Well, not from my personal experience. But their farms are usually immaculate and very well organized for efficient operation (considering their self-imposed limitations)
I think the notion of cruel equine management is by contrast to the way “show” and “performance sport” horses are treated (generally speaking) by their non-Amish owners. The latter practice anthropomorphism in their management style (IMHO). You’re not likely to see an Amish draft horse get visited by an acupuncturist or massage therapist. Just sayin’
I have two DHHs, purchased directly from Amish owners in the Lancaster area. Generally, I love these people. I travel to that area frequently.
I know what I’ve personally observed: “put away wet” in stalls that are full of pneumonia because they are cleaned infrequently.
I meant to add this and forgot:
I always laugh when I see a bumper sticker that says “caution: show horses“.
Should a bumper sticker on an Amish or Mennonite buggy, say “work horses: who cares?“
I have a friend, Allen, who once owned a farm in Ohio Amish country. He’s not Amish, or any other religion for that matter. He is an engineer rather than a farmer, but grew up on an Ohio horse farm, and his “farm” was more like an investment.
Anyway he had plenty of stories about his Amish neighbors.
They were always polite, but he thought that they took too many fish out of his pond. These “fishermen” were Amish kids who always asked permission to fish, so he had control if he wanted it. I don’t think he fished at all. Allen said that one of the boys once broke a jar while fishing. Allen went out later to inspect and found that not only had this kid picked up his own broken glass, he had picked up every single bit of litter around the entire pond.
The adults didn’t drive and sometimes asked for a lift into town. In gratitude they once gave him a dry cured ham, which apparently is like being handed the culinary version of a gold bar.
I once saw a young couple in Lancaster county, PA sweeping their limestone driveway with a leaf rake and a push broom to remove the buggy wheel marks before Sunday.
On the other end of the spectrum is the A Highway Amish near Seymour, MO. It would be hard to find more filthy cesspool of living like animals in the USA, complete with incest, etc. They are not allowed to have modern siding or lawn mowers. Their properties are trash heaps and look mostly abandoned.
In the large Amish communities, everything is neat and tidy because of intense peer pressure. In the outlying communities, not so much. The places can get pretty trashy.
(I’ve been in every major Amish community in the USA except one, and in tons of outliers, all the way to NW Montana and SW Colorado.)