When Anna Sewell wrote her 1877 book Black Beauty, it was a time when everyone depended on working horses for farm work, for haulage and for day-to-day transport, horses were trained to a standard rarely seen today. The downside was that horses sometimes were treated as mere machines, and abuse was commonplace.
Sewell highlighted these abuses and wrote about how even the best cared-for working horses lacked access to a natural life. City-dwelling horses in particular were usually kept in small stalls, denied the opportunity to live naturally within a herd, and unable to socialise, graze freely and range over a large area like their wild ancestors.
Liberty
The striking thing about the horses in Steve and Tilly Kemp’s little herd on the Isle of Anglesey is that they do not lack liberty. Here, the herd lives in large open fields and chooses which friends to graze near. They can lie down, run around, or wander off alone as they choose, and it’s obvious that this freedom has its benefits as the animals are relaxed and contented.
The younger animals play together and are warned by their elders to mind their manners, and the older equines wander slowly, grazing as they move, feeling safe and secure in their herd.
