A little late, but I would invoke the Death of the Author here. The artist’s own interpretation of his work is no more valid than any viewer’s. What matters is, does this look like shipping? That’s what the tags are supposed to be based on anyway - the literal, apparent contents of the image. That’s what someone is going to be averse to or searching for.
 
On that count, absent context it does look a little shippy to me. How often have we seen hoof-holding as a friendly or comforting gesture?

Technically, ‘friendshipping’ (which this is) is a form of shipping.

Ah, this conundrum. Wherein it’s realized that an image that might be shipping is most likely not, which triggers a small panic of “what about all the other shipping images”?
 
Well, I can ascertain that a large number of shipping images on the site aren’t and several tags (primarily twinkie, last I checked) are very much inflated. So, do we “correct” this one and leave the thousands of others alone because no one much cared about their shipping status at the time, or do we spend a few days checking thousands upon thousands of shipping images to correct an innocuous tag?

So should those shipping and lesbian tags be there or what?

@Antonyourknee  
That seems to have been the original artist’s intention, yeah.

So I guess it impossible that she could just have been trying to comfort a new friend after the traumatic experience of having been corrupted by a dark relic and they ,use be in a sexual relationship ….then again their hoofs and heads are touching and that right their is 50% more ship fuel then usual.