one time on that same campus someone in the equine program didn’t shut a pasture gate and the pastures were just right there where all the classes were so when all the horses got out I just left class and saw first: a bunch of horses running
second: a bunch of equine majors chasing them on Foot for some reason
third: a group of students from the city just absolutely losing their minds laughing and recording it on their phones
fourth: a terrified work-study student parking authority who, when I asked, said “I don’t know anything about horses, but they told me to stop them if the come this way. what’ll happen if they do?? will they trample me???”
fifth: a group of boys in cowboy hats and flannels that I ended up standing with while the whole thing unfolded.
it took Twenty Minutes for someone to get on horseback to corral the herd.
I was like “is anyone on horseback?? what’s going on??”
and they said “no. we’re wondering when they’ll figure that out.”
youd think horses were one of those animals that has horrible health due to humans breeding unhealthy animals to achieve a certain look but no they really are just naturally that fucked up
horses’ lungs bleed when they run at a certain speed
if their diet is too rich / low in selenium their hooves fall off
excuse me
The reason they have such poor health outcomes after breaking or otherwise injuring their legs is because their legs are actually hyper-specialized fingers; and as in human fingers, there is very little muscle supporting the bone, just a lot of cartilage and tendons and whatnot. You’d think an animal that literally evolved to run away to avoid being eaten would have ALSO evolved sturdier running appendages, but…
I fucking hate this post, it’s 1 AM I don’t want to know that horse legs are giant fucking fingers
animals are a mess. plants are the alpha kingdom
Horses are a particularly special disaster.
let’s not forget that they can’t throw up or burp so they can die from a simple stomach ache!
me, watching a battle scene: please not the horses. leave them alone. they did nothing wrong. they are the only innocent ones. they don’t deserve this.
honestly this used to upset me a lot as a kid until my mom, who’s worked with horses for many years, told me about how they train the horses in those movies to do things like falling down, kneeling, crawling, or stay laying on the ground after they fall. and how it’s so tough to train a prey animal to do these behaviors and how hard both trainer and horse have to work. so now whenever i see a horse take a hit and go down in a movie, i just think “fucking superb you funky little horse actor”
gifted student™ brains are about as functional as horses when you get right down to it
which sounds like a shit post but consider: horses? hypothetically MADE for running. look at this magnificent muscle beasts. look at those legs. they must be so good at running, right? wrong. horses are fragile as fuck. horses break their gotdamn legs so so easily, and if they break their legs you just have to fucking shoot them. if they run, the thing they are MADE FOR, too fast their lungs will start bleeding. I just googled horses to see if I was missing anything and apparently if they lie down for a day their organs start collapsing or something so they can’t rest from their One Horse Purpose even when they’re hurt. they’re made to do one thing but they can only do it under Very Specific Conditions and if a single thing changes they just die.
which, you know. gifted students™ get applauded for being naturally smart when we’re five or whatever and then develop a terrible inflated sense of self that makes us highly averse to anything we’re not naturally good at, because it challenges our fragile childbrain egos and if we wait too long we’ll develop mental fences around entire subjects and skillsets (mine are math and studying) because we think we’re Bad at them, when in reality we just need to practice but are frustrated by that because it’s harder than being ~naturally talented~ was. we get applauded for doing One Thing but the second we run into slightly different things that our brains don’t comprehend as readily? it’s a Bad Time. I still have so much anxiety over things I don’t feel Naturally Talented at that I’ve been sitting here writing this post for like 10 minutes rather than read the feedback on my religion paper. I got a 100% on it, but I’m still That Scared of anything other than straight heaps of praise because that’s what my childbrain was acclimated to. just send me to the glue factory already.
Its important to note that a lot of horse problems are because of how they are exploited by people, pushed too hard and made beasts of burden that they were never meant to be. I think this strengthens the analogy
youd think horses were one of those animals that has horrible health due to humans breeding unhealthy animals to achieve a certain look but no they really are just naturally that fucked up
horses’ lungs bleed when they run at a certain speed
if their diet is too rich / low in selenium their hooves fall off
excuse me
The reason they have such poor health outcomes after breaking or otherwise injuring their legs is because their legs are actually hyper-specialized fingers; and as in human fingers, there is very little muscle supporting the bone, just a lot of cartilage and tendons and whatnot. You’d think an animal that literally evolved to run away to avoid being eaten would have ALSO evolved sturdier running appendages, but…
I fucking hate this post, it’s 1 AM I don’t want to know that horse legs are giant fucking fingers
holy shit
the homologues of the (human) knee and elbow on a horse are at the level of the ribcage. the “knees” in the middle of the legs are homologous to wrists on the front and heels on the back. anything below that is hand/foot.
I understood most of that but the diagram for me is what makes me never want to look at a horse again
arabian horses have been bred so badly that they have breathing problems because of the shape of their face
This is how horses are built compared to a human
I wish Tumblr would stop telling me things about horses
centaurs are real and they look like that last photo
Just when I thought I was finally getting the hang of horses, I find out I know nothing.
so someone said horses legs are like fingers and I drew this
I get mildly offended whenever I see that post addition because the horse should be prancing on its fingernails. Hooves and fingernails are equivalent. it angers me
Not only that, but Secretariat utilized something called a double-suspension transverse gallop that allowed him to carry sprint speed over distances of more than half a mile. In a normal, single-suspension transverse gallop there is only one moment where all four hooves leave the ground
in a double-suspension transverse gallop there are two
Secretariat had a stride longer than any other horse, but he also ran elastically, and was able to develop an extraordinary amount of downward-and-backward thrust, thus achieving double-suspension. He ran straighter and more efficiently than any other horse.
I’M SO INTRIGUED *gets pencil and paper*
Do you think his incredibly elastic gait contributed to his double-suspension gallop? What factors contribute to a horse preferring double-suspension over single-suspension? Is it a genetic behavior? Is it influenced by physical factors (IE Secretariat’s extraordinary gait)? Or is it purely a fluke when a horse uses the double-suspension gallop? What other horses did this? WHERE CAN I READ MORE????? *HEAVY BREATHING*
The elasticity refers to the flexibility of his back and loin conformation. The muscles of the pelvis, rib cage, and spine form a flexible and powerful spring that is the biomechanical root of speed. Secretariat had increased ability to coil the loin, and with it, increased elastic up-and-down flexibility of the back. The more flexible the back is, the longer the stride.
It is this long stride, and the incredibly powerful downward-and-backward thrust of his hind legs that allowed him to have a double-suspension transverse gallop. I don’t know of any other horses that have achieved double suspension, but it has been speculated that if we had more footage of Man O’ War we would see that he ran at a double-suspension transverse gallop as well.
The head of our university equine department said he watched Secretariat run in person. Years later as a professor of equine functional anatomy, he described Secretariat with awe and reverence: “Secretariat was a freak of nature! There’s never been a horse like him, and there’ll never be another.”
Interestingly, Cheetahs also utilize the double-suspension running style – though their spines allow more dramatic overlap their hind and forelegs, during the second suspension. This overlap gives them the extra boost of speed that a horse can’t match.
Cheetahs also utilize all four limbs to push, to gain speed.
Their tails and shorter forelegs also give them increased agility for abrupt turns, but that’s another thing entirely
Conclusion: Breed/Train racing horses to be more flexible in the spine and hips. This will lengthen their gait and allow them to run faster.
Loki is the Philosopher King 