Horse Ownership Made Illegal
November 8th 2006 14:26
God forbid that I should go to any Heaven where there are no horses, R. B. Cunningham-Graham wrote to Theodore Roosevelt in 1917. Imagine then if neither heaven nor earth had them…
Rarely is it surprising these days when higher levels of water restrictions are implemented. I imagine there were days when washing your car was a Sunday chore on the driveway and watering the garden was not a luxury. We live with new and ridiculous restrictions every day all for a greater good, and what if one day the drought became so desperate – the Murray was dry and rain had not been felt on our hides for over three years or something close to that– that owning a horse was a luxury outlawed. Imagine the legislation that would state that horses require excessive levels of water for hydration and cleaning, hay and feed requirements were exhaustive on an already empty NSW countryside and that horse ownership was counter-productive to the environmental effort. What if one day the government philosophised that the horse industry’s contribution to NSW GDP was minimal and desperate times called for desperate measures?
First to go were horses like mine, animals individually owned and loved. We canter about like headless chickens looking for new homes for them but cannot afford international freight and so many end up on the meat line and owners like me are spirit broken. Then the equestrian disciplines begin to trickle - the eventers and jumpers and dressage horses whose sports are not populated or supported enough to be salvaged. Gradually trotting disappears and so our angry spirits turn to racing, and the government fights to save this multi-billion dollar industry but the horse owners aren’t having it – it’s all or nothing!
The empty horse track at Centennial Park a common sight?
A world without horses. Could we get used to that?
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