ALL THE PRETTY HORSES

ALL THE PRETTY HORSES

Job 39:

¹⁹ “Have you given the horse strength?
      Have you clothed his neck with thunder?^[b]
 20 Can you frighten him like a locust?
      His majestic snorting strikes terror.
 ²¹ He paws in the valley, and rejoices in his strength;
      He gallops into the clash of arms.
 ²² He mocks at fear, and is not frightened;
      Nor does he turn back from the sword.
 ²³ The quiver rattles against him,
      The glittering spear and javelin.
 ²⁴ He devours the distance with fierceness and rage;
      Nor does he come to a halt because the trumpet has sounded.
 ²⁵ At the blast of the trumpet he says, ‘Aha!’
      He smells the battle from afar,
      The thunder of captains and shouting.

This is God's praise of the magnificent horse.  Our reality is vastly different.

I'll admit I have been more that a little fixated on horses.  If you see what I share on Facebook this is patently clear, and most probably has been annoying, to you.

 I rode horses as a kid.  And that was a long, long time ago.  But I never got over my fright, thrill and love of horses.  Champion and Blaze graced the field next to our house in Dansville, Pennsylvania.  We would lure them over to the fence with handfuls of grass and then try to jump up on their backs, hold on to their manes and ride a bit.  Blaze suffered this indignity briefly then headed to the orchard to scrape us off his back.  Farmer Fred used a team of Drafts to pull his hay wagon.  He let us ride on the wagon to pack down the hay.  These were mammoth horses, feet like dinner plates.  But lovely docile creatures who moved obediently to Farmer Fred's Gee! for go and Haw! for stop. I sometimes got to ride on trail horses.  More annoying to them than anything.  How I must have sawed on the reins in my utter lack of riding knowledge.  But I loved these creatures from the start.  Their eyes! How they look you over, nostrils twitching, warm muzzle. They relate and they know you before you even know a thing about yourself.

This time of year it's big Thoroughbred racing season.  Stakes races, and the much vaunted Triple Crown.  All eyes are on very pricey baby horses having the life run out of them, some literally, to pay their freight.  Most of the attention of owners and bettors is on 3 year-olds.

These young horses are high strung bred, frightened, their schooling or training not yet done.  They have just the fabulous innate desire to run, run, run.  That is what the entire racing industry banks on.  And run them they do.  They are shipped from state to state, country to country.  They spend little time cavorting around in grassy fields just being horses.  Most of their young  lives they are as prisoners in stall cells.  They are given a variety of drugs. Drugs to stop bleeding from burst pulmonary cells caused by too great physical effort in horses too young.  Steroids, if the horse's people can get away with it.  A variety of this or that ---caine to dull pain.  Many suffer bone chips, cracks and fractures in the leg bones, brain hemorrhage.  Euthanasia. The list is too long to go on.

35,000 or more horses are born every year in this country.  12-14 Thoroughbreds make it to the Derby.  Those and other Stakes runners are a relatively small percentage of all the horses born in a year.  The U.S. is the most horse populated country in the world. Overpopulated.  Horses that don't make it are sold and sold again.  Or auctioned, or sent to slaughter.  American horse meat can and is shipped out of the country to be eaten by humans in countries where human consumption of horse meat is legal.  I ate some unknowingly in France in the 60s.

Then the God awful rodeos which still practice 'horse tripping where the horse's legs are roped and it is pulled to the ground to roars of the delighted crowd.  Bucking bronco riding where the horse is whipped into a frenzy by sharp spurs digging the animal shoulder to haunch. Or horses used in bullfighting who are gored or worse.

This done to an animal whose only fault in life is to do the bidding of its two legged master. 

There are fabulous rescue efforts going on out there, however.  Deborah Kingcade at The Emerald City Thoroughbred Project, Jim Gath of The Tierra Madre Horse Sanctuary in Arizona. He writes a fabulous blog about his horses you shouldn't miss.  Old Friends, Akindale Thoroughbred Rescue.   Some  money is being sent to rescue from major race tracks now. The best owners and training operations contribute a bit also.  A little and never enough.

Look at my picture above again.  This is how horses are to live.  To walk by the still waters and lie down in green pastures.  The picture is of Estes Park trail horses.  Their vacation over, they will be loaded up and taken there from their Boulder Free Space pasture to toil all summer hauling around tourists. 

We are charged to be stewards of the earth and its creatures.  Humankind was charged with naming them all in Scripture.  We had better pay attention to that charge sent from the very person of God.

The Lone Watcher at the edge of the Open Space, Boulder, CO