Horse riding is a form of exploitation. Humans horse back ride for their pleasure, not for the horses. Animal exploitation isn't vegan, no matter how 'happy' you claim the animal to be. Horses have to be broken in to be ridden, making it obvious they weren't intended to be ridden in the first place. Look after a horse, fine, but don't ride it, there's no need.



No horse needs to be ridden. Horses are social animals, that belong with other horses in a large space so they can gallop, etc, and do herding behaviour. They don't belong underneath a silly homosapien. Saying a horse needs to be ridden for exercise is a common excuse by horse riders who keep their horses cooped up in stables....or give the horses very little pasture time. If you can't afford enough space for horses to exercise adequately with other horses then you shouldn't be having horses in the first place.



Simply put, horse riding is using an animal for personal pleasure. It is putting a human before an animal. Something that is wrong. Nobody needs to ride horses, so why do so?



This might help people understand: http://veganfaq.blogspot.com/2007/10/is-horseback-riding-vegan.html



And that's not even mentioning races, the over-breeding of horses, etc etc etc.



I'm not religious but here's a religious perspective on it:



http://www.all-creatures.org/discuss/horse-sa.html