Just For Kicks

Horses are dumb animals. Don't get me wrong, they're beautiful, and fun to be around, and incredibly impressive. But they don't have the placid wisdom of a whale, or an elephant (or a tortoise for that matter). They're skittish and prone to panic, not qualities I admire in large animals I have to stand next to.

I like them, but you can't convince me that they're not obsolete liabilities. Trust me, I learned it the hard way years ago. I got a job mucking stalls at a horse hospital, and every day I walked the patients around the compound. I helped with other stuff too, but since I didn't grow up speaking the language (horse-people-ese), I felt a bit out of place.

Actually, the people there were very sweet. I was a dumb, skittish kid from the suburbs, and they patiently taught me how to handle these incredibly powerful animals. Horse knowledge, it turns out, requires a lot of intuition. You have to develop a feel for what's about to happen. There's a lot of nuance. It's a lot like surfing in that sense.

For example, a "horse person" once gave me some advice on safety. She said that if a horse was about to kick to me, I should close the distance as quickly as possible. Meaning get right up next to it, and right away. It sounds weird at first, but when you think about it, you realize that if you're that close, the hooves don't get enough time or distance to accelerate to head-cracking speed. Physics, it's weird.

It's the kind of thing you need to feel, rather than know. But what the heck did I know? I learned everything from watching TV and movies. What do people in movies do when a horse is about to kick them? Duck? I didn't know, I didn't grow up around these stupid things.

But actually, it was a lot of fun. I liked the dumb horses. They're actually much smarter than sheep, which are another fun dumb animal to hang out with. The hospital was on the campus of a larger Animal Center, and I had an ideal job: hands on, outside, and working with animals. The pay stunk, but I didn't need much. I started to get the hang of it. Sometimes, there'd be a camel there, too!¹

Honestly, you almost could've convinced me to wear denim and flannel everyday and go to Kenny Chesney concerts, were it not for one particular incident. One day, during an otherwise fine and foggy morning, I was walking one of the patients.

This is what it looked like. It's really nice to walk a horse. Honestly, it's amazing to lead an enormously powerful animal around by a rope. They're so big, and so strong, and so dumb. So to have control over the situation, well– again it's quite the feeling.

I think they're smart enough to recognize you, and to understand that you've learned all the weird straps and knots and stuff, and I think they respect you for it. Walking in unison, I felt a glimpse of the magic of these animals, an ancient bond formed between two species 5,000 years ago in the dry, shrubby steppe of Central Asia.

Me and the horse. We were connected. We were one unit. We could feel each other.

Except, I didn't notice the horse do this. They move fast. I don't know how the hell it got into this position instantaneously. But my pleasant POV from a moment ago was replaced in a flash by two gleaming hooves loading up for me.

My subconscious had noticed the situation getting a bit stickier and triggered a flood of adrenaline, which gave me an epic view of the hooves gliding upwards as they compressed down on their springs.

I guess there was still enough time to consider a few options. Should I:

Well, it turns out if you don't decide quickly, a score of "D" will be assigned to you. Your appreciation of equine behavior, as well as the principles of physics, had not been developed to a sufficiently intuitive level.

And luckily, adrenaline is a wonderful temporary analgesic. A horse kick has an impact force twice as powerful as a Mike Tyson uppercut, but this one missed all my vital (and just likable) organs.

But it was quite the lesson in what happens when you put one stupid animal in charge of another one. At least the first graders visiting that day learned something. And I still don't know what a fetlock is.

1. I'm not sure where camels rank in terms of their intelligence over other dumb farm animals. They may be just as stupid as horses, but more experienced people than me disagree. We can rest assured however, that they are definitely smarter than sheep, which are complete morons.