Animals don’t belong in the Olympics

Did anyone see the horse and rider in the ring? The BBC report says that the horse jumped four fences before crashing into the fifth. If that's the case, and the animal had lost confidence in his rider and was maybe rather bruised, perhaps they should have retired at that point. Other riders didn't loose their cool when their horses refused.

A horse isn't a machine and if it judges its rider isn't capable then perhaps the horse was right. Saint Boy is an experienced showjumper and probably knows best and has been said, he will have lost a lot of confidence. I only hope he can come back from this experience. Apparently the pair didn't jell in their twenty minute warm up so maybe the reserve horse should have been chosen instead.

What is definitely out of order was the coach punching the poor animal.

I agree with all you say Vegansrock I dislike to see animals used by humans for ‘entertainment’ in all forms and flying them round the world for whatever reason is unnatural to them and must be frightening I know a lady who has changed country three times and each time flies her cat to its new life and wonders why it’s now gone missing in a country unknown to it
I dislike intensely ‘dancing dogs, bears, horses etc we all know they have to practise hours and hours to perform these unnatural moves to ‘entertain’ humans the same goes for dog racing, horse racing, horrible practices

I don’t think a 62 year old sitting on a horse is at “peak athletic ability”. Fit, yes, but who is doing most of the work - the horse or the rider?

vegansrock

I don’t think a 62 year old sitting on a horse is at “peak athletic ability”. Fit, yes, but who is doing most of the work - the horse or the rider?

It depends on the weight of the rider!

I always wonder whos idea was it to put someone on a horse in the first place. I know forever horses and donkeys have always had heavy loads and I often think do these Animals mind or are they just trained to do it. Is it a natural thing is it what these animals were meant for in the first place. I always wonder this when I see a film with horse riding in like a cowboy film.

Humans have exploited animals and the natural world from the year dot, and we are paying the price now.

vegansrock

I don’t think a 62 year old sitting on a horse is at “peak athletic ability”. Fit, yes, but who is doing most of the work - the horse or the rider?

Have you ever tried riding a horse?

I'm curious as to whether you have any experience with horses, or have studied them in depth, or are just theorising on the back of your beliefs about animal/human interactions.

Rosycheeks

I always wonder whos idea was it to put someone on a horse in the first place. I know forever horses and donkeys have always had heavy loads and I often think do these Animals mind or are they just trained to do it. Is it a natural thing is it what these animals were meant for in the first place. I always wonder this when I see a film with horse riding in like a cowboy film.

Read Jacob Bronowski's The Ascent of Man or get hold of the 1970s TV series where he explains the 5000 year old history of man and horse. Some extracts and commentary:

The horse and the rider have many anatomical features in common. But it is the human creature that rides the horse, and not the other way about. And the rider is a very good example, because man was not created to ride the horse. There is no wiring inside the brain that makes us horse riders. Riding a horse is a comparatively recent invention, less than five thousand years old. And yet it has had an immense influence, for instance on our social structure. The plasticity of human behaviour makes that possible.

Filming the last remnants of an ancient horse-based culture in Afghanistan, Bronowski did not regret its decline. On the contrary, instead of applying the customary condescending doublethink towards primitive cultures, Bronowski traced the 5,000-year history from the earliest gangs of horsemen who stole from farmers what they could not produce themselves, to Genghis Khan, the terror of medieval civilization, and does not hesitate to classify that entire strand of cultural history along with Stalinism and Nazism as an archetypal enemy of the ascent of man. And the Nazi tank as the descendant of the war horse. “War,” says Bronowski, “is not a human instinct” (this was a sideswipe at Lorenz and all who wish to see the animal mind inside the human), “it is a highly planned and cooperative form of theft.”

We cannot hope to recapture today the terror that the mounted horse struck into the Middle East and Eastern Europe when it first appeared. That is because there is a difference of scale which I can only compare with the arrival of tanks in Poland in 1939, sweeping all before them. I believe that the importance of the horse in European history has always been underrated. In a sense, warfare was created by the horse, as a nomad activity. That is what the Huns brought, that is what the Phrygians brought, that is what finally the Mongols brought, and brought to a climax under Genghis Khan much later. In particular, the mobile hordes transformed the organisation of battle. They conceived a different strategy of war – a strategy that is like a war game; how, warmakers love to play games!

I think this is the episode where he discusses man using horses to steal food from one another:

The Harvest of the Seasons

Dr Jacob Bronowski's classic account of the social and intellectual evolution of the human race looks at the move mankind made from nomadic pasturage to settled agriculture, with the domestication of the horse and the cultivation of wheat.

www.dailymotion.com/video/x1ztord

I think you are clear in your thinking veganrock
I don’t know why maizieD believes you need to ride a horse to understand it I had a midwife once who d never had a child but she certainly understood about the birthing process Why do you have to be a rider yourself to be able to have an opinion on cruelty levels to horses or any other animals

I ve never been to a bull fight but I have very strong feelings about them

Animals should not be abused they should live natural lives they are not for our entertainment or to be enslaved to work for us (and dancing dogs winning talent competitions is another dreadful activity that is a complete no no for me)

BlueBelle

I think you are clear in your thinking veganrock
I don’t know why maizieD believes you need to ride a horse to understand it I had a midwife once who d never had a child but she certainly understood about the birthing process Why do you have to be a rider yourself to be able to have an opinion on cruelty levels to horses or any other animals

I ve never been to a bull fight but I have very strong feelings about them

Animals should not be abused they should live natural lives they are not for our entertainment or to be enslaved to work for us (and dancing dogs winning talent competitions is another dreadful activity that is a complete no no for me)

I believe that midwives spend a considerable amount of time studying the birthing process from a theoretical and practical point of view. Including being informed by in depth research on the topic.

