October 5^th 2008 after receiving the  notice of charges being laid by the RSPCA: I thought about the plight of Old Horses 

When you walk over your property in the early morning mist or sit by a campfire looking into the crackling embers you reflect on the path that you have chosen when  we keep  our old horses...

You wonder is it Pride or is it Passion?

Without a doubt is is the Passion – a passion for horses , a passion for the people who also enjoy them. It is certainly not motivation by money. Is it Pride? – yes stubborn Pride, that will not allow the bureaucracy to eliminate the simple pleasures in watching your old horses graze.

So why I questioned myself- why are people so passionate about their ‘old horses”- they look like a bag of bones, cant be ridden and cost a fortune to feed!

The old horse is your past - its your childhood, it’s your memories, it spans so many years and gave you so much pleasure - How can you end its life?

Horse owners spend sums of money that defy sanity just to keep looking into those eyes, the mane to comb,  his large body to groom, the hooves to paint. Each day you feed it, talk to it, you care for it, as if an aged parent.

Animal owners must make that decision to end their memories when they know they have to. They don’t need an  RSPCA Inspector  to tell them – they know when it is time. They know that they must make that agonizing decision to terminate their beloved animals life.  Some animals owners care little about the ramifications, but responsible animal owners like us know fully the outcome.

Watching the life ebb out of those wonderful brown eyes, looking at you intensely till they flicker no more, the skin does not twitch, the body falls heavily because you can’t cushion the fall. You brush the mane and tail, and pull down the forleock, close the eyes, shed a tear and  gaze at  the large motionless form that once carried you high on his back,  with the wind in you face and that sense of exhilaration that only riding a horse can give you.  The power of those hooves  surging as you both as one travel over the miles.

You remember those frosty mornings and cold wet evenings, the stamping of the feet, the whinny and nickering, the pushy impatient pony  who acted as he has never been fed before., the countless hours you waked through the night when he had a belly ache with colic, the fear that he would not survive,. The time spent before judging, the hugs, the ribbons, the prance, the congratulations, all lie before you in a lifeless heap. You take a small lock of his hair – a small memory…and now its all gone. then turn you head as  the bull dozer does its job

That feeling never changes, no matter how many horses you have.