All the King's Horses. Trample All The Kings Men

[Judge Roybeanbag 11819]

Running amok in the streets.

 

 

[Steel Shank 9425]

Don't see that too often.

[mchookem 16336]

is that blood?? yikes.

[Samson's Wig 3192]

I assume it's the horse's blood.

[safe sex 11731]

[BabaYaga 15298]

That's horse blood.  You can see briefly where it's most wet and appears to be flowing out.  Horses almost never trample people if there is enough space to avoid it.  They have fragile legs and enough self-preservation instinct to steer clear of people in their way, especially ceremonial horses.  

Used to work with a horse trainer that did a lot of work with the mounted officers in Austin.  Now THOSE, are some damn well trained horses/riders.  In the event of a riot, they can stand nose to tail and form a wall and sidestep and entire crowd off the street if they have to.  

That's a sad video of a couple of scared, wounded animals.

[GenXer 2878]

Mrs. GenXer is in london right now and saw this happen live when she was uber-ing to her conference.

Something dropped from a construction site and spooked the horses. She saw four horses throwing their riders. She saw the white horse run into a bus. 

[WBT 20572]

Yeah, a report I read mentioned the one bleeding was from running into a bus.  Poor horses.

Edit - holy shit, from the bbc

Edited April 24 by WBT

[GenXer 2878]

Wife said the glass on the bus had a big spiderweb crack from the impact from the white horse’s head.

[GenXer 2878]

Goddamn. She saw that. I talked / facetimed her; she’s shaken up.

She wanted to see our dogs.

[BabaYaga 15298]

I've seen far too many horses put down due to being startled and inuring themselves, usually by getting torn up in barded-wire fencing.  They're "prey" animals and act accordingly.  I still get chocked up on wounded horse movies, especially war movies.

[BabaYaga 15298]

Just now, GenXer said:

Goddamn. She saw that. I talked / facetimed her; she’s shaken up.

She wanted to see our dogs.

Sucks.  I get it.  Hopefully that white horse is ok.  They can fix most anything on a horse short of injured legs or stomach crap (colic) if not caught in time.  

[Rimbo 25936]

In the beginning, there was Eohippus. The proto-horse. It was a small hooved animal about the size of a dog, and it ate grass. It was a simple creature, and in my (factual) opinion it represents the last time that the Horse lineage was untainted by sin. Now, it is worth noting that life was not easy for this proto-horse, in fact life for early hooved mammals was so difficult, that some of them said "fuck that" and moonwalked back into the ocean to become cetaceans (Whales and Dolphins). That's right, The proto-horse had so stupid an existence, that hooved mammals went back into the ocean (lacking gills and flippers) and had more success than horses would have on land. 

Okay, So why was life so hard for Eohippus? Well, they are herbivores eating almost exclusively grasses. Grasses, as you may know, are not particularly nutritious. But more importantly, grasses are smarter than Horses. See, Grass does not want to be eaten, and evolutionary pressure caused the grasses to start incorporating silica (ie sand) into their structure. Silica is extremely hard. Hard enough to wear down Horse teeth. Now there is another evolutionary pressure acting on Eohippus; It's teeth wear down by the mere act of eating, to the point that it will starve to death. Eohippus teeth do not regrow, instead, Eohippus evolved bigger teeth. However, bigger teeth mean a bigger jaw, bigger head, and a bigger body to carry it. 

These opposing evolutionary pressures started an arms race in which the grasses incorporated more and more silica, and Horses got bigger and bigger, just so they would have big enough teeth to grow and reproduce before finally starving to death. And eventually our cute dog-sized pony evolved into the 1,500-pound, dumb-as-rocks prey animal i loathe today. 

But wait, there's more! See, Horses are extremely fragile. There is a reason why a "horse doctor" typically prescribes a dose of double-0 buckshot in the event of a leg injury. A horse is very heavy, and it has very thin legs to carry that weight. If any one leg gets fractured, it is exceptionally unlikely that it will heal well enough for the Horse to walk again, and is extremely likely to break again just carrying the weight of the horse. Remember, a human thigh bone is gigantic relative to the size of our bodies, a horse leg bone is absolutely minuscule relative to the weight it carries. 

