It's a ‘rubbish' life for Mexico's horses

It's a ‘rubbish' life for Mexico's horses Leading international horse charity World Horse Welfare is appealing for help to alleviate the suffering of Mexico's rubbish dump horses. Each day is the same. Just after sunrise, the horses' carts are filled with rubbish. As they struggle to pull their overloaded carts, they have to avoid treading on deep decaying rubbish and broken glass.

Made to work extremely long hours pulling intolerable weights, the work is back-breaking, exhausting and dangerous.

The tack they wear is ill-fitting and made from poor quality materials such as plastic sacking. It causes horrific wounds and injuries.  

Their owners also lead terrible lives but they mean well, explains Ian Kelly, Director of International Training: "They have neither the expertise nor the materials to harness their horses properly. The horses are so vital to the families that own them. If their horses didn't collect the rubbish every single day, they wouldn't have any money, they wouldn't be able to send their children to school - they would be close to starvation.

"This is where World Horse Welfare can help but only with the support of the public. We provide vital mobile veterinary clinics to treat the horses AND we run training programmes to teach local people how to make and fit comfortable harnesses and shoe horses correctly." The charity is already running a desperately needed training course in Veracruz, one of the poorest states of Mexico and the response from local people has been fantastic. With World Horse Welfare's help they have been taught how to make harnesses and saddle pads using locally-available materials and fit them with load-bearing side boards that swivel to fit the shape of almost any horse.

Remedial felt pads are also placed under the saddle to alleviate pressure and pain from wounds and sores. The training programmes are designed to leave behind a sustainable legacy. The best students from each course are trained as instructors so they can pass on their knowledge and skills to their community.

Can you help World Horse Welfare to continue to provide treatment and care to these hard working horses and run training programmes for their owners? Just £10 could enable five horses to be shod with correctly fitting shoes, whilst £100 will help make safe and comfortable harnesses for 1,000 horses. Please visit www.worldhorsewelfare.org/donate to donate as much as you can. 

Added on: 22/02/10.

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