Equine Sorrow

Random: Have you ever stopped to think about how shitty horses have it in life?  I might think about that more often than PETA's most ardent activist.  I feel so bad for them.  Here's why:


1) You know how it feels to wear your backpack all day?  Your back gets tired, and maybe a little sore.  Ok, well imagine you have a fucking human being on your back all day.  Yeah, horses weigh way more than humans do, but still.  If you're a 900 lb. horse with a 150 lb. man on your back (which is a conservative estimate, as most men are heavier than that), you're still carrying around 1/6 of your body weight.  And you might have to gallop, or jump around, with 1/6 of your own body weight on your back.  I weigh about 140; I would not want to run around and do tricks while carrying 23 lbs.   After about the first ten minutes hour, I'd probably be struggling.

2) You get your own choice of footwear--horses don't.  At a young age, they have hard metal horseshoes that are nailed into the surface of their hooves.  They don't get to kick off their shoes when they get home after a hard day's work.  Their shoes stay on until they outgrow them, at which point they get new shoes hammered in.  Although this area is said to be insensitive (it has been compared to a human toenail), I'm sure that the process likely a little uncomfortable, even if it's not painful.  Can you imagine getting something heavy put through your toenail?  Yeah, that would suck.

3) Wanna rest?  Too bad, horse.  You have to do your master's bidding.  If you start to slow down, you're a slacker and you might be put down.  He'll say "Giddyup, horsey!" (he might even wear spurs, the bastard!) and ignore the pain in your eyes.  Thirsty? Sorry, Seabiscuit.  You can get a cool drink only when your human says it's ok.

This is what horses wish they could say

4)  They eat grass, hay, and the occasional apple.  Not a brownie or burger in the mix. Sad life.

5) Horses stink.

6) They're most often kept in stables.  Not exactly the penthouse suite.

7)  A lot of them fall down--hard--in movies.  I know a lot of it is CGI, but some of that falling is real, and the horses don't even get a cut of the film profits.  And can you imagine doing multiple takes of the same scene where you have to fall down?  They didn't sign up to do stunts.  

Yeah, so that about sums it up.  I don't believe in reincarnation, but anyone who comes back as a horse must have done some bad things in his/her previous life.