Horse Tax

Full Galway Recap from USEA, Galway Press Release.  Release about Chummin: In relation to Lisa Peecook’s horse Chummin: “The preliminary necropsy revealed pulmonary hemorhage and edema.  The cause of the hemorrhage is unknown.”

In other news…

-British Eventing extends the qualifications for CCI*’s.  (USA Prelim=GBR Novice)  They now require the rider to have 6 novices, or 4 novices, and one intermediate and CIC* before doing a CCI*.  My take: this makes the CCI* campaign harder to do in one season, but I have trouble arguing against this more cautious approach.  On the other hand, if they are going to let someone do a four-star once every other week or so, who really cares about qualifications anyhow? 
*-Also, a horse tax of anywhere from 10 to 100 pounds may start soon in the UK.  My take: of course, none of us wants to see the cost of horse ownership increase, and this might just be a way for government to tax something it considers a luxury.  But, if you look at the economics, this tax will probably result in a net positive for the horses.   From an economic standpoint, we would expect a flat-rate tax on horses to cause overall horse ownership to decline, but at a greater rate among very low income people and people who do not want horses very much.  
Lets imagine what happens with a $100 dollar tax on horses here in the US.  For the average horse owner, who rides and maybe boards one horse or keeps a couple at home, this tax will feel like an unfortunate additional expense, but they can and will pay it.  For professional horse operations, such as racehorse breeding farms, the expense will be larger, but it will still not be a significant portion of their operating budget, so they will pay it and move on.  The point is that for anyone who spends more than $1,000 to $2,000 on a horse per year, a $100 tax will stink, but it will not be enough to stop them from owning a horse.  Now, consider the tragic situation you occasionally see driving down some random country road, where a muddy two acre plot contains 13 malnourished horses slowly starving to death.  
Clearly this is horse abuse, but animal control has no idea what to do with the horses and the local DA has bigger fish to fry, supposedly.  In these instanced, a horse tax should and would prevent horse ownership for those people who don’t care enough or can’t pay to treat their horses well.  For me, this seems like a net positive for horses, especially if we make sure that people can give their horses to caring relocation centers.  Thoughts, comments?  Hit the oval to the right of the date by the article title and leave your take.
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