Horsewatching

Book excerpt: How intelligent are horses? Why do they toss their heads and what makes them paw the ground? After spending more than twenty years studying the body language of the human species, Desmond Morris turned his attention to the behavior of some of our closest animal companions. First he looked at dogs, then cats, and in this book, horses. As Curator of Mammals at the London Zoo, he was able to study closely the zebras and wild horse in his charge. And as a racehorse owner, he scrutinized the glamorous world of Thoroughbred racing. Throughout his long involvement with horses, Desmond Morris has never stopped asking questions. In Horsewatching, first published in 1988, he set out to answer them. As a zoologist and a lifelong student of animal behavior, he approaches the horse world in an unusual way, dealing with topics often ignored in equine literature. In addition to examining details of behavior, Dr Morris considers such questions as why horseshoes bring good luck, why we don’t eat horses, why jockeys are allowed to whip their mounts and why we call a bad dream a nightmare. And for punters everywhere, he applies his zoological mind to the all-important question of why some horses run faster than others.