To think ponies don't belong in upstairs flats?

[CatthiefKeith]

I have just read a post on my local FB page a post about a horse being ridden bare back through the local town.

The thread then details with people asking if that's the horse that lives in an upstairs flat in xxxxx town. Apparently it is derelict and someone keeps their pony there.

Then the owner rocked up and said yes, it was fine, she'd phoned the RSPCA and there was no problem.

Really? Surely horses need to graze?

Didn't Death put a pony in an upstairs flat in Hogfather?

Sand I am very sorry your friends post appeared in my screen shots. I had them deleted as quickly as I could.

Please pass on my apologies. Of your friend knows the location of these flats, could you let me know please, so I can pass it on to the RSPCA. Please?

The downstairs flat occupiers can't be mumsnetters or there would have been a 'I can hear clip clops coming through the roof - is the ghost of Shergar haunting my ceiling?'

Unless they couldn't hear the clip clops over the sound of their herd of dairy cows in the kitchen.

I haven't mentioned it to her Cat as I don't want her to know I'm a Mumsnetter will try ...

poor horse talk about a night-mare.

Depends how big the balcony is, surely?

Not sure there is anything particularly wrong with a horse living indoors and not having grazing. That was the life of most working horses at one time, especially in London. All those fashionable mews cottages were once stables you know, and the Household Cavalry are the picture of health.
Having said that obviously an upstairs flat isn't ideal. While horses can come downstairs it would still be very easy for them to hurt themselves, plus if the place is derelict the floors might not be strong enough to support a horse (am assuming it is quite large as described as being ridden, rather than a shetland pony). It does sound like a recipe for disaster, but the RSPCA has funny ideas about horse welfare.
George Stubbs used to have horses in his cottage when he produced Anatomy of the Horse, but they were dead ones strung up from the beams so that he could dissect them and draw them. Apparently the air was thick with bluebottles! .

As far as I am aware you can keep a horse in a garage if you give him his meals on a tray, but you can't keep a horse in a lighthouse. Neigh neigh neigh. Anyone else remember that from school?? I'll be singing it all night now.

As you were.

True story

I knew a housing officer who was once called out to a tower block by someone who insisted that a horse was living in the flat above them. At the time she was the head of department in a large local authority and many layers of management below her had dismissed the story as nonsense. Eventually the tenant managed to reach her office and she decided to go out to take a look

She found a horse living on IIRC the 17th floor. Apparently it lived with the family stabled in the hallway and was taken out in the lift morning and evening for a long ride and grazing.

lists

That's the kind of fantastic Mumsnet story that will stick with me, and that I'll start to relate at a dinner party should the topic of horses in flats come up and then remember I read it on Mumsnet and have to pretend that 'a friend' told it to me...

I used to live in a town where it was considered quite normal to keep horses in ones kitchen. They were taken out in the morning, tied to a lamp post and left to graze along the grass verge.

enough with the RSPCA slagging - they currently have over 600 horses in care and are struggling to cope. They've also just sent a huge number of officers to Appleby to patrol night and day. They can't do everything though and be everywhere.

If you don't know address of property how are they meant to look into it? They can act if given that info. If you send the page to them via their website contact form they'll look into it but they don't have the resources to spend hours trying to work out where a property is from a Facebook page. They get over a million calls a year

I volunteer for them and they do a bloody hard job and are treated like a public emergency service. People are very unreasonable in their expectations of a charity

And yes it's about bloody time the bhs did something! Like speaking out to their members to discourage people from breeding more horses.

Or call the police on the non emergency number - 101?

When I lived in the above mentioned town, someone abandoned a pregnant mare in a field across the road from my house. It was December, snow on the ground and freezing. The RSPCA were useless, but the police came out and then sent a horsebox and took her to a horse sanctuary.