Horse Shit. Literally.
Virtually every kind of feces that is dropped in public spaces or on private property is required by law to be picked up and removed. If your dog poops on the street or on someone’s lawn, you have to pick it up. If your child poops on the street or on someone’s lawn, you’d better pick it up. If you yourself poop on the street or on someone’s lawn, you certainly must pick it up. In addition to being the law, picking up your feces or those of a creature you’re responsible for is a matter of decency and sanitariness. Poop is gross, it smells bad, your day will be ruined if you touch or step in it, it serves as an attractant and breeding ground for pests and parasites, and it can cause the proliferation of diseases. Cleaning up shit is common sense and commonplace, yet there is a glaring exception to this rule.
Why is it that horses can shit anywhere and everywhere they please, and their owners/riders do not have to clean up after them? What kind of double standard is that? How did it come about? Back in the old days, when horses were the peak means of transportation, it was normal for them to clip-clop the streets and drop their slop here, there, and everywhere, and even as they were phased out as transportation and have become the playthings of the wealthy and vaguely eccentric, little has changed in how we as a society treat their willy-nilly defecation. The thing is, back in those aforementioned old days, things were absolutely disgusting. Horses weren’t the only ones dropping their excrement with carefree abandon. The streets were littered with the shit of literally every shitting creature that trod them, humans included. Since then, for every other being, the rules were updated and evolved as awareness of the health hazards of strolling around ankle deep in poop, as well as a natural distaste for doing so, other than for horses.
Some will make the case that horse shit isn’t so bad, some even claiming that it’s good. While manure does have positive attributes as a fertilizer and is generally less objectionable than many other breeds of excrement, to pretend as though it’s good or even benign is in fact horse shit. The very fact that the expression “horse shit” exists and has not a bit of positive connotation speaks volumes.
Since moving to Colorado, I regularly take my dogs to a nearby hilly trail. It is required, as in many places, for dog-owners to clean up their poop. There are even bags provided and a few trash cans along the trail. There are occasionally people riding horses on the trail. As with any other place that horses go, mounds of shit splatter in their wake. In addition to the many negative qualities of shit, in this case it has the added annoyance of being appealing to dogs. My dogs have stopped to smell the horse shit, and the dumber, hungrier one once tried to eat it. I’ve seen other people’s dogs do likeways. What I have never seen is a person on a horse stopping to pick up their horse’s shit.
And why not?
Why should horse-riders not pick up shit like the rest of us?
Is that beneath them? Are they in too much of a hurry? Are they too good to do it?
That’s what’s really going on here. Elitism, pure and simple. People who ride horses, as a rule, are generally more wealthy and privileged than us normal folk, and believe themselves to be our betters. Perched upon their steeds, swollen with their self-righteous sense of superiority, they believe that we deserve to walk through shit, whereas they couldn’t deign to be in its presence.
Well, enough of this horse shit. It’s time to make these equestrian motherfuckers carry their fair share, which is every grassy, oaty turd their horses drop. They wouldn’t even have to carry it themselves; they could make the horses do it themselves in saddle bags. Hell, they could just attach bags to their horse’s butts to catch the shit as it drops. The fact that it would be so easy speaks to their entitlement and great disrespect for us all.