It has recently been brought to my attention that the horse world is a strange and wondrous place. A place where magical, I daresay incredulous, things take place. Or at least that is what a non-horsey friend has recently tried to convince me of.
This friend, we'll call him Mike (mostly because that's his name) asked of me the age old question, "if you remove a horses hoof, will it grow back". As I'm sure you're aware, this question has been asked thousands upon thousands of times over the years, asked in frequency second only to "if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it , does it make a sound?" (well? Does it?). What's that you say? No, you weren't aware that non-horse people thought horses had magical regenerative capabilities? Well, neither was I!
At first I just assumed Mike meant the hoof wall - logic dictating that 1 - No one would want to cut off a horse’s hoof, and 2 - That as a functioning adult he had a working knowledge of the basic physiological structure of domesticated animals. Oh no, my friend, he actually meant the harvesting of the entire hoof for the purpose of gelatin production!
Ignoring the obviously heinous gelatin comment, I proceeded to educate Mike in the structure of the equine hoof. I dumbed it down to no hoof = no horse. It seemed the best way to go given who I was dealing with...
So now, in an act of contrite redemption, Mike has suggested writing a blog post on the common, but grossly inaccurate, assumptions of non-horse people about our beloved creatures.
1. Horses, as wonderful as they are, do not possess magical regenerative capabilities. They are not like lizards in any way, shape, or form.
This friend, we'll call him Mike (mostly because that's his name) asked of me the age old question, "if you remove a horses hoof, will it grow back". As I'm sure you're aware, this question has been asked thousands upon thousands of times over the years, asked in frequency second only to "if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it , does it make a sound?" (well? Does it?). What's that you say? No, you weren't aware that non-horse people thought horses had magical regenerative capabilities? Well, neither was I!
At first I just assumed Mike meant the hoof wall - logic dictating that 1 - No one would want to cut off a horse’s hoof, and 2 - That as a functioning adult he had a working knowledge of the basic physiological structure of domesticated animals. Oh no, my friend, he actually meant the harvesting of the entire hoof for the purpose of gelatin production!
Ignoring the obviously heinous gelatin comment, I proceeded to educate Mike in the structure of the equine hoof. I dumbed it down to no hoof = no horse. It seemed the best way to go given who I was dealing with...
So now, in an act of contrite redemption, Mike has suggested writing a blog post on the common, but grossly inaccurate, assumptions of non-horse people about our beloved creatures.
1. Horses, as wonderful as they are, do not possess magical regenerative capabilities. They are not like lizards in any way, shape, or form.
2. As much as I wish it were true, Pegasus does not exist.
3. ...and here I'm at a loss. I'm trying to come up with outrageous assumptions made by non-horsey people and I'm coming up empty handed.
So I ask, what are some of the weird and wacky questions that have been posited to you over the years regarding our (hopefully) hooved friends?
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