Our answer to Allison:

Read Animal Person at http://www.animalperson.net/animal_person/2008/05/on-barbaro-and.html Then sign up for Animal Person bulletins and read the site every day. As Animal Person warns, those who only want to make "improvements" are still making bonded slaves of noble beings meant to run free across the prairies of the world, not spend their lives in muddy pens and tiny prison cells; being "mounted" and forced to do humans' bidding. Humans' biddings turn out to be mortifyingly childish: tricks, rides, showing off, who can run faster, who can make the most money.

Horse and track owners are a tiny fraction of the problem; it is "horse lovers" who are the real problem because of their numbers. It is "horse lovers" who want horses to ride and watch run and use. Most of them unwittingly abuse their horses by keeping them imprisoned for long periods of time. Their boring, pointless, degraded lives are a daily reflection of the lives of the humans who own them, use them, and "love them".

Email Mary Martin (Animal Person), and ask her which group can be trusted to want abolition, not improved bondage.

Judy Stone