There’s nothing wrong with asking if your pregnant friends have foaled yet or patting your car, right? Here are some ways horses have changed us (prior to lockdown)
1. You click your tongue when you want someone to move over.
2. You can never sleep in. Your internal alarm is set for mucking out o’clock, even if you get a day off from care duties or you no longer actually own a horse.
3. You don’t think there’s anything wrong with wearing breeches and boots to the supermarket.
4. You think the consistency of your horse’s droppings is an acceptable subject for conversation in any company (my dad still finds it weird that my mum and I discuss this all the time).
5. You laugh when you see mini bales of straw for sale in pet shops at extortionate prices.
6. When you run it’s more akin to a canter.
7. You describe lameness of people and dogs in tenths.
8. You encourage your car to change lanes by shifting your weight in the seat.
9. And you pat it when you finish the journey.
10. You don’t think it’s weird to drink from the hose — or even the automatic waterers when it’s really hot.
11. You say nearside when you mean the left.
12. You don’t understand why people don’t always pass left to left on busy pavements.
13. You don’t walk too close behind people you don’t know — they might kick.
14. You ask if friends have foaled yet when they are pregnant.
15. You compare prices of everything to horsey costs. Do I want this pair of jeans as much as I want to enter that event? Would I rather have a meal out or a new rug?
16. Your arms are always more tanned than your legs because you grew up spending every summer in jodhpurs. This will persist even if you wear shorts for years.
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17. When you’re a passenger on a boring car journey, you imagine jumping all the fences along the side of the road.
18. And you can see your stride as you approach steps on foot.
19. You always mount and dismount a bicycle from the left.
20. You say “whoa” to supermarket trolleys.
21. There’s no need for the police or the sex offenders’ register to get involved when you receive frozen semen in the post.
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