You can get riding horses pretty cheap too if you live in the right areas and have the right connections. They aren't great riding horses, but most people wouldn't know a good riding horse from a bad one if it kicked them in the face.

I was a professional horse trainer, mostly in the western US but I spent a few years each in Georgia, Illinois, and New Hampshire, and in all three I was offered free riding horses all the time. I also still look at ads even though I'm not a pro anymore, and I see so many cheap but decent horses. Hell, I still get offered them on occasion even though I'm just a hobbyist and honestly don't talk much about horses anymore because I have some very strong opinions and I find it's better not to even start that conversation most of the time, lol.

There are a shitload of cheap horses in the country and especially in the Midwest and western US, people do get them and then struggle to keep them. It isn't sensible but it's reality. And honestly, I don't judge people too harshly because it is kind of weird. We have this cultural idea that horses are only for the ultra-rich in mainstream US culture, but you live in certain areas and/or are part of certain subcultures, you see that isn't really accurate. But it's hard to understand how much horses actually do cost unless you're really involved in the horse world, which is hard if you didn't grow up with it. So people jump in thinking it can't be that expensive, and then they get stuck.

The "pasture ornament" thing you're talking about definitely is a thing too, but not all of what I'm talking about.