Yes, some of the horse medications are pretty good. I have a lot of time for Rapigel linament. Works wonders with arthritic joints both on horses and humans and also good for muscle fatigue in horses as well. Even Doctors are now prescribing it. Us Bushies have been self medicating with it for years.
My comment about horse ownership was not meant to be flippant. As young stockmen, we were required to look after all our horse's needs. If we were unable to do that, we shot it and broke in another. The relationship one develops with an animal when you are its sole provider can become very strong. If not done properly it can become very dangerous. It never ceases to amaze me how uneducated many of the "city" horses are or how fragile the relationship between horse and rider can be. A day at a horse show can be quite amusing at times. A horse that is answerable to one person is a very different proposition to what you have been describing here. When you shoe your horse yourself, you will know if you've "pricked" it. When a farrier does it you often have no idea. If the horse plays up on the farrier he clouts it over the head with the hammer. After all, he isn't going to be riding it tomorrow, you are! Now you have a horse with , what did you call it, "Farrier syndrome."
A race horse gets shod every race. The farrier will shoe up to about eighty per day. He has no time to gentle-educate nor the inclination. If things don't go well, the horse will soon start to react.
Yes, you could say its a bit like a car. And therefore my statement was daft. Here is the difference; The car doesn't feel. The car doesn't think and the car doesn't see. Yes, you can drug the poor bloody thing into submission and whinge about the wait, while it comes around and the subsequent mess in the float, but that's the price one pays for incompetence.
I don't have a horse anymore. Not because I don't like them, quite the contrary. I'ts because I don't need one. A bit like your wife and a shirt full of sore ribs.