

They shoot horses, don’t they?

There’s a moment all novice riders reach when they are sitting in the saddle, kicking away on the flanks of their mount and the horse is not budging. At that moment, all of them ask the same exasperated question: “Why can’t I get him to move?”

Actually, new riders experience that moment over and over again. But, after you have a few lessons under your belt, you feel it should be working more or less automatically. You kick, the horse moves. It worked before, why, at this particular moment is he just standing there? Eventually, you either give up and buy a bike or you have an epiphany; a moment sort of like the scene in Star Wars where Luke is flying into the cavern of the Death Star and suddenly hears the voice of Obi-Wan Kenobi saying, “Luke, use the Force.”

A few years ago, after literally getting stuck in the mud trying to move some cattle with a horse that decided to stop, I asked an experienced wrangler what I was doing wrong. She said, “You have to really want to go where you want to go and the horse has to know it.” It sounded goofy and vague (“Use the Force!”), but every good rider will tell you it’s true. And it worked for me — immediately and most of the time since.

Horses have an incredible sensitivity to their surroundings. They are animals that for thousands of years were prey to beasts with sharp teeth. They had to know when to run and who to follow. They are herd animals that long to stick together for safety. For a human sitting on a horse’s back to overcome those instincts — to get a horse to move away from the herd and go where the human wants to go — the horse has to trust the rider. He has to feel the rider’s calmness, confidence and will. The horse responds only to a leader, not a passenger, and the animal is attuned by nature to read every signal the rider gives — not just the kicks and tugs, but the emotions, thoughts and intentions bundled up inside that human. Great riders make it look effortless, as if horse and human are fused in purpose and mind. And, in truth, they are.

The horse’s capacity for such connection has made the relationship between equus and homo sapiens the most unique and useful of any between two species on this planet. For most of human history, horses were the primary form of transportation. (There is a good reason the potency of autmobile engines is measured in horsepower.) Against their fearful nature, horses have allowed humans to ride them directly into danger — into fire, cannon volleys, riots and all kinds of mayhem. A horse will literally die for the human who becomes his partner and leader.

There can be communication and cooperation between horse and human at a level that is almost mystical. It is not at all surprising then that so much passion is being generated in the current debate over how horses should be killed.

Humans slaughter pigs and chickens and cattle on a massive scale and then we eat their flesh with no sense of shame or repulsion. But we feel differently about horses. A human’s relationship with a horse is unlike that with a chicken, a pig or a cow because it is a true relationship. Because people have recognized this difference and grown uneasy, there are no longer any horse slaughterhouses in the United States and Congress is being asked to ban transport of horses to slaughterhouses in Canada and Mexico. Animal rights activists have chronicled the gruesome methods employed in some of these killing factories and, understanding the hyper-awareness of horses, it is not hard to imagine how horrific it must be for a horse to experience such a death. For many people — especially those living in big cities far from the ranches and range lands — that’s all they need to know; it is simply wrong to slaughter such special animals.

But that’s not the whole story.

America’s horse population has reached an unsustainable level. Left on their own, horses are prodigious breeders. Wild herds on Indian reservations and BLM lands have grown so large they are running out of forage and ruining habitat for other animals. The number of domesticated horses has shot up, thus driving their sale price so low that ranchers and breeders can no longer recoup the high cost of keeping, feeding and providing medical care for their horses. In many parts of the country, horses that cannot be sent to slaughter are let loose. By the hundreds, they wander the countryside, uncared for and unfed, until they die of starvation.

The cowboys, Indians and farmers who live with horses every day shake their heads and say, “See? That’s what you get if you let senators in fancy suits and animal rights zealots with protest signs impose their dreamy ideas from far, far away.” And the rural folk are right, up to a point. The contention of slaughterhouse opponents that the excess horse population can be handled by rescue operations or through euthanasia seems unrealistic. Is it likely there will ever be enough places of refuge to handle the numbers? Will ranchers and horse owners, already struggling to make ends meet, willingly take on the high cost of euthanasia for each and every horse? I doubt it. And, as a result, too many horses will experience a harsh, lingering death that seems as cruel as any slaughterhouse method.

Empathy for the horses must be separated from sentimentality. They are not mere pets to be pampered until we tire of them or they trot off to horse heaven. Nor do horses live in a state of nature. They live in the world we created. Even the wild mustangs do not live fully in the wild. Many of the predators that would have culled the herd of the slow, the sick and the old are long gone. The wide open spaces are not so wide and not so open anymore. From suburban stables to western ranches, America has more horses than we can sustain. One way or another, we humans will determine how those horses live and die. Slaughterhouses? Starvation? If we do not like those choices, then another way must be found, a way that reflects the complexity of the problem, not the rigid purity of activists nor heartless, utilitarian economics.

A horse longs to be led in the right direction. Humans with the power to reason must take up the reins.

David Horsey