actually, they're reasonably bright, which surprised me, since i had always thought horses were pretty dead in the head. i've learned a great deal in the past year, working with ye trainer and his wife (who is PHENOMENAL when it comes to training horses, and teaching their owners how to ride them) and have come to understand a lot about how horses think and how they respond. they are always watching you - a whole lot closer than you're watching them. when you see a horse twitching his ears around, he's not doing it because he's bored. he's watching your eyes, your body motions, everything. and he's responding to them. it takes a while to really see what a horse is doing. and yes, they do love to run. in training a race horse, you have to allow the bones to grow before you let him run as hard and as fast as he would like to. you can't hurry bone growth. but Pushy really is accident prone.
We lived across the street from the race track when we were growing up, so we spent a lot of time with the horses. As a result, I learned a lot of rather arcane things about them that, while they won't make me rich, are fun for trivia freaks...(like me!)
ownded