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Re: [RC] Scratches - Maryanne Stroud GabbaniI've moved a number of horses from various parts of Egypt to the desert edge by Cairo and Abu Sir. I find that the horses are about as good at learning directions and where they are as people are. This is in terms of information acquisition. Some of them learn really quickly how the hills and wadis in the desert work and where the farm trails go. Once they learn it, they know it. Finished. But until they learn it, sometimes I get some funny comments from the partner with the extra legs regarding MY sense of direction. I found that my gelding, Bunduq, who never really got a chance to develop his sense of direction while living in a schooling stable inside a high walled compound, took longer to learn his way around the desert than some of the others, and at the same time, he was much more obnoxious in his insistence that I was going to get us lost. Or, sometimes, that I already had gotten us lost. This from the horse that thought camels were so interesting that he followed four of them for almost 15 km and then didn't have a clue where he was.Once in a while you run into a horse with a rotten sense of direction, but they are rare. There was one mare at a nearby stable that used to crack us all up every time we rode in the desert. Chantal would pick a set of mango trees and be adamant that the path to the road was THERE...ignoring the fact that there were about 25 mango groves along the desert. She wouldn't have lasted long in the wild. Dory, who's lived in the Abu Sir area for about 10 years now, knows with every turn whether we are pointed home (you can tell by the RPM's) and not too long ago decided to go home by herself from a neighbouring farm, leaving me to call a friend to pick me and her tack up with the car, That one could be trusted to get you home in the dark if you were sleeping. Maryanne Cairo where the homing horses live On Thursday, February 5, 2004, at 05:04 PM, Elkenchild@xxxxxxx wrote: Yes, I was just wondering (and maybe I'll post this to ridecamp, because I know the group will know), when we are in the middle of our lovely trail wandering, how good is my horse's sense of direction? If I ride her in a loop over the hills, will she still realize we're heading home if we come down the other side of the ridge? I bet she does! Need to check it out. Other observations on horses' sense of direction?
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