You will note that I said 'or studied them in depth'.

I trust a midwife because of their knowledge and expertise, but 'belief' backed up by nothing is a different matter.

Humans have exploited each other from the year dot, but I cannot see any connection be tween humans, animals and who/what price is being paid for what

Surely humans come before animals and if we are not to use animals in any way, we should look at the way humans exploit each other, perhaps we too should return to the days of being hunter-gatherers, we can roam the countryside, dependent on the bounty of nature, when it fails, we starve to death, at the mercy of predating carnivores - the four legged kind - no means of protecting ourselves from them, but what a lovely warm cloak of moral rectitude we could wrap ourselves in, because nothing else would be available to us, because, of course we would do anything rather than exploit an animal.

I don't think we could be hunter - gatherers, MOnica, because hunting exploits and abuses animals. We'll have to be just gatherers. Then the human race will die out, as maybe it should have done aeons ago and leave the world for animals to enjoy unmolested.

What do some posters think that horses are for? To gamble happily in fields? If so they will have to look after themselves totally in all weather conditions, no vets and no human interaction.In fact, since the fields are owned by farmers who need to make a living, they will have to go elsewhere.
They are not hardy Dartmoor ponies ( even they are fed in harsh Winters) and wouldn’t survive for long.
So they are there to be ridden and looked after.
It’s sentimental tosh to think otherwise.
Equestrian sport is part of the Olympics and yes, it should continue to be.

Should have pre checked.....gambol not gamble?although betting on horses isn’t unknown, it’s usually the human who does it.

Oops Maizie, you are right, it a phrase that just trips off the tongue. We would, of course, have to be gatherers.

On the other hand, why should we die out just because we suffer from self-hate? I suspect that all that would happen over aeons is that another species of homo will develop from other primate, who may do more damage to our planet than we have already done in our time.

Oh, I was enjoying reading this because I know nothing at all about horses and I was interested in both sides.

Then somebody comes up with the absolutely ridiculous comment What do posters think horses are for?

Seriously? I hope you don't think God put horses here for us to make whatever use of we like then send off to the glue factory. If we didn't ride them and look after them, they'd be wild horses like those that lived in the Eurasian plains quite happily before we came along.

And if we were hunter gatherers we'd be taking tiny proportions of the natural population of wild animals and that would be fine; we wouldn't be farming animals intensively to support our lifestyle. Suggesting that the animals are lucky to have us because they wouldn't exist without us is a weak argument, but does demonstrate what people think of animals really. I mean, people always have to come first, don't they

Well, this is interesting.

I’m not an animal person really. I’ve never had a pet, never felt the need of one. But I do accept the reality of relationships that form between humans and animals.

I have often wondered about the dichotomy of being against animal exploitation and then having pets, which lots of animal lovers seem to do.

Not judging one way or the other. One of those issues where I really can see both sides.

Now I'm getting adverts on GN for horses for sale.

Rubbish! ?

I think the OP only deserved one reply Maizie. This is yet more of the "I don't know anything about it but my feelings give me the right to tell others what to do" crowd.

I don't know about them living like wild horses like those that lived in the Eurasian plains quite happily before we came along Alegrias1, I imagine they would be farmed as meat or dying out because we had killed off yet another species.

I think the post should have read What do posters think modern horses are for? Alegrias. Humans have bred them into different animals from the ones which roam the steppes - and I believe are still ridden, milked and eaten. Like dogs and cats they've been bred into different sizes and abilities.

There are of course, the wild mustangs and brumbies which have escaped us and are living free on enormous plains and filling the gaps left after the buffalo etc were all slaughtered. But that's a different topic!

Like I said, I know next to nothing about horses.

But the comment "what do posters think horses are for" is just pathetic.

What are wombats for? They seem to manage fine without being domesticated by us.

On the other hand, why should we die out just because we suffer from self-hate?

I was just thinking, MOnica, that without the use of horses (and other animals*) for transport of people and goods there would have been very little mixing between groups of humans, no interchange of ideas, experiences and discoveries and so a much slower, if any at all, understanding of the world and the human condition and scientific discoveries and advances in knowledge. Perhaps we wouldn't have died out, but we could well be still in the Stone Age...

*Is there as much feeling about the similar exploitation of camels, elephants, donkeys, llamas etc. for the benefit of humans?

Yes I was thinking of all beasts of burden as they are called.

MaizieD

^On the other hand, why should we die out just because we suffer from self-hate?^

I was just thinking, MOnica, that without the use of horses (and other animals*) for transport of people and goods there would have been very little mixing between groups of humans, no interchange of ideas, experiences and discoveries and so a much slower, if any at all, understanding of the world and the human condition and scientific discoveries and advances in knowledge. Perhaps we wouldn't have died out, but we could well be still in the Stone Age...

*Is there as much feeling about the similar exploitation of camels, elephants, donkeys, llamas etc. for the benefit of humans?

Humans left Africa on foot.