- Horse charity boss warned people are increasingly getting advice from online
- He believes the rise in inexperienced owners is due to falling horse prices
- Owners are refusing to use traditional methods to care for their horses, he said
Horses are being harmed by a rise in inexperienced owners refusing to use traditional methods to care for them, an equine expert has said.
Roly Owers, chief executive of the World Horse Welfare charity, has warned that owners are increasingly eschewing vets advice in favour of information on the internet.
He says it has led to cases of people unnecessarily wrapping up their horses in blankets or shunning the use of horseshoes and bridle bits.
And Mr Owers believes that a drop in the price of the animals over the last decade is responsible for the ‘growing problem’.
An equine expert has warned that horses are being harmed by a rise in inexperienced owners refusing to use traditional methods to care for them
He told The Sunday Times: ‘[Owners] used to listen to the vet and the farrier but now they listen to 101 real people and 101,000 online people.’
Mr Owers explained that his charity had recently found two thoroughbred horses suffering from heatstroke after being wrapped up in blankets in temperatures of up to 85F (30C).
The owner was charged by police for causing unnecessary suffering to the animals.
Unnecessarily wrapping up your horse at the slightest inclination of a chill could also stop it from developing protective oils that are necessary for the winter.
The charity boss also said that horses are being left to die in agony from dental, muscular, skeletal and metabolic problems because their owners refuse to put them down at the right time.
‘You can wrap them up in cotton wool as much as you like but if they are in chronic pain they will be suffering,’ he said. ‘The primary responsibility of every animal owner is to give their horse a good life and a good death.’