01/16/2025
This hurt my heart to read because so many horses live like this. I would go crazy if I sat in my closet for 18 hours a day and only got let out to do a CrossFit workout. Over the years, I've shifted to 24/7 pasture or large turnout with 24/7 access to hay with other horses, stalls opened for their leisure and locking them in only for major weather events and injuries. My training has changed to training for their health and fitness, not for my ambitions. I've never been one to use gadgets and harsh equipment but I've quit using bits that I have since learned are not fair and kind, some horses moving to bit-less options. There is a heavy divide in the horse industry because accepting what we are leaning about horse welfare requires us to swallow our pride and accept that "we've always done this way" may not be the best approach. Horses want to be horses. They want friends, freedom, and forage. We need to do better.
Dear human,
Do you ever think about the life that I live?
The hours of each day that I spend outside of your view?
Out of sight out of mind — meanwhile my reality really does continue.
Whether you think about me or not, while your life goes on, in your home or out with friends
Here I am, I still exist.
You see, a few hours of turnout may sound like a lot to you, but of much not does my life consist.
In your world, you see an abundance of choices, of paths you may take.
But my reality is much different than you may see, with 18 or more hours spent staring at the same 4 walls.
Not much of my life exists beyond stalls.
Yes, when I see you, it’s the highlight of my day.
Your presence provides an escape from the monotony of my life
But for your entertainment, confinement and isolation is a price I must pay.
Horses of years past, ancestors of mine, built the world you now enjoy, but this didn’t come without their strife.
Sometimes I feel like nothing more than an oversized toy.
Like a luxury vehicle, kept in the safety of a garage, patiently waiting, till you should come and play next.
The constant barrage of needs unmet leaves me frustrated and yearning to be heard.
The lines between love and neglect are often blurre
My such cries fall on deaf ears, for if my behaviour is unwanted, it is ruled as naughty.
The lines between love and neglect are often blurred.
For I know that you love me, in your own little way.
You don’t act with ill will, it’s ignorance at play.
And it’s no wonder that this is how it has become because most every horse loving child eventually does succumb
To a misguided perception of what the horse is to be
Its no wonder this happens, it’s almost a prophecy
These children grew up, with so much love in their hearts
Only to be delighted by the grimacing faces of carousel mounts or gaping mouthed horses, miserably pulling at carts.
They stood no chance, their impressionable minds shaping like the softest of clay.
While from their riding instructors, they are simultaneously told that the horse must always obey.
Before they know it, an adversarial relationship has been created.
Where I, the horse, is now an enemy, whose disobedience is a force that must be defeated.
It’s a war that I never signed up for, one to which I was conscripted.
And, thus, the horse must serve a sentence for a crime never committed.
As our wrongdoings are manufactured, by human misunderstanding .
Our pleas to be heard ignored, drowned out by the demands that we must be submitted.
For actions that the humans label as bad, for wrongs for which we deserve to be acquitted
When we say “no, I’m scared” or “ouch! That hurts!”
It is mistranslated by humans as an attempt to thwart a fictional power structure, one we never agreed to.
Where the horse is a foe, one who vies for power and control, one whose defiance must be defeated.
Empathy is extinguished, the energy reserves for it have been depleted.
And so, I find myself trapped, in a world where my voice goes unheard.
Where I’m told I have such thick skin, that I cannot feel it when spurred.
Where they say that I love my stall, that I am a diva who likes being alone to focus on myself
So that when in competition, I can give it my all.
Many parts of me are personified, but not the parts that matter.
My attempts to be seen and heard for who I am feel like useless chatter.
No one listens, so I go quiet and retreat inward. Feeling too much, being too much is all too exhausting.
I fear the damage on my mind and body the this stress might be costing.
They like me better, anyways, when I am not myself.
I am always too much, or not enough, when I tried to hold an opinion.
So, to you, my dear human, I offer you my puppet strings.
You’ve been holding them so tightly, anyways, and my continued fight does not come without emotional stings.
But, dear human, before I must go, please hear me in a final plea:
Loving me is not enough, if I may put it so simply.
For when that love is a selfish love, where your ambitions and goals are always first,
It leaves me no choice but to be stuck within a curse, where my need to feel seen and understood is not a priority.
Particularly when it conflicts with your goals, it seems like it is much too complicated for you to see we have souls.
But, my dear human, I leave you with this:
I know that your love for me really does exist.
If you can do me only one single favour, please let it be that you’ll continue your learning.
Even when it’s difficult, uncomfortable or hard. Even if it challenges what you’ve always believed.
Please do this for me, dear human, otherwise for your understanding, I’ll forever be yearning.
But if you accept my one simple task, from this stress, I’ll find myself forever relieved.
— original poem by me
See the spoken word poem and short film here: https://youtu.be/7AeCJt8wIJc?si=9vdmHBqzFOW4WWRs
