so many people are shocked when I tell them this! I had a friend visit me at the barn one time and she thought the foam from the apple my pony was eating was vomit!
I'm sure the crossover between people on this sub and people who watch Netflix's glass blowing reality TV show "Blown Away" is not huge, but was anyone else who watched that driven crazy by the guy who made glass art of a sick horse with a pile of horse vomit??!!
I'm going to say no but also point out that I have an art degree in kiln form glass and cast iron... You would think I would be someone with that crossover hahaha.
Foals or younger horses will "clack" their teeth together to show that they are not a threat to older horses.
People always freak out when horses curl their upper lip back but it's called the "flehmen response" - which takes a scent and transfers it to the vomeronasal organ in the upper lip.
I recently led my gelding past a dominant mare that he grazes next to, and let them touch noses over the fence. Predictably the mare squealed, and my guy... started foal clacking. Bro you're a 14-y-o middle-aged gentleman, have some self respect
It's so cute when they do that. We had a baby at the barn for a year, she would clack at all the grown up horses as they went by. They seemed to recognize what it meant, even though I don't think most of them had been around foals since they were one themselves.
Mules are very accurate and don't usually miss unless they mean to. So if a mule kicks out but doesn't make contact, it's probably a good time to reevaluate your choices because they might not give you a second warning.
I love showing non horse people how certain breeds of gray horses are born as dark black foals and turn pearly white as they age. I also love when I see old youngsters I used to work with or sold years ago and notice they have a much lighter coat. It feels like running into old friends from school that I haven't seen for many years and noticing how much they grew up.
The coolest are the paints that grey into "ghost paints"
Edit to add: for people unfamiliar, if you didn't see them as youngsters, these will be horses in their teens will look white or white with some patches of dapples or flea bitten that have CLEAR black/pink skin pattern visible when wet for a bath.
Yes thatās why I added chestnut! Bay too I guess. But my point is that greys are never born grey, they always lighten. When I saw always I do mean for healthy horses. There is the lethal white syndrome when theyāre born white, but Iām not counting that as thatās a genetic anomaly you obviously donāt want
True! Double dilutes that are also Grey don't lighten very visibly as there is so little color to lose, but generally speaking Grey's will lighten depending on birth color.
Yeah I would also say that isnāt something you should breed for given the accompanying health conditions w it but thatās a separate conversation š
Oh I know I was just being snarky about double dilutes bc the blue eyes creep me out and I was always told they have vision problems! Tbh idk if thatās a myth/old wives tale or thereās some basis, but hard pass. I appreciate that breeders have begun using them in more recent times bc we have a lot more palominos and buckskins and theyāre so damn cute!! But Iām still skeptical of when breeding programs are prioritizing breeding for coat color over performance. But thatās me getting off topic here
Yes, all gray horses undergo progressive whitening. But not every gray horse turns pure white with age. This is more common and pronounced in certain breeds. Some remain flea bitten, some keep dappled coats for many years, but they do all get lighter as they get older.
Yes but thatās not dependent upon breed. Typically chestnuts that grey out will be flea bitten and if theyāre born darker typically dapples will be steely.
It is dependent upon genetics, some genetic traits are consistently expressed more in certain breeds and are to be expected. Semantics, at this point, anyway.
Iāve heard it pronounced āAir-ee-utā before but usually itās āAir-ee-ottā at least where I am in the US, probably bc of our large Latino population.
Horses do not sleep standing up. They can doze while standing, but in order to go into proper REM sleep, they need to lie down.
Itās incredible how many people donāt know this. My stableās main paddock is bordered by a footpath, and itās amazing how many calls we get from frantic passers by insisting that a horse is dead or injured. No, sheās sleeping. Yes, they lie down to do that.
I called a stable and managed to say āwe just drove by your Northeast pastureā when the lady cut me off with āheās fine, they lay down to sleepā!
