In general, exercise in horses is the same thing as in humans - we can carry weights, even uncomfortably large weights, and as long as we’re not doing that all the time our bodies will not suffer unduely. Some of us flat shouldn’t do that, some of us absolutely live for that (hikers, runners, gym nerds, Belgians)…
Who hurt this person, besides the entire populace of Belgium, apparently?
“Belgian” the breed of draught horses, I suppose that was a bit unclear. They’re the only genre of horse I nominally get along with - in temperament they are extremely large, on the whole they are quite calmly amiable and they just enjoy doing their job in a way that I always found very reassuring as a child.
Also made the very wise decision, as a group, to not mind the cold - which is good, because if the damn things decide they don’t want to do something (like go outside for walkies) there is no power in heaven or earth that can convince them to do it. “Obstinate” does not even begin to describe them.
… the counterpoint to that is, if they do decide to do something (like, say, go into the next meadow because it looks softer or they heard a rumor there might be girls or they got the vaguest notion that you don’t want them to go over there) you cannot prevent it. Growing up we had electric fences to keep the coyotes out of various places (wouldn’t kill, but it would ruin several hours of your day if you leaned on one ask me how I know) and a Belgain will casually stroll through them legitimately without noticing.
Tethers? snapped. Fences? Get fucked, find me a post that can withstand two tons of casual and completely innocent leaning for more than a minute. Ditch? All Terrain Legs. Property lines? Extremely conveniently they are Too Stupid To Understand. This gets doubly frustrating when you are the one to have to go out and splice the fences back together because Daisy saw some hitherto unmolested patch of dirt that sung out to them to be defiled with horse poop and stomping.
Who hurt this person, besides the entire populace of Belgium, apparently?
“Belgian” the breed of draught horses, I suppose that was a bit unclear. They’re the only genre of horse I nominally get along with - in temperament they are extremely large, on the whole they are quite calmly amiable and they just enjoy doing their job in a way that I always found very reassuring as a child.
Also made the very wise decision, as a group, to not mind the cold - which is good, because if the damn things decide they don’t want to do something (like go outside for walkies) there is no power in heaven or earth that can convince them to do it. “Obstinate” does not even begin to describe them.
… the counterpoint to that is, if they do decide to do something (like, say, go into the next meadow because it looks softer or they heard a rumor there might be girls or they got the vaguest notion that you don’t want them to go over there) you cannot prevent it. Growing up we had electric fences to keep the coyotes out of various places (wouldn’t kill, but it would ruin several hours of your day if you leaned on one ask me how I know) and a Belgain will casually stroll through them legitimately without noticing.
Tethers? snapped. Fences? Get fucked, find me a post that can withstand two tons of casual and completely innocent leaning for more than a minute. Ditch? All Terrain Legs. Property lines? Extremely conveniently they are Too Stupid To Understand. This gets doubly frustrating when you are the one to have to go out and splice the fences back together because Daisy saw some hitherto unmolested patch of dirt that sung out to them to be defiled with horse poop and stomping.
I see
Belgians live for excercise? That sounds more like a compliment to me.