Description

Who can still make the connection between man and nature? Certainly not robots!

Faced with progress in mechanization, many announced, a century ago, “the end of the horse”. This prophecy of doom was not fulfilled: the horse adapted. New functions have been found in sport, leisure and health. But today, threats of a new kind weigh on the relationship that man has with the horse. Under the pretext of protection and “well-being”, some go so far as to advocate the complete severing of the link which has united these two species for at least five millennia.

The cry of alarm launched here by Jean-Louis Gouraud is not a simple recrimination against the ideology which underlies the action, sometimes violent, of those who recommend the non-use of horses. It is also, and above all, a reminder of some fundamental truths such as:

1. The horse is neither a pet animal, like the dog or the cat, nor a livestock, like the cow or the pig. It occupies a special place, and must therefore benefit from a specific status.
2. No, work is not necessarily alienating for horses, any more than for humans. On the contrary, it can be a form of liberation. Work, play, activity are part of the needs and well-being of the horse.
3. The nature of the relationship between man and horse is not necessarily a master-slave relationship. It is made of reciprocity, of mutual benefits, for the benefit and advantage of both parties.
4. If mechanization, urbanization and today cybernetics have gradually disconnected man from the living world, depriving him of satisfying the needs of his own animality, the horse can help him reconnect with his deep nature – and with Nature.

This is why, proclaims the author of this short manifesto written at the galloping rhythm, far from being a finished, outmoded, condemned animal, “the horse is the future”.