The Natural Horse

Horses are a subject that most non-horsey people find very boring and horsey people find endlessly fascinating. One area that always results in the temperature in the equestrian world being raised to boiling point is the natural versus unnatural argument.

The moment we domesticate an animal we change its natural way of being. It is obvious, to all but the irredeemably stupid, that, if we change an animal's natural way of being too much we will cause it harm. There has to be a balance between what the animal needs to be healthy in body and mind and what we want it to do for us. 

I have heard people, who seek to legitimate highly unnatural ways of managing animals, argue along the lines that, as very few people can achieve the 'natural' ideal of running horses in a herd on 100 acres of wilderness, then keeping them isolated in a stable is ok. An equivalent would be to argue that, as if you cannot keep pregnant sows running in a forest, it's ok to keep them in crates. 

We subject the horse to extremes, we ask it to run further, faster, jump higher than it would ever choose to do in nature. The horse is not stupid, given the choice, it will conserve energy and avoid dangerous obstacles and it will stick to known pathways if possible. In so doing, it obeys the evolutionary imperatives of conserving energy and staying with its herd. 

We want to keep horses in stables or small paddocks because it is convenient to us. These conditions mean their feet cannot become or remain as tough and well conditioned as they need to be to cope with what we want them to do and are prone to being worn or contused. But we want them to jump massive tracks on potentially slippery or hard ground - at our convenience, and, for the safety of the rider and animal welfare considerations we don't want horses falling and breaking a leg or neck too often, so we shoe them to 'protect' the hoof from wear and bruising, and add studs to improve traction. We do this despite the fact that shoeing - even the very best shoeing - invariably causes some damage to the hoof. The logic behind shoeing is that any harm the shoe does is offset by the harm it prevents.

Why not breed for good feet, condition the feet from birth and keep the use of the horse within the limits imposed by its biology?  

We know that at liberty a horse adopts display posture only briefly and can alter its posture the moment it needs to. We know it needs an extended neck and a dryish, closed mouth to be able to breathe efficiently. In advanced dressage, under conditions at which the physical demands on the horse are pretty extreme, tradition insists on an 'outline' that inhibits respiration at a point when the degree of musculo-skeletal stress demands respiration be at its most efficient. And, it insists on the use of a certain type of equipment - a double bridle - to achieve and maintain that outline, which also reduces the efficiency of respiration. 

Show me the advanced dressage horse that competes with the dryish, fully closed mouth of the horse exercising at liberty and I'll show you a hundred that are slobbering wildly and have their mouths open. The simple fact that people think the slobbering is desirable demonstrates a lamentable lack of understanding of the competing physiological processes involved in eating and exercising.

It is insane. And it comes from an era when the prancing, 'prettily curvetting', horse was a status symbol of the rich and powerful. You have only to look at most statues of kings, princes and military leaders astride horses and invariably the horse's mouth is open, its jaw is twisted and its eyes are wild - a picture of a horse in pain, or in fear of being in pain. To the educated eye it is ugly. It's like the terrified grimace of a young chimpanzee that is presented to a gullible human audience as a 'smile'. 

We subject the horse to a grossly unnatural lifestyle. We may have selectively bred for size, performance, athletic ability etc but their fundamental species needs remain unaltered – as do our own. 

I make no apology for the following. It may sound emotional – it isn’t. I love horses but this is a fairly dispassionate list of what the horse's species needs are versus what we do it – to meet our needs, or what we are led to believe should be our needs.

What follows is not an exhaustive list although you may feel exhausted after reading it. 

The horse :

is a highly social and hierarchal herd animal -  it is often isolated and/or exposed to sudden changes in its herd environment;

is a prey animal whose defence is flight and which evolved to move 18 hours a day  – it is often confined to stables and small pens;

needs confidence in its ability to flee from danger and to stay upright –  the way it senses the ground and the way its feet cut into the ground are changed by shoeing it;

is a trickle feeder, grazing head -low 16+ hours a day – it is usually fed to human convenience and needs;  

needs high fibre and varied forage  - it is often fed on sugar rich, too easily available grass and legumes and grain based hard feeds that are often coated with sugar and treated with chemicals, and it is often denied high fibre food to prevent a 'grass belly';

controls its own worm burden by moving away from its droppings – it is often forced it to graze worm infested grass and then dosed with wormers, whether or not it needs them;

needs the pumping action of its feet to aid venous return – the normal expansion and contraction of its feet is often changed by the way we trim (or don’t trim), manage the lifestyle and by nailing or gluing on shoes;

needs to keep its spinal ligaments tensioned to allow locomotor muscles to function optimally, which requires head low posture – we often create a range of conditions in which it stands and moves head high and/or with a hollow back;

needs a balanced skeleton to maintain its stay apparatus – we often force skeletal imbalances on it with resultant soft tissue damage, by the way we balance its feet, shoeing, poor riding, discomfort from bits etc;

is more prone to over heating than cold and has an efficient thermo-regulation system - we often rug and clip it for our convenience and because we project our needs onto it;

needs properly aligned teeth for nipping and grinding – we often affect the wear of its teeth by what we feed it and how we keep it and we have its teeth balanced while it is in a head high posture which changes the alignment of the jaw;

has a highly sensitive mouth and muzzle - we often damage it through the use of bits, chains, straps, tie backs, tie downs etc;

requires a relatively dry, closed mouth, a fully closed gullet and full extension of its neck for ensure efficient respiration - we often force it into flexion which inhibits this, prevent it from fully closing its mouth by placing bits in it, stop it opening its mouth to evade the pain of the bit by strapping its mouth closed or tying its tongue down ......

And, in addition to all that - we often cut off its sensory whiskers, pull the hairs of its mane and tail out by the roots, wash the natural oils out of its coat, spray it with silicon based products to make its coat shine, expose it to toxins from artificial fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides and anthelmintics….

In short, we often create conditions in which the horse is exposed to psychological, digestive, muscular-skeletal, circulatory, metabolic stress - and all too often, when its system breaks down, we then subject it to a whole new load of stressors trying to cure it.

Having these sort of views about animal husbandry in general qualifies me to be called a’ tree-hugging, granola eating kook’ or a ‘rabid PETA whore’  by people with Over-Active Amygdala Syndrome (mostly, it has to be said, horse owning residents of the USA where the condition seems to have reached epidemic proportions).  

I don't expect everyone to do as I do, I just want to encourage people to stop and consider why they do what they do - not just do it because other people do it, or say to do it, or because it's easier, or because it's always been done that way.