10 signs you've spent too much time around horses...

I thought a little lighthearted blog post for the people in our horsey community was in order, hopefully to crack a smile or two! To caveat... OBVIOUSLY I know there is no such thing as spending 'too much time' around our favourite creatures! I hope you will relate to some of them... Otherwise I've just outed my own sad little life... :)

1. The first and most obvious sign that we've spent too much time around horses was when COVID-19 came along and everybody was busy social distancing... Suddenly we realised our lives consisted of 'social distancing' longggg before the virus even started... as the only other living being that didn't mind you stinking of horses was in fact the horse itself! Effective people repellant.
2. Something else that I picked up on was the lack of change in schedule during lockdown as a horsey person. My average day before lockdown consisted of 'waking up, doing work (to afford the horse), going to see the horse, going to bed... repeat.' My schedule during lockdown consisted of 'waking up, doing work (to afford the horse), going to see the horse, going to bed... repeat.'. Bonus point: If you didn't notice your lack of change in schedule over lockdown prior to me pointing it out, you most definitely are the champion of 'spending too much time around horses'.
3. Another tell-tale sign you spend a lot of your time with your horse is when you find it to be a complete personal attack when your own non-horsey family briefly forget your horses name, or cannot tell your horses apart and get their names in a muddle. RUDE.
4. You know you've been around horses for too long when hearing the single word 'GAAATE' screamed out loud automatically triggers a chemical response inside your brain that puts you into a ninja-like hyper-aware state, ready to spring into instant action, running like Forrest Gump to the rescue to stop the wayward horse from escaping to somewhere he shouldn't be. *Cue Chariots of Fire theme tune...*
5. And after the adrenaline of the above situation subsides, another sign you've been around horses for too long is then spending 3 days (or a week) moaning about how you forgot yourself amongst the chaos, and that your terribly crooked knees/feet/back/hands (delete or add as appropriate) are now in pieces.
6. Only caring about the outcome of the horse (or other various animals) in films... "BUT DID THE HORSE SURVIVE?!"
7. Turning into the judge and jury when films featuring horses/horse body language/horse riding does not live up to reality, and then proceeding to wonder if you could make a career out of being the person on film-sets to advise non-horsey producers on how horses would REALLY behave or look... (My favourite is how bad the riding normally is in films, and also how the horses are extremely vocal and seem to whinny in every given scenario every 7 seconds! Not realistic at all!)
8. Seeing random logs or big grassy hills when randomly driving through the countryside and thinking about how you'd love to"'jump over/gallop up" that...
9. As horsey people, I think we spend so much time around horses that we actually forget the difference in strength between us and them. Before long, the lack of strength as a human will not be a problem because you develop enough stubbornness to make up for whatever is missing. So when an extremely powerful, excitable half-tonne animal makes the decision to drag you half way to the neighbouring county at nothing short of an extended gallop, ignoring every attempt you make to stop it, it won't MATTER how weak you are or how slow you are, because as horse people our mantra is... 'DON'T. LET. GO'. Extremely brave, or extremely stupid? Who cares! Because we won't 'let him get away with THAT!'
10. And finally... A sign I've been around horses too long - I was once on a shoot with a beautiful Spanish horse, he made a great model however he spent almost the whole duration of the shoot with his boy-bits out. And I don't mean a little bit out, I mean to the point where it was driving us to complete distraction. We had a right chuckle about it 'I'll just edit it out later' I said... I later started working my way through the images on a large screen, but my horsey brain completely failed to remember this might be a bit of a shocking sight for a non-horsey boyfriend. So when he walked into the room and innocently glanced over at my computer as he always does to see my work, the image I happened to be working on was one where I'd actually zoomed in as I was carefully removing this horses' bits from the image! I think that photo has been burned into his retinas ever since!

I hope this list made you smile. If you have any scenarios that have made you realise you've been around these entertaining creatures for 'too long', I'd love to hear about them!

Holly x