Is it cruel to make horses take part in ceremonies?

MELISSA KITE pours scorn on Peta (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) for wanting to end horses taking part in ‘ceremonial duties’ (Mail).

She draws our attention to supposed ‘treats’ for the horses, kept by the MoD — being allowed a four-week holiday once a year, when they ‘spend time out at grass’ — and adds that, given the MoD has 500 horses in its care at any one time, having 109 horses put down in six years is a reasonably modest figure.

Why should horses being out at grass be considered a ‘treat’? Horses should be able to live all their lives on grass.

As for more than 100 having to be put down in six years, that’s not my idea of a modest figure. As Peta points out, the horses’ participation in ceremonial events is involuntary.

We are told that soldiers put years of painstaking work into training them, but such training isn’t for the benefit of the horses, but for people to gawp at. And the loud cheers of thousands of people and sound of cannon being fired are things horses could well do without.

SANDRA BUSELL, Edinburgh. IT AMuSeS me when supposed ‘animal lovers’ complain about the jobs that specific animals are trained to carry out. I’m not sure who, exactly, they imagine would be prepared to support these animals in a purposeless existence. Must all animals become part of some pointless petting zoo, so their supposed protectors can pat them on the head while patting themselves on the back? no reasonable person would defend overexploitation or cruelty to animals — but there’s nothing kind about leaving an animal at the mercy of pure charity. horses are complex creatures that have a very long-developed relationship with man. The Duke of Wellington’s favourite mount, Copenhagen, loved crowds and ceremonial occasions and pined for them when none were on the roster. he was said to have revelled in the melee of battle. Many of those who object to animals doing what they were bred to carry out do so purely out of a fluffy feeling of wanting to be seen, by themselves and others, as ‘kind’.

P. WILLIAMSON, Manchester.