"Trish Brown" wrote in message
FarmI wrote:

What a nice story. I hope the ******* who abused the pony dies in agony.
All too common around here, I'm afraid. Since they put 'The Saddle Club'
on TV, billions of little girls with dual-income families have gotten
ponies to play with. Sadly, the TV doesn't show the hours of work it costs
to keep and exercise a large animal in the suburbs and so you see lots and
lots of them in tiny yards and tethered to stakes, forgotten and
miserable. It used to be a lot worse, I suppose...

Some parents have no sense whatsoever. We made our daughter do horse riding
lessons for 2 years before we'd buy her a horse and sent her on riding camps
at least once a year while she was having lessons. Not once did we ever
have to do anything with her horses. She'd get up early on cold sinter
mornigns and go out and take their rugs off and do the reverse each night.
when I think back, I'm so proud of her and how she looked after them - not a
lazy bone in her body.

AND (soapbox moment approaching)

Our local council in its wisdom has permitted a large commercial concern a
monopoly over the N'cle Showground, effectively turning out the Pony Club
and preventing the best chance the abovementioned ponies had of
owner-education! Hnnnnh!

So where does the PC go/meet now? they are great organisations and nothing
like a bit of peer pressure to make slobby little girls look after their
horses.