that they do not end up mistreated or neglected. Not always possible, but we should do all we can. They are not tennis rackets that can be picked up or ignored as the fancy takes us.
I have euthanised a physically healthy but mentally unsound horse that I bought thinking I could âfixâ her. I tried for almost 10 years. I euthed rather than pass her on to someone who might mistreat her
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If no one sold horses, thereâd be no horses to buy.
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Amen! Are lesson barns supposed to breed and train and hang onto horses and ponies for a decade or so before they become a kind, mature schoolie reasonably safe for the youngest of beginners? People with competitive intentions but just starting the process of becoming good horse persons supposed to get OTTBâs exclusively (and, BTW, the owners and breeders of those horses arenât apparently caring and responsible enough to kill them or put them out to infinite retirement)? People who are finally at a time and place in their life that they can get that horse theyâve wanted since they were kids have to exclusively look at rescues and kill pens?
And, on a personal note, if I get creamed by a bus tomorrow (Iâm the sole source of income for the family, BTW), are people seriously suggesting that the only responsible options my family has of dealing with my four year old are KILLING HIM, or shelling out boarding fees (or dealing with lease hassles) for perhaps twenty or thirty yearsâmaybe longer, mustangs are tough little stinkers? Just because there is some chance he might, SOMEDAY, wind up on a one-way trip to Mexico if an attempt is made to sell him on to a good home?
@Toblersmom That is not what I am saying at all and my hardline stance is only what I do. I certainly do not judge people for doing something different. When people talk about rehoming the horse is typically not sound in body or mind or the horse is north of 20 years old.
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I didnât watch the movie, but Iâd make a distinction between selling a horse with enough qualities that make it likely to land on its feet in a good home, versus one with serious and unresolvable issues (soundness, mental) that make it more likely to be passed from pillar to post and end up in a bad way. Itâs true: if no one ever sold horses, no one could ever buy a nice, broke horse, but the nice, broke horse or horse with potential is relatively easy to sell. What about the unridable pasture ornament? Or the sharp competition horse who has soundness issue that makes him a happy hacker only? Except heâs too hot for anyone but a pro rider to safely hack. Or the one with such serious mental problems that make it a danger to itself and others? Or the one who is over 25?
For work, I interviewed a woman who runs an equine therapy barn, and as her clients donât ride, she has a small herd of donated unridable (but obviously pleasant and handle-able) horses. She told me she is inundated with emails from people begging her to take on their âcompanionâ horses for her program. Every day. Itâs a soft landing for an unridable, unsellable horse for sure, but she only has so much space and isnât a horse rescue charity.
A friend who knows I ride recently contacted me, asking if I would take on an ancient unridable, companion pony, or if I knew anyone who would. Uh, hell no. Pony would be free. Still no. No such thing as a free lame horse with cushings. If the ponyâs owner canât keep it, euth would be a fair choice. Friend was upset by this idea.
A lucky few of those horses will end up in a therapy program or companion home, or be retired by their owners, but when their owners canât or wonât keep them, I think euth is a valid, sensible option. Those are the types of horses I think most people in this thread are talking about.
My own horse is 25. Healthy, sound, extremely ridable, but still 25. I consider her unsellable due to her age, even though is she is fairly sellable as far as 25 year olds go. Obviously shit happens and there are circumstances under which geriatric horses have to be moved on one way or another (owner gets hit by a bus; owner canât afford it no matter what; owner gets illness; owner has to move to Australia; etc etc) and then you have to make a decision about whether or not to euth or sell. For a healthy old horse that could still offer someone something, my vote would be to sell or rehome, carefully, but for one who is a walking vet bill, my vote would be to euthanize.
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I just got a 20yo Thoroughbred gelding for my daughter. He was sold for $250,000 as a 2 year old. He became a bleeder 6 weeks into training and never made it to the track. His value to the trainer and owner was now $0. Luckily a lady picked him up and he spent the rest of his life up until now just doing trails, and obstacle courses. I got him for $1 because the lady fell on hard times and just wanted a good home for him. Sadly a lot of Thoroughbreds for one reason or another donât make it on the track. And there arenât a lot of options for them, depending on physical or training issues. A lot arenât as lucky as this gelding. It is a sad fact of the racing industry.
That said, my mustang and this old man will stay with me for life. And be euthanized when they come to the end. I will give them the dignity they deserve and have earned as partners to my daughter and myself. I just couldnât risk them ending up in a bad situation, after they give so much of themselves to us.
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Ah, if rehoming is a euphemism for trying to unload a crocked unsalable horse, thatâs another matter.
I hang out at the low end of nice horses and I think the assumption in my immediate circles is that if you are a one horse ammie with a horse youâve been riding for 15 years, you do the right thing about pasture retirement or euthanasia when the horse becomes unfit for riding.
Interestingly horses that are primarily recreational tend not to get the career ending tendon issues of performance horses. The big risk is obesity Cushingâs and founder.
Now the pressures are different when you are on a serious competition path.
But either way, no, there are very few people out there willing to take on an unusable horse as a âcompanion.â However there are generally lots of options for pasture board if you are willing to pay a couple hundred a month in fees. That honestly doesnât seem exorbitant to me.
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@Scribbler that is how I interpret âRehomingâ. A touchy feely euphemism. Anything else would be selling. If the horse is marketable, then there is no reason to appeal to emotion.
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I find peopleâs interpretations of language fascinating.
I really did not think much about the term rehoming, (which is a word âthing,â at least my spell check thinks it is.) I donât have have touchy feely feelings about the word either, although I do agree that is most often used with horses that have no market value.