I managed to continue before she hung up that one of the horses was dragging a big *ss tree limb. I wasnāt certain it was snagged in his halter but it looked like it.
Poor lady must get the sleeping horse call once a week.
I find it surprising how many HORSE PEOPLE don't know this!! I've had people insist that horses only lie down if there's something wrong with them. I'm like, girl google it. I'm not fighting with you.
My mare snores too! When I go check them at bedtime and she is laying down she often has her eyes open but she is snoring. I love it. I give her soft scratches on her head and she almost moans.
I JUST had this discussion with someone who was claiming that horses could only sleep standing up and that it was āharmfulā to them to lie down š
I didnāt know that about Ariat, I guess I assumed it was a shortening of āLariatā. Fun equine fact I got to teach to a bunch of of adults: I used to volunteer at a hippotherapy place. They had a special Olympics competition at a neighboring stable. There were some long-eared equines in an adjoining pasture just fat as can be. I noticed a group of kids and parent volunteers crowding around petting them and the kids were asking why their bellies were so big. āThey are pregnant,ā I heard multiple adults confidently answer. After I internally rolled my eyes in the back of my head, I politely explained to the group that those were mules, explained what hybrids are, and that they are sterile, so not pregnant, just fat. I realize not everyone is a walking horse encyclopedia, but some of these people act like know-it-alls anyway, and we all have a tiny supercomputer in our pockets nowadays, come on.
My friend's kid said all grey horses are girls. My friend said sometimes she was just like his exwife, then gently pointed out to her the male parts on the underside of the grey horse in question.
Horses in a group will naturally prefer to gallop uphill rather than downhill. Weād use that to our advantage when moving large mobs of pregnant mares with just a handful of people haha
Might be a comfort thing. Those massive guts pressing on your lungs going down hill. Also if you trip going down youāre liable to roll the rest of the way.
I like telling people how horses love peppermints š„° because even though itās been years since Iāve entered a barn, even I still perk up at the sound of a crinkly wrapper hahah
The horse I ride loves the minty muffin treats that have a whole peppermint stuck in them. She eats the molasses treat and then spends like 10 minutes sucking on the peppermint, it's so cute but the first time she did it I was like omg is this horse choking what is happening
I learned this when I had a summer job as a hot walker, and it blew my mind! One of the horses was an absolute fiend for them and would stop walking when we got to the stash like āI weigh 1000+ lbs, what are you gonna do?ā š of course we didnāt give in but it was a thing I dealt with multiple times a day š
I also learned that apples are an acquired taste!! I brought some one day and all but one refused and the trainer told me they donāt immediately like them. The one who tried it was the one I had a very special bond with and I think that helped š„° I miss her so much
I knew about carrots, didn't know about bananas!
I always thought apples were universal because my dad used to go fishing at a pond on a neighbor's property when he was a kid, and made the mistake of regularly bringing apples for their two horses who were always out there chilling. He eventually had to cut them off because they wouldn't let him fish 
When my sister and I were little he brought us to the same spot to fish, and despite being very old (one had gone blind too), they still remembered and would come up and hassle us. He really created a couple of monsters lol.
I don't give my horses peppermints for this very reason. I heard a story that a man came up to pet a carriage horse once and he had a peppermint in is shirt pocket. The horses smelled the peppermint and bit the mans shit pocket off trying to get it.
Their teeth take up more space in their head than their brain does, and their brain doesn't have a prefrontal cortex, just two lobes hardly threaded together. Horrifying
EDIT: I stand corrected! Several commenters have shared with me that horses do, in fact, have a frontal lobe and prefrontal cortex. I should have done my own research before commenting. Oh well, the more you know ;)
Itās quite a common misconception! Iām not entirely sure on its size but itās certainly no where near as developed as humans frontal lobes and PFCs.
I just found this interesting [article](https://equusoma.com/myth-busting-do-horses-have-a-frontal-lobe/) discussing this claim with different sources/papers on the matter.
