Look.

I'm not a Barbaro fan. I got tired of that animal taking up the news bytes. I think his cult is nuts. And I'm tired of all of horsedom being defined by him.

But don't joke about or, God forbid, support animal abuse until you have to clean up the mess. I spent four years rescuing abused horses. You spend two hours forcing a frightened animal into a trailer. You pull undersized, dying foals out of pastures of mud. You put bandages on the scars until the hair grows back, all white. You pull a yearling off the tree branch she impaled herself on. You get bit and kicked by animals who are so traumatized they don't even recognize other horses anymore. You spend every day attempting to heal an animal who is so thin she looks like a fuzzy skeleton...and pregnant, to boot. And then you bottle feed her malnourished foal as she slowly wastes away after the trauma of birth. You try to remember not to wear orange around that gelding, because the guy who beat him always wore orange. You try to train a horse without getting a rope near his back legs. God forbid you get a rope near his back legs. He'll kill you. Why? Some guy tied him by his back legs to a stake for three days. That's why. You witness the spectacle of a six-foot tall 1100 pound animal attempting to hide behind a small girl because someone got too close with the whip. You deal with the blood and piss and the twisting and screaming that comes with death. Horses scream like women, you know. You watch them die, some quickly, some unbearably slowly...and the entire time, you know this all could have been prevented. This is all SOMEONE'S fault, a human's fault.

Basically, you clean up the messes. I want you go burn your eyes and redden your hands and cramp your back by cleaning up these people's messes. I did it for four years. You do it, you see it, you smell it. Then you see if you still want to joke about it. Don't joke about what you don't know, don't...belittle what you don't understand. You may think it's not worth it, we shouldn't care, horses don't feel.

I tell you, anything that screams like that can feel.

Okay, okay; I'll try to remember not to fucking wear orange around that gelding! Jesus, stop yelling at me.