Horses: Ridiculous Creatures, Really

"Ha, ha," says Avi.

Noble, beautiful, proud, powerful...yes, the horse can be all of these things.

"Hast thou given the horse strength? hast thou clothed his neck with thunder?" the King James Bible asks.

"When I bestride him, I soar, I am a hawk: he trots the air; the earth sings when he touches it," declaims the Dauphin of France in Shakespeare's Henry V.

But horses can also be awkward and just plain silly.

Granted, most of this ridiculousness is sort of inflicted on them, because we give them stalls to live in and make them wear funny things.

Still. Big teeth, bugging-out eyes, and a lack of self-consciousness do help set the stage.

Photographic evidence herewith.

Horses sometimes wear silly hats.
(This is actually a cribbing collar, to stop the horse from
grabbing a fence with its teeth, arching its neck,
then sucking in and swallowing big gulps of air--
an odd habit of some horses.)

"No, really. I'm a bunny."
(Actually, a practical bit of headgear:
it's a fly mask that keeps pesky
insects out of its ears and eyes.)

"My best friend is a sheep."

"Truth to tell, it's not a ba-a-a-a-d job at all."

Here's Avi, totally stylin' in some hip
mod duds. Woo hoo!

Let's make sure we get a closeup of that groovy pattern!

This fellow's discovered that you can
make a really glorious racket by running
your teeth up and down the metal bars
of a stall. 

Rapunzel, equine-style.

"Aww. Horses are so cute and pretty!"