Let Horses Be Horses and Goats Be Goats

on the resilient health of animals living freely

Molly on lookout while the rest of the herd graze.

Over the road lives a fine stallion of Connemara blood, of strong, heavy type, with dark, soft eyes and a full, flowing mane that falls over his crested neck in long, wavy locks. He runs free with his mares and foals over open acreage on the hill above us. Free to court his mares, and chasten his colts. A rarity in the equine world where risk of injury to expensive animals is high, and thus breeding is usually a tightly controlled affair involving “teasers”, restraints and padded partitions. Indeed, this stallion’s predecessor was knocked out of action by a kick to his crown jewels that ended his career. It happens. Horses be horses. But the risk of that kind of injury in horses living free to express their natural behaviours with the space to get out of each other’s way is minimal, and far outweighed by the benefits of robust, resilient health—physical and behavioural.

The land my neighbour’s stallion and his herd run on is open and ru…