Out of Sight, Out of Mind

Really it's not just race horses that disappear

http://offtrackthoroughbreds.com/2015/07/27/these-racehorses-were-meant-to-disappear/


In our neck of the woods, people dump horses at auctions to never be seen again. I know of one organization that had the state vet and officers visit but to no avail. How you can have people show up on your property and not know that what you are doing is wrong, I'll never understand.

I'll humbly admit that I have two hard keepers in my pastures right now, Bo and Junior. Junior looks worse of the two. But he's on 24x7 pasture and grain. And we are looking at adding a round bale to help offset in case the pasture isn't really giving him enough nutrients. I've also added alfalfa to the mix but he's a slow eater and what I put in front of him takes more than an hour to devour. It has nothing to do with his teeth. They've been checked. He's simply a slow eater (I have multiple slow eaters...Junior and Brego both come to mind).

But I am not trying to hide the fact that both Bo and Junior are not at the weight that I want. I'm not trying to dump them, sell them, or make them disappear. What infuriates me is that people will simply let these horses "disappear" and no one is the wiser.

If you sold a horse, do you know where he or she is? Have you kept tabs on him/her?

Please don't get all teary eyed on me when there was a freak accident and a horse lost its life, when not long ago you sent horses to a loose horse sale and consigned them to their death, hoping that they "went to a good home". There is no "good home" when you take them to the state's biggest loose horse sale. I don't believe in out of sight, out of mind. I will tell you exactly how each of our residents that have passed on have left this earth. I'm not ashamed. If I can't afford to care for them, I'll make sure that I keep tabs on them, not send them on "hoping for a good home".

Don't be like so many. Don't be complacent. Don't agree to the "out of sight, out of mind" mentality. If that were the case, the horses in the story wouldn't be standing here today.