Does your horse ever look at you as if you’re asking him the most absurd questions? If the answer is yes, you’re not alone. We think our equine companions are baffled by our behaviour on a daily basis.
With this in mind, here are 11 of the many reasons why your horse thinks your crazy:
1. You carefully mix his feed in a feed bowl, but he’d much rather eat off the floor.
2. You bring strange small four-legged creatures to the yard on leads from time-to-time. They have a loud, harsh neigh, pointy teeth and no mane.
3. Rather than moving nasty, shock-inducing fencing into long grass we insist on bringing it closer to the short stuff.
4. You spend hundreds of pounds a year getting your horse’s feet shod to perfection, yet your own nails look far less shiny and well shaped.
5. You put them in bizarre contraptions that cover their faces during the summer. These masks leave them resembling aliens and fake forelocks practically reach the end of their noses.
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6. You are annoyed when your horse comes in from the field minus one of the expensive shoes you put on his feet, yet you pay the farrier to take them off every few weeks anyway.
7. You’re even more furious when they try to protect you from the horse-eating monsters that live inside flapping carrier bags on the side of the road.
8. You wonder why, after hours of plaiting and washing, your horse doesn’t want to walk into a windowless box that’s raised from the ground.
9. You run round the arena while studying a small piece of paper pretending to trot and canter and even stop occasionally to salute and walk on a long rein.
10. You insist on putting frilly, spooky badges on their faces when they do well.
11. You’re obsessed with his poo — you carry it around in wheelbarrows and skips, expertly mould it into the perfect giant heap and take it away in a special cart and then spread it on your garden.
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Rachael joined Horse & Hound in 2014, initially as a digital sub editor then became part of the news team as a writer in 2015. The philosophy graduate studied journalism at the Press Association before working as a local reporter at the Brentwood Gazette. Rachael is now a mum of two and still loves all things equestrian, including hacking, dressage and jumping with her cob Bert. Rachael left the H&H staff to go freelance in June 2019, but still contributes to our magazine and website, as well as our sister magazine Country Life, among others.
