Shara Grove Holistics

I noticed myself the other day missing horses. It was for a split second. I came across a video on Instagram of a foal playing with a large leaf and scaring the other horses. It made me giggle and I remembered being back with the foals, I remembered the mares and the work I used to do. I have mixed feelings about my past on breeding farms. Mixed because of my morals. Mixed because of how I was seen and treated. Mixed because of the realisations I had once I left. Mixed because of the work/life culture that it seems to project.

I spent roughly 6-7 years in the thoroughbred breeding industry and I have a lot to say about it, too much to include in this one post, but I will voice it all at some point.

What I do want to express now is my love for the horses and my heartbreak for them. Everyone is always so quick to think that racing is the problem when it’s not, breeding is.

Thousands of thoroughbred horses are bred each year, with only a small fraction of them doing what the breeders and owners want them to do. Earn money.

There is also a lot that I can say about animal activists when it comes to their protests about racing. Uneducated. Abusive. Aggressive. Lacks perspective and perception. Unrealistic. They aren’t seeing the bigger picture here. Where do all of these racers come from to begin with? Breeding. What does breeding fuel? Gambling. What have I learnt about Australia during my time here? It is one massive gambling country with an addiction it will never admit to because it has been so normalised.

Thoroughbred breeding just adds fuel to the fire, and this is globally.

I worked and lived in ‘The Horse Capital Of Australia’ which actually just meant that this area of Australia held the highest amount of horses. I find it funny how it has been labelled the horse capital like some sort of royalty when actually it is just the capital of thoroughbred breeding which fuels the populations gambling addiction. That to me says a lot about Australia (don’t even get me started…).

What was it like to work in the industry? I got lucky with where I spent most of my years. Horse care was first priority most of the time, but as soon as the season comes round it is all about getting the foals out and impregnating the mares again. No pregnant mares = no foals the following year = no weanlings/yearlings to sell = loss of money and publicity, which as business can be very damaging, especially when you have to wait a year for the season to come back around.

Looking back on my time in the industry it definitely brought out a dark shadow side of me at one point. Someone who lost their temper, forgot how to respect horses and lost sight of why I loved them in the first place. Working in the industry damaged my relationship with horses.

I grew up being that weird horse girl in school. I friggin loved them and I would’ve much rather spent my time with horses than with other peers. I had horse posters, books, stickers, teddies, toys, I can’t even begin to describe the joy I felt playing stables with my horse figurines and accessories. I feed carrots and apples to the local horses in the field. Every trip to Wales and the Lake District I’d go riding. They were a MASSIVE part of my childhood and my career has been built around them.

My work in the industry altered my perception of horses. I began to see them as money makers or losers. Whenever I looked at them I’d be analysing their whole body for wounds or signs of illness. I stopped listening to their ways of communicating. I stopped seeing their beauty. The stress I felt from work was getting projected onto them and I reached a point where looking at horse made my cortisol levels rise. I was tired of looking after someones elses horse when they haven’t even been to see it themselves. I was tired of feeling frustrated towards the horse when they just didn’t want to do something they were forced to do. I was tired of fighting with them. I was tired of working in and for an industry that didn’t align with my morals.

Eventually I broke free but my relationship with horses was damaged. I didn’t want anything to do with them. I took some time off from working and during my last six or so months of being in Scone before I left I worked on two very good farms that looked after me and looked after their horses very well. This in itself was nice closure to have on my time in the area and in the industry.

I struggle still to see horses for how I used to see them before doing this work. I’m trying to remember how I saw them when I was a little girl. Excited and in awe of their gentleness and power.

Racing doesn’t need to be in the spotlight. The breeding industry does.