Burr Associates - Leslie Howard

New girl Ever So Clever🥇🥇 wins today’s 7yr old final as well as Thursday’s 7yr old jumpoff class to finish champion in the young horse division at . Exciting future for this mare 🚀😍 .international

and VDL Lightfeet 🥇take the WIN in yesterday’s 1m35 stake and just behind in 🥈🥈 with Coletta 👏🏻

and Catemaco kick off our week at with a 🥇🥇 in today’s 1m35 jumpoff class 👏🏻 with and VDL lightfeet just behind in 🥈🥈

and Caro continue their top form jumping to 🥈🥈🥈 in yesterday’s medium amateur classic 🤩👍

‘s C’est Jens 🥇takes the WIN in today’s 1m35 stake on the derby field at 👏🏻.international

Thoughts on the audience for social license.

Framing the Discussion About Horse Welfare

The term “ social license” appears a lot these days sometimes referred to a SLO or social license to operate. The term itself is said to have originated in the mining industry in the 1990’s referring to community acceptance in addition to the legal right to mine and the necessity of having and maintaining that acceptance. With respect to horses the term seems to be everywhere now with the FEI, USEF. BEF and others devoting lots of attention and effort to the topic. Taking a representative sample from the website of the rather ambitiously named World Horse Welfare organization “ Social license is a way to describe public acceptance of an activity. Where an activity has society’s approval or acceptance it is said to have social licence to operate” and then “ The social licence of horse sport is being challenged -as questions are increasingly being raised about the involvement of horse in sport due to concerns about their welfare and safety”. Most of the websites and discussions go straight to the spectre of the possibilities and likelihood of losing that social licence if steps aren’t taken or things aren’t done which then is followed by some reference to PETA or its ilk and in the case of the USEF a rather lengthy polling survey and earnest video from the former USEF President. Statements such as that made by the British Equestrian Federation when it didn’t follow the FEI on rollback of the blood rule discussed below saying “Equine welfare is our cornerstone” and that anything less than elimination “risks undermining the integrity of our sport and the trust of the public.” are common. The problem with this type of thinking is that the main and certainly most vocal objections to the recreational or sport use of horses doesn’t stem from welfare concerns but rather people who believe that any ownership or use of a horse or indeed any animal for such purposes is wrong and are not to be mollified by enhanced welfare under the current regimes (especially since as discussed below on any sensible basis of reckoning horses in general are exceptionally well treated).
As a first analytical step it is important to decide which of two different things is the focus of the discussion; animal rights or animal welfare. This is not splitting hairs or pettifoggery but rather a key threshold issue .
The serious proponents of animal rights advance the argument that animals as sentient beings have interests and rights. One of the rights is not to be “owned” by humans and humans have an obligation to treat horses ( and other animals) as having rights to freedom and not to use them for food, industry or entertainment. As but one example the PETA website spells out the meaning of each letter in its acronym and under Ethical says that the human Golden Rule applies to animals, then under Treatment “ all beings desire freedom to live a natural life” and ergo humans are obliged to bring that about for Animals who “deserve liberty and respect”.
As a basic rejoinder, a recognition of “rights” is customarily based on the corollary of the existence of “duties” on the entity with rights with respect to the exercise of those rights and enforceable duties at that, which is a difficult indeed impossible concept to seek to impose on horses. It is a basic and obvious point. A horse is not likely to recognize its duty to respect property rights if it sees my lush lawn and decides to graze. Equally a visitor from another planet unversed in our history might observe the daily care afforded to horses-feeding, back-smithing ( pedicures),chiropractic and massage work, laser therapy,mucking out, turn-out, veterinary treatment, grooming and night check etc. and readily reach the conclusion that horses could well be the owners and humans the vassals. Douglas Adams caught this notion in some of his books including So Long and Thanks for the Fish, the farewell message when (in fiction) the dolphins as superior beings left Earth before its destruction. In the same vein, if 5 million horses ( the present North American estimate) are to be freed, the canyon in Utah where Robert Redlord set free Rising Star in The Electric Horseman isn’t going to sustain the herd. Put less facetiously if recreational use is not permitted or even encouraged the horse population is likely to dwindle towards extinction. There are numerous other responses to the absolute animal rights position but the purpose here is not to fully engage in that argument but rather to point out that it is absolute and there is no solution and so no particular reason to treat animal rights advocates as interested in delivering the continuation of the social licence. As a fundamental tenet they don’t believe it should continue. Presumably people ( including myself) who “own” horses believe the opposite conclusion; that it is moral and ethical to do so with the same conviction that those that would have horse set free profess. Like some other “beliefs” that are hotly contested there is no middle ground. The use of horses for industry such as gaming is a more difficult and nuanced question.
