Barcelona

One of the hardest things we face at the Lucy Irvine Foundation Europe is a heavily ingrained mindset about treatment of horses in the Roma community. Sons and grandsons have the same approach their fathers and grandfathers did and as grandad is often still living with the family, his voice still carries. Tradition, how wonderful! we might say. Or we could interpret the repetition of behaviours as failure to adapt to knowledge based on science and study with a preference to follow patterns that have obtained for centuries, because that's how things have always been done. These are some of the traditions regarding horses we see practiced in Roma communities here: A horse is bought to earn for the family. If it's a mare she's put to a stallion young so there's another horse in the pipeline. As soon as the foal arrives it's dominated by restraint. Generations of arms go around it to make sure it grows up easy to handle. Small boys hang on the edge of the crowd wield...