An equine lesson for local government.


There is a saying, “never look a gift horse in the mouth”. It’s an old saying and suggests that people should not question or be ungrateful for something they are receiving free.


This is Sunday, she wasn’t a gift horse, but she illustrates the point I want to make. The cost of keeping Sunday over many years is the same whether she cost money initially or was free. There are vets fees, blacksmith fees, stabling costs, transport costs, haylage, pony nuts and the cost of replacing tack.

Local authorities take an interesting approach to a gift horse, they are always welcomed whether free or as a highly subsidised purchase. Of course a horse needs a paddock costing say £20,000 but if you can get 4 paddocks for £60,000 then the unit price is £15,000 and better value for money. It also needs a stable, but if you have 4 paddocks you have room for more stables and more horses, so just in case more gift horses appear, you build more stables. More stables and more horses mean you have to employ stable hands. You also employ a jockey, now the gift horse is not a racehorse but a jockey is dressed in council colours so it’s really a marketing and public relations opportunity even if the horse never wins a race. There’s always an option to buy new racehorses to raise the council profile and those big horse trailers can be liveried in council colours. All of this is can be justified because the horse was free or cheap and anyway the rate-payer pays.

Here’s the lesson, before employing stable hands and jockeys, before buying paddocks and building stables local authorities and councillors in particular need to ask the most fundamental question of all, “Do we need a horse?”

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