Also, Hooves: I want you to imagine that instead of feet, you have a giant toenail at the end of your leg. That is how the Horse do. That is what a hoof is. A giant toenail. It is extremely delicate, and joined to the leg by a vast network of very fine connective tissue, and oh yeah it also bears the weight of a fucking HORSE. If a hoof gets infected (which is quite common, because imagine how often shit would get stuck under your toenails if you walked on them), the Horse immune system responds in the typical way: via inflammation of the area. The problem is, a horse hoof is a rigid "cup". It cannot accomodate the swelling from inflammatory response. The Horse hoof will basically pop off the leg like a sock. On top of that, remember the Horse is putting 1,500 pounds of weight on it (because Horses can't redistribute their weight very well since all of their legs can BARELY support their share of the total weight). 

So, Horse apologists will claim that Horses are good at one thing: Turning Grass into Fast. As the previous two paragraphs show, they can't even do that right. Locomotion is very dangerous for a Horse, and if the Fast doesn't kill them they'll starve to death just by eating. 

On top of that, they are dumb as all fuck. Horses will often do something called "Cribbing", which is when they decide to bite down on something (literally anything) as hard as they can, and suck in air. They just keep sucking in air until they inflate like a balloon. Eventually, the vet will show up and literally deflate the Horse with a long needle to let the air out of them, and hopefully get them to just... stop... 

First off, horses are obligate nasal breathers. If our noses are stuffed up we can breathe through our mouths. If our pets' noses are stuffed up (except for rabbits, who are also really fragile but unlike horses aren't stuck having only one baby a year) they can breathe through their mouths. If a horse can't breathe through its nose, it will suffocate and die. 

Horse eyes are exquisitely sensitive to steroids. Most animal eyes are, except for cows because cows are tanks, but horses are extremely sensitive. Corneal ulcers won't heal. They'll probably get worse. They might rupture and cause eyeball fluid to leak out. 

If you overexert a horse they can get exertional rhabodmyolysis. Basically you overwork their muscles and they break down and die and release their contents. Super painful, and then you get scarifying and necrosis. But that's not the problem. See, when muscles die hey release myoglobin, which goes into the blood and is filtered by the kidneys. If you dump a bucket of myoglobin into the blood then it shreds the kidneys, causing acutel renal failure. This kills the horse. People and other animals can get that too but in school we only talked about it in context of the horse. 

Horses can only have one foal at a time. Their uterus simply can't support two foals. If a pregnant horse has twins you have to abort one or they'll both die and possibly kill the mother with them. A lot of this has to do with the way horse placentas work. 

If a horse rears up on its hind legs it can fall over, hit the back of its head, and get a traumatic brain injury. 

Now to their digestive system. Oh boy. First of all, they can't vomit. There's an incredibly tight sphincter in between the stomach and esophagus that simply won't open up. If a horse is vomiting it's literally about to die. In many cases their stomach will rupture before they vomit. When treating colic you need to reflux the horse, which means shoving a tube into their stomach and pumping out any material to decompress the stomach and proximal GI tract. Their small intestines are 70+ feet long (which is expected for a big herbivore) and can get strangulated, which is fatal without surgery. 

Let's go to the large intestine. Horses are hindgut fermenters, not ruminants. I'll spare you the diagram and extended anatomy lesson but here's what you need to know: Their cecum is large enough to shove a person into, and the path of digesta doubles back on itself. The large intestine is very long, has segments of various diameters, multiple flexures, and doubles back on itself several times. It's not anchored to the body wall with mesentery like it is in many other animals. The spleen can get trapped. Parts of the colon can get filled with gas or digested food and/or get displaced. Parts of the large intestine can twist on themselves, causing torsions or volvulus. These conditions can range from mildly painful to excruciating. Many require surgery or intense medical therapy for the horse to have any chance of surviving. Any part of the large intestine can fail at any time and potentially kill the horse. A change in feed can cause colic. Giving birth can cause I believe a large colon volvulus I don't know at the moment I'm going into small animal medicine. Infections can cause colic. Lots of things can cause colic and you better hope it's an impaction that can be treated on the farm and not enteritis or a volvulus. 

