A HORSE'S WORLD

Better understanding a “titanic beast.”

The horse has been humanity’s ally in transportation, farming, war, and peace for more than 4,000 years. The intimate relationship is unusual, as the horse evolved to have a very different experience of life to our own. Horses can hit speeds of 55 miles per hour. They can detect scents as well as a dog. They can recognize a person after more than two decades. And weighing well more than a half-ton, an adult horse’s sheer size makes them perilous partners. The human-horse collaboration is so extraordinary because we come from predator ancestors while horses descend from prey. Their instinct is to avoid and fear us—and virtually everything else. Jones, a neuroscientist and longtime horse trainer, quotes an old adage: “Horses are scared by 1) things that move, and 2) things that don’t move.” Yet, about 2200 B.C.E., human began learning how to figuratively and then literally harness these megafauna. Now, with an ever-expanding knowledge of the horse brain and the animal’s behavior, Jones explains how our seemingly antagonistic minds can both be trained to work in unison. “With years of daily training,” Jones writes, “horse-and-human teams can form what has been hailed as the ‘neurobiological miracle’ of direct brain-to-brain communication. We are the only cross-species pair known to share neural activation between brains in real time.” That’s according to EEG studies, with the horses doing most of the brain-wave moderation. The human rider benefits from the horse’s 340-degree horizontal visual field. The horse gains the human’s far-better depth perception. This simple example illustrates Jones’ point that “this conjoined mind operates well not because the two brains are similar to each other, but because they are so different.…It is a partnership like no other.”

A deep and delightful exploration of the magnificent animal that has helped make our civilization possible.