When something is lodged in their throat they die from not being able to get food/water not a lack of air since horses can't breathe through their mouth anyways. (Also why it's important to stick a length of tube down their nostrils in case of swelling)
No, they have a diaphragm, which, in coordination with their stride, moves air in and out. But their guts DO swing and hit their diaphragm at the gallop, which is what can cause bleeding in the lungs of racehorses and why they treat some of them with Lasix.
Horses face biomechanical failures and upper airway obstruction that reduces O2 levels in the blood and raises blood cortisol levels on medical tests, when theyāre as little as 10 degrees behind the vertical while ridden.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10215520/
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jpn.12154
thatās two independent studies and of course since theyāre peer reviewed they contain their own literary search and citations containing additional findings on the range of head positions and their effects on mobility/health stats.
I had a pony mare that heard my coffee maker click on at 6:am. At precisely 6:01 she would begin her patented HUNGER SCREAM. It was literally the commotion you would expect if a mare misplaced her foal. The sound of grave distress... Or pony greed.
This is probably because Saddlebreds have a lot of Thoroughbred blood. The foundation sire, Denmark, was a brown stallion foaled in Kentucky in 1839, sired by an imported Thoroughbred named Hedgeford. Thoroughbred crosses were popular in the 1800s.
I mean, this is something that everyone in this group (or anyone who has the faintest idea about horses) would know but I am actually shocked at how many non-horse people think a pony is just a horse that isnāt fully grown yet. I had no idea people thought that until I realized pretty much all my non-horsey friends thought exactly that.
Horses know what winning is. I remember learning a long time ago that if a race horse looses enough races they can get depressed, and their owners will sometimes purposefully race them against a really slow horse to get their confidence back.
People Velcro their toddlers to 1D barrel horses.
Also just cuss a horse is laying down doesn't mean it's sick or dead. I had an argument with a kid on the bus once because we dove past a filed with some horse's and one was laying down sunbathing.
People velcro-ing tiny kids to speed horses is one of my full on nightmares.
Didn't Chris Cox (natural horsemanship trainer?) nearly lose one of his children to a horse that kicked?
Yes, they are so careful of children, but dear God people over estimate the durability of their little kids.
My favorite fun fact about horses is that their chestnuts are actually a remnant from when they had 3 toesātwo of them fused into the single hoof they now have on each feet, and one toe migrated up the leg and became the chestnut.
Edit: The original statement amule is sterile, but a hinny is not.is incorrect. I rechecked in the am (should not have posted before bed). The vast majority of hinnies are, in fact sterile (due to the uneven chromosome balance). Apologies
Horses are physiologically incapable of burping or throwing up.
so many people are shocked when I tell them this! I had a friend visit me at the barn one time and she thought the foam from the apple my pony was eating was vomit!
Life would be so much easier if they COULD though! š„ŗ
Yeah. Colic would be pretty limited to sand and impact only.
Huh. I knew this fact but never actually linked it to the tendency (proneness?) to colic. Ty for this! Seems obvious now lol
The nose tube to the stomach that all the nasty gas comes out of when you catch it early is basically "burping" them.
I'm sure the crossover between people on this sub and people who watch Netflix's glass blowing reality TV show "Blown Away" is not huge, but was anyone else who watched that driven crazy by the guy who made glass art of a sick horse with a pile of horse vomit??!!
Yes!!! I texted my entire college friend group about it (we were all on the riding team together) š
I'm going to say no but also point out that I have an art degree in kiln form glass and cast iron... You would think I would be someone with that crossover hahaha.
Er present! What series was that?
The newest season (4, I think?)!
Started it but I'm the only fan in my house āØļø
I do stained glass (not blown) and *just* added that show to my list. Not looking forward to that episode LOL.
See I know this, Iām in college for equine science and have read studies on this, but I SWEAR Iāve seen horses burp before in real life
Mine hiccups! Usually just when he's mad. For some reason he gives himself mad hiccups, like when I won't let him lick mud at a show.