And now the legs. Before we start with bones and hooves let's talk about the skin. The skin on horse legs, particularly their lower legs, is under a lot of tension and has basically no subcutaneous tissue. If a horse lacerated its legs and has a dangling flap of skin that's a fucking nightmare. That skin is incredibly difficult to successfully suture back together because it's under so much tension. There's basically no subcutaneous tissue underneath. You need to use releasing incisions and all sorts of undermining techniques to even get the skin loose enough to close without tearing itself apart afterwards. Also horses like to get this thing called proud flesh where scar tissue just builds up into this giant ugly mass that restricts movement. If a horse severely lacerated a leg it will take months to heal and the prognosis is not great. 

I hope this information has enlightened you, and that you will join me in hating these stupid goddamn bastard animals.

(not mine, old Reddit copypasta)

[BabaYaga 15298]

Mules > Horses

Fight me....

[JMFP 1120]

3 hours ago, BabaYaga said:

That's horse blood.  You can see briefly where it's most wet and appears to be flowing out.  Horses almost never trample people if there is enough space to avoid it.  They have fragile legs and enough self-preservation instinct to steer clear of people in their way, especially ceremonial horses.  

Used to work with a horse trainer that did a lot of work with the mounted officers in Austin.  Now THOSE, are some damn well trained horses/riders.  In the event of a riot, they can stand nose to tail and form a wall and sidestep and entire crowd off the street if they have to.  

That's a sad video of a couple of scared, wounded animals.

When I was a kid we had a horse that would step on your foot on purpose when you tried to brush him. He was a jerk.

[Kennythetiger 9384]

4 minutes ago, JMFP said:

When I was a kid we had a horse that would step on your foot on purpose when you tried to brush him. He was a jerk.

Our Shetland pony was a prick too. 

[deadshank 24653]

[Deej 76796]

My ex-wife did English show jumping. Whenever I would go out to the stables with her, everyone was amazed at how calm the difficult horses were with me. 

"Well, they know I have no intention of riding them."

[Homercles 10205]

4 hours ago, WBT said:

Yeah, a report I read mentioned the one bleeding was from running into a bus.  Poor horses.

Edit - holy shit, from the bbc

por favor no cruce enfrente del autobus

[GenXer 2878]

https://apnews.com/article/horses-bolt-loose-london-injured-bloody-3f26655babe06f78a68164fed597b033
 

LONDON (AP) — Two military horses that bolted and ran miles through the streets of London after being spooked by construction noise and tossing their riders were in serious condition after undergoing operations, a U.K. government official said Thursday.

The animals were among a group of four horses that broke free during routine exercises Wednesday near Buckingham Palace and caused chaos as they galloped loose through central London during morning rush hour. A fifth horse that tried to bolt hadn’t been able to break free. 

Two of the horses underwent operations and one was transferred to an equine hospital, the British Army posted on X. 

“Three of them are fine, two of them are unfortunately in a relatively serious condition and obviously we will be monitoring that condition,” defense minister James Cartlidge told Sky News. “They are in a serious condition, but as I understand, still alive.”

Three soldiers thrown from their steeds were hospitalized with injuries, but were expected to fully recover and return to duty.

The loose horses from the Household Cavalry, the ceremonial guard of the monarch and a feature of state functions in London, were named as Vida, Quaker, Trojan and Tennyson.

 

Cartlidge identified Vida as the white horse seen drenched in blood as it galloped down Aldwych, in between London’s historic financial center and the busy West End theater district. 

