Again, posters made the mistake of transporting modern values back to people who grew up with different ones 80-90 years ago. It's a fruitless proposition.
Back then, reporters referring to Thoroughbreds even employed an older writing standard, using "it" and "which" instead of "he/she" and "who." "Tomboy" was a light endearment, and not a faux pas. Say "SOB" about a horse, and more likely than not it was praise. In general, horses were more looked upon impersonally and as stock, instead of pets or mammals of equality.
If you look at the material used to paint the FP connections as insensitive villains, it's so thin and weak that one can hardly call it "evidence." A few people were happy. One codger used old stable parlance for 5 seconds. And it sent an author into a tizzy. Oprah-fication was in its seminal stage.
Based on that, some posters amplified perceived (but probably not intended) insults to a level that FP was punished stallion-wise as a result. Come on.
In Memory of Ruffian
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