I get this because people in my wider wider circle post or talk about their riding, and people in the comments treat horse trainers like they’re doing a public service, taking those poor lovely animals out for a stroll or a obstacle course run. And the hobby is such an Instagramable activity because posh people do it, therefore it’s cool. There’s something attractive to rich people about someone on a horse with tight horse gear clothes.
I need to stress it: riding and owning a horse is expensive af. Even the lessons are absurdly expensive. No one in my circle of friends or even extended family does it. And the hobby is basically just golf in terms of environmental costs. Horses require a fuck ton of water and create a fuck ton more of shit, and they require an ungodly amount of land. I just assume that the labour for feeding and cleaning is done by immigrants, and white people get to to do the cool jobs like training.
Horse people like to brag that many/most of the world’s monarchies and aristocracy is really into riding. To me, that should be a massive slight. If Elizabeth and Charles’s favourite sport was horsing, that should be a big red flag.
And what gets to me is how horse people are all like “I love my horses”. Like I’m sorry, Brett, but if you loved that animal, you wouldn’t put a bit in their mouth and make them carry you around. Horse injuries with riders are very common, especially spinal injuries because weight has been placed on where it wasn’t designed for weight.
I get in trouble because I point this out and every middle class person in the room gets super upset that their lovely horse hero got their hobby attacked.
Note: this post is only for white horse people. I don’t know about nor have an opinion on non-Western horse activities.
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The stables alone for the NYPD’s horses cost $30 million to build and the maintenance of the NYPD horses costs $8 million yearly
Anyway did you know that the New York Public Library is closed on weekends now because of city budget cuts?
Bet if the librarians had a armored tactical assault vehicle, they’d be able to keep the doors opened on the weekend.
Horse people and horse riding is my pet peeve
medieval guy complaining about the mongols
Horse people are on another level. Its like golf people but with more animal abuse.
Well generally the response to horses, scout cavalry, knights, etc is to simply field spearmen/pikemen/halberdiers, which have a massive damage bonus against mounted units and elephants. If you’re able to field camels, they’re also a cost effective way of dealing with cavalry.
Monks can do the “wololo” convert, but remember that light cavalry resist conversion, but heavy cavalry are quite susceptible.
You convinced me. I’m going to outfit my local org with spearmen kits, and position ourselves in front of the local pony rides centre.
what the heck is this like a movie or larp? the only vaguely close thing to it re-enacting would be like, mithradatic pontus
I literally Googled “spearmen larp”, so yes a larp, lol
thank you the whole concept of horse riding is so insanely exploitative and cruel if you think about it for more than a second. I don’t understand how anyone could believe their horse is entitled to any rights or care or love and then also ride them lol. to me you’d have to think horses are like robotic soulless creatures to justify such a thing but horse people somehow claim to have bonds with the life they exploit for their own entertainment. I mean yeah if you’re the only thing that ever supplies the horse with food they’re gonna let you do whatever but you’re so clearly exploiting it. It’s like people who say they love their cows and have strong bonds with them and then forcefully impregnate them and murder their calves. animal exploitation culture is just so sad
people still like dogs that work, i don’t see how attaching those feelings to a working equine would be more illegitimate
bruh, there is a big difference between a service dog and horse riding where you are actively harming and violating the autonomy of the horse for your own personal pleasure vs a dog that spends part of its day training and helping you with a disability, allowing you to integrate better in an ableist society. and then usually being a normal companion dog when not working. whether service dogs are exploitative or not is a different topic but it’s not comparable to horse riding. one is clear blatant exploitation and bodily risk to the horse for pleasure and another is potentially life saving and not risking bodily harm to the dog.
seems a bit arbitrary to declare dogs a ‘different topic’ when “actively harming and violating the autonomy of” easily applies to working dogs. but all i’m asking you to do is imagine transposing the affection someone could feel for a dog to a horse. that’s how ‘horse people’ can claim affection and best-care, but everyone knows those feelings-even for a pet-don’t have to line up with a consistent ethics or material reality.
