UNSTALL THE HORSE

Friends. Forage. Freedom.

For generations, we have built beautiful barns for horses.

Polished wood. Brass nameplates. Swept aisles. Deep bedding. Individual stalls carefully arranged beneath

soaring rafters.

We built what we believed a horse should want.

But we forgot to ask the horse.

A horse is not a dog living in a larger body. A horse is not an animal biologically designed to spend most of

the day inside a room.

A horse is a grazing, moving, social prey animal.

Its body expects movement.

Its digestive system expects forage.

Its nervous system expects other horses.

Its mind expects choices.

And yet one of the most accepted traditions in modern horse keeping asks horses to spend hours—

sometimes most of their lives—separated from those very things.

We call it stabling.

We call it protection.

We call it good management.

We call it tradition.

But the question I believe the horse world is finally ready to ask is:

Is this what the horse would choose?

I am not asking horse owners to love their horses more.

Most already love them tremendously.

I am asking us to allow what we now know about horses to change how we care for them.

That is how animal welfare progresses.

There was a time when many practices involving animals were considered perfectly normal. Then science

taught us more about the animals themselves—their intelligence, emotions, relationships, behavior and

needs.

And eventually our husbandry changed.

Our understanding of horses has changed, too.

We know that horses are profoundly social animals.

We know they are adapted to consume forage across much of the day.

We know their bodies benefit from frequent movement.

We know prolonged restriction of movement and social contact can contribute to behavioral and welfare

problems.

And we increasingly understand something else that may be just as important:

Horses need some control over their own lives.

The choice to walk into the sun.

The choice to move into the shade.

The choice to eat.

The choice to drink.

The choice to rest.

The choice to stand beside a trusted companion.

The choice to move away.

The choice to explore.

The choice to be a horse.

This does not mean abandoning shelter.

Quite the opposite.

Imagine a different future for horse keeping.

Instead of locking a horse inside a shelter, we provide a clean, deeply bedded shelter the horse can enter

and leave.

Instead of delivering two or three large meals separated by hours without forage, we create management

systems that provide appropriate forage across the day and night while accounting for the needs of the

individual horse.

Instead of isolating horses for our convenience, we design environments that allow compatible horses

meaningful social contact.

Instead of restricting movement and then attempting to replace it with an hour of exercise, we create

environments that encourage horses to move throughout their day.

Pastures.

Dry lots with enrichment.

Track systems.

Open barns.

Communal shelters.

Strategically separated water and forage.

Safe surfaces.

Shade.

Resting areas.

Enrichment.

There will never be one perfect horse-keeping system for every horse or every property.

There can, however, be one guiding principle:

Build the environment around the biology of the horse.

This movement is not about attacking the people who have stalls.

It is not about dividing the horse world into good owners and bad owners.

And it is not about pretending change is easy.

Many horse owners board their horses and have little control over turnout. Some properties have limited

acreage. Some climates create enormous management challenges. Some horses have medical or

behavioral circumstances requiring individualized care.

Change begins with what is possible.

An extra hour outside matters.

A companion over the fence matters.

Keeping forage available longer matters.

Creating an open shelter matters.

Turning an unused paddock into a track matters.

Moving hay and water apart matters.

Giving a horse another choice matters.

Small changes multiplied across thousands of barns become enormous changes.

Dr. Jane Goodall spent her life asking us to look differently at animals—to understand them before deciding

what their lives should look like.

That philosophy offers the horse world an extraordinary challenge.

First, understand who the horse is.

Then build the horse's world accordingly.

I believe the next great evolution in horse keeping will not be a new piece of equipment, supplement,

training method or barn design.

It will be a change in perspective.

We will stop asking:

How have horses always been kept?

And begin asking:

What does a horse need to live like a horse?

The stall does not have to disappear.

Stall life does.

Open the doors.

Give them friends.

Give them forage.

Give them freedom to move.

Give them shelter they can choose.

And whenever we are uncertain about the next decision, perhaps we begin with one very simple question:

What would the horse choose?

UNSTALL THE HORSE.

Friends. Forage. Freedom.