Sunday, January 03, 2010

time to put the pressure on World Horse Welfare

Roly Owers, Chief Executive of World Horse Welfare had this to say on rollkur in today's Guardian article:


"In the right hands it is a valuable training method, and it cannot make a horse's tongue go blue, no matter what people seem to think," said Roly Owers, of the World Horse Welfare charity.

"Current rules do not allow prolonged or extensive use of rollkur. However, the incident has brought into focus that issues need to be ironed out. I wouldn't like a ban, as the method will simply be used albeit not in public. It will go underground.

"I don't think that people inside the sport realise the strength of feeling that is out there. There has been quite a phenomenal reaction to this, and clearly we want to see the Olympics bring more people into equestrian sports, not drive them away."


It's time to contact Mr. Owers at World Horse Welfare and ask him to support his above statement with facts, to offer a more complete statement on what rollkur does to horses psychologically and physically, and to provide details on any research and investigation the World Horse Welfare organization has done to look into this issue.

You can write, telephone, or email here.

http://www.worldhorsewelfare.org/contact

2 comments:

Grey Horse Matters said...

Thanks for the link. How can someone in charge of a welfare site even think this may be a good idea in the right hands.

This is never a good idea ever no matter who thinks it's a valuable training tool. It's torture for the horse pure and simple. End of story.

Janet Roper said...

I'm speechless. I will pass your site on, get some others to write, phone or email.

Thanks for posting this.
Harmony,
Janet