We ran a simple one-question online poll on Animalweb’s public Facebook page for 24 hours: If you could rid the Equestrian World of one single thing, What would it be?
The poll received 1313 responses. The top item with 20% of the votes people wanted to get rid of was Ignorance, closely followed by Horses with no turnout (19%). The answers shown below accounted for 80% of the total votes.
| % | |
| Ignorance | 20 |
| Horses with no turnout | 19 |
| The idea horses can be “naughty” | 12 |
| Irresponsible breeding | 8 |
| Hyperflexion/Rollkur | 7 |
| Laminitis | 7 |
| False marketing | 3 |
| Obesity | 2 |
| Cruelty | 2 |
But, this left around 150 comments on other things that people wanted to get rid of. None of these had more than 10 votes, so they don’t appear in the table.
Some of the suggestions (from A to Z) included:
- Ambition
- Bullying
- Colic
- Dishonesty
- Egos
- Feeding horses coconut
- Gossip
- Horseracing
- Internet trolls
- Judgemental horse people
- Kissing Spines
- Lonely horses
- Mean people
- Not allowing horses to live like horses
- Over-rugging
- PPID
- Quacks
- Ragwort
- Scammers
- Tendon firing
- Unregulated professionals
- Viruses
- Winning over welfare
- Young horse classes
- Zebra’s (OK – I made that one up as this was the only letter we didn’t have an answer for)
Here is the full list, minus a few that were taken out due to being defamatory.
| 90% of the bits, gags |
| Accountability of horse associations committees and trainers and everyday equine abusers for actions and retraining |
| African Horse Sickness |
| All unnecessary tack – tight nosebands, harsh bits, spurs, martingales, draw reins, the list goes on – replace with the long term effort required for happy horses and eliminate short cuts. |
| Ambition |
| Anthelmintic resistance |
| Armchair critics |
| Ba horse keeping where horses are kept at places that don’t meet all five domains of basic welfare |
| Backing under 4 years old |
| Bad Trainers |
| Bandages used for exercise |
| Barbed wire |
| BHS style riding |
| Big Lick and Rodeos |
| Big money |
| Bitchiness |
| Bitching/Bullies |
| Bits |
| Breaking |
| Breaking in before the age of 5yrs |
| Breeding And ownership. Sulkies and carts in the streets of Ireland should be banned. |
| Bridles that strap the mouth shut |
| Bullying |
| Clegs! |
| Closed minded Equestrians |
| Colic |
| Competitions |
| Corporate ownership of vets |
| Corruption |
| Depriving horses of the 5 freedoms |
| Dickheads |
| Dishonesty |
| Disregarding the rights & feelings of the horse |
| Dodgy dealers |
| Doing Whatever It Takes to Win |
| Dominance Theory |
| Double bridles |
| Draw reins |
| Drop nose bands |
| earning money |
| Egos |
| Excessive pressure / natural horsemanship/ excessive negative reinforcement |
| Facebook vets |
| Facebook! |
| Fake news being spread on social media |
| Feeding horses coconut |
| FEI |
| Flash or drop Nosebands |
| Flash straps |
| Flies etc |
| Force |
| Friends, forage, freedom not met |
| Gas lighting |
| Gastric Ulcers |
| Get horse on the bit |
| Gobshites |
| Gossip |
| Greed |
| Harsh hands |
| Haters |
| Headshaking Syndrome |
| Horrible people who caused trouble on livery yards |
| Horse racing – regulated and unregulated |
| Horse sport competitions |
| Horses being ridden too young |
| Horses kept on their own |
| Horses not kept and cared for species appropriately |
| Horses suffering for the entertainment or enjoyment of humans |
| Horses to slaughter for meat |
| Horses treated as a commodity rather than a living being |
| Horses with no turnout |
| Horses without physical contact other horses |
| How “exclusive/clique” the equine sports industry can be |
| how horses are seen (ie not an object but a live sentient being whom life experience matters) |
| Huge veterinary fees- corporate practices |
| Human centric decision making |
| Humans |
| Husbandry based on tradition and not science and welfare |
| Inappropriate living conditions eg horses not having the three F’s friends, forage and freedom |
| Inexperienced people duping others into paying for their services |
| Inflicting pain and violence for training purposes |
| Internet Trolls |
| Irresponsible owners |
| Isolation – keeping equids singly |
| Judgemental horse people |
| Kissing spine |
| lack of care and welfare knowledge! |
| Lack of horsemanship of owners |
| Live export of horses for meat |
| Lonely horses |
| Management that fails to adequately meet ethological needs |
| Marketing photographs that show BTV horses |
| Mean people |
| Midges and clegs |
| Mis-selling horses |
| Neglect |
| No daily turnout. Horses labelled naughty, they are trying to communicate |
| Non species specific living for horses, all horses need to be free on a track system with 24/7 hay and movement in a herd |
| nosebands after basic training. |
| Not allowing horses to live like horses |
| Not just irresponsible breeding, but breeding cripples on purpose because they place well in the show ring (halter, WP) |
| Online “experts” with zero qualifications. |
| Over-rugging |
| Overweight riders |
| Owners that think they know everything and refuse to get further equine education |
| People |
| PPID |
| Prize Money |
| PSSM 2 |
| Racehorses being trained so young |
| Racing |
| Racing horses under 4 yrs old |
| Ragwort |
| Recurrent Uveitis |
| Reluctance to change tradition for the wellbeing of the horse |
| Riders |
| Riding horses before their body has fully matured |
| Rotational falls |
| Sale to slaughter |
| Scammers |
| Selling on horses with problems without disclosing the problems |
| Shoeing horses and riding them before 5 more than 30 minutes. |
| Shoes |
| Soaring Tennessee walking horses |
| Space and open land for horses to live/ride on |
| Stabling |
| Sweet itch |
| Sycamore poisoning |
| Tendon firing |
| The bitchy horse owners |
| The Facebook ‘know it all’ |
| The idea of ‘using’ horses |
| The idea that horses are disposable |
| The need for equestrian charities |
| The right to own an equine with no prior experience |
| Top riders being put on a pedestal |
| Toxic people |
| Tradition |
| Traditional sized stabling 24/7 |
| Trolls |
| Ulterior motives |
| Uneducated horse owners (people should be required to learn before owning a horse) |
| Uneducated owners |
| Unregulated ‘professionals’ |
| Unsoundness/Lameness without the owner and coach recognising it. “Functionally sound.” |
| Unsuitable living conditions. This would solve several problems listed |
| Unwillingness to learn |
| Vets that don’t listen to clients |
| Viruses |
| Walking horse / saddlebred industry |
| Winning over welfare |
| Wrong use of aids (hand, legs, spurs, whip) |
