What's in a word?

The equine world is rich with specialist vocabulary. Book author Adam Jacot de Boinod picks out some intriguing examples that would raise an eyebrow in modern times

WITH EQUINE ENTHUSIASTS scattered across the globe it comes as little surprise that the equine world has acquired such an extensive vernacular. As a proverb from 1662 says: “Let him that would be happy for a day go to the barber; for a week marry a wife; for a month, buy him a new horse.” It’s certainly true that horses play a vital part in our wellbeing — it’s even said that the Queen prefers them to humans. As the following shows, the horse world uses precise terminology. Bracketed dates indicate when the words were coined.

Fossple (Cumberland dialect 1783)

— the impression of a horse’s hoof upon soft ground

Trizzling (Devon dialect)

— the slow,

lazy trot of horses

Skewboglish (Lincolnshire dialect)

— of a horse: apt to shy

Reeaster (Yorkshire dialect)

— a horse making less effort than the others in a team

Craner (c1860)

— a horse who hesitates at a difficult jump

The English language has never been shy of borrowing words when it needs to. Formal equestrian terms in our language derive exclusively from French. For example:

Estrapade (1736)

— a horse’s attempt to dump his rider

Caracole (1835)

— a half turn by a trained horse in dressage and once used by the military to integrate gunpowder weapons into cavalry tactics

Croupade (1849)

— a classical dressage movement in which the horse throws its hind legs high in the air. Similar to a hefty buck, but done on command and used by the Spanish Riding School, among others

Ballotade (1751)

— a kind of jump in which a horse bends all four legs without kicking out the hind ones

A hoof print in the sand

Y M A L A / K C O T S H C I R : O T O H P The K ing’s Troop. I n t he 1 800s, the m ilitary u sed a c aracole on horseback to utilise cannons