Where is the line?

This is something of an issue that bothers me and I know that possibly I will get some flack for it, and it's a difficult and contentious issue. I know that growing up on a farm and having a pragmatic approach to life and death colours how I see things to a large degree. I know that in many other countries horses live in truly deplorable conditions and genuinely peoples livelihoods depend on horses working in conditions we would never even consider for our own horses.

The picture of the mare above is a horse in Egypt suffering from babeoisis/malaria and clearly severely neglected. Like that mare is thin like you really never see horses. It's pretty clear Egyptian horses are tougher than any of mine because they would die before they ever looked like this. So I imagine it took a huge amount of resources to bring this mare back to the health you see today and thats fine and ok, but I guess where I start to have an issue with it is that the mare is functionally unsound and can only be hand walked because of arthritis in her front fetlocks.

So I guess my question is this- how do you determine which of the horses gets the resources, in a country of poorly treated horses, some of the horses who have whole families dependent on their incomes. It's tricky isn't it. Especially because every horse is beautiful in it's own way, and they all have personalities. I guess this picture struck me because it was put up as an in your face to the nay sayers who said the horses should be put down. Top be honest I think she should have been, because I feel like she took resources away from a sound horse, so that she could hobble around. Personally my favourite way to see a horse is playing in the paddock and with severely compromised fetlocks the mare will always be experiencing pain. I feel like part of being a horse owner is being prepared to stand up and do the right thing even if it feels too hard.

I feel like so often rescues are saving horses in their twilight years and that are already severely compromised and calling them Miracle and Hope, and huge amounts of money are going into horses with a limited prognosis and quality of life, while the sounder younger versions get passed by, because they don't have such an emotional pull. By all means remove the horses from bad situations but then let them go. When did death become the worst thing for a horse? No more suffering, no more struggle, no more pain. I feel like it takes more courage to put a horse down than it does to pump money and resources into one.

Full credit to the rescue that saved this mare who was clearly on deaths door, they did a fantastic job to save her, but was it at the cost of horses in a less severe condition getting the less acute help they need to keep them in a good condition? To heal their saddle sores before they get infected, to provide feed before they are emaciated, to help with hoof care before they fall?

Honestly when I saw the horse with a prosthetic leg I felt a little ill, because that horse will never get to play in the paddock and to me that's the bar. Happy animals play and if they feel well enough, comfortable enough and in a tolerable amount of pain then they play. Is keeping the pony alive really for the benefit of the pony- or is it for the benefit of the people. I hate to think what this cost for this pony to walk around and I don't want to sound like a merciless cold hearted person, I just feel like there was money that could have helped several horses spent on this pony, whose quality of life is always compromised.

I found this story when I was researching foot problems with Connie and this I have a really big issue with. This 2 year old filly " Special" (Always with these names) who sloughed her entire hoof wall off. Then she shed her pedal and navicular bones.Her foot grew a new hoof wall and a sole but there was no internal structure to her foot. She lives in a brace for her whole leg to keep weight off of her non hoof and really has no quality of life at all. DAY1

DAY47- Note she can't really weight bear on that leg, because the foot has no internal bony structures to support her weight.

I mean it's clear why this one was kept alive, being the full sister to a top barrel horse whom won like a phenomenal amount of money so Special has the bad luck of being kept alive for egg harvest. This isn't ok! I hate to think how much was spent on her vet bill while sound useful horses were neglected.

I hate that there are horses out there suffering. I'm all for rescuing horses out of bad situations and providing new homes and lives. I respect the right for people to spend their money on their horse - though I feel rescues need to be more responsible with their donations because it's other peoples money they are using- I just want people to think really hard about whether or not the ends justify the means. Death is not the worst thing that can happen to a sore, damaged, worn out horse. A dignified end is sometimes the best you can offer. We have to be so careful because horses are so stoic and will endure huge amounts of pain but still prick their ears to see you. We are the care takers and it's our responsibility to look after them properly and sometimes that means that we give the grossly injured/ neglected horse a nice meal and a lot of love and then give them a peaceful goodbye.