What is the vegan stance on horseback riding?
Is riding horses cruel?

Well, get ready to get controversial!

Hi it’s Emily from Bite Size Vegan and welcome
to another vegan nugget. Today’s topic is

something that I’ve been asked to cover
by may of you out there, especially recently,

so I’ve been doing my research. I want to
first give thanks to Fair Horsemanship for

all of her assistance and I’ll tell you
how to get connected with her later in the

video.

I’m first going to address the question
of whether or not riding horses is vegan and

then I’ll move onto whether it’s cruel.
As I said in my video about wool, veganism,

in general, is about opposing the use of animals
for our own personal gains in any form whatsoever.

If we look at horseback riding, it’s evident
that horses do not need to be ridden. Horseback

riding solely benefits the rider and so it
is a form of using animals for our entertainment,

which is explicitly not vegan.

Now this is not a popular stance and there
are several arguments as to how riding benefits

the horse. One of these is that domesticated
horses need exercise. The most simple response

to this is that domesticated dogs also need
exercise, yet owners are able to provide this

without having to mount them. A second argument
is that riding provides a horse with an enriched

environment. Again, this can be as easily
be achieved without someone atop them by walking

the horse from the ground. A third argument
is one that comes in many forms but always

starts with “By my horse loves…” and
ends with: being ridden, going to shows, wearing

a bridle, having a bit, running the barrels,
or what have you. And perhaps there is some

horse out there who actually likes to be ridden.
But let’s take a look at what riding does

to a horse's body physically. What I’m going
to cover is just a cursory look into the impact

of horseback riding on horses. I have links
to additional resources in the blog post for

this video, which is linked in the video description
and I urge you to reference those studies

if you want to delve deeper into his topic.
Let’s start with skeletal structure. There

is a saying that a horse is ready to ride
when their “knees close.” This refers

to waiting until the growth plates just above
their knees convert from cartilage to bone.

Dr. Den Bennet in her article Timing And Rate
Of Skeletal Maturation In Horses, states that

“what people often don’t realize is that
there is a “growth plate” on either end

of every bone behind the skull, and in the
case of some bones (like the pelvis or vertebrae,

which have many ‘corners’) there are multiple
growth plates.” She goes on to detail the

exact schedule of growth plate conversion
to bone in horses. While many people start

riding their horses around the age of 2, Dr.
Bennet’s schedule shows that the last plates

to fuse are in the vertebral column- and this
does not occur until the horse is at least

five and a half years old, with taller horses
and males taking even longer. According to

the text Practical Anatomy and Propaedeutic
of the Horse, the length of time for complete

growth of the epiphyseal plates, or cartilage,
is not until they are (on average) between

6 and 9 years old!

The basic takeaway of all of that is that
it's incredibly easy to damage a horse's back

and displace his or her vertebral growth plates,
causing pain and lasting injury.

Aside from the issue of growth plate fusion,
riding a horse at any age causes skeletal

damage as well as muscle and tissue. Expert
horseman, Alexander Nevzorov states “A horse’s

back is not a seat, not a place for a human
butt, not a piece of “meat”, not some

sort of “terra fir- ma”. It is a very
complex and tender anatomical structure with

extraordinary functions. Besides the obvious
biomechanical function, the back has another

very important function. The spinal cord’s
work is to guarantee that the responses from

the entire nervous system can communicate
the senses of taste, smell, vision, hearing,

and vestibular function to the brain, not
to get lost in too much detail. On this especially

vulnerable, sensitive organ, onto the medulla
spinalis, the brain of the back, sits a rider.”

In a 2007 study out of the 295 horses who
were considered physically sound upon initial

examination, 91.5% were diagnosed with some
kind of alteration on the spinal processes

after X-ray. Almost always the spinal processes
of the caudal saddle position were affected.

In horseback riding, the spinal damage caused
by weight alone is compounded by the use of

saddles, harnesses, bits, and whips. Saddles
restrict blood flow to the arterial capillary

bed causing tissue damage, as well as general
wear and chafing. But nothing is quite as

cruel as the use of bits and whips- which
I’m only going to give a cursory nod to

in this video.

Bits cause pain and damage to a horse’s
complex cranial nerves as well as their teeth,

tongue and palate. Facial nerves are extremely
close to the skin and thus extremely sensitive.

It is essential to understand that there is
absolutely no way to use a bit without a horse

feeling pain.

And since I’m running short on time here,
I’ll just say this about using a whip: it’s

a whip!

Now all of this is just barely scraping the
surface of the horse issue. I haven’t even

addressed the practice of breaking horses,
horse racing, the rodeo and other topics and

I'll cover those in future videos. For great
information on horse-friendly activities from

the ground and with positive reinforcement,
please head over to Fair Horsemanship’s

channel as well as check out her website.
She's a great resource on this topic.

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I’ll see you soon!