Equine fiction is probably one of the most loved genres in the literary world. Novels upon novels tell of brave riders and their steeds, or perhaps the steeds tell the story themselves.
But writing equine characters is a bit of an art and a science itself. Often a reader can feel disillusioned by a portrayal of a “movie style” horse, a horse that acts against its instinct and can feel more anthropomorphic.
As a writer who has chosen the equine fiction genre as my niche, here are five tips to help you bring your equine characters come to life—even if the horse isn’t the main character.
Tip #1: Use the Senses
This delves a little bit into the “show, not tell” rule famous among writers. Equine senses are used differently than ours. Humans are mainly sight and sound-based in our senses, but the eye of a horse, though the largest of any land mammal, is used less than their other senses. Having only two cone cells needed for color vision, a horse’s world is mainly gray. Due to the structure of the eye, horses see the world as a middle clear streak, and then a pair of fuzzy bars on the top and bottom.
Horses rely a lot more on touch and hearing than sight. A horse’s ear has ten muscles, and this flexibility allows for a large range of sound and body language to be conveyed and processed. Horses also use a large range of vocal sounds, though not as much as body language. Horse’s can hear ranges of up to 25 kHz—interestingly, humans can hear lower sounds (like a heartbeat) than horses can, but horses can hear higher sounds than humans (like a dog whistle).
Scent is important, but it’s at the same level as sight, maybe slightly lower. Horses use smells to identify water sources, friends, mares in heat (for stallions), edible plants, and the owners of certain piles of manure they may come across. Scent is also an important part of the bonding process; a mare sniffs her newborn foal to memorize the scent, so that she knows that this small creature is hers. Often if an owner wants a mare to take on a foster foal, it will coat the foal in a strong smelling substance, and then put the same substance on the mare’s nose, making everything smell the same. A foal that doesn’t smell like hers will be shoved away, or possibly kicked.
Horses say hello by blowing into each other’s noses and identifying the scent. I tried this with our neighbor’s yearling, Slick, and she lifted her lip in a Flehmen response. There’s a special organ in a horse’s nose called the Jacobsen’s Organ. When a stallion comes across a mare, a horse smells a manure pile, or another horse or humans blow into their nose, a horse lifts its lip to carry the scent to that organ, which more closely identifies the scent. In my case, even though this wasn’t the first time I had met Slick, and not the first time I blew into her nose, I was wearing different clothes than she was used to seeing me in, and I had a hat on, so she was trying to make sure that it was still me and not another strange human.
Word of caution should you decide to try this for your own—some horses, especially young ones, are very mouthy, and blowing into a horse’s nose to say hello requires your face being near those teeth. I had a horse’s incisors graze my cheek when I tried to say “hello” to a gelding with little ground manners. Be sure that you know the horse fairly well before you try this on your own. Or you could use such a scene for one of your characters and let them figure it out!
Touch is perhaps one of the most important senses of all for a horse, next to hearing. Mutual grooming between two horses, or a human with a curry comb, strengthens the bond between them. Often you can find two herdmates standing nose to tail, scratching each other on the back with their teeth. Some horses if you scratch them in the right spot, will even try to scratch you in the same way! Just be careful, because a horse’s skin is a lot thicker than ours, and a horse won’t know that “scratching” you is actually hurting you. A scene from a novel that comes to mind when I think about this is from Jessie Haas’s novel Rescue, where Jodi takes her friend Chess out to see her pony Archie. Chess scratches Archie and he starts wiggling his lips on her shoulder, and despite Jodi’s warning, Chess does get bitten by Archie, who was just trying to scratch his new friend.
Using these senses more prominently—and perhaps including some of the mishaps above—will make your equine characters more realistic and less like a “movie horse”.
Tip #2: Body Language is Key
While horses have a wide range of vocal sounds, they actually use them far less than movie makers portray. At my barn, the most common sounds I hear from the horses are snorts and nickers—even these are few and far in between. Horses communicate more through body language than anything else.
If your main character chances upon a horse, describing the body language of the horse will be more realistic than saying the horse used a vocal sound. Nickering is reserved for close friends and peers, humans and horses alike, and snorting is most often used to clean out the nose. Squeals, screams, and whinnies that you hear on movies and TV are reserved for certain situations, such as pain, fear, or communicating with friends in a faraway pasture.
What emotions is the horse trying to communicate? A relaxed horse will have an ear forward and an ear back. An eye may be closed, the tail will be relaxed, and if the horse is truly comfortable, they will even cock a back hoof. Horses rely on their feet to escape danger, so a relaxed horse is much more likely to take a leisurely roll in a grassy field than a flighty, nervous horse.