Vida ran alongside a black horse named Quaker that could be seen sideswiping a taxi as it turned into oncoming traffic after running through a red light at an intersection.

During the wild spectacle captured by stunned commuters and shared on social media, the horses had near misses with cyclists and a rider on a motorbike at a traffic light. 

Witnesses saw one of the animals crash into a taxi outside the Clermont Hotel, shattering windows. Another slammed into a tour bus, smashing the windshield. 

[BabaYaga 15298]

14 hours ago, Kennythetiger said:

Our Shetland pony was a prick too. 

Shetlands are THE biggest assholes on planet earth.  They are mean little fucks.  Welsh ponies, fine.  They are nice and need to be emancipated from pulling that stupid Sooner Schooner.

So we grew up raising horses and my uncle had this mean and fuck Shetland that would kick and bite and basically try to murder you.  He'd do the same with the larger quarter horses.  He was a stallion so he had ONE job.  We'd put him in stalls around brood mares and he'd tell us when they were in heat.  Even that got to be too much as cleaning his pen or stall was like going into the lion cage.  Finally sold him at auction.  Few months back he's back?  Uncle asks the guy what he's doing.  Said he was so mean he gelded him, thinking it would calm him down.  Now the ONE job this little shit had was over.  Nobody would buy him and he had to turn around, load him up, and who knows what happened to him.

I remember I tried to ride this little monster and teach it to neck reign.  He's reach around and continually try to bite my legs, spin in circles, and try and drive my knees into the sides of the arena.  Good news is my feet almost touched the ground riding him so I could plant a leg, and hop off easily and not get too hurt.  The ones you see at petting zoos are usually so damn old and have the life beat out of them so kids can ride them and not die....

[locodos 5387]

14 hours ago, Kennythetiger said:

Our Shetland pony was a prick too. 

Settle down there Henry VIII

The Breed of Horses Act 1535 and the Horses Act 1540

The Breed of Horses Act 1535 (27 Hen. 8. c. 6) mentions a marked decay in the quality of the breed, the cause it is claimed that "in most places of this Realme little horsis and naggis of small stature and valeu be suffered to depasture and also to covour marys and felys of very small stature".[1] The statute thus required each owner of enclosed deer-parks to possess a minimum of two mares whose height was to be above thirteen hands high in order for them to be bred with horses of no shorter than fourteen hands high.

The Horses Act 1540 (32 Hen. 8. c. 13) ordered that no stallion under 15 hands (60 inches, 152 cm) and no mare under 13 hands (52 inches, 132 cm) was permitted to run out on common land, or to run wild, and no two-year-old colt under 11.2 hands (46 inches, 117 cm) was allowed to run out in any area with mares. Annual round-ups of the commons were enforced, and any stallion under the height limit was ordered to be destroyed, along with "all unlikely tits whether mares or foals."[2]

 

 

Edited April 25 by locodos

[BabaYaga 15298]

56 minutes ago, locodos said:

unlikely tits

New uername?

[CoTex 1160]

I'm no horse expert but I was thinking that they were rugged animals except for broken legs or hooves.  A bunch of blood isn't a big deal - stich that sumbitch up and give it some hay.  A broken leg - old yeller treatment for you Mr. Smokey.

Amirite?

[Rimbo 25936]

2 hours ago, GenXer said:

https://apnews.com/article/horses-bolt-loose-london-injured-bloody-3f26655babe06f78a68164fed597b033
 

 

LONDON (AP) — Two military horses that bolted and ran miles through the streets of London after being spooked by construction noise and tossing their riders were in serious condition after undergoing operations, a U.K. government official said Thursday.

The animals were among a group of four horses that broke free during routine exercises Wednesday near Buckingham Palace and caused chaos as they galloped loose through central London during morning rush hour. A fifth horse that tried to bolt hadn’t been able to break free. 

Two of the horses underwent operations and one was transferred to an equine hospital, the British Army posted on X. 

