How do contemporary urban and rural dwellers view the cohabitation of people and horses

The paper is an empirical contribution to the topic addressing the cohabitation of people and horses in the modern era, when people in majority of their economic, administrative or other activities are not dependent on horses. The part of the paper focusing on the methodological approach outlines the application of qualitative and quantitative research in sociological empirical work which was implemented to address the investigated topic in two localities (one is the representative of a city, the second of a village). The research was divided into three parts. The qualitative research consisted of an organization of a written essay for the pupils in the 8th year of elementary school. The pupils attempted to think about the importance of horse for people in the contemporary time. These essays were analyzed in the paper. The second part of the qualitative research is formed by structured interviews with horse-riders (better to say with those who intensively engage their free time to the horses). These people were asked about the advantages (benefits) and disadvantages (loses) emerging from meeting and working with the horses. The quantitative research - research survey - was implemented among the dwellers in two localities where they have the possibility to observe the activities of horse riders. The general conclusion is that the respondents from rural locality know more about people and horses. However, they hold more (compared to urban respondents) the view about traditional and useful application of horses in their cohabitation with people (beside agriculture) and they indicate more the meanings suggesting the understanding of their milieu and social relation through cohabitation of horses and people. The features of rural culture (proximity to nature, the spirit of associating, economizing spirit) are present in their views. In economizing spirit, this tendency expressed even sharper indicating that today a horse breeding is useless. Compared to rural dwellers, urban respondents tend to view the cohabitation of people and horses in more romantic, psychological, aesthetic and individualistic frames.