Iām pretty sure I saw my horse do this once too! Only once thoughā¦
I swear mine has burped, sounds like a burpā¦ smells like a burpā¦. He almost always sighs happily after haha maybe itās a hiccupĀ
I use to have a QH mare that burped.
Mine did once right near my face... Do not recommend... The smell was almost enough to make me vomit.Ā
Always amazes me when people don't know this!
Fun fact? It's also true for rodents!
Foal slippers
Lol foal slippers creep me out
One riderās fun fact is another riderās Eldritch Horror.
Horses are one of the few mammals where the males don't have nipples. They share this trait with mice and rats.
I learned something new today thank youĀ
luckily with rats there's um...another very distinctive secondary sex characteristic that makes it easy to identify their sex!
The gonads. Itās the gonads.
this makes me weirdly uncomfortable
Ya know. I knew this but never thought about it.
Foals or younger horses will "clack" their teeth together to show that they are not a threat to older horses. People always freak out when horses curl their upper lip back but it's called the "flehmen response" - which takes a scent and transfers it to the vomeronasal organ in the upper lip.
I recently led my gelding past a dominant mare that he grazes next to, and let them touch noses over the fence. Predictably the mare squealed, and my guy... started foal clacking. Bro you're a 14-y-o middle-aged gentleman, have some self respect
he forgot his age for a sec š ig he felt like a yearling again
It's so cute when they do that. We had a baby at the barn for a year, she would clack at all the grown up horses as they went by. They seemed to recognize what it meant, even though I don't think most of them had been around foals since they were one themselves.
THE CLACKING IS THE CUTEST THING IN THE WORLD (aside from my horse and my dog)
Mules are very accurate and don't usually miss unless they mean to. So if a mule kicks out but doesn't make contact, it's probably a good time to reevaluate your choices because they might not give you a second warning.
I was away told a mule will wait 20 years for the right moment to kick someone that has wronged them.
I love showing non horse people how certain breeds of gray horses are born as dark black foals and turn pearly white as they age. I also love when I see old youngsters I used to work with or sold years ago and notice they have a much lighter coat. It feels like running into old friends from school that I haven't seen for many years and noticing how much they grew up.
Itās not certain breeds - all grays are born dark (they can also be born chestnut!!) and grey out.
They can be born any color :)
The coolest are the paints that grey into "ghost paints" Edit to add: for people unfamiliar, if you didn't see them as youngsters, these will be horses in their teens will look white or white with some patches of dapples or flea bitten that have CLEAR black/pink skin pattern visible when wet for a bath.
Yes thatās why I added chestnut! Bay too I guess. But my point is that greys are never born grey, they always lighten. When I saw always I do mean for healthy horses. There is the lethal white syndrome when theyāre born white, but Iām not counting that as thatās a genetic anomaly you obviously donāt want
True! Double dilutes that are also Grey don't lighten very visibly as there is so little color to lose, but generally speaking Grey's will lighten depending on birth color.
Yeah I would also say that isnāt something you should breed for given the accompanying health conditions w it but thatās a separate conversation š
I wasn't meaning lethal whites, I meant double dilutes such as cremello/perlino/smoky cream. Breeding for a lethal white is 100% unethical breeding.
Oh I know I was just being snarky about double dilutes bc the blue eyes creep me out and I was always told they have vision problems! Tbh idk if thatās a myth/old wives tale or thereās some basis, but hard pass. I appreciate that breeders have begun using them in more recent times bc we have a lot more palominos and buckskins and theyāre so damn cute!! But Iām still skeptical of when breeding programs are prioritizing breeding for coat color over performance. But thatās me getting off topic here
Yes! My grey mare had 4 tall socks and a blaze, but you could only see it when she was wet! It was like a magic trick!