The important point for these purposes is that animal rights supporters do not support the existence of a “social license” to use horses for recreational purposes at all . Therefore, it is not useful to argue with them as to the preservation of something that they don’t agree exists or should exist at all . They are akin to the “deaf adder” of biblical lore “which will not hearken to the voice of charmers; charming never so wisely”. While recognizing their existence it is seriously unwise to proceed on the basis that this constituency speaks for the general public whose agreement or acceptance of the recreational use of horses exists today. One can confidently say it exists today because of the longstanding legality of owning horses and using them for recreational purposes. What the hand-wringing and fretting seems to be about is the fear that the status quo might change in the future if “public trust” is lost or shaken.
So setting aside the animal rights proponents logically the next matters for consideration are what is meant by “animal welfare” and what things are likely to move lawmakers to change the status quo . What does it or should it mean to treat horses “well” or to risk some irony, “humanely”? As a corollary to that question does the present combination of “club” overseers or SRO’s, humane societies, government regulators and the criminal law need to be changed to ensure the continuation of the status quo?
To begin the analysis it is probably first important to ask if there is/are a problem(s)? If so what is / are they and are there feasible fixes?
The conclusions I propose are based on three premises or foundation assumptions. First the treatment and care of the large majority of recreational horses including almost all if not all top class show jumpers is better than the existence of a large percentage of the human population of this planet. Yardsticks and definitions differ but there are multi-billions of people living below a poverty line set at $3 or $4/day. Most recreational horses are already treated far more humanely than large portions of humanity. What that says about humans in general is a bigger subject for another occasion. Moving from humans to other animals, there are billions of chickens and pigs in the world ( so from an evolutionary numbers standpoint it is possible to argue they are doing better). However nobody who has ever seen factory chicken farms ( roughly 99% of US poultry) or factory pig farms ( roughly 93% of US pigs) could ever disagree with the reality that the majority of recreational horses are far better treated. There is not a general horse welfare problem to be addressed. This is perhaps the most important point. It is easy to agree that horses should be treated and cared for “well”- i.e-their welfare maintained. To argue against that would be akin to taking on the institution of motherhood or hockey ( for a Canadian). The important truth is that the vast majority of recreational horses are treated very well by their “ owners” and if that ownership were not permitted the population of horse would likely collapse ( as it already did once in the previous century with the proliferation of cars, trucks and tanks) and the few that remained would have worse lives. If that premise is correct and accepted then the rationale for major change does not exist and it is clear moreover that if it were changed to ban recreational ownership the very animals ostensibly sought to be protected would be much worse off.
If there is no general supporting rationale for a ban is there an argument that misuse or abuse of horses risks the public trust? The second premise is that there has always been and likely unfortunately always will be a small percentage of people dealing with horses that will cut corners or abuse them for perceived gains. As noted above there have been laws and humane societies with respect to the humane treatment of animals for centuries although it must be said that enforcement has been uneven. Equally the SRO or club rules address drugs, abuse and non-permitted practices and presumably will continue to do so. The criminal law has and will continue to have offenses for the inhumane treatment of animals. The point here is that discussing the “ social license” in the context of success in monitoring and punishing the 5 to 10% of abusers is a mugs game and arguably inappropriate. Even if none of the abusers were caught ( and I am not arguing that there shouldn’t be enhanced enforcement) it is throwing 9 babies out at the same time as tossing an inch of bathwater to countenance the argument that the social license should be influenced at all by the small minority of abusers. Put another way, if the animal rights folks aren’t the target audience how could any animal welfare enthusiast sensibly or legitimately assert that the failure to catch or stop all the “bad apples” means that the vast majority of well-treated horses should no longer have that treatment? To frame the question is to answer it and the nebulosity is only increased by the vagueness as to who is the target audience for the efforts to ensure good treatment-John or Jane Q Public? Legislators? Grass roots organizations? There isn’t any existing groundswell to ban horse ownership ( outside of animal rights folks) and it makes no sense to even countenance the idea that that is or could be a sensible possibility and it certainly makes no sense for horse lovers to hypothesize it as anything other than absurdly unlikely. So for sure enhance the rules and enforcement of them so as to be able to point to efforts to ferret out bad actors but it is nonsensical to engage on the basis that even the continued existence of a small minority is not outweighed for the animal in general by the current reality of the treatment of horses by the vast majority of owners and getting that message out to the public ought to be the main focus.This leads to the next premise which addresses the inevitable change in permitted practices and why it can be counter-productive to couch them in animal welfare terms.
