Finnish horse culture has gone through many of the same changes as horse cultures in other “western” countries, where the roles of horses have changed from work to recreation. Before the 1960s Finnish horse culture was based on the use of a single native horse breed in agriculture, forestry, transportation, trotting races and military. Today the number of horses is down to one fifth of the top figures of the 1950s, but there are many breeds now that have new roles in recreation, tourism, sports, and therapy. Especially the popularity of riding has increased in the last two decades, giving women and children more visibility in the present horse culture. In this paper I discuss how the changes in Finnish horse culture have affected the human-horse relationship and how the cultural meanings given to horses have changed from the 1930s to the present.

I have always been an animal person. The eldest of five children, I grew up in the Philadelphia suburbs surrounded by anywhere from two to nine dogs of various ages and breeds. There was a farm down the street from our house with horses, donkeys, ducks, and swans, all of which we would visit almost every day, usually with one or more of our dogs in tow. When I was about eleven, I went through the classic "I want a pony" phase, specifically related to a pony I rode daily at summer camp and which my parents, wisely, refused to let me take home. After we visited a "Lion Country" theme park on a family vacation, I longed for an elephant that I pre-named Clyde. Click here to read the article in full.

Laminitis is a systemic disease that manifests itself as severe pain and degenerative physical changes in the equid hoof, and affects over 8000 horses in the UK every year. Of this number, approximately 600 die and 1300 are left permanently unsound (Hinckley, 1997), thus the economic impact of this syndrome is considerable. While this debilitating condition has many causes, researchers (Harris et al., 2006) currently divide them into three distinct groups; Click here to read this article in full

Over the past ten years, dressage has been a rapidly expanding competitive sport. Horses are of increasingly higher value, related both to levels of talent and the time investment required to reach Grand Prix level. Trainingassociated injuries are one of the major reasons that horses do not reach Grand Prix level competition. However, they also prevent horses from training and competing at lower levels. Murray et al (2006) demonstrated that horses undergoing dressage training and competition at elite and non-elite level were at increased risk of specific injuries, in particular hindlimb suspensory ligament injury, when compared to general purpose horses and those competing in other disciplines. Click here to read this article in full.