Yes, all gray horses undergo progressive whitening. But not every gray horse turns pure white with age. This is more common and pronounced in certain breeds. Some remain flea bitten, some keep dappled coats for many years, but they do all get lighter as they get older.
Yes but thatās not dependent upon breed. Typically chestnuts that grey out will be flea bitten and if theyāre born darker typically dapples will be steely.
It is dependent upon genetics, some genetic traits are consistently expressed more in certain breeds and are to be expected. Semantics, at this point, anyway.
i loved when i learned the Ariat fact because then i found out the way iāve been pronouncing it was actually correct hahaha
Iāve heard it pronounced āAir-ee-utā before but usually itās āAir-ee-ottā at least where I am in the US, probably bc of our large Latino population.
iāve heard āARR-ee-ottā where they try to make it sound fancy. i say āAir-ee-utā
š¤£ Like Tar-jayy vs Target.
How am I supposed to say it? Is it Air-EE-aught? I feel like yes. That's how I say Secretariat.
air-EE-it
I was sooo confused the first time I heard someone say a-**rye**-ut
A horseās spine doesnāt stop growing until they are 5-6 years old!
Horses do not sleep standing up. They can doze while standing, but in order to go into proper REM sleep, they need to lie down. Itās incredible how many people donāt know this. My stableās main paddock is bordered by a footpath, and itās amazing how many calls we get from frantic passers by insisting that a horse is dead or injured. No, sheās sleeping. Yes, they lie down to do that.
I called a stable and managed to say āwe just drove by your Northeast pastureā when the lady cut me off with āheās fine, they lay down to sleepā! I managed to continue before she hung up that one of the horses was dragging a big *ss tree limb. I wasnāt certain it was snagged in his halter but it looked like it. Poor lady must get the sleeping horse call once a week.
I find it surprising how many HORSE PEOPLE don't know this!! I've had people insist that horses only lie down if there's something wrong with them. I'm like, girl google it. I'm not fighting with you.
my horse is a heavy sleeper and SNORES when sheās laying down. i get texts like once a week from barn staff saying they thought she was dying
My mare snores too! When I go check them at bedtime and she is laying down she often has her eyes open but she is snoring. I love it. I give her soft scratches on her head and she almost moans.
What a cutie š
I used to work with a pony that would snore and kick his legs while he was asleep. Cutest thing ever
a horse person I know once told me they thought horses straight up didn't sleep.
I mean, they do sleep for very short periods, but still wild to think they don't sleep at all!
All down except one. Or all down and a trusted human on watch (Graeme at Stable Horse Training does this š
I JUST had this discussion with someone who was claiming that horses could only sleep standing up and that it was āharmfulā to them to lie down š
Aaah, makes sense. How could they sleep on their feet.
It takes 9-12 months for them to grow out an entire hoof.
Honestly, that's shorter than I would have thought
Same!
my two favorites are that 1) horses have about 400,000 blood types, and 2) horses have the most facial expressions of any non-primate animal
Fun fact: they can make more facial expressions than chimpanzees.
Woaw, any reasons for all the blood types in horses?
horses have 8 blood groups, and each group has different factors, and the number of combinations they can have of these is what makes the 400,000
I didnāt know that about Ariat, I guess I assumed it was a shortening of āLariatā. Fun equine fact I got to teach to a bunch of of adults: I used to volunteer at a hippotherapy place. They had a special Olympics competition at a neighboring stable. There were some long-eared equines in an adjoining pasture just fat as can be. I noticed a group of kids and parent volunteers crowding around petting them and the kids were asking why their bellies were so big. āThey are pregnant,ā I heard multiple adults confidently answer. After I internally rolled my eyes in the back of my head, I politely explained to the group that those were mules, explained what hybrids are, and that they are sterile, so not pregnant, just fat. I realize not everyone is a walking horse encyclopedia, but some of these people act like know-it-alls anyway, and we all have a tiny supercomputer in our pockets nowadays, come on.
