Horses played an integral role in the development of modern society. Traditionally people use horses for work or high-payed racing or athletes. The utilization of horses is plowing the agricultural field, pulling the cart, ferrying mail, building rail systems, and hauling much need supplies. The relationship between horses and men is celebrating a unique bond. With the development of modern machinery, many horses’ jobs are replaced by machines. Nowadays, horses are utilized for recreational purposes, medical experiments, and making money for athletes and in racing. Horse abuse is increasing day by day as People become more economic.
What is Considered Horse Abuse?
Horse abuse and utilization are recent affairs. Animal lovers throughout the world are more concerned about the abnormal uses of horses and taking less care during old age. There are few training methods, stable confinement, keeping in isolation, extensive riding, abnormal breeding, soring, neglecting, abuse, and many more methods of horse abuse.
Types of Horse Abuse
There are different types of horse abuse. The most common horse abuses are described below for your easy understanding. As a horse lover, you can take precautions to stop these kinds of abuses
1. Riding Abuse.
Horses are forced to work and ride for a long time without rest. Riding horses in the hot summer is another form of horse abuse. Riding abuse occurs when horses are excessively whipped or spurred. The other forms of horse abuse are riding a lame horse, riding the horse with a sore back, sloppy careless posture on the trail, jerking the bridle rim, and forcing the horse to do things they do not understand.
2. Training Horse Abuse
During horse training use of pain killers, and some equipment like cranks and pullies in dressage is unethical. Sometimes horses are tied and sacked in training. Especially in young horses are tied to a rope and struck over and over by a sack. Longeing an untrained horse is another form of abuse. Hitting the horse with any object in order to spook to train them.
3. Neglect of Horse
This type of abuse occurs when horses are not given proper food, shelter, care, and treatment. Excessive horses live in confined places without adequate facilities. During the winter season, neglect occurs more. The main causes of this abuse are lack of knowledge of horse care, lack of money to pay for horse care, laziness, and many more.
4. Horse Abuse By Backyard Breeding
Backyard breeding creates millions of unwanted horses. This type of abuse occurs by the horse owner bred their mare to either pass their bloodlines or just want a cute little foal to play with or sell the foal to make quick money. The development of miniature horses from an original horse is also one type of abuse.
5. Soring of Horses
Soring was a common practice seen mostly in Racking horses and Tennessee Walking Horses. Inflicting pain on the horse’s limbs affects and accentuates the horse’s gait. Soring is done by applying an irritating blistering agent by both injections or externally applying on skin, any laceration, burn, or cut inflicted by a person to a horse limb, any tack, nail, screw or chemical agent, or any other agents that affect the limb of the horse. As per the Horse Protection Act, this cruelty has largely stopped.
6. Sexual Abuse
Sexual abuse of animals where physical intercourse is done with an animal is a serious case. Any abusive act involving dung opening, digestive tract, or genitalia with animals may or may not results in physical injury. This abuse is sometimes called interspecies sexual assault.
7. Mule Diving
Mule diving is forcing animals to jump off high planks into small pools of water. This is very terrifying, animals are whipped and forced to dive into a pool. Many accidents occur like physical trauma, fracture, and even death. This is one of the cruelest games that people watched by paying.
8. Intentional Abuse
Horse abuse is not always straightforward. Human maltreatment of horses extended across the spectrum from passive neglect to intentional cruelty. The majority of cases arise from neglect due to a lack of education.
9. Beating of Horse
Animal beating causes unnecessary pain or suffering. Abuses may be caused by kicking, beating, whipping, hitting, throwing, shaking, burning, scalding, suffocating, poisoning, and spurring.
10. Abuse in Showing
Horses are prepared for showing and kept standing hours after hours. The preparation during a showing is tail blocking, application of injections, alcohol, and excessive grooming. In some cases, horses are given an excessive physical exercise to make them calm.
11. Emotional Abuse of Horses
Excessive teasing, bullying, coercion, or exploration leads to a fragile emotional state for horses. In horses, continuous threatening behavior or depriving basic needs like food, shelter, or care is considered emotional abuse of horses.
12. Hoarding of Horses
Neglected horses are accumulating in a small confined area with inadequate housing and husbandry facilities.
13. Non-accident Horse Abuse
Non-accidental abuse is the physical abuse of horses. During work or training excessive physical pressure, biting, or injury by a blunt instrument is also serious abuse. You cannot compel your horse to do excess work or hard training.
14. Abuse During Transporting of Horses
Transporting horses too long without food, water or rest is another kind of abuse. In a confined place, horses transferred with less ventilation suffers from many diseases and even may die. Another form of bad transportation is the use of faulty equipment, truck or trailer is not padded properly, the slippery floor of the truck may break the horse’s leg or lameness, injury to the skin and other sensitive organs.
15. Miscellaneous Horse Abuse
Few other types of abuse are tail blocking of horses, injection or rubbing, hanging heavyweights on horse’s neck, surgically altering the tail to keep horses tail down, trussing horses in restrictive harnesses, wearing chains, wire or beds on the hoof, use of a tight saddle, etc.
Concluding Remarks on Horse Abuse
Horses are the excellent creatures that serves human beings since ancient times. The horses play a vital role in the development of human civilization. But in the modern age, the necessity for horses decreased. Man becomes more economic in rearing and caring for horses. In this article, I have discussed the most probable ways of abuse. As a horse lover, if you have a preliminary idea, you can reduce horse abuse at your corner. If this piece of information helps you, you must share it with your friends.
