The Horse Term Translator

by Gabrielle Sasse

We’ve all been there. Chatting blissfully about something horse related when a non-horse person gives you a look that says “what did you just say?” My most recent experience with this was a Facebook status about cutting, to which a witty friend replied, “you sound emo.”

There are some horse terms that really should come with a dictionary.  Here are a few that just may confuse the non-equine lover…

Body Clipping: the art of applying horse hair to your own body

Cutting: a roller coaster with no seat belt

A little green: sit down and hold on

Roping: seeing how coordinated you really are

Head shy: how badly do you want to keep your shoulders in their sockets?

Hands: a unit of measurement commonly over-exaggerated, especially when selling a horse

Banding: how many rubber bands can you fit on one mane?

Braiding: how quickly you can move your fingers on a horse that doesn’t want to stand still, while balancing on a stool?

Farrier: eye candy

Pleasure Class: appearing to go round and round the arena in circles, while really doing 50 things at once.

Dressage: dancing with your horse

Jumpers: get out of your saddle and hang on

Grabbing mane/saddle horn: the art to hanging on

Equine major: wearing your boots to every class on campus. And the computer lab.  And Walmart…

Cow sense: combine a Rottweiler, roller coaster and laser targeting  system

Horse sense: something your horse usually has more of

Fresh/squirrel-y/feel-y:  I hope you had your coffee and Wheaties this morning…

Western saddle: the cowboy one

English saddle: the one they jump in at the Olympics (Not totally correct, I know. But give these people a little leeway…)

Halter horse: a shark in a silver halter

Pony: not a baby horse: usually the naughtiest thing you can imagine

Draft: something akin to the Budweiser commercials

Crow hop: something that your horse hopefully does while the judge’s back is turned

Groceries: when weight gained is measured in hundreds of pounds, and is a good thing. Wouldn’t that be nice?

Equestrian: a lifestyle

Let us know of any we may have missed…:)