Wednesday, January 25, 2006
Horse Welfare
Visible injuries
1.
Even for healthy horses, drawing a vehicle carrying anything from two to nine people through city streets is not an easy task. As Holly Cheever D.V.M., a respected equine vet who has treated carriage horses in New York, points out, 'Lameness and hoof deterioration are inevitable when a horse spends its life walking or jogging on the unnaturally concussive asphalt of city streets'. She notes that draft horses are especially difficult to keep well-shod.
2.
But these are merely the visible consequences of requiring horses to pound the concrete and cobbled streets of towns and cities. There are far more serious outcomes that go beyond horses being unable to work - and, in fact, can result in their death.
from Animal Aid http://www.animalaid.org.uk/campaign/sport/omnibus.htm