The definition and scope of permitted practices has and will change over time. Anyone who brought a bamboo to the schooling ring today for a tap before the class would have no legitimate complaint as to the inevitable consequences. There may be overlap but the “club” rules for competition and treatment are not and do not need to be the same as the criminal law. However there is a danger in instituting new rules that ostensibly cater to the supposed threat to the social license. As but one example of many this discussion will consider the blood rule. It is perhaps important to stress that this is only one example of many where the SRO officers are postulating the need to make rules or govern the sport with reference to what a hypothetical public might feel or do. The thesis here is that this focus is not the appropriate one and if SRO officials want to be doing something useful to forestall future restrictions they ought to primarily focus legislators on the numbers of horse owners ( voters) and the economic contribution that horses in general make to an area.
By way of preamble to considering the blood rule in horses in the NBA for humans if a 200 pound player is bleeding that player leaves the game for treatment but often returns very shortly thereafter. The player who may have caused the bleeding is not automatically ejected. Hockey players are now perhaps less macho but tales of spitting teeth onto the ice and continuing are common and the NHL now in most cases only ups the penalty from 2 minutes to 5 if the infraction drew blood. The rules in rugby are similar- the bleeding player leaves the game, is treated, changes his/her kit and returns. Again the cause of the bleeding is subject to the normal penalty rules. The point is that it is known in advance that there will be instances of blood and the rules anticipate that for humans.
However up until January 1 2026 the FEI had an automatic zero-tolerance elimination for even minor or accidental bleeding. The arguments on the rule and then the changes to it came to resemble the debates of The Scholastics as to the numbers of terpsichorean seraphim that could be accommodated on the head of a pin. As noted above lot of the arguments were premised on the idea that a general zero-tolerance rule was good PR fodder for the social license debate and argued ( without evidence) that to do otherwise risked “public trust” even though all readily acknowledged that blood can be drawn without the rider doing anything wrong at all and that minor nicks or scrapes don’t harm the 1000 pound animal. By all means give the stewards power to remove the horse from competition if there is an injury that requires it and to refer the rider for potential punishment if warranted but all a zero-tolerance rule did was state by implication that the judgment of the stewards could not be trusted and some notion that forestalling the theoretical anger of the general public required it. The former is unfortunate and the latter is, for the reasons already set out, poppycock posing as a rationale. What is the general public to make of the FEI after experience and discussion recognizing that the rule it had implemented was arbitrary and unfair and proceeding with a sensible modification when the British thereafter seek to wrap themselves in the mantle of animal welfare defenders and keep an arbitrary rule? An analogy from Monty Python is in order. Just as “strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government” it makes no sense to keep an obviously bad rule on the books based on the fear that some unidentified persons, possibly completely uninvolved with horses, might not understand why the rule was being modified.All this does is give ammunition to the absolutist animal rights faction. Common sense ought not to be surrendered to a fear of irrational response by the “public”. The SRO’s ought not to be making rules with a Ouija Board has to how the “general public” might misunderstand a rule or to cater to guesses as to how a rule might be perceived by so-far silent multitudes.
If SROs want to do something ( and by observation most always want to be doing something which is not necessarily a bad thing as a bee in ones bonnet is at least evidence against cerebral inertia) to forestall the prospect of a ban or restrictions then it would be useful to make sure the legislators ( from whence any ban or restriction would come) are kept aware of the large number of voters that would be angered , the economic contribution that would be lost, evidence that the enforcement against abuse by the minority is a priority and perhaps most importantly the general welfare points made above. Bans or restrictions to change the status quo would require broad support and it should be relatively easy for any SRO that focuses on its knitting to forestall such an unnecessary and unpopular effort.
Put another way it is conceivable that at some future point the debate as to the absolutist position as to ownership ( and eating) animals will have the profile in society in general that at various points in history emancipation, women’s rights, abortion etc. had or have. It is I suppose possible that Buddhist approach supplants the Christian and Islamic approach of permitting ownership and eating whilst not treating them cruelly. If that occurs then it won’t matter how well any animal is treated including horses. Society or the public will legislate that change. Against the prospect that there will be such a broad debate it is useful to continue research to support that there is at least a symbiotic relationship between horse or dog and human that there isn’t for say a chicken or turkey but that ought to be the focus. However the supposed welfare debate is a red herring for the reasons set out above and while no doubt SRO’s will continue to fulminate about the danger of losing the social licence they ought not to forget the error and potential danger in assuming or ceding that animal rights activists speak for the general public.

Yvette Lamar back it ✨with 2️⃣ WINS with Doc and a 🥉 with Lickety and finishing champion in the Division 🥇🥇

Fault free week for and VDL Lightfeet jumping to 🥉🥉 in Sunday’s High Amateur Classic and 🥈 in Saturday’s speed finishing as reserve champions in the division! 👏🏻

Super day today with Mondavi jumping to 🥇🥇 and Leonidas just behind in 🥈🥈 in today’s 3* Ranking class at ! Thanks to the whole team and .international 📸

and her horses continuing their top form this circuit this time jumping to 🥉🥉 in yesterday’s 1m35 jumpoff class 👏🏻👏🏻