Well, on the plus side if they're being sold or given away maybe they'll find a home with someone who actually CARES about them! To knowingly take on an older, no-longer-producing mare that person must surely care more about the horse herself than her original owner did, since obviously she's worthless to
them now.
OH!
I have
never understood the mindset where the value of a horse is in the other horses she can produce. I know my value sure as heck isn't in the babies I can pop out, thank you very much! Just because I'm female doesn't mean I shouldn't be taken for valuable in my own right. I'll give my horses at least as much respect as I ask for. (Logically, if every horse is only as important as the foals it can produce, doesn't that mean no horse is ever important in themselves?? You have a baby but the baby's only value is in it's future babies, and so on down the line?
)
I'm the proud owner of a so-called "useless," beet pulp eating, stall dirtying, chronically itchy, highly medicated 31 year old Arab who eats me out of house and home. Because of his bills I still live with my parents but I don't even get to ride him more than a couple times a year or do anything with him. As long as I own him I can't afford a cheaper, funner young horse. Will I sell him? NEVER!! I owe that horse for the 15 years of self-sacrifice and good service he gave me and the way he took care of me as a child through things that made him personally miserable.
That is my responsibility. I couldn't live with myself if I betrayed him at this late date.
Mom's "Bo" was here from the age of 5 until he died just shy of his 31st birthday. He was "useless" for many of those last few years but we wouldn't have traded him for anything. That horse was a blessing. I can only hope Kody will be here for the next thirty years; Lord knows he isn't going anywhere without me.
When you buy a horse you make a promise to give them the best life you can. Now if that's not with you then fine, you pass them on to somewhere they're wanted and will be happy. But if the only alternative is somewhere worse than your place then you keep them, no questions asked. Maybe these people could try getting more out of their horses than just babies. Like...friendship?
Leia