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Stabled horses – happy or not?

WonderStruck: If a horse has been brought up stabled, spending the evening in a "comfy" stable doesn't really bother them too much.

Shari: Horses have been grazing all day for thousands of years. I think it still affects them to be stabled, even if they don't know any better.

Trilogy: ... if you give as much out time as possible in a big paddock, you can have a happy sleep-in horse.

Gabi: ... at endurance races, our outside horses give us major problems when they are confined to a stable.

N3: I think that some horses need the security of a stable. Competition horses need to conserve energy and if they lived out, it would be very difficult to maintain optimum condition.

Also my horse has to be clipped and this too would preclude living outside, as I don't believe in leaving horses in rugs unsupervised ... Horses are also more likely to incur injury outside. I expect my horses to do unnatural things, so I have to keep them in an artificial environment to help them cope. I think they are happy and content ...

Royal23: AHS is of course a scary reality, but nobody seems to know what works and what doesn't.

Carolann: I don't have a lot of land and stable at night to keep the paddocks grassed, but stabling permanently is wrong. If people need to do this, they should really reconsider keeping horses altogether.

The Hoss: Horses base their happiness on what they know. Let's face it – they are ours, to do with as we please. Their very existence is based upon us desiring the horse in our life. And we control it and its environment. That doesn't mean they're not happy.

Jenny-c: Horses' long-term memory is accepted as a researched reality. What if Thoroughbreds spend every stabled hour remembering and longing for the space and freedom and companionship of their early days in the stud paddocks and wondering why they've been jailed?

Fabian: Personally I think anyone who stables a horse for more than, say, ten hours should be shot, drawn and quartered for blatant animal cruelty. Okay, dragged to court. Just because horses are tolerant to a fault of just about anything humans throw at them, does not make it acceptable ... People who stable for longer than genuinely necessary, do it for their own convenience and couldn't truly care for the horse ... There are NO positives for stabling – not even AHS in my opinion ... A manure- and urine-ridden stable attracts the midges ...

Fran: I don't care what you do with your horse, as long as you don't expect me to live in a lavatory-sized room for longer than it takes to read SA Horseman.