OK, I misunderstood your original comment sorry. I think I can still like, personally empathize a lot more with the working dog owner than the horse rider. And that just comes down to me not understanding how someone could be riding a horse and not question if this is harmful/ethical. but I don’t mean to say anyone’s attachment or feelings are illigetament, this is just my perspective personally/personal inability to understand their feelings as someone who spends her life working with animals
It also gets tied up in this romanticized notion of American frontier settlerism. So you get a lot of people who get horses not because they need them but because it makes them feel like a John Wayne character. Which also leads to a lot of neglected and abused horses because people without the means or will to care for them buy them anyway because muh rugged individualism. Just look at how many horse rescues there are in Texas (in fact, when I started typing “horse rescue” into DuckDuckGo the second suggestion that came up after “horse rescue” was “horse rescue tx”).
The brutal part is that horsemanship isn’t just a rich people hobby.
There are so many working class people who pour massive amounts of time and money into their horses (it’s bad to keep just one, they need a herd) and don’t even ride.
Horse people have to have massive cleared land and some kind of shelter for them. They’re always worried about if they have enough hay for the winter and watching the weather for big temperature changes that cause colic.
To get enough hay to last any amount of time, a horse persons gotta own, rent or pay someone with a big truck and trailer and have somewhere to put it. They can’t use legume hay (cow hay) or fermented hay (also for cows). New hay has to be bought weeks in advance so it can be slowly mixed in to prevent colic.
Horse people gotta use special vets who almost always have to make house calls.
If a horse person wants to take their horse somewhere like a better vet office a couple of counties over they gotta have a special trailer, the truck to pull it, the time to get the horse comfortable with it and the psychic energy to fend off a whole new category of final destination thought.
Horses can live 30 years easily. There are limited horse rescues and they have spotty histories because the animals themselves are so expensive to care for and the adoption rate is so low.
Imagine if all the people who adopted heelers or pits when they rented their first house with a fenced yard also couldn’t give their pets up for adoption when they got evicted or had to move for a job or just when the dog became too much for them.
Horses are incredibly smart and sensitive. I’m glad to have known the ones I have and still sad to have seen the ones go that I have.
There are so many working class people who pour massive amounts of time and money into their horses (it’s bad to keep just one, they need a herd) and don’t even ride.
I don’t mean this to be argumentative, but what are the jobs of these people who have a herd of horses? This is more curiosity than anything, I’m very far from rural life.
Otherwise, everything you said is spot on.
One of my coworkers was a municipal hvac tech when he had horses. At first he said he quit riding after his kids were born and the danger of getting fucked up in fall was too much, recently he said he gained too much weight around the same time and that it wasn’t safe for the animals.
A regular I always run into at the hardware store has three big workhorses and works in construction. Every once in a while on a Sunday we’ll see him riding on a backroad.
My partner and I used to have two or three depending on if someone else’s was passing through, but recently we put down the last one. They don’t ride anymore after a fall and we’re both in the service industry.
One of their high school friends is a teacher with an old nag and a bunch of goats. Idk why she stopped riding but she doesn’t.
Of course, there are lots of examples of rich people with horses in the area but only one around us, a large animal vet with a bunch of quarterhorses. That person still rides.
I don’t use the term herd to refer to a big galloping stampede, but the handful that a person with their own facilities (pasture, barn, etc) would have to keep the animals themselves from going nuts from isolation and loneliness.
Tell me if I’m wrong, but it feels like not rich people in my area buying boats. Like they’re fucking expensive, not fun enough to justify the cost, and you’ll barely use it, but people do it because it’s the thing that beautiful middle class people do.
I definitely don’t mean to be pedantic, but I wonder how a prole could have a pasture and a barn, like is it generational wealth? Anyhow, you don’t need to answer my questions, as I feel like I’m putting you out more than you deserve. I believe your assessment that working people buy horses.
Theres a lot of similarities between boat and horse ownership. You need a truck, it’s all hidden costs, there’s a bunch of safety problems.
People don’t buy boats because it’s what beautiful middle class people do, they buy boats because you can’t fish in some places/get wasted on the lake without em.
I mean, you can rent from the marina, but go out five times a year two years in a row and it makes more sense to buy the boat yourself.
Freshwater boating makes more sense when you’re in the area the tva went around making reservoirs in. When you pass that turn off for blacktown lake (named for the community of color that they flooded to create it) ten times a week on the way to and from work there’s a real draw to that kind of leasure.
I have a steel johnboat with a trolling motor and a tiny sailboat that both fell into my lap for free when friends needed to make space. They’re a lot of upkeep but it’s also real nice to drink a beer while floating around. I run into people my own income level mostly. Every once in a while there’s rich jerks but it’s not often.
