Don’t be hard on the horses

I LIVE in North Lincolnshire and one of my sons in Liverpool. We are regular Rotherham supporters (in my case since 1961) and have for many years been season ticket holders (though surprisingly not at the moment!). We both travelled to Wembley and the rest

It was however appreciated when my mother in law gave me a copy of your Wembley special, which showed the events in Rotherham and the day itself and I would like to say the whole thing was very good and I read it from cover to cover!

Then there was just one thing which caught my eye. You had a page called Graves at Wembley, which I assume is a reporter’s name? A ‘towny’ by anybody’s standards anyway as he thought it important to ask a question regarding horse dung. Rather than have your readers bear some ill will to the horses, let’s put the record straight please.

Here a few the differences between dog faeces and the equine variety:

Horses are vegetarians and eat mostly grass whereas dogs are meat eaters resulting in a different waste product.

Horse dung is good for biodiversity and is easily biodegradeable. Unlike dog faeces it poses no threat whatever to human health.

Relatively few horses drop dung during exercise and when they do, many householders go out to collect it for their own compost. Where horses are stood for long periods such as at Wembley or other major events there is a programme for collection (Wembley has had six or seven events in a couple of weeks so the clear up is necessary).

Where horses work regularly and on fixed routes the operators themselves such as carriage operators will use their own systems to retrieve the dung.

I have a muck heap which is visited regularly by people in the village to collect well rotted dung for the gardens and local farmers will remove the larger heaps for improving soil quality in the surrounding fields.

Fines are in place for leaving dog faeces as they are a threat to human health particularly in public areas such as streets and parks unlike the wider countryside where nature neutralises the problem.

So Gravesy, please don’t be too hard on the horse. Our history and development was forged on his back and even in the present day, the width of the space shuttle was based on the width of two horse rear ends.

Up the Millers!

Martin Simmons, Belton