I taught two of my horses to “bow” and one of them to fake being a ‘gaited’ horse.
It drove my dad crazy because he’d take the ‘gaited’ one out to show off to his buddies and the horse wouldn’t perform for him.
They also knew how to “nod yes and no” when asked questions.
That's pretty good. They can be like big dogs, intelligence-wise, and not without individual personality, including mental strengths, weakness, preferences, etc.
There was a famous horse years ago, who was said to be able to do mathematical calculations. As it turned out later, by best explanations for (or around?) the idea of the horse in actuality being able to add, subtract, and I think do simple multiplication and division, it was determined that the horse was just so keyed into visual clues, possibly including facial expression, along with body-language of humans which would tip him off to keep stomping with one of his hooves until he arrived at the right number.
It's said that some warhorses would get excited at the sound of gunfire...and want to go to it, and fight. For horses know when they can intimidate, some enjoy it.
I knew of a gelding who after having been put into the same pasture with a few mares (and getting his regularly kicked) that once he figured out that he (along with a rider) could pick on bovines, just loved it. Ok,ok, ok, hurry up with that saddle, let's GO. lol.
Many years ago, there was a very famous Krautisch horse who could do sums ...
His owner would ask him, "Hans, what is three plus four"? And Hans would clop his hoof, once, twice ... while carefully watching his owner ... six, seven, and stop! Hans having observed his owner's eyebrow moving ever so little.
Of course, if Hans couldn't see his owner's face, his accuracy tanked.
Clever Hans was known the world over, LOL!
LOL that’s awesome!