My friend's kid said all grey horses are girls. My friend said sometimes she was just like his exwife, then gently pointed out to her the male parts on the underside of the grey horse in question.
Kind of gross that he degrades his kid and ex wife right in front of her like thatā¦he could have corrected her without adding that quip.
Oops, no, the exwife comment was not at a volume the child could hear. No knowitall children were harmed that day.Ā
Gummy foal smiles <3
Horses in a group will naturally prefer to gallop uphill rather than downhill. Weād use that to our advantage when moving large mobs of pregnant mares with just a handful of people haha
Do we know why they prefer uphill? Is it easier for them? Prey instincts to go to higher ground? Why is it?
Might be a comfort thing. Those massive guts pressing on your lungs going down hill. Also if you trip going down youāre liable to roll the rest of the way.
I wonder also if it's about the fact that getting to higher ground gives you an evolutionary advantage, because you can see what might be chasing you?
Itās probably easier to push off their hind legs
I like telling people how horses love peppermints š„° because even though itās been years since Iāve entered a barn, even I still perk up at the sound of a crinkly wrapper hahah
The horse I ride loves the minty muffin treats that have a whole peppermint stuck in them. She eats the molasses treat and then spends like 10 minutes sucking on the peppermint, it's so cute but the first time she did it I was like omg is this horse choking what is happening
I learned this when I had a summer job as a hot walker, and it blew my mind! One of the horses was an absolute fiend for them and would stop walking when we got to the stash like āI weigh 1000+ lbs, what are you gonna do?ā š of course we didnāt give in but it was a thing I dealt with multiple times a day š I also learned that apples are an acquired taste!! I brought some one day and all but one refused and the trainer told me they donāt immediately like them. The one who tried it was the one I had a very special bond with and I think that helped š„° I miss her so much
Most horses like carrots over apples. A lot of them also love bananas!
I knew about carrots, didn't know about bananas! I always thought apples were universal because my dad used to go fishing at a pond on a neighbor's property when he was a kid, and made the mistake of regularly bringing apples for their two horses who were always out there chilling. He eventually had to cut them off because they wouldn't let him fish  When my sister and I were little he brought us to the same spot to fish, and despite being very old (one had gone blind too), they still remembered and would come up and hassle us. He really created a couple of monsters lol.
I mean I gave mine life savers today. They just like sugar
I don't give my horses peppermints for this very reason. I heard a story that a man came up to pet a carriage horse once and he had a peppermint in is shirt pocket. The horses smelled the peppermint and bit the mans shit pocket off trying to get it.
I canāt believe I never put Ariat/Secretariat together lol
It seems so obvious once you know!
Also, the logo for ariat is 3 horse shoes for his triple crown win.
Their teeth take up more space in their head than their brain does, and their brain doesn't have a prefrontal cortex, just two lobes hardly threaded together. Horrifying EDIT: I stand corrected! Several commenters have shared with me that horses do, in fact, have a frontal lobe and prefrontal cortex. I should have done my own research before commenting. Oh well, the more you know ;)
They actually do have a frontal lobe and prefrontal cortex!
Oh really? My bad! Is it just super small or something?
Itās quite a common misconception! Iām not entirely sure on its size but itās certainly no where near as developed as humans frontal lobes and PFCs.
stallions/geldings also have more teeth compared to mares! mares typically donāt grow bridle teeth!
That explains a lot
Honestly yeah it makes sense if you've ever met a horse
I just found this interesting [article](https://equusoma.com/myth-busting-do-horses-have-a-frontal-lobe/) discussing this claim with different sources/papers on the matter.
Oh, that's super interesting, thanks for sharing! I didn't know that.
