Re: RC: RE: Misc things and also Animal Rights Activists

[BMcCrary27@aol.com]

In a message dated 08/16/2000 7:57:50 AM Pacific Daylight Time, 
guest@endurance.net writes:

<< ARAs decended on the horse, grabbing the bridle to stop it, chanting and 
protesting that the animal was being held captive and enslaved by humans!!   
>>


ARAs are too far removed from history, when the only method of transportation 
besides the human foot was the horse.  Of course, we could all go back to 
pre-mechanical days, and the ARAs could be the ones who do all the walking.  
The history of the civilized world was written by the horse (so to speak).  
My husband's favorite justification for endurance riding, as opposed to 
pleasure riding at a walk (which is also very nice sometimes), is "the horse 
was domesticated for the purpose of extending the range of travel beyond that 
which man could cover on foot".  An interesting aside....on our June trip to 
China, we took a day to walk on the Great Wall.  This is an absolutely 
amazing feat of human endeavour.  Our trip leader, being an historian, told 
us that the Wall was not built to keep the men of the Mongol hordes out of 
China, but the horses.  Without his horse, the Mongol warrior was helpless.  
And of course, the American Indian was greatly enabled in his battles with 
the whites and with other tribes by his domestication of the horses turned 
loose (accidentally or otherwise) on the plains by the Spanish explorers.  
Alexander the Great and the Romans extended their territories enormously with 
the aid of horses.  The history of man is written on the back of the horse.
Try to take away our rights to own and ride horses, and the ARAs and anyone 
else are going to have a big fight on their hands.

Barbara