Author Archives: Rebecca Berry

Horses’ teeth have always confused me. There is no definitive tooth count, many of the teeth have strange names, some have no discernible purpose and one type is untrustworthy. So,...

I work at an animal shelter a few days a week and the other day one of the cats came back from the vet after he’d been neutered. I’m aware...

I saw a mural the other day and I’m not going to lie it was a poor rendition of what I can only assume the artist thought was the essence...

I know I keep banging on about horse-related expressions and words that have made their way into everyday language, but it fascinates me. I had a list of words I...

Since horse racing has been around for hundreds of years it makes sense that many of the expressions we use in our day-to-day life stem from the racehorse world. I’ve...

Saturday, May 6, 2023, was a big TV day for horse lovers, royalists, race enthusiasts and eventers. With Badminton Horse Trials, the Kentucky Derby and a King being crowned, the...

“The lady doth protest too much methinks.” A life lesson from Hamlet that I realize has nothing whatsoever to do with horses. But it’s a brilliant way to ascertain if...

Never in a million years would I have thought I would voluntarily take on a Shakespeare quote to decode. Yet here I am, several decades from the perils of high school...

This week I’ll do away with discussing my higgledy-piggledy process of how these posts are created and focus, instead, on this setoning business I discovered last week. The word seton...

Last week I wrote about the hocks and subsequent ailments thereof. Whilst researching the words I came across a passage from Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew in which he lists...

Some of the names given to common blemishes and limb ailments our horses acquire due to wear and tear, conformation faults and/or hereditary misfortune are odd, as is everything in...

I became familiar with the crupper when I was five because my fiendish pony Winsome needed one. She also required side reins as I lacked the necessary power to prevent...

There are a lot of crazy horse names in this world and racehorses, for some reason, seem to have a monopoly on some of the strangest. There is a good...

Why do donkeys have such big ears? The answer is painfully simple, and I suppose had I put any thought into it prior to beginning my research I might have...

When you come across a bit with a strange name it isn’t surprising to learn that it’s likely the surname of its creator. The interesting part is discovering the mastermind...

Sometimes in our riding career, we elevate to the point where we’re required to wear a tailcoat. It’s a rarely worn riding jacket but when we get the chance to...

Bucephalus was Alexander the Great’s favourite horse, and apparently, according to many, one of the most famous horses in history. His story, surprisingly, is similar in nature to most horse...

It was suggested to me the other day that I look into the names of certain bits, and I wondered how the thought had escaped me for so long. The...

My plan was to give a brief explanation as to how the word mare got tangled up with the word night to bring us the unpleasant experience of a nightmare....

It isn’t surprising that the cars we see on the roads today are descendants of horse-drawn carriages. Nor is it surprising that parts of carriages found their way into the...