The mentallity of a horse ?

[pablo74]

The mentallity of a horse ? How far does it go ?..... I mean i have just watched Brave Inca in Leopardstown winning the champion hurdle and i listened to the Ruby Walsh interview afterwards. He said that the horse just does enough all the time and when coming around the turn for home the horse flicked his ear to signal that he had plenty left in the tank. Do horses know where the finishing post is ? Does the crowd cheering encourage a horse to pull out more ? Does a horse know that he has to beat the horse in front of him or does he just run to him max ? How broad is the mentallity of a horse ?

[mowgli77]

Re: The mentallity of a horse ? You have to remember they are an animal and not a machine and some have the pack mentality and need to be surrounded by other horses for most of the race and often idle in front whereas others like to front run and be out on there own. I've never ridden a racehorse but the jockeys say you get a feel for the animal and can tell when they are sat on a really special horse. I would not be able to tell the difference between sitting on a horse like New Approach and then sitting on a class 6 handicapper but the jockeys can. I think it's interesting that the trainers find out how a horse likes to be ridden and it makes sense that if you have found out it responds when it's held up you'd consider a jockey like Jamie Spencer on it who gets the best out of those type of horses. I suppose the opposite of a horse flicking it's ear would be one swishing its tail, often a negative sign and often a horse with poor temperament. It's strange watching horses in the parade ring as you use words associated with humans to describe them - have you ever seen a horse in the parade ring that looks really confident or one that looks quite sad and depressed? I suppose it is how the horse looks, how it carries its head etc and if it looks unhappy that is another reason to avoid backing it.