Why is this okay?

While at the auction yesterday I saw countless riding horses. For the most part they seemed pretty "broke". From a far all seemed okay with the horses, but if you took the time to look at them hanging out in the pens un-tacked you could see the truth. Horses with bloody mouth corners, sores in the cinch area, spur marks, and it goes on. One horse had no hair left where the cinch was at. This wasn't just a few horses with injuries from the tack, this was the majority! It is amazing what horses will endure! If we saw these type of injuries on dogs from our equipment it would be considered animal cruelty! But lets face the cold hard facts...hitting horses is considered an acceptable training method. As long as it is acceptable to whip them in public it will be acceptable to use any force necessary to get what you want out of them. Why is this okay? Why is creating open sores on them considered an acceptable training method. Is it because they are big and can hurt us so we must hurt them first?? Dogs are capable of injuring a human, but it is still considered cruelty to use excess force with them. Our views on training dogs has changed over the years, just maybe it will change in the horse world too! I don't know that I will ever get the answers I am looking for. I find that as the years go and as I learn more I am more in tolerant of what is even considered nice training methods in the horse world. The thing I find interesting about training,  is that I am considered an outsider and get ridiculed by professional horse people because I use food while training my horses. In fact it took me a long time to figure out I didn't really care what other people thought of my methods because they work for me and my horses. Why is it that I get weird looks for not hurting my horses, but the guy hitting his horse over and over gets applause when the horse finally does whatever it was supposed to do. Nothing will change until the majority of people change their mindset of what is considered acceptable training. The funny thing is is that a lot of people will tell me it isn't acceptable, but they aren't willing to change their ways. If faced with a horse that wouldn't do something for them they would up the pressure until they caused enough pain for the horse to do whatever was required. In fact I was that person, when push came to shove I reverted back to old methods with Navi. Once I stepped away completely though and said no more I have a much happier more willing horse. It was hard to take the leap, not because I feared it wouldn't work, but because I feared what others would think. I knew it would work, but I also knew I had to be ready to defend my stance and my methods.  I am not perfect, but everyday I set out to be a better horse person and trainer. And everyday I hope someone will see my pain free way of training and want that for their horses. Someday maybe we will see horses as an animal that feels pain just as we do.