Virtual Brush Box

Blog contributor [Threads Make Feathers] and photo teacher Meg McKinney [Meet Meg], is back. Welcome.
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I recently gained some insight to how horses see, and comprehend – or don’t.

Background: “Slim,” my younger sister’s American Saddlebred mare is boarding at Stepping Stone Farm. When Slim arrived in Alabama three years ago from California [California Girl Becomes a Southern Belle], she was exposed to all sorts of ‘new’ – southern accents, humidity, along with peacocks, guinea hens, and donkeys.

During one of my early lessons on Slim, the guineas were patrolling the property in full force – clucking and scampering, probably 30 yards from Slim, Courtney Huguely, and myself, in the Round Pen, which is covered, and has a high, heavy post-and-rail fence, which makes a great enclosure for lessons and training.

Just seeing those little clucking birds from that distance, was enough for Slim to get skittish.

She settled down, and our lesson continued.

Then, when we reversed our direction, Courtney said that Slim would have to get used to the guineas all over again. This was because horses’ see and comprehend one side at a time, or in one direction.

What? This was news to me. Horses have two eyes, on both sides of their heads, right? Don’t they see and comprehend at the same time from both us – just like us?

No.

Slim had to get used to the guineas all over again, in the second direction.

Well, we made it through – those fierce, little clucking birds never hurt Slim from their 30 yard distance, to Slim’s great relief, I’m sure.

Recently, I was reminded of how horses’ eye sight isn’t what we think it is, or, just like ours’.

When I put Slim out in a large pasture at the front of the property, she galloped around, and had a good time. Then, she decided to make tracks to the far corner, where another horse was calmly taking in the pretty sunshine. This meant going around the edge of a pond, and through a wooded area, which Slim did at a brisk trot.

Her pasturemate was an American Saddlebred, Lynnwood’s Yorktown Imagination, aka Tiny, who is anything but. He’s a chestnut gentle giant, that measures a good 17 hands tall. His trot and canter are so long-strided, riders put bell boots on him, so he doesn’t hurt himself at the canter.

Tiny and Slim got along in this particular corner, on the other side of the pasture and the pond.

When it came time to put Slim back in her stall, we went through the gate where they were, not the gate at the other end of the pasture, where we’d originally entered the pasture. This was a new exit – to Slim.

Then, the next day, I put Slim out with Tiny again, and used the same corner gate we had exited through the day before. She stayed in that area, and did not venture back through the wooded area, around the pond, to the larger, greener pasture, where Tiny had casually ambled to.

I remembered when Slim had to get used to the guineas, in the second direction, and wondered if she was afraid of going in the reverse direction to the open pasture area.

Sure enough, when I put a lead line on her, and began walking her back around the pond, through the wooded area, she acted like it was all new territory, and little frightening.

I kept her moving, and voila! Soon we were in the big, open area of the pasture. Slim recognized where she was, and when I let her loose, she galloped around, found Tiny, and noshed on grass.

Soooo – what’s the deal with horses’ and their eye sight?

I asked my older sister (a board-certified veterinary pathologist) about horses’ and eyesight. She e-mailed this Wikipedia link, Equine vision, that has detailed information about how and why horses see the world very differently than humans, can judge distance for jumping, with limited color perception.

After reading it, I understood why Slim doesn’t always want to walk into the main barn hallway, from the outside — because it’s dark. I thought she was being flighty or cranky. It takes a little longer for horses’ eyes to adjust to indoor light than ours. This is the same reason why a horse will balk at loading on a trailer – it’s dark in there.

Their instincts tell them, “Danger.”

I mentioned the pasture episode to Courtney, who reminded me that horses are prey animals, and that’s why their eyes are on the sides of their heads, with their incredible peripheral vision to see beside and behind them, but not straight ahead for a few feet. Predators’ eyes, she added, are located front and center.

In the future, I’ll be more understanding when Slim, or any horse I’m handling, balks at something that looks harmless, and familiar, to me. They see a much different world around them.

Meg McKinney
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