Considering IHP’s aims, it is clear that we are against the trade of every animal and against the use of equines in sports or in other unnatural activities that are alien to their ethological characteristics.
We are also against buying horses or collecting money to save those destined for slaughter. We will now explain our point of view on this controversial matter.

Promoting initiatives to save animals is certainly a praiseworthy idea, but we must consider that for every action there are not only positive but also negative outcomes.
We all share a basic principle: life cannot and must not be commercialized.
Buying and selling living creatures is the first step towards exploitation and killing.
In this perspective, giving money to a dealer means joining a chain and increasing their business.

Moreover, while a horse is rescued, maybe other two horses are sentenced to death as the dealer has bought them with our money.
There is also another reason concerning education: every year more than 60,000 horses are slaughtered in Italy, and unfortunately those who try to rescue lives, as we do, must make a choice because it is not possible to rescue every horse.
As a criterion, we want to focus on the situations that we can report because they are illegal. In doing so, we can rescue some horses in need and we can also prevent that person from mistreating other horses in the future. Instead, when we buy from a dealer, even if a life is rescued, nothing else changes and people keep thinking about buying horses in order to rescue them rather than focusing on reporting and prosecution.

In some cases an owner decides to buy a younger horse. To do that he needs to make more space in the stable by getting rid of his old or ill horse, that is no longer able to be ridden or to compete. In order to unburden his conscience, the owner thinks the best choice is to find an association that can take the horse. But he doesn’t realize that a friend is for life and nothing justifies the abandonment.

This is a cue for reflection. In most cases the dealers and horses’ owners commit many offences and it is possible to intervene to stop them (for example in some cases it is not true that a horse is fit for slaughter, as the owner says).
If we join our forces we can rescue our horses.