Is the horse angry or afraid? Both emotions are portrayed in different ways. An angry horse will pin his ears back, and the whites of his eyes will show (that being said, some horses and horse breeds show the whites of their eyes (sclera) even when they’re not angry. Appaloosas, POAs, Knabstruppers and many other spotted breeds naturally show the sclera more. My lesson horse, Tuffy, is a Quarter Horse but often shows the whites of his eyes even when I’m just brushing him, even though the rest of his body language isn’t angry). His tail might be clamped down, or it might be switching from side to side. He might strike out with a front hoof, like a warning, bare his teeth and snake his head (wild stallions often do this to herd mares and foals) or turn and move his haunches toward the thing he is facing. A horse with his haunches toward you is a dangerous situation—it means he wants to kick. Unless you want your character to be maimed or killed, get them out of that situation quickly!
Fearful horses have all hooves on the ground. They don’t want to take a chance of being caught off guard and then getting hurt. Ears will be pricked toward the danger, muscles tensed, and the head high in the air to get the best possible look at what it is. Then, depending on the “danger”, they may either flee (most realistic), or fight (usually only a stallion protecting his herd, a horse that feels trapped and has no other option, or a mare protecting her foal). Should they deem the object as not an immediate danger, they will get closer for a sniff test. If they are fearful of a bullying herd member, they will lick their lips in a submissive gesture, basically saying “you’re the boss”.
If your horse character is in good spirits and wants to play, there will probably be a gleam of mischief in their eye, and they might prance around. Once I raced a horse along a fence line and she gave a playful buck. They might toss their head, raise their tail, or paw the ground, kind of in an anxious “come play with me!” movement. The ears will be pricked, and the nostrils wide.
Tip 3#: Small Details are Key!
Some of the best equine fiction that I have read has two things: horses with personality, and horsey scenes with small details that horsey people can relate to! Even if you’ve never touched a horse in your life, you can still incorporate those small details to make the characters really come to life.
Horses step on feet at wrong times (strong boots are a must; your character can’t wear sneakers and not break a toe when a horse steps on him or her). They pluck halters off of hooks with those insanely dexterous lips. One horse at my lesson barn has a bad habit of cribbing, where he puts his teeth on a rail or edge of a water bucket and gulps air. Another bites any horse who gets too close on a trail ride, and there’s a retired roper named Socks who always seems overly hyper. The old schooling horse, Flash, is thirty and makes several “I’m an old man” coughs while he reluctantly trots. There’s a piebald gelding who likes to pee on the rubber mats in the barn. Little details like these bring character and shade in the things that make your equine characters tick.
Tip 4#: Personality
This goes into what I mentioned above. Horses, like humans, each have their own distinct personality. Part of their personality goes into their breeding. Is your horse character a strong Clydesdale? Then he’ll probably be a mellow, easy-going horse, who lets small children lay on his back as he grazes and is all around a pretty cool cucumber. If the horse is a wiry Thoroughbred, you’ll probably have to make him a little more jumpy, spooky, and a bit more on edge. That being said, not all horses confine to breed stereotypes, so neither should your horse characters! Make a Clydesdale who bounces off the walls at inopportune times, or a Thoroughbred who is used as a child’s therapy horse. There are all sorts of horse personalities in the world, so don’t be afraid to make yours unique, or just another stereotype.
One of my favorite equine characters, Ace, from the book series The Phantom Stallion, is a mustang with serious wild horse pride and attitude. The author, Terri Farley, describes him as “if a horse could put his hands on his hips and ask, “And what do you want?”, that would be Ace.”
Tip 5#: Research
The best thing you can do to strengthen your equine characters is research. Research the breed you want them to be, and get a feel for what coat colors would be standard for it. Very rarely will you find a spotted Akhal-Teke, or a pinto Friesian. Using reference pictures for a breed will give you a guide on how to describe the horse.
Also, read other horse books with strong equine characters! Some really great books to start with would be The Phantom Stallion series, Misty of Chincoteague, Black Beauty (entirely told from a horse’s perspective), and the Horse Diaries series. Cherry Hill’s nonfiction book, How to Think Like a Horse, is an excellent resource for equine behavior.
If you can, spend some time watching a horse at pasture. Note how they go about their routine and interact with each other. If you can’t do this, then another good option might be to watch a documentary about wild horses on silent, just noting the interactions and movement of the horses and thinking about how you can integrate that into your writing.
Conclusions
Strong equine characters are a must in any equine fiction novel. Horses like Black Beauty, Ace, and Misty are remembered because they were characters in themselves, not just a horsey side show. By following these tips, I hope that you have strengthened your equine characters and are well on your way to adding the equine character in your novel to the list of the Greats of Equines Fiction.