“Three of them are fine, two of them are unfortunately in a relatively serious condition and obviously we will be monitoring that condition,” defense minister James Cartlidge told Sky News. “They are in a serious condition, but as I understand, still alive.”

Three soldiers thrown from their steeds were hospitalized with injuries, but were expected to fully recover and return to duty.

The loose horses from the Household Cavalry, the ceremonial guard of the monarch and a feature of state functions in London, were named as Vida, Quaker, Trojan and Tennyson.

 

Cartlidge identified Vida as the white horse seen drenched in blood as it galloped down Aldwych, in between London’s historic financial center and the busy West End theater district. 

Vida ran alongside a black horse named Quaker that could be seen sideswiping a taxi as it turned into oncoming traffic after running through a red light at an intersection.

During the wild spectacle captured by stunned commuters and shared on social media, the horses had near misses with cyclists and a rider on a motorbike at a traffic light. 

Witnesses saw one of the animals crash into a taxi outside the Clermont Hotel, shattering windows. Another slammed into a tour bus, smashing the windshield. 

 

[Rimbo 25936]

2 hours ago, BabaYaga said:

Said he was so mean he gelded him, thinking it would calm him down.  Now the ONE job this little shit had was over.

No, there's always another job for him

 

[BabaYaga 15298]

12 minutes ago, Rimbo said:

No, there's always another job for him

 

Swedish econ prof I had back in the day used to talk about growing up eating horse sammiches.  Nope....

[Felix 607]

23 hours ago, Rimbo said:

In the beginning, there was Eohippus. The proto-horse. It was a small hooved animal about the size of a dog, and it ate grass. It was a simple creature, and in my (factual) opinion it represents the last time that the Horse lineage was untainted by sin. Now, it is worth noting that life was not easy for this proto-horse, in fact life for early hooved mammals was so difficult, that some of them said "fuck that" and moonwalked back into the ocean to become cetaceans (Whales and Dolphins). That's right, The proto-horse had so stupid an existence, that hooved mammals went back into the ocean (lacking gills and flippers) and had more success than horses would have on land. 

Okay, So why was life so hard for Eohippus? Well, they are herbivores eating almost exclusively grasses. Grasses, as you may know, are not particularly nutritious. But more importantly, grasses are smarter than Horses. See, Grass does not want to be eaten, and evolutionary pressure caused the grasses to start incorporating silica (ie sand) into their structure. Silica is extremely hard. Hard enough to wear down Horse teeth. Now there is another evolutionary pressure acting on Eohippus; It's teeth wear down by the mere act of eating, to the point that it will starve to death. Eohippus teeth do not regrow, instead, Eohippus evolved bigger teeth. However, bigger teeth mean a bigger jaw, bigger head, and a bigger body to carry it. 

These opposing evolutionary pressures started an arms race in which the grasses incorporated more and more silica, and Horses got bigger and bigger, just so they would have big enough teeth to grow and reproduce before finally starving to death. And eventually our cute dog-sized pony evolved into the 1,500-pound, dumb-as-rocks prey animal i loathe today. 

But wait, there's more! See, Horses are extremely fragile. There is a reason why a "horse doctor" typically prescribes a dose of double-0 buckshot in the event of a leg injury. A horse is very heavy, and it has very thin legs to carry that weight. If any one leg gets fractured, it is exceptionally unlikely that it will heal well enough for the Horse to walk again, and is extremely likely to break again just carrying the weight of the horse. Remember, a human thigh bone is gigantic relative to the size of our bodies, a horse leg bone is absolutely minuscule relative to the weight it carries. 

