Miscellaneous Monday

GLOSSARY OF HORSE TERMS

• Auction - A popular social gathering where you can change a horse from a financial liability into a liquid asset.
• Azorturia (Monday Morning Disease) - a condition brought on by showing horses all weekend. Symptoms include the feeling of dread at having to get out of bed on Mondays and go to work or school.
• Barn Sour - An affliction common to horse people in northern climates during the winter months. Trudging through deep snow, pushing wheelbarrows through snow and beating out frozen water buckets tend to bring on this condition rapidly.
• Big Name Trainer - Cult Leader: Horse owners follow them blindly, will gladly sell their homes, spend their children's college funds and their IRA's to support them- as they have a direct link to "The Most High Ones" (Judges).
• Bog Spavin - The feeling of panic when riding through marshy area. Also used to refer to horses who throw a fit at having to go through water puddles.
• Colic - The gastrointestinal result of eating at the food stands at horse shows.
• Colt - What your mare always gives you when you want a filly.
• Contracted foot - The involuntary/instant reflex of curling one's toes up - right before a horse steps on your foot.
• Corn - small callus growths formed from the continual wearing of cowboy boots.
• Endurance ride - The end result when your horse spooks and runs away with you in the woods.
• Equitation - The ability to keep a smile on your face and proper posture while your horse tries to crowhop, shy and buck his way around a show ring.
• Feed - Expensive substance utilized in the manufacture of large quantities of manure.
• Fences - Decorative perimeter structures built to give a horse something to chew on, scratch against and jump over (see inbreeding).
• Flies - The excuse of choice a horse uses so he can kick you, buck you off or knock you over - he cannot be punished.
• Founder - The discovery of your loose mare some miles from your farm, usually in a flower bed or cornfield. Used like: "Hey, honey, I found'er."
• Gallop - The customary gait a horse chooses when returning to the barn.
• Gates - Wooden or metal structures built to amuse horses.
• Green Broke - The color of the face of the person who has just gotten the training bill from the Big Name Trainer...
• Grooming - The fine art of brushing the dirt from one's horse and applying it to your own body.
• Hay - A green itchy material that collects between layers of clothing, especially in unmentionable places.
• Heaves - The act of unloading a truckful of hay.
• Hobbles - Describes the walking gait of a horse owner after his/her foot has been stepped on by his/her horse.
• Hock - The financial condition that a horse owner goes into.
• Inbreeding - The breeding results of broken/inadequate pasture fencing.
• Jumping - The characteristic movement that an equine makes when given a vaccine or has his hooves trimmed.
• Lameness - The condition of most riders after the first few rides each year; can be a chronic condition in weekend riders.
• Longeing - A training method a horse uses on its owner with the purpose of making the owner spin in circles-rendering the owner dizzy and light-headed so that they get sick and pass out, so the horse can go back to grazing.
• Manure spreader - Horse traders
• Mustang - The type of horse your husband would gladly trade your favorite one for...preferably in a red convertible and V-8.
• Overreaching - A descriptive term used to explain the condition your credit cards are in by the end of show season.
• Pinto - A colorful (usually green) coat pattern found on a freshly washed and sparkling clean horse that was left unattended in his stall for ten minutes.
• Proud Flesh - The external reproductive organs flaunted by a stallion (and some geldings) when a horse of any gender is present. Often displayed in halter classes.
• Quarter Cracks - The comments that most Arabian owners make about the people who own Quarter Horses.
• Quittor - A term trainers have commonly used to refer to their clients who come to their senses and pull horses out of their barns.
• Race - What your heart does when you see the vet bill.
• Reins - Break-away leather device used to tie horses with.
• Sacking out - A condition caused by Sleeping Sickness (see below). The state of deep sleep a mare owner will be in at the time a mare actually goes into labor and foals.
• Saddle - An expensive leather contraption manufactured to give the rider a false sense of security. Comes in many styles, all feature built-in ejector seats.
• Saddle Sore - The way the rider's bottom feels the morning after the weekend at the horse show.
• Sleeping Sickness - A disease peculiar to mare owners while waiting for their mares to foal. Caused by nights of lost sleep, symptoms include irritability, red baggy eyes and a zombie-like waking state. Can last several weeks.
• Splint - An apparatus that can be applied to various body parts of a rider due to the parting of the ways of a horse and his passenger.
• Stall - What your truck does on the way to a horse show, fifty miles from the closest town.
• Twisted Gut - The feeling deep inside that most riders get before their classes at a show.
• Versatility - an owner's ability to shovel manure, fix fences and chase down a loose horse in one afternoon.
• Weaving - The movement a horse trailer makes while going down the road with a rambunctious horse in it.
• Whip Marks - The tell-tale raised welts on the face of a rider-caused by the trail rider directly in front of you letting a low hanging branch go. (Also caused by a wet or dry horse-tail across the face while cleaning hooves)
• Windpuffs - Stallion owners. Also applied to used car salesmen.
• Withers - The reason you'll seldom see a man riding bareback.
• Yearling - the age at which all horses completely forget the things you taught them previously.
• Youngstock - A general term used for all equines old enough to bite, kick or run you over, but not yet old enough to dump you on the ground.
• Zoo - The typical atmosphere around most horse farms.