I have loved horses all my life. When I was living in a city , the closest I could come to spending any time with horses was to share a lease on one at a local stable. The experience was a real eye opener.

I soon realized that keeping horses locked up in stalls in a city was unforgiveably cruel. This stable consisted of about 40 stalls, a riding ring, and four small paddocks. The horses spent the majority of their time in their stalls. When they weren't in their stalls they were either being ridden around and around the ring in circles, or being plodded along city streets, or were turned out into a paddock so small that they could barely canter, let alone gallop. I don't think any of those poor horses had galloped in years. The paddocks and ring were all dirt. There was no grazing available.

Needless to say, most of these horses had moderate to severe behaviour problems. They were all immaculately groomed and beautiful to look at, but they were all psychologically damaged to varying degrees.

I remember one horse in particular, a beautiful young black quarter horse called Buckwheat. Buckwheat was likely the most intelligent horse in the whole stable- he threw almost every rider that mounted him. Sometimes after a few minutes, sometimes after a few days or weeks, they all went. I admired him greatly, and wished I could take him away from his miserable life of confinement and boredom. Everyone seemed to fear or hate Buckwheat. No one pitied him except me. One day he disappeared from the stable. I was told he'd been taken for "training". Although I was very naive at the time, I had a gut feeling that poor Buckwheat was doomed, sentenced by the "horse world" to a life of usery, confinement, and ennui.

All those horses suffered a sort of mental malaise as they rotted away in their boxes, day after day. When they finally were taken out to be ridden, they were extremely high spirited, and were often beaten for it. I was astonished to learn about the plethora of painful bits that were used in their mouths because they were "stubborn" and "pigheaded".

The horse I shared a lease on was a gigantic quarter horse named Silk. I think I only rode Silk three times in the whole year that I shared his lease. For most of the time that I knew Silk, he was lame. He suffered from chronic caudal heel pain, often referred to as "navicular". His feet needed to be treated continually, he needed to be walked, not ridden, and he was on lifetime phenylbutazone ("Bute") for pain control.

Silk went through many part time leasers who dumped their lease when they realized he was rarely well enough to ride. No one wanted to PAY for a horse that they had to treat medically instead of ride. Except me I guess.

I used to walk Silk to the elementary school that was near by and let him graze on the playing field. It was short grass, but it was better than no grass. Then we'd go back to his stall where I'd try to convince him to take his Bute in whatever new food item I had brought to tempt him.
In the summer, his favourite was watermelon rinds.

I learned two years after I stopped going to the stable that Silk had been euthanized due to a worsening of his painful condition. And I have since learned from my veterinarian that "navicular" is prevalent in large, heavily muscled horses with tiny feet, which is the type of horse he was. My vet tells me that this is the type of quarter horse popular for halter shows (conformation horse shows)and that many of them are lame due to the way they have been bred. Huge horses aren't meant to have tiny feet.

Horses are one of the most abused species on our planet. What I witnessed at that stable happens in cities all over the world. The people who lease horses in the city are too often self centered urbanites who are more in love with the image of themself on a horse than they are with horses. More often than this, they are the teenage daughters of such urbanites, using horses to impress their peers. They are usually the rich and affluent, and money keeps the whole city horse tragedy alive in metroplitan centres all over North America.

Horseracing is not the sport of kings, and leasing a horse in the city is not tres chic. Both are forms abuse, and inflict tremendous suffering on beatiful, sentient creatures.

Jennifer Dickson
Vernon BC