I created a horse rescue for a friend and ended up running it for 10 years. I know fully well what people are capable of. When the economy first went bad in Temecula California horse owners would let their horses out to run the streets because they couldn't afford to feed them. I even had the opportunity to quietly remove a horse that was being starved and abused, some call it stealing others call it saving. Animal control is a useless government entity. The only thing they seem to be able to rescue is a hamburger at lunch.
The human race has no issues with abusing themselves, from telling their children how stupid they are all the time, to cutting heads off of innocents on camera. Even slavery still exist today in America and other parts of the world. Yes we really aren't very nice to each other let alone to animals, the problem is animals can't defend themselves from the evils people can perpetrate. Of course for horses it's no wonder they are considered flight animals, I would run to seeing some of the things I have seen.