A woman from High Rive who rehabilitates horses has been “harassed” by local bylaw officers for riding her horses into the small town, despite having done it for years. Shelby Opheim rescues injured horses, or horses that would otherwise be put down, in her facility outside High River. She then finds homes for them once they are healthy. “(I've been) riding in town for about four (years) and didn't have issues until last year when people started complaining,” said Shelby Opheim, per CTV News.She explained making walks into town helps the horses “desensitize” so they are more comfortable around people when they are eventually re-homed. However, in the last six months Opheim has been pulled over five times by bylaw officers while riding one of her horses — most recently on Tuesday while departing from a Tim Hortons drive-thru after doing some shopping. There is no existing bylaw in the Town of High River that prohibits someone from riding a horse on roadways, or anywhere else that a motor vehicle can. “It says we can ride horses, horse-drawn carriages, just don't ride in areas you shouldn't,” said Opheim, such as “baseball diamonds, football fields, the schoolyard, common sense places and you act as a vehicle. We use hand signals for turning, act as a vehicle or a cyclist.”Mayor Craig Snodgrass even says horseback riding should be allowed in town and the whole ordeal is rather “goofy.”“There's absolutely nothing in our bylaws that prohibits people from riding horses in this town and that's the way it'll stay,” said Snodgrass, per CTV. “Our (bylaw) guys get an opinion from our legal lawyers. Whenever you do that the lawyers are always going to give you the safe opinion and they're probably going to say no, because it protects everybody's butt. I'm not okay with that, with their interpretation of our existing bylaw.”“If horses are prohibited in town, it needs to say that directly in the bylaw, no horses and it does not say that,” he said. “So in High River, you are absolutely more than welcome to ride your horse in town, on the streets.”
