09/03/2026
It is incredibly hard on horses to change environments and ownership multiple times. This happens a lot. Positives are when a horse moves to home that have good people, good quality of care, good quality of life, that is better suited for them and when they move to home that is their can be their forever home. This isn’t always possible but if we all try to do our best to achieve this, the horse world would be a better place.
The average horse goes through around 7 homes in their lifetime.
As someone who used to work at the racetrack and was directly involved with rehoming, retiring racehorses, I think 7 homes is a conservative estimate.
But, let’s go with the 7 statistic.
That’s 7 times moving to places with humans who have new expectations and new ways of communicating.
7 times of leaving established bonds with other horses, if the horse is “lucky” enough to even have access to social turnout in the first place.
7 times of having their sense of stability uprooted.
If this stat existed for any other animal, people would be beside themselves.
Imagine if the dogs were bought, sold and discarded as often and with so little thought like what horses are.
It wouldn’t fly.
Yes, horses are expensive. Yes, people like to ride them.
Neither of these things hold any weight on a discussion solely pertaining to the wellbeing of the horse and what is fair to them, though.
Horses deserve better.
Navigating the systemic changes to create that “better” may be uncomfortable and difficult for humans but we owe horses a lot.
Causing ourselves a little discomfort in creating a new paradigm is the least we can do to honour animals who have gone to war for us, built civilizations for us and continue to suffer for human enjoyment.
We can do better by them now.
But, that starts with an honest conversation about the extent to which we are currently failing them.
It’s a hard conversation to have but a necessary one.
