A recent YouGov poll on public perceptions of the involvement of horses in sport has found that the majority of the public (65%) think of horses as pets or companions. Under half (49.4%) view horses as sport animals, while 56.1% see them as working animals and 54.3% as livestock.
These stats were unveiled at a World Horse Welfare media briefing in London last week (Wednesday 3 June) in front of 150 horse sport leaders from four continents.
“Those who interact regularly with horses were even more likely to consider horses as a pet, companion or leisure animal than those not involved with horses. They were also less likely to see them as livestock or farm animals. They were only marginally more inclined to think of them as sport animals,” said the charity’s CEO Roly Owers.
“We need to be realistic about how views of what a horse is can affect how they are treated and how that is perceived.”
There were also calls from the panel for the horse world to show greater humility.
Urbanisation has widened the gap
Former event rider David O’Connor, who is Director of Sports at the US Equestrian Federation and Chair of the FEI Eventing Committee, highlighted how urbanisation has affected the human-horse relationship.
“Within two generations, there would have been a bunch of horses sitting out here,” said David as he pointed outside.
“Everybody would have seen a horse every day. Whether you’re in an urban environment or a rural environment, you would have seen a horse every day.
“Now we have a large part of society that will never see a horse and so they start to question that relationship between a companion or a commodity.”
Don’t confuse ethics with welfare
While a disconnect between society and horse culture evidently exists, BEVA chief executive David Mountford argued that the public should not confuse ethics with welfare.
“Whether someone considers a horse as being suitable for sport carries with it an implicit ethical consideration,” he said.
“Whereas whether a horse is well cared for, i.e. the level of its welfare, that’s a purely welfare question, and we have a good degree of science and an increasing amount of science that can demonstrate good welfare.
“Ethics is a personal opinion so they’re different categories, and we should be careful when we interpret these results to bear that in mind.
“Actually, every domestic animal that we live with has some degree of welfare compromise, be that a horse in a paddock, be it a dog in a house, be it a cat being kept inside.
“None of them are living the life that evolution really designed them for, so what matters really is whether we are meeting their welfare needs, both their physical and their mental welfare needs.
“In reality, a well-managed sport horse can have fantastic welfare. Equally, a poorly managed pet pony in a paddock can have terrible welfare. The label pet or sport horse tells us very little.”
‘We’ve got to keep our doors open’
Education, engagement and inclusion were suggested as ways to change the public’s perceptions, with Minette Batters, Chair of British Racing’s Horse Welfare Board, explaining the impact that National Racehorse Week, which gives 65,000 free spaces to members of the public, had.
“The more we can open our doors as horse sport, as British racing, and show people what we’re doing [the better], because we all know that the people looking after the horse are the people closest to the horse [and they] are the people who care most passionately,” she said.
“I write about my love of a horse who was no good in racing at all, but it’s usually the ones that aren’t that good sometimes that will be loved as much as the superstar who’s probably really difficult.
“It’s showing that, painting that picture, telling that story that is so important to create that better level of understanding.
“We’ve got to keep telling that story. We’ve got to keep our doors open. We’ve got to keep bringing people in and taking people with us and looking at this through an objective lens.”
Main image © World Horse Welfare.
