Horse sense

We often refer to astute horse people as having horse sense. You know the ones. Those who can tell for example, when their horse has dropped a few pounds, and make adjustments long before ribs and hip bones tell the story.

The term horse sense has nothing really to do with horses at all but refers to good, simple, common sense – thinking that doesn’t require higher learning. Horse sense, as we horse people use it, is actually the intuitive ability to pay attention and interpret the senses of horses – or the tools the horse uses to interact with its environment.

Those tools (or lack thereof) play a part in their comfort in the barn, their adaptability to work, their suitability to a certain job, and so on. We’ve covered a lot of ground in that department in this issue, whether it’s in the show ring, in harness, or just standing in the barn.

Roz Moskovitz sums it up well in her article “Stable design from the horse’s perspective.” When designing a stable, we think about the features that make the barn safe for horse and person – the air-flow, the access, etc. It’s easy to not consider how a horse might “feel” about its place in that finished barn, while we carefully make decisions on the right material for the floor, or the width of the aisle.

Stopping to listen carefully and watch closely allows us to read the signs. The wind hitting the outside corner of his end stall may worry the young horse. Maybe he would feel safer in the middle stall with a horse on each side? The grumpy old fellow in the middle stall may be happier listening to the wind howl past the barn than dealing with the antics of the obnoxious two-year-old currently next door.

The horse person who successfully reads these signs is probably the same person who recognizes the dropping of weight and realizes a different stall, not a change in diet, might be the answer. A “dream stable” will be full of fat, contented, relaxed horses, and have more to do with the dreamer in charge than the varnish on the walls.

Keeping horses at home, and interacting with them multiple times a day has decided advantages in the development of horse sense. For example my young gelding is repeatedly telling me he’s had enough of turnout in his small winter paddock. The two old mares that live with him are repeatedly telling me they’ve had enough of life with a cooped up, five-year-old boy. Sometimes the signs are more like screams than whispers.