Abstract
The importance and use of horses have changed throughout the history. Nowadays, horses are sharers of different equestrian competitions and provide recreation possibilities via sport and hobby, take part in therapeutic processes, produce highly valuable milk, and meet and stock pharmaceutics, while for many people, it’s like a pet or companion animal. Hence, the horse industry contributes significantly to social goods and is an interesting economic sector for EU regional sustainable growth. Although there are no definitive statistics, horses have many environmental and economic advantages, but the fragmentation of the sector and the lack of synthetic knowledge about their impacts do not enable the promotion of these assets and their effective inclusion in management practices and the local/national and global/EU policies. The situation in Hungary is very similar. This paper led to the identification of some “green assets” like grazing, domestic biodiversity, land use, tourism, and work fields where horses show unique environmental and economic advantages compared to other agricultural productions. The study deduced the vital need to extend the current knowledge of the environmental and economic benefits of horses to strengthen sustainable aspects of the Hungarian horse industry, with a focus on a historical state-owned stud farm.
