Shouldn't you be rescuing?

I suppose those needs homes too, I wouldn't mind if the horse was a good age and healthy with a somewhat ok conformation.

I thik those people are stupid and irresponsible..the least thing they can do is to make sure their foal grets proper traning, even if that takes a professional. Most well educated young horses can be sold at a fairly high price. And I'm not even thinking on highly educated, just having the basics put down well and safe makes the horse desireable.

I really disagree with that. It really depends on what you mean by "rescue". Both my mares have papers (and not the worst one, the paint has several race champs in her pedigree, qh has Doc Bar and Poco Bueno). And I knew for sure the experience. Lol! However considering the situations I took them from when they were yearlings I'd still call it rescue (don't want to go into all details here). There is VERY high chance they would end up on meat truck, because they had no training, lots of attitude, no respect for people, and paint an abuse as a nice addition to the rest. I also know some people having rescues and getting places at the big shows. So it all depends really... :)

So basically what you're saying is that we're not allowed to have well-bred, well-conformed foals because of OTHER idiots? That's a little silly.

The majority of rescue horses, such as nurse foals and PMU foals are NOT what the average person wants to own. The breeding is poor at best, and the only purpose is to drop foals. Many PMU farmers do their best to breed better conformed, registerable stock nowadays but we still must face facts that they're not breeding the cream of the crop. They make cute pets and trail horses and heck yeah, more then a few even go on to be champions in their own way. But realistically, most people aren't looking for a half-Draft to compete on.

I don't think we have any responsibility for these people. Obviously if you're in a position to rescue, by all means, power to you. But to make a person actually feel guilty about a proper breeding program or even investing in a nice foal from their personal mare is ridiculous.

It's not going to stop the idiots from breeding crap, and then suddenly we're not going to have any good horses left because everyone's buying cow-hocked ewe-necked pigeon toed roached back misfits.

This is not what I want to do at all, I don't want anyone to feel guilty other than backyard breeders. I think you do have every right to own a well papered well conformed horse ( I do) And I'm not saying that EVERYONE has to rescue. However either people rescue those back yard foals or they get killed, simple as that. If we want to save these foals then it is our responsiblity to take them on. Should we have to? Hell no! People should just be more responsible, so that horse aren't being bred just to be killed.

I think rescue is an excellent idea and if more people rescued, less horses would be going to slaughter. however, i agree with the person (i dont remember who specifically) said that the solution is education not regulation. we need to educated people on proper breeding techniques, confirmation, and the different options available for their horse if it doesnt work out besides slaughter or abandonment. just telling people they can't breed won't work. it isn't fair and it'll only cause a backlash

It's not just backyard foals that need rescued. Plenty of well-conformed and well-papered horses need it, too. How many OTTBs end up at rescues or at slaughter? What about show horses that got injured and no one felt like taking care of? Or ones that just got old and no one wanted once they were no good for strenuous work? They're a huge percentage of rescue horses.

Unfortunately many people not gonna listen to any education because "they know better" or "they granddad did it all his life" or something else equally silly. I run into that number of times and ANY attempts to educate just cause them going nuts. :(

Well, I've done the rescue thing. WORST HORSE EXPERIENCE OF MY LIFE. Mostly because the rescue that I got was from a "rescue" that just so happened to keep their horses 200 lbs underweight, had strangles, and lice. He was the most vicious horse I had ever seen. It made me very sad for him but man, was he mean. He literally tried to kill me several times. Luckily, he and his new MALE owner are very happy together

Does this mean that I won't do it again? No. But I will definitely do my homework a bit more.


Rescuing is NOT for everyone

I am going to be breeding my very nice TB mare to a sportpony stallion (Connemara) in later years, then if that baby comes out nicely, I might breed her to a light warmblood. No one can tell me otherwise because everyone of the experts that I know have said that she is a mare they would breed in a millisecond. She is definitely breeding material... later. haha.

i have no doubt you run into that unfortunately.

i feel like maybe it would help if information about legitimate horse rescues was more readily available. i mean, you can find info on the internet, but i'd like to see more articles and ads for rescues in the big horse magazines like Equus and Horse Illustrated etc.

Well, yeah, but that has nothing to do with rescuing. Any horse you buy could be like that if you don't do your "homework" well enough. So, really, that's completely irrelevant to the topic at hand and is no reason that rescuing wouldn't be for everyone.