They are forced into submission through a process of violence and psychological torture their abusers call “breaking”. They have also been selectively bred for docile traits.
Why do horses allow humans to ride on their backs?
Submitted 1 day ago by TheImpressiveX@lemmy.today to [deleted]
Comments
LuigiMaoFrance@lemmy.ml 2 hours ago
SleeplessCityLights@programming.dev 5 minutes ago
This is the best answer, closest to the truth.
lastlybutfirstly@lemmy.world 2 hours ago
My guess would be evolution. Those horses that let us ride them were fed well and cared for by humans and then mated with similar horses to make more and more of the same. Those that didn’t let us ride them had to fight for their own food and fight for their own mates and didn’t multiply as much. So we essentially happened upon a couple of horses that enjoyed hauling us around, told them to kiss each other, and we got more. Repeat and rinse for tens of thousands of year.
anon_8675309@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
Because when they tried to ride humans they would break them.
jerkface@lemmy.ca 7 hours ago
why do slaves allow humans to rape them and make more slaves
Bazoogle@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
Are you saying those slaves are basically animals? Or that horses are basically people? I’m assuming you’re more so going for the latter, which is still a wild idea. They are domesticated animals, not people.
With your logic, just think of all the enslaved cats and dogs being forced to live in homes with lots of pets and constantly be fed and loved. Does animal cruelty happen? Of course. But to suggest domesticated horses are being enslaved because people have ridden horses for 5,000 years is truly a wild take.
Doomsider@lemmy.world 1 hour ago
Yes, the enslaved animals who are inconsistently fed and ignored. All those dogs forced to live in apartments without any interaction the entire day while their slavers slave away as slaves themselves.
Just because a few people out there genuinely care and treat their pets correctly does not mean the rest are. This is why PETA exists.
Obviously you have some extremely thick rose colored glasses on.
Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works 21 hours ago
Tons of comments, but no answer from an actual horse.
smeenz@lemmy.nz 17 hours ago
As a horse, I would have replied, but everyone would just call me a neigh-sayer
hungryphrog@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 hours ago
I thought that only spiders were on the interwebs?
lemmy_outta_here@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
Because riding on their fronts is too intimate.
ameancow@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
Maybe for some people.
wabafee@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
👏👏👏
lath@piefed.social 1 day ago
They usually don’t and have to be “broken in”.
For those few that do so naturally, it’s more of a proto-symbiotic relationship where the rider helps provide food and safety, so they’re kept around as a pet or dumb kid. Also, if a predator wants to bite you, having something on your back to throw at them as a distraction can be pretty damn helpful.
Flauschige_Lemmata@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Breaking in is just how the process of fostering trust and getting the horse slowly used to a rider in many little steps is called.
TranquilTurbulence@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
The default setting in a horse’s mind is to not allow anything on its back. They will bite and kick you if you try. However, there is a clever way to change that setting, as ancient humans had discovered.
Horses are different from many other animals, such as zebras. Horses are clearly more malleable. That default setting can be changed if you’re skilled and patient enough. With zebras though, the setting to bite and kick is pretty much hard coded.
Some animals, such as camels and llamas can also be tamed and even ridden, but they will always know their position in the tier list of life i.e. way above all humans. They will tolerate humans up to a certain point, but once their patience runs out, the unfortunate human in their immediate vicinity will feel it in their skin. These animals are a bit like cats, but 10x more dangerous.
anton2492@lemmy.nz 23 hours ago
That explains why my Red Dead horses always buck me off. To give their carnivorous friends a treat while they gallop away. Sonofabitch Rockstar, you did it again
slazer2au@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Because we spent generations training and breeding them to allow us.
blockheadjt@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
Why do the proletariat allow the bourgeoisie to ride on their backs?
IWW4@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
It is called breaking them.
SlurpingPus@lemmy.world 1 day ago
TeamAssimilation@infosec.pub 1 day ago
TL;DR: Submission by cringe
BootLoop@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
How did you find a video of me with my cat??
RebekahWSD@lemmy.world 20 hours ago
Cat lives to tower over horses lmao
tpyo@lemmy.world 22 hours ago
Awww I loved that! The horse was weirded out but mostly ok. His body language was calm and he followed her when she walked away, which is a sign it respects you and sees you as someone to trust and follow
communism@lemmy.ml 1 day ago
They get trained. Think about humans for example. There’s lots of stuff we don’t think twice about doing that aren’t necessarily things we would naturally do; they’re taught to us socially and we get used to them as part of life. Horses were domesticated, firstly selectively bred to be friendlier to humans and faster, but secondly they still get trained to form a bond with humans and to do what humans want them to do. They get used to being ridden.
enbiousenvy@lemmy.blahaj.zone 17 hours ago
I used to watch this video two years ago, and a few other horse history video on that channel www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMHqp0M0T4Q
It’s a more approachable video for general audience so it may not be super scientific. But they included the source/papers in the description from proper academics.