Also, Hooves: I want you to imagine that instead of feet, you have a giant toenail at the end of your leg. That is how the Horse do. That is what a hoof is. A giant toenail. It is extremely delicate, and joined to the leg by a vast network of very fine connective tissue, and oh yeah it also bears the weight of a fucking HORSE. If a hoof gets infected (which is quite common, because imagine how often shit would get stuck under your toenails if you walked on them), the Horse immune system responds in the typical way: via inflammation of the area. The problem is, a horse hoof is a rigid "cup". It cannot accomodate the swelling from inflammatory response. The Horse hoof will basically pop off the leg like a sock. On top of that, remember the Horse is putting 1,500 pounds of weight on it (because Horses can't redistribute their weight very well since all of their legs can BARELY support their share of the total weight). 

So, Horse apologists will claim that Horses are good at one thing: Turning Grass into Fast. As the previous two paragraphs show, they can't even do that right. Locomotion is very dangerous for a Horse, and if the Fast doesn't kill them they'll starve to death just by eating. 

On top of that, they are dumb as all fuck. Horses will often do something called "Cribbing", which is when they decide to bite down on something (literally anything) as hard as they can, and suck in air. They just keep sucking in air until they inflate like a balloon. Eventually, the vet will show up and literally deflate the Horse with a long needle to let the air out of them, and hopefully get them to just... stop... 

First off, horses are obligate nasal breathers. If our noses are stuffed up we can breathe through our mouths. If our pets' noses are stuffed up (except for rabbits, who are also really fragile but unlike horses aren't stuck having only one baby a year) they can breathe through their mouths. If a horse can't breathe through its nose, it will suffocate and die. 

Horse eyes are exquisitely sensitive to steroids. Most animal eyes are, except for cows because cows are tanks, but horses are extremely sensitive. Corneal ulcers won't heal. They'll probably get worse. They might rupture and cause eyeball fluid to leak out. 

If you overexert a horse they can get exertional rhabodmyolysis. Basically you overwork their muscles and they break down and die and release their contents. Super painful, and then you get scarifying and necrosis. But that's not the problem. See, when muscles die hey release myoglobin, which goes into the blood and is filtered by the kidneys. If you dump a bucket of myoglobin into the blood then it shreds the kidneys, causing acutel renal failure. This kills the horse. People and other animals can get that too but in school we only talked about it in context of the horse. 

Horses can only have one foal at a time. Their uterus simply can't support two foals. If a pregnant horse has twins you have to abort one or they'll both die and possibly kill the mother with them. A lot of this has to do with the way horse placentas work. 

If a horse rears up on its hind legs it can fall over, hit the back of its head, and get a traumatic brain injury. 

Now to their digestive system. Oh boy. First of all, they can't vomit. There's an incredibly tight sphincter in between the stomach and esophagus that simply won't open up. If a horse is vomiting it's literally about to die. In many cases their stomach will rupture before they vomit. When treating colic you need to reflux the horse, which means shoving a tube into their stomach and pumping out any material to decompress the stomach and proximal GI tract. Their small intestines are 70+ feet long (which is expected for a big herbivore) and can get strangulated, which is fatal without surgery. 

Let's go to the large intestine. Horses are hindgut fermenters, not ruminants. I'll spare you the diagram and extended anatomy lesson but here's what you need to know: Their cecum is large enough to shove a person into, and the path of digesta doubles back on itself. The large intestine is very long, has segments of various diameters, multiple flexures, and doubles back on itself several times. It's not anchored to the body wall with mesentery like it is in many other animals. The spleen can get trapped. Parts of the colon can get filled with gas or digested food and/or get displaced. Parts of the large intestine can twist on themselves, causing torsions or volvulus. These conditions can range from mildly painful to excruciating. Many require surgery or intense medical therapy for the horse to have any chance of surviving. Any part of the large intestine can fail at any time and potentially kill the horse. A change in feed can cause colic. Giving birth can cause I believe a large colon volvulus I don't know at the moment I'm going into small animal medicine. Infections can cause colic. Lots of things can cause colic and you better hope it's an impaction that can be treated on the farm and not enteritis or a volvulus. 

