Well it has been a quite week for the horse industry being in the public eye, and not in a happy cheery sort of way!
Firstly various supermarkets got caught with horse meat in their value 100% beef burgers... oh dear. In the UK people were outraged because we do not, as a nation, eat horse but we do need to consider that as times get tighter people want low priced food and are willing to turn a blind eye to the fact that good animal welfare is not cheap. Some of these packs of burgers sold for just one pound for eight, so as the joke goes next week it won't be horse in them but it almost certainly will be a return to bollocks, brains and bums.
Next came the video leaked of horses at the Red Lion slaughterhouse in Cheshire. Again the horsey public was horrified, many said they simply couldn't watch it, others said they were physically sick or couldn't sleep after seeing it. Lots of people signed a petition for CCTV in slaughterhouses but perhaps we need to consider another thought (it links to the burgers, bare with me I'm getting there slowly!)...
If you are buying a youngster from a stud ask what their policy is on their older stock. We are certainly happy to show off retired (slightly senile) old horses or tell you why and how, when the time comes, we put horses down here. If you have live stock, you have dead stock, that's just a fact of keeping animals but our oldies are put down at home by Mark (legally) if retirement is no longer an option for them. Quite simply, that costs money. Disposal alone is £180 and, as a business, those costs do have to be reflected in the price of youngsters. If people want to continue "rescuing" poorly conformed stock from the sales or the slightly dodgy local breeder because they are cheap they have to accept that these breeders are sending old mares to sales and to slaughter. Most people would now be horrified if they thought they had bought from a puppy mill but they still want a cheap horse.
A good horse is never cheap.
A cheap horse costs the same to keep, the expensive bit is never buying it! Break the cost down into each ride over a horses lifetime and the good horse costs only pennies more.
If your horse does the job its meant to and it brings you pleasure it wasn't expensive.