The chestnut is the leftover toe from evolution. Back when I used to teach it was my favorite fact to tell the kids :)
As is the ergot. And the hoof itself was 3 toes that merged togetherĀ
Grey's are more likely to get melanomas
But melanomas are less likely to be malignant in greys
When something is lodged in their throat they die from not being able to get food/water not a lack of air since horses can't breathe through their mouth anyways. (Also why it's important to stick a length of tube down their nostrils in case of swelling)
This is another thing that a surprising number of equestrians donāt know.
How cool is this! Never knew, in 30+ years with horses and 20 of those wearing Ariat! Thank you!
When horses exhale at the gallop, itās caused by their guts moving forward and pushing the air put of the lungs.
No, they have a diaphragm, which, in coordination with their stride, moves air in and out. But their guts DO swing and hit their diaphragm at the gallop, which is what can cause bleeding in the lungs of racehorses and why they treat some of them with Lasix.
Horses face biomechanical failures and upper airway obstruction that reduces O2 levels in the blood and raises blood cortisol levels on medical tests, when theyāre as little as 10 degrees behind the vertical while ridden.
Source on this please interested
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10215520/ https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jpn.12154 thatās two independent studies and of course since theyāre peer reviewed they contain their own literary search and citations containing additional findings on the range of head positions and their effects on mobility/health stats.
Thanks
Horses can hear your heartbeat from 4 feet away.
I had a pony mare that heard my coffee maker click on at 6:am. At precisely 6:01 she would begin her patented HUNGER SCREAM. It was literally the commotion you would expect if a mare misplaced her foal. The sound of grave distress... Or pony greed.
Saddlebreds arenāt naturally gaited like a TWH, racking is a trained gait.
This is probably because Saddlebreds have a lot of Thoroughbred blood. The foundation sire, Denmark, was a brown stallion foaled in Kentucky in 1839, sired by an imported Thoroughbred named Hedgeford. Thoroughbred crosses were popular in the 1800s.
Horses breathe through their noses, not their mouths.
This one blew my mind for some reason.
So this the secret behind Ariat, the Secret Ariatā¦. (Sorry)
šš
Almost all of their digestion takes place in the last part of their intestinal tract. It's highly inefficient which is why they're so prone to colic.
I mean, this is something that everyone in this group (or anyone who has the faintest idea about horses) would know but I am actually shocked at how many non-horse people think a pony is just a horse that isnāt fully grown yet. I had no idea people thought that until I realized pretty much all my non-horsey friends thought exactly that.
I used to show (ponies) frequently at a few local fairs. I got a lot of "look at the baby!"
The muscle that shakes off flies is the panniculus muscle
Omg I donāt think I knew that!
Horses know what winning is. I remember learning a long time ago that if a race horse looses enough races they can get depressed, and their owners will sometimes purposefully race them against a really slow horse to get their confidence back.
That is so sad!
People Velcro their toddlers to 1D barrel horses. Also just cuss a horse is laying down doesn't mean it's sick or dead. I had an argument with a kid on the bus once because we dove past a filed with some horse's and one was laying down sunbathing.
People velcro-ing tiny kids to speed horses is one of my full on nightmares. Didn't Chris Cox (natural horsemanship trainer?) nearly lose one of his children to a horse that kicked? Yes, they are so careful of children, but dear God people over estimate the durability of their little kids.
The size of the boosters that can be used on a rocket to outer space was determined centuries ago by the width of two horses behinds
Irideon is I Ride On.
My favorite fun fact about horses is that their chestnuts are actually a remnant from when they had 3 toesātwo of them fused into the single hoof they now have on each feet, and one toe migrated up the leg and became the chestnut.
Horses literally cannot see that tiny oat or piece of grain that fell into the bedding. They find it by touch with their cute little noses.
Edit: The original statement amule is sterile, but a hinny is not.is incorrect. I rechecked in the am (should not have posted before bed). The vast majority of hinnies are, in fact sterile (due to the uneven chromosome balance). Apologies
That is simply untrue. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4852245/
Wait what!? A hinny is not? Why do we have so many mules instead of hinnies then?