And now the legs. Before we start with bones and hooves let's talk about the skin. The skin on horse legs, particularly their lower legs, is under a lot of tension and has basically no subcutaneous tissue. If a horse lacerated its legs and has a dangling flap of skin that's a fucking nightmare. That skin is incredibly difficult to successfully suture back together because it's under so much tension. There's basically no subcutaneous tissue underneath. You need to use releasing incisions and all sorts of undermining techniques to even get the skin loose enough to close without tearing itself apart afterwards. Also horses like to get this thing called proud flesh where scar tissue just builds up into this giant ugly mass that restricts movement. If a horse severely lacerated a leg it will take months to heal and the prognosis is not great. 

I hope this information has enlightened you, and that you will join me in hating these stupid goddamn bastard animals.

(not mine, old Reddit copypasta)

My Dad could have written this. His loathing of horses from my Mom having a couple is unbounded.  He said they violate his brain/body size ratio.

[Covri 6249]

On 4/24/2024 at 2:40 PM, BabaYaga said:

That's horse blood.  You can see briefly where it's most wet and appears to be flowing out.  Horses almost never trample people if there is enough space to avoid it.  They have fragile legs and enough self-preservation instinct to steer clear of people in their way, especially ceremonial horses.  

Used to work with a horse trainer that did a lot of work with the mounted officers in Austin.  Now THOSE, are some damn well trained horses/riders.  In the event of a riot, they can stand nose to tail and form a wall and sidestep and entire crowd off the street if they have to.  

That's a sad video of a couple of scared, wounded animals.

Trained to charge into a crowd of innocent bystanders on sixth street mardi gras weekend 2001 setting off a riot they used to justify canceling of Fat Tuesday parade/celebrations. And basically ending actual sanctioned Mardi Gras activities on sixth going forward. 

[MAUFRAIS 6629]

Palio di Londra

[956 Worldwide 34715]

On 4/24/2024 at 11:03 AM, Judge Roybeanbag said:

Running amok in the streets.

 

 

An ominous portent. If this had happened in the Anglo-Saxon era all the villagers would flee inside the city walls and await the inevitable Viking rape and slaughter. 

Edited April 26 by 956 Worldwide

[ImissWallyPryor 9046]

I don’t trust horses as far as I can spit. Had a Shetland pony throw and try to trample me when I was 5 or 6. My daughter just had a neck fusion and an artificial disc performed last week largely due to her horse throwing her Christopher Reeve style at a horse show almost 15 years ago. I’ll do a trail ride, but not much else and only if I trust the operators. I don’t even like petting those fuckers. 

[NeverMarryAStripper 21907]

I had an Arabian (3/4 Arabian 1/4 Paint) gelding when I lived in Magnolia.  He was a smart fucker.  He knew how to open the gate to his pasture.  Every morning, when I went to sit on the back porch to drink my coffee, he would open his gate and come graze in the backyard next to me.  After that, I would take him back to his pasture and feed him.  When I moved back to Houston, he went to live with my niece, who jumped him in competition.  I finally sold him a couple of years ago.  Baladi Al Katir (my daughter called him Mr. Chips) was a good horse even though he threw me and busted up my shoulder.

[conVINCEd 21469]

I have an irrational distrust of horses.  They’re beautiful animals, but I prefer to not get too close.  They can do a lot of damage very quickly.  I personally know two people who were seriously injured by horses.  They’re just too temperamental.  I’ve been close enough to a lion that I could’ve reached out and touched it if I wanted to, and that felt like a safer situation than being that close to a horse.

[BabaYaga 15298]

9 hours ago, NeverMarryAStripper said:

I had an Arabian (3/4 Arabian 1/4 Paint) gelding when I lived in Magnolia.  He was a smart fucker.  He knew how to open the gate to his pasture.  Every morning, when I went to sit on the back porch to drink my coffee, he would open his gate and come graze in the backyard next to me.  After that, I would take him back to his pasture and feed him.  When I moved back to Houston, he went to live with my niece, who jumped him in competition.  I finally sold him a couple of years ago.  Baladi Al Katir (my daughter called him Mr. Chips) was a good horse even though he threw me and busted up my shoulder.

