I think this is the argument the “horses as pets before sport” cohort take. Why shouldn’t they live rent free? Why should the relationship be transactional?
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Aren’t most relationships transactional at their core?
Some people are born independently wealthy and never have work a day in their lives. But for most of us, we need to find a way to support ourselves through transactional relationships.
Horses aren’t living in the wild “rent free,” they are part of the food web.
While parents support their children, any good parent is going to be providing their child with the skills to be independent one day. It’s not that the relationship has an end date, but the liminal period of parental care ideally should not last forever.
Even a dog or cat is providing the service of companionship in exchange for their care. No, we may not make them “compete” (although some people do), but they still have to abide by certain expectations to maintain their place as a pet.
It’s really hard for any animal to find a situation where they can exist without a purpose.
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I was not taking it personally per se - hence the 
and the 
and the 
- but the dismissive comments at the feed did annoy the hell out of me. Am I as effective as I was 15 years ago - say, when dealing with obnoxious, rambunctious yearlings who have forgotten they know how to lead/tie/load/think? Nope. Not as fast and far less bouncy - but brain works better than brawn anyway. I can out-think them as opposed to out-muscle them.
I have known a couple like this… one a large pinto gelding of unknown ancestry (some draft in there though). He loved to jump. No paddock could hold him. No hot wire stopped him. He jumped in and out as he pleased but stayed “home” as that was where his friends and feed were. His owner took him on the annual fall “fox” hunt (drag line scent for hounds to follow - no actual foxes involved). He dismounted for a bathroom break at the sherry stop and stepped into the trees… - and Toby decided he was taking too long and pulled away to go with the hunt. He took all the jumps with “delight” - flagging his tail and bucking with glee. We used a CC course on one farm as part of the track and he opted to take the prelim jumps whenever possible (yes, he had been over them before). He had the option to jump lower - or simply go around and run with the pack. He chose otherwise.
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I actually feel dogs are held to the highest standards of any domesticated animals. We ask them to hold their bladder for at least 4 hours a day (sometimes people demand more, if they work full-time and can’t afford dog walkers). We ask them to walk beside us without being reactive/ barking at other people and dogs. We ask them not to bark all day. We ask them to not beg us for tasty food, and to only eat at certain times. We ask sometimes very large, active, energetic dogs to remain in relatively confined places and, if the owner is not athletic, to not run and jump to their fullest contentment. At least most eventing horses (since that’s the discipline that prompted this discussion) get more unstructured time to chill and be horses and graze on their own time.
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Sidebar: I’ll just point out here….when I retired, I was asked to return four times!
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Most dogs are much happier with a job to do. Half the behavior problems would be solved if their minds and bodies were tired.
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Since I started this thread and I’m still reading it, when are we going to point out the (to me) elephant in the room?
In the USA the history of the horse has been largely based in transportation. Sport was an ancillary deviation.
Overall though dogs and horses in other cultures are still food. Pets for some sure, but food still. So too are guinea pigs in parts of the world.
It’s all great to talk about comfort and giving them lives and how good/bad/moderate it is to do sport things that are not transportation, but overall it’s impossible to miss that were our hobbies not as well populated in participants, overall these animals could have FAR different fates.
It’s all about your own perspective of “normal.”
Em
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Oh, sure. Now we need to discuss what “normal” means.
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Normal is just a setting on a dryer.
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Normal in 2025 is going to look different from 2005 or 1925 or even 2035.
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I just want to point out, I don’t think it was intentional but this is a bit classist. I know plenty of people who work minimum wage jobs who do feel great pride in doing a good job, and feel like they are contributing and their position has meaning, if it’s not something you would find meaning in.
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Oh sure, now my dryer is defective because I don’t think it has a Normal setting?
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It didn’t ask to participate in the drying process. Cut it some slack.
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To your point, I’ve often thought about this in relation to the horses in my life. This isn’t meant in a over-romanticized way - if it weren’t for my hobby and them being in the right place at the right time, a few would have had “french vacations”. On some level, horse keeping as a whole would be very different if it weren’t for people like us enjoying them as a hobby - and in many places, horses serve as food as much as modes of transportation or farm work. Hobby horses are the lucky ones.
Which is why I don’t feel bad asking my horse to do something he doesn’t love, such as leave his friends and get on the trailer. It’s a small price to pay for the commodity of a well-kept life, and let’s be real - a sport horse (race horse, UL eventer, UL dressage, etc) eats better and has better access to modern medicine than most people.
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I’m ok with asking horses to do something for a living.
I am not ok when that’s taken to the extreme, at great risk to the animal, for human glory. Sure, something can happen at any time. But you can’t say that the risk between a beginner novice fence is the same as an advanced fence. Or that riding a 10 mile trail in good weather and daylight is the same as riding a 100 mile trail in the dark.
It’s like horse diving. Just because you “can” does not mean you should.
I’m also not ok asking the animal to do something they clearly despise doing, or pushing the limits of what they physically can do. Some horses like dressage, some hate it. Some horses like trail riding, some hate it. Etc. Some horses can do 3rd level work without wanting to die, some can’t. Some horses can jump 3’3" without a blink, for others that’s at the max max max of their scope.
I can’t imagine saying that I love my horse, my partner, my friend - and then in the next breath put them in over-the-top dangerous situations. Do you love the horse? Or do you love what they can do for you? It’s a dichotomy to me that I can’t resolve.
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Do you put your horse in a horse trailer? Because quite honestly I feel that is 100% the most dangerous thing we do to them
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I’d need to see stats on that, how many horses per day are transported versus how many are injured. I don’t disagree at all that it’s dangerous.
Again - some “you need to do stuff for a living” is acceptable to me, because it is part of the territory of the transactional relationship. Pushing an animal to their physical brink in some sort of competitive event will never be a-ok with me.
The hurdle/steeplechase races fall in this category for me as well. Or those cliff races. It’s just 100% driven by the human without a single care for what it might do to the horse - it doesn’t matter what vet care is present, what risk is being taken? Is it fair to the animal?
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I feel like it’s all relative. It’s really hard to draw the line of what is an acceptable level of risk and what is too risky.
Turning your horses out is not inherently dangerous. Yet turning your horse out in a large, safe field with a compatible herd v. turning your horse out in an overcrowded pen filled with hazzards and aggressive horses are two very different situations. And even in the first situation, horses manage to injure themselves… because horses.
So for me, I don’t view it as “this discipline is okay but this other discipline is not.” I feel like you have to look at the quality of life on the whole.
I feel like if you are providing exemplary care that exceeds the horse’s needs, yet participating in a higher risk sport… I don’t necessarily have a problem with it. I don’t think that makes the person worse than someone who participates in lower risk sports.
Now, I do have problems with horse sports that destroy a horse’s quality of life. For example, I don’t see how anyone can own a padded Big Lick horse and provide an adequate quality of life. Standing in those stacks 24/7 affects the horse in every single way. I also have a problem with providing a poor quality of life period, and that unfortunately happens at every level.
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For the second time in this thread you put into words better than I could.
On the other end of the spectrum, these high intensity/high stakes sports, like racing and steeplechasing, are also responsible for many cutting edge medical advances the hobby horse benefits from… from basket surgery to PRP, so much medical knowledge the average horse owner can take advantage of is pioneered on the backs of high stakes sports-interests. Without them, we’re worse off imo.
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