#NeighMeansNeigh
290 words. Letter to the editor.
I am writing in response to the article of April 16, 2021 regarding restoration of the Maynesboro Stud Barn. I generally support preservation of historically-significant buildings; they provide an invaluable window into our past. However, I wonder if this particular window is one we should be peering into.
It is my understanding that before refrigeration of harvested “materials” and artificial insemination largely replaced in-person stud services, the mares who were sent to this facility were not asked for their consent in advance of any stage of the process. Once they were set upon by lusty stallions in one of the copious stud bays, their cries of “Neigh” were ignored. They were then required to bear, deliver, and nurture any resulting offspring without any thought to their own career plans or life preferences.
I don’t know about your kids, but mine have a certain view of horses from reading “My Friend Flicka” and “Misty of Chincoteague”. One ill-advised family visit to the stud barn exhibit would certainly tarnish the implied “happily ever after” of the girl ponies in those books.
Nobel laureate Isaac Bashevis Singer wrote of animals “cared” for by humans: “…for the animals, it is an eternal Treblinka.” Perhaps that is overstating the case for stud farms, but they are, at a minimum, the mane-and-tail equivalent of that patriarchal, freedom-robbing society shown in “The Handmaid’s Tale.”
I fully support the right of The Berlin and Coos County Historical Society to use private funds to maintain this facility. Regardless of the source of funding, though, I will not go out of my way to look into that window into a lamentable past of equine eugenics and forced reproduction.
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This work appeared in The Conway Daily Sun on April 20, 2021.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.