Wild horses were originally not fit for riding. It is found that their bones would not be able to support to be ridden. But at the time, horses also started interacting with human & being domesticated as food & material sources.
But human do realize the power horses have. Human started developing chariots to be pulled by horses. The chariot technology spread around the north eurasian steppe to south in the south-west asia & egypt. But I cannot definitively say if the chariot techbology in egypt or persia came from north or it’s developed locally. I haven’t exactly find out about the relationship of both region when it comes to chariot technology.
During few thousand years later horses also slowly evolved physicaly to be able to be ridden. And so in later bronze age, nomadic steppe people emerges such as the Saka/Scythians, Xiongnu, etc.
My personal searching two years ago was definitely very focused on central asia/eurasian steppe region. So I cannot say much about the same stuff happening in south-west asia despite I know there are a lot going on in that area at the same time. But then after writing this and re-read the question, this doesn’t exactly answer why horses allow human to ride them 🤣🤣 I only say about how human changed horse.
ICastFist@programming.dev 10 hours ago
Horse evolution is an overlooked aspect that we ignore often. Think of them like dogs: today, there are several different breeds of varying sizes, some burlier, some sleeker. In the early stages of domestication, this variety wasn’t there, but with time and lots of selective (cross)breeding, we got to where we are today.
Belgian Drafts tend to be big, and this one was the absolute unit
AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
anon_8675309@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
That neck. Wow.
Ach@lemmy.world 17 hours ago
It’s a work of fiction, but I highly recommend Last of the Amazons by Stephen Pressfield. He does fantastic, heavily researched historical fictions with an abundance of resources at the end to reaearch the history he bases his plots off of.
It’s basically about Eurasian tribes who had horses central to their religious mythos and how they dealt with the Greeks. It’s fantastic.
enbiousenvy@lemmy.blahaj.zone 14 hours ago
Thank you for the recommendation! That does sound familiar. The Scythian is the people the Greeks called to what Persian people call Saka.
j_elgato@leminal.space 22 hours ago
Cows didn’t let us ride them, and look what we did to them… Look what we did to them!!!
ICastFist@programming.dev 10 hours ago
Yummy milkers
disregardable@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
We bred them to be amenable to it and we teach them to do it from the time they are babies.
Redditmodstouchgrass@lemmy.zip 2 hours ago
This. The other comments have been watching too many cowboy movies.
SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml 1 day ago
I wish horses had the gene dogs have that makes them good boys that love people
TheRealKuni@piefed.social 1 day ago
Horses are just bigger, dumber dogs.
Flauschige_Lemmata@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Usually we teach them from the time they are 3 years old. So basically when they are teens
gedaliyah@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Why do humans allow cats to ride in their arms?
dethedrus@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 hours ago
Because I’ve trained all of my cats to accept me carrying them around the house…
Oh fuck. They trained ME to be a cat taxi!
seathru@quokk.au 1 day ago
Toxoplasmosis
GreyEyedGhost@piefed.ca 23 hours ago
Best. Parasite. Ever.
guy@piefed.social 1 day ago
Because that fucker are not allowed on the kitchen bench
its_prolly_fine@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
The same reasons dogs work for us. They are domesticated animals, selective breeding for thousands of years. Then training, teach them when they are young to do complex tasks. They then enjoy the tasks because it makes us happy. Think of sled dogs, or seeing eye dogs. Not exactly a natural thing for them, but once they are trained they really enjoy it.
OshagHennessey@lemmy.world 18 hours ago
They don’t, they’ve been domesticated and trained to allow it.
tgirlschierke@lemmy.blahaj.zone 20 hours ago
the horse contains the spirit of the rider’s dead mom obviously
Sculptor9157@sh.itjust.works 18 hours ago
She maintains the desire to be ridden, even in the afterlife.
DoubleDongle@lemmy.world 18 hours ago
We have food
BenderRodriguez@lemmy.world 1 day ago
There’s the serious answers here, but it makes you think. What weight am I carrying that I could just toss off my back and run free?
LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Probably a 9-5 that mostly benefits some executives and shareholders rather than ourselves
My_IFAKs___gone@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Grail@multiverse.soulism.net 1 day ago
That guy is kind of annoying. I don’t like the way he defended the monarchy
My_IFAKs___gone@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
In which video or other engagement did he do that? And defended it from what? I’ve seen a few of his voting and representation videos and I thought those were good.
guy@piefed.social 1 day ago
Nowhere in this video was there a mention of monarchy?
olafurp@lemmy.world 2 hours ago
I’m pulling this from some random place in my head but horses have a strict hierarchy. There’s a head horse that runs first and people became the head horse. This is in stark contrast to zebras that don’t give a shit and cause chaos.
schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de 1 hour ago
The random place in your head is likely a CGP Grey video about animal domestication. 😁