The Many Faces of Abuse

What is it that makes people evil? Is it indeed evil that makes people become horse abusers? Is it possible that one single factor is the cause for all horse abuse?

Case: 52 male, faced 46 counts of failing to adequately feed & shelter his horses. Of 49 horses, 23 were found starving. Some were found 300 pounds underweight. There were colts that were only 100 pounds. There were babies 100 pounds underweight. The shelter at the farm was in "shambles"- ceilings falling down, buckets in the stall filled 2 1/2 feet deep with feces ,& horses being literally starved to death.

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Each time a horse races, & this is more true of TB's than others, he develops millions of tiny micro-fractures in his legs, says Mike Jones, investigator for PAWS Magazine. Horses, like human athletes, are subject to ligament, tendon, and muscle injuries. What is an owner or trainer, dependent on the horse for income, supposed to do when it is injured? The obvious answer is sit him out, let him heal, and race him again when he's better. This makes no sense in the high stakes world of horse racing. With a small shot of several different drugs, an injured horse can run again. There is a drug for every major ailment that would make a horse sit out.

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Hypersensitisation is a form of horse abuse where the limbs of the horse are made abnormally sensitive, resulting in pain when hitting an obstacle. The idea behind it is that the horse will be conditioned this way to lift its limbs higher when jumping.

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Many pleasure trainers will tie their horses heads in an elevated position overnight in order to exhaust the neck muscles. The horse will then carry his head low, as he does not have the energy to raise it. Another common practice among crooked trainers in the english and western pleasure divisions is bloodletting. In this procedure, they bleed the horses as doctors used to bleed patients to solve or help solve medical problems, except the bloodletting is not done for medical reasons; it is done to make the horse lethargic. In pleasure classes the desired look is a quiet, cooperative, easy going horse who carries himself low and is an overall pleasure to ride.

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The act of injecting ginger or iodine into the anus of a horse is a common, but illegal practice. It's desired effect is a raised tail carriage, something which comes naturally to the Arabian breed. The substances cause a burning sensation, to which the horse reacts by lifting his tail.

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Other forms of abuse include the PMU industry, wild Mustangs & the BLM, hoarders , beating, neglect, & abandonment. All result in one thing: the pain & suffering of the horse, with the possible/conditional exception being abandonment.

Between education & your donations, we can stop abuse in it's tracks, although we can never hope to end it entirely.

We remain dedicated & we need your support.