They got their own lake lol.
There’s plenty of old barns and split up farms for sale. Usually the lot with the barn on it goes for less because unless you’re gonna use it a barn is a huge cost sink waiting to open up when it falls down and you gotta pay a crew to haul it off and replace all your crushed shit.
But if you wanna get a cheap/rescue horse, that three acre lot with a barn and a new construction 3/2 on it is looking good.
There’s also generational wealth, though not in the way we usually imagine it. What used to be a family farm that’s been split up and frittered away with an old tobacco barn in the corner of one plot.
Now the great grand nephew of that farmer can spend half his income from the state road crew keeping a couple of horses that would otherwise be on the train to Canada.
Plenty of old tobacco land is now pasture, hay or cattle if it’s not being developed.
E: you’re not putting me out. It’s hard to know what’s going on out in the countryside if you’re not in it. China had a whole cultural revolution about this stuff, the least I can do is engage with some questions about horses and boats.
What about centaurs?
centaurs will drink all the alcohol at a party and then just leave, they’re the worst
They’re also not as great at horsing around as one might assume
I mean I would assume them to be roughly 50% good at it
Satyrs party, centaurs are just there for clout.
If you think a human on a horse’s back is bad for the horse, a centaur on a horse’s back is at least twice as bad.
I know someone who drives (?) a horse carriage in Central Park. Those poor creatures do not belong in a place like Manhattan
I really want to make fun of you for implying that horse shit is a problem for the environment.
Everything else is spot on though. Horse culture is bougie as fuck.
Based on your post and my experiences alone, I’m not convinced horse culture (as with many things) is this problematic outside of 'merica or big money bourgeois contexts.
I’m sure plenty will disagree, and as ever I fear the potential backlash incoming. But I think it’s fairly easy (and common here at least) to ethically keep, care for, and ride horses in ways that do not hurt them, utilise poorly treated labour, use swathes of resources, nor prevent poorer people participating.
'merica
Equestrians in the UK are on a whole different level of bad, since there’s tradition and aristocracy tied in with it. Australian horse people are really tied up with big settler land owners and I’ve noticed have the worst reactionary views ever. Sorry to over generalise. I can’t speak for non Anglo countries though.
But I think it’s fairly easy
Do you have any idea of the cost?
I made a semi-lengthy reply to someone else in this thread that I’m curious to hear your thoughts on, if you have the time
It was a good reply and one thing I would add to it are folks like my cousins who have two rescue horses they care for who would probably just have been put down by bourgeois horse fuckers.
may the revolution begin with horse people
anti-equestrian-aktion meeting now in session
I used to run into horse people on mountainbike trails and it was insane every single time. The trails were singletrack, very tight, not appropriate for horses, but because they were conveniently nearby for the rich assholes they decided they owned them despite the mountain bikers having spent more than a decade building and maintaining them. The horses absolutely shredded the trail, as bad or worse than dirtbikers poaching trail. Not only that, but if you ran into those motherfuckers they acted like you were inconveniencing them despite them being 100% in the wrong. Twice I ran into those assholes and was told imperiously that I needed to make space because their fucking horse wasn’t “comfortable” with people on bicycles. They were TRESPASSING on BICYCLE TRAILS.
Fuck, that still gets me mad.
There’s heaps of research papers on the destruction that horses do to trails. Conservationists have been screaming this for over a century. Rich people fuck everything up.
I grew up in a rural area and would often see horses on country roads. Obviously they would be distressed by cars, so driving past them was a nightmare for everyone involved. They take up so much room on a road. I think horse-riders might be the only people worse than car-drivers on the road, and I fucking hate cars. Horses don’t need or want to be on roads at all, if you want them to be able to run around, give them a field. Its such a selfish rich person hobby
I have no opinions on horses. I did enjoy My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic and Bojack Horseman, though.
And what gets to me is how horse people are all like “I love my horses”. Like I’m sorry, Brett, but if you loved that animal, you wouldn’t put a bit in their mouth and make them carry you around.
There’s a great bit by critically-supportable human disaster Doug Stanhope on this [CW: gore, death]
Sorry for the reaction video all other shit got deleted off the internet. But it fits so perfectly and I relate to it so much because I feel you entirely
That video was really funny tho. Totally agree with what he’s saying.
