The Eyes Of A Horse

It is said that our eyes are the windows to our soul. I believe that is also true of a horse's eyes. We can often tell a lot about what's going on with Morgunn and Gletta just by seeing their eyes. We also get clues from their ears, tails and body posture, but the eyes tell us a lot.

It is interesting to study how God made eyes for the horse. Here are a few things that I have learned.

Almost 360 degree vision - Horses' eyes are placed on the side of their heads rather than together on their face like our eyes. This means that they can see almost everything that is going on around them. Their only blind spots are directly in front of their noses and directly behind their tails for up to about 6 feet. That's why you don't want to approach a horse directly from the front or directly from the rear - they can't see you. When kids come up to horses they love to reach to the horses' nose to pet him or her. Often the horse will shy away and that's just because they couldn't see the hand it touched him or her and it's often a surprise.

They see most things with only one eye at a time - They have monocular vision instead of binocular vision like we have. They see most things with only one eye at a time. That's why a horse may spook at something on one side and then spook again when it's on his left side. He's seeing it again 'for the first time' with the other eye. This also explains why we have to train horses from both sides. You can train a horse to do something from one side and then when you walk around to the other side it's like he has no idea what you want. He has to be trained on that side with that eye as well as the other.

He has only two ways to bring things into focus - The horse can change the shape of his eye with tiny eye muscles, but the most common thing a horse will do is to move his head to see something better. When he sees something far away he will raise his head and perhaps turn his head slightly to bring one eye to bear. When he wants to concentrate on something close he will lower his head. That's why our horses will raise and lower their heads when they first see something for the first time. He will raise his head to focus on something initially and lower it as he approaches it. It's important for us to allow him to do this so he will feel comfortable with what he is seeing.

He has the largest eyeball of any land mammal - This large eyeball allows him to magnify things and see them 50 percent larger than we do. This helps his distant vision and that's why he can see things long before we do (as well as hear and smell). It also explains why horses have such good vision at night. A horse's vision is even better than a cat's night time vision.

Most of all, I love the eyes of our horses. Except when they are fearful, their eyes are usually soft and show an impressive depth of awareness to everything going on around them.

"A dog looks up to a man.
A cat looks down on a man.
A horse looks a man in the eye and sees an equal."
--Anonymous

Today is June 10 and if today is your Birthday then you share your day with: Tara Lapinski (Olympic gold medal ice skater), Elizabeth Hurley (actress - "Austin Powers"), John Edwards (former Senator and perennial presidential candidate), F. Lee Bailey (attorney), Maurice Sendak (children's book author - "Where The Wild Things Are"), Judy Garland (actress/singer - "Wizard of Oz"), Bobby Jindall (Governor of Louisiana), and Hattie McDaniel (actress - 1st Black to win an Oscar for "Gone With The Wind").


PS: There's a post on today's Galloping Grace Youth Ranch blog that everyone should read to help you better understand the grace of God.