I really disagree with the idea of horses, or any living thing, being label purely as property. Legally, I understand that that is how they are view in terms of the law, but letâs be real here. My SOâs old Blazer is not feeling the hunger or thirst t because it is sitting in the driveway. Likewise the table I broke the leg off of is not in pain. Horse, and other living things, feel pain, loneliness, happiness, hunger, thirst, and other base emotions.
Obviously many horses, with a market value, are sold every day and for good reason. They go to great homes and are well cared for. The horse in this story, Platinum Ticket, had a good race career, when on to have nice show career. Where things went wrong was when he was old and of no use to the owner. They sent him to be a pasture pet to someone that they didnât know. That was when he entered the âslaughter pipeline.â
My purpose was just to bring a little awareness to the problem of trying to get rid of horses with no market value.
My boy was pulled from a kill pen and the more I work with him the more I realized that someone, at one time, loved him.
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Well, the moral of the video seems to be, donât let your aged retired horses out of your legal possession. The last owners thought they were doing the right thing and got scammed.
Of course horses are bought and sold. Of course if I buy a horse I want to be able to do what I want with it without some crazy former owner breathing over my shoulder.
Horses end up going for meat price at auction because they have a big deficit in either health, soundness, training, or sanity. I donât like the slaughter industry either. But I donât think objecting to the fact horses are bought and sold is relevant.
It may seem that there is a connection if you are only at the very low end of horses where nothing has any resale value or any use value, even.
But with horses that have some use and therefore resale value, whatâs wrong with a breeder selling a young pony to a trainer who gets it ready to sell to a little girl? Who then sells it to another little girl when she outgrows it? Or a race track trainer selling an OTTB to a jump trainer who then sells it to a client? Thatâs how we get well bred well trained sound happy horses.
Itâs fine to say everyone should ride something that came out of a lowend auction or feral round up. Indeed, that was pretty much the case where I grew up. But you donât get safe well trained horses that way (unkess you are able to do the training yourself) and you certainly very rarely get anything that can jump or do dressage.
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Actually the âproblemâ of dealing with horses of no market value is very simple with a one word solution: euthanize.
An alternative solution is âslaughter.â
Both are final and end the emotional stress of the owner. Unless, of course, the owner chooses to burden themselves with additional feelings. If they do that then the responsibility for the consequences of those feeling is is on them, not the rest of the world. They chose to assume a burden that they did not have to take up. Now they get to deal with it.
âSaleâ means an end of the ownerâs responsibility (legal, moral, and ethical) but does not have an immediate finality.* If thatâs what an owner wants then one of the two words, above, should be the one used.
G.
*Death, of course, is the finality of life and is sure within a short time with euthanasia and slaughter. With saleâŠnot so much.
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Oh I agreed with you. 100%. I also think that sometimes we need to be aware of what can happen when we have a lame horse and are trying to rehome it. I seen several posts recently about people wanted to rehome horses that not only donât meet their needs, but also really arenât going to meet otherâs needs.
When you have a western pleasure horse and realize that you want to do jumping, chances are that horse is not going to meet your needs anymore, and I see no issue sell that horse to get another. But if you have a western pleasure horse that is lame, that horse not only doesnât meet your needs, but likely isnât going to meet anyone else.
@Guilherme
Emotions are found in the most primitive part of the brain and there has been a lot of research that show that animals do have emotions.
Animal Emotions: Exploring Passionate Natures an article from the Oxford University Press
Pythagoreans long ago believed that animals experience the same range of emotions as humans (Coates 1998), and current research provides compelling evidence that at least some animals likely feel a full range of emotions, including fear, joy, happiness, shame, embarrassment, resentment, jealousy, rage, anger, love, pleasure, compassion, respect, relief, disgust, sadness, despair, and grief (Skutch 1996, Poole 1996, 1998, Panksepp 1998, Archer 1999, Cabanac 1999, Bekoff 2000).
You are honestly saying you canât tell if your horse is happy, mad, annoyed?
That âslaughter pipelineâ has also become a big business of selling these horses, often soliciting donations for their price by pulling at the heartstrings of the unwary. I know some nice horses end up at low end auctions, who knows how they ended up there. Glad some are willing to chance pulling/saving them but equine rescue is just not for me. It is just too expensive to risk for me personally and I chafe at the selling technique of âthey ship Saturdayâ. I watched the video and was left with a bad taste from all. Knowing the rescue world and mindset (I am involved in mostly dog rescue) there can be a hoarder mentality and you must save them all.
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Of course not!!! With mine itâs pretty clear when they are agitated, calm, annoyed, alert, etc. What I cannot tell is if they are âhappy.â Thatâs a human state, not a horse state. The base, survival impulses that come from the âreptilian brainâ are simple, direct, and cause immediate action. They are âfight or flightâ impulses. For a couple of million years horses have been developing these mental states as they mean they wonât get eaten.
I commend to you a book called Evidence Based Horsemanship. Itâs written by a horse trainer and PhD neuroscientist. The cost is modest ($17.00) and the information extensive and valuable. They take on myth, legend, and romance and you will be surprised by some of their conclusions. Get it and read it. http://www.evidence-basedhorsemanship.com/evidence-based-horsemanship.php
G.
Sounds like a good read, Iâm adding it to my reading list.
I agree.
I hate the word re-home. I think because itâs not used genuinely in many cases. I so often see it associated with a fee Backyard breeders use it with puppies on Craigslist. So you are selling an animal, not re-homing it. I think that word also makes people feel better when they realized they made a mistake and canât handle that rambunctious puppy or destructive cat. Or the case of the elderly pony above. 
Re-homing was never a thing until it was. (I actually looked it up, it appeared in the urban dictionary in 2008.)
