Soapweed
Well-known member
This is a little write-up in the new WORKING RANCH magazine, under the topic "riding point," entitled Matador Mayhem.
"The problem with buying a horse at auction is that you have little or no knowledge of its ground manners. When we trailered this horse back to the ranch, I was a bit displeased to learn she had a nasty habit of turning her butt toward you when approached. We patiently spent the better part of a month working on this potentially dangerous habit and thought we had it worked out. Then one morning I watched my six-year-old daughter walk out to the pasture to offer this same horse a carrot, and darned if the mare didn't turn her butt toward her. That did it for me. Not caring how much of a loss I would take on the mare, I sold her at the first livestock auction I could find. For all her cow instinct, and even though she hadn't made good on any of her threats, she was not a horse to be kept around children."
Okay, some of you might argue that a six-year-old girl had no business walking out into a pasture with a bunch of horses. Maybe so, but it's hard to keep a horse-loving kid of any age from doing this. Kids need to learn sometime, and an arbitrary "age limit" is not in the cards.
The above mentioned horse had developed a bad habit before the new owners accquired her. They worked long and diligently to correct this bad habit, but without success. The horse was a danger to humanity. They did what anyone would do--they sold her. Granted, another owner, with much time and dedication might cure this mare of her bad habit. Again, they might not. There is no need to keep her for the rest of her natural life, which could be another twenty years or more. Why buy feed for an untrustworthy animal such as her? There would be no real reason to turn her into a brood mare. Like begets like. She would very likely have colts with undesirable dispositions. The mare probably deserves to be sold to a horse processing plant. Whether or not you think a horse should be turned into meat for human consumption is irrelevant. The meat could go for dog or cat food, and the by products could be used in a constructive manner--medical supplies, cosmetics, gelatin, etc. The mare just as well be utilized in a positive manner as to hire a veterinarian to put her down.
"The problem with buying a horse at auction is that you have little or no knowledge of its ground manners. When we trailered this horse back to the ranch, I was a bit displeased to learn she had a nasty habit of turning her butt toward you when approached. We patiently spent the better part of a month working on this potentially dangerous habit and thought we had it worked out. Then one morning I watched my six-year-old daughter walk out to the pasture to offer this same horse a carrot, and darned if the mare didn't turn her butt toward her. That did it for me. Not caring how much of a loss I would take on the mare, I sold her at the first livestock auction I could find. For all her cow instinct, and even though she hadn't made good on any of her threats, she was not a horse to be kept around children."
Okay, some of you might argue that a six-year-old girl had no business walking out into a pasture with a bunch of horses. Maybe so, but it's hard to keep a horse-loving kid of any age from doing this. Kids need to learn sometime, and an arbitrary "age limit" is not in the cards.
The above mentioned horse had developed a bad habit before the new owners accquired her. They worked long and diligently to correct this bad habit, but without success. The horse was a danger to humanity. They did what anyone would do--they sold her. Granted, another owner, with much time and dedication might cure this mare of her bad habit. Again, they might not. There is no need to keep her for the rest of her natural life, which could be another twenty years or more. Why buy feed for an untrustworthy animal such as her? There would be no real reason to turn her into a brood mare. Like begets like. She would very likely have colts with undesirable dispositions. The mare probably deserves to be sold to a horse processing plant. Whether or not you think a horse should be turned into meat for human consumption is irrelevant. The meat could go for dog or cat food, and the by products could be used in a constructive manner--medical supplies, cosmetics, gelatin, etc. The mare just as well be utilized in a positive manner as to hire a veterinarian to put her down.