The Body Language of Horses: Revealing the Nature of Equine Needs, Wishes, and Emotions and How Horses Communicate Them--For Owners, Breeders, Trainers Hardcover – 1 May 1980

Great book, well worth the money. Very imfomative with all its useful info telling you things about horses n body langauge. even had a tear in my eye in the middle of the book when explaining about a boy that wanted to become a jockey that was very young and very inexperainced, bascially they got an ex racehorse, they used a bit that was so bad on the horses mouth the horse bucked nnd rivotted around and came down on the youngs boys (15) shoulders, the father then stabbed the horse in the chest. it then goes on to explain how this bonnie lady took the horse off there hands and worked with it for weeks and weeks, then after a couple of months of working n just sitting there everyday outrside the stalls talkiing gently to the horse she then gained its respect after that she could go up close n personal with that ex racehjorse but it never ever trusted another man nor would it let any man anywhere near it. very very good book to read up on the behaviour of horses and why they behave like this. under no circumstances should anyone hit nor be abusive towards horses as they never forget.

Introduction and a basic description of paddock watching pointers

Excellent condition and was far better than stated.

I can't review this book personally as I bought it for my daughter. She was very impressed with the book

geat read

I was rather disappointed with this book for several reasons. First and foremost, the bulk of the book does not, as the title would have us believe, focus on the body language of horses. A couple of chapters devote themselves to brief descriptions of horse behavior under different circumstances (when happy, angry, frightened, bored, tired, hot, cold, hungry, thirsty, etc.), but the largest sections of the book concern curing problem horses and training foals. At the end there is a chapter on observing the body language of racehorses in order to pick winners, and two appendices on how to buy a horse.Not only does the book stray from it's purported topic, but the information that IS given about equine body language is so basic and obvious that any true horseperson would already know it, and any aspiring horseperson could learn it all in a matter of a few weeks spent around the creatures. Of course a nervous horse will work up a sweat, a bored horse will get mouthy, and a horse that is irritated by a fly will swish its tail and twitch its skin. There are really only two forseeable uses, in my mind, for this book. The first is as a reference for those who know next to nothing about horses and wish to learn. The second, a slightly different version of the first, is as a guide to non-equestrian racegoers in order to pick winning horses on which to place their bets (and this is not surefire or guaranteed in any way, since pre-race behavior is only one of many factors that determines the outcome of a race).The book is also considerably old, and a bit dated. It was written and first published in 1980, more than two decades ago. While the basic behavior of horses hasn't changed in that time, much else in the horse world has, including attitudes toward the care and training of horses. There are now many more effecting training methods than those presented here, and one passage in the book even alarmed me. Though they pronounce it a "dubious last resort," the authors nevertheless included the following method for "[teaching] manners to a resistant horse":". . . dramatic effects are obtained by striking the animal over the poll bone with a fragile wine bottle filled with a slush of sand and warm water. When the bottle breaks and the warm, moist substance dribbles down its head, the savage horse becomes a trembling wreck. A gestured threat to repeat the treatment is usually enough to terminate subsequent misbehavior" (pg. 49).While this is the only place in the book where the authors propose such blatantly inappropriate methods, I nevertheless cannot give a vote of confidence to anyone that would condone striking an animal with a wine bottle to elicit compliance. In addition, the authors make a great many generalizations about equine behavior and do not allow much leeway for differences in personality. As any person who spends much time around horses knows, one can be vastly different from the next. I said earlier that this book had two conceivable uses, but even for those I would not recommend purchasing this book. There are other books out there on the behavior and training of horses that are more current, more accurate, and more effective.