In my area of the country, land is at a premium, and horse-related issues arise often. For example, in a lovely town zoned for horses, people have come up against neighbor opposition after they purchased horse properties. Their neighbors try to prevent them from bringing their horses. These are properties that already had barns and paddocks from the previous occupants. They are also in areas where people have supposedly moved for its rural, country feel. But the non-horse neighbors complain of the supposed smells of horses and manure and flies. And as the new property owners fight battles with neighbors through town boards, they waste money paying for board elsewhere. Talk about turning a dream into a nightmare.
It’s times like these when I wonder where the local horse organizations are. Why are they not mobilizing to prevent this from happening to fellow horse folk?
The problem comes down to the splintering of different horse organizations and the fact that if you do not speak with one strong voice, you will not be heard.
In my fairly small community, you have the choice of joining the dressage association, the reining club, the hunt club, the paint horse association, the county association or three different town horse associations among others. If these groups meet once a month, who has time for all of them or even two of them? Just as I was wondering how any of them are able to get anything done, messages were posted that the appaloosa association was now defunct due to lack of interest.
Lack of interest. Is that a surprise?
I admit it. I’m not a member of any local horse group, but that’s because I was trying to figure out which one to join. All require dues, and, frankly, I’m not made of money. To show in some disciplines, one has to join that local association or pay extra at the show.
Where I grew up, we had one local horse association, and every horse owner in the area belonged to it. Thanks to the power of one voice, we had great community relations with the Parks Department and local nature groups (who originally wanted to ban horses from park trails!) Within that association were special interest groups like the reining group and hunt group.
The place where I live now doesn't have one main organization that all horse owners join. I would like to see my local horse community fight indifference and energize the horse community by fully supporting and marketing one large County Horse Association branching off of the state Horse Council. From within the County Horse Association, we could have special working groups including the dressage group, the hunt group, the paint horse group, etc. Now that’s a group I would join!
The horse community can bring the power of numbers and one strong voice to get things done--whether it’s maintaining horse riding trails, fighting to preserve open spaces or keeping an accurate census of the area’s horse demographics so we know what our numbers really are.