Kewl.  I showed Arabians from when I was 8-16yrs old.  They're not the largest breed, and I got too tall to keep competing and I was much better at baseball/basketball.  SMART animals.  The oldest breed of horse

[BabaYaga 15298]

9 hours ago, ImissWallyPryor said:

I don’t trust horses as far as I can spit. Had a Shetland pony throw and try to trample me when I was 5 or 6. My daughter just had a neck fusion and an artificial disc performed last week largely due to her horse throwing her Christopher Reeve style at a horse show almost 15 years ago. I’ll do a trail ride, but not much else and only if I trust the operators. I don’t even like petting those fuckers. 

Shetlands aren't horses.  They're little fuck-waffle, devils with a temperament of a Canadian Goose and Chihuahua cross, but with an express intent to cause you bodily harm.  See my post above about the one we had.  Little shit tried to murder me on the regular.  

[BabaYaga 15298]

I will say from a lifetime of exposure to many, many breeds - there are some really good ones.  Generally, the larger the horse, as bred for labor and the accompanying personality needed, the more tractable they are.  I've been around Clydesdales, Belgian "blues", even a Percheron once.  Draught horses are pretty chill - as they need to be, either for the extreme weight of a mounted soldier or toiling away all day pulling heavy shit.  Gentle giants.

• Being in Texas, we exclusively raised quarterhorses.  Can't enough good things about them, but there are lemons on every lot.  Generally it's about the amount of time you spend with them.  They are also all prey animals and still spook easily.
• Thoroughbreds are nuts.  The Weimaraner's of the horse world.  Big and beautiful, but high-strung and can be a giant PITA.  Lived in KY for a few years and spent a decent amount of time around them.
• Arabians are scary smart.  Bred for endurance.  The oldest pure bred line.   Showed them as a kid at a place off Slaughter in Austin for 8 years.  
• Appaloosas are my favorite.  Large, but not a draught line, but with their temperament.  Won't find a more beautiful breed.
• If you want a recreational, functional rider for trips, hunting, etc.  Get a mule.  I think they can legit read your mind.  The whole "stubborn" moniker they have is BS.  They are smart, but also have a "feel" for their surroundings, esp danger.  In the mountains, snake on the path.  Horse might throw you off.  A mule will read the room, snake in front, cliff on one side, sheer wall on the other....ergo, fuck that snake and they'll kill it.  They get that from the Donkey side of the house - which many know, if you run smaller livestock like sheep/goats, there's usually a donkey out there for predator deterrence.  

 

[Drunk Stoner 63]

All of the above…. But most importantly…. Never feel sorry for a horse!

[NotActuallyALonghorn 4976]

On 4/25/2024 at 10:56 PM, NeverMarryAStripper said:

I had an Arabian (3/4 Arabian 1/4 Paint) gelding when I lived in Magnolia.  He was a smart fucker.  He knew how to open the gate to his pasture.  Every morning, when I went to sit on the back porch to drink my coffee, he would open his gate and come graze in the backyard next to me.  After that, I would take him back to his pasture and feed him.  When I moved back to Houston, he went to live with my niece, who jumped him in competition.  I finally sold him a couple of years ago.  Baladi Al Katir (my daughter called him Mr. Chips) was a good horse even though he threw me and busted up my shoulder.

I read that as Mongolia at first. Would have been way cooler if it was Mongolia. 

[Sawbonz 27562]

 

 

On 4/25/2024 at 11:11 PM, conVINCEd said:

I have an irrational distrust of horses.  They’re beautiful animals, but I prefer to not get too close.  They can do a lot of damage very quickly.  I personally know two people who were seriously injured by horses.  They’re just too temperamental.  I’ve been close enough to a lion that I could’ve reached out and touched it if I wanted to, and that felt like a safer situation than being that close to a horse.

Actually you have a rational distrust of horses.