I get this because people in my wider wider circle post or talk about their riding, and people in the comments treat horse trainers like they're doing a public service, taking those poor lovely animals out for a stroll or a obstacle course run. And the hobby is such an Instagramable activity because posh people do it, therefore it's cool. There's something attractive to rich people about someone on a horse with tight horse gear clothes.
I need to stress it: riding and owning a horse is expensive af. Even the lessons are absurdly expensive. No one in my circle of friends or even extended family does it. And the hobby is basically just golf in terms of environmental costs. Horses require a fuck ton of water and create a fuck ton more of shit, and they require an ungodly amount of land. I just assume that the labour for feeding and cleaning is done by immigrants, and white people get to to do the cool jobs like training.
Horse people like to brag that many/most of the world's monarchies and aristocracy is really into riding. To me, that should be a massive slight. If Elizabeth and Charles's favourite sport was horsing, that should be a big red flag.
And what gets to me is how horse people are all like "I love my horses". Like I'm sorry, Brett, but if you loved that animal, you wouldn't put a bit in their mouth and make them carry you around. Horse injuries with riders are very common, especially spinal injuries because weight has been placed on where it wasn't designed for weight.
I get in trouble because I point this out and every middle class person in the room gets super upset that their lovely horse hero got their hobby attacked.
Note: this post is only for white horse people. I don't know about nor have an opinion on non-Western horse activities.
anti-equestrian-aktion meeting now in session
I used to run into horse people on mountainbike trails and it was insane every single time. The trails were singletrack, very tight, not appropriate for horses, but because they were conveniently nearby for the rich assholes they decided they owned them despite the mountain bikers having spent more than a decade building and maintaining them. The horses absolutely shredded the trail, as bad or worse than dirtbikers poaching trail. Not only that, but if you ran into those motherfuckers they acted like you were inconveniencing them despite them being 100% in the wrong. Twice I ran into those assholes and was told imperiously that I needed to make space because their fucking horse wasn't "comfortable" with people on bicycles. They were TRESPASSING on BICYCLE TRAILS.
Fuck, that still gets me mad.
There's heaps of research papers on the destruction that horses do to trails. Conservationists have been screaming this for over a century. Rich people fuck everything up.