Not Quite What It Sounds Like

March 7, 2005 10:02 AM

Horseballs! (SFW) (Quicktime)
posted by Swampjazz! (24 comments total)

It a child's Hippity Hop Ball.
posted by thomcatspike at 10:06 AM on March 7, 2005

REALLY sfw. And oddly satisfying.
posted by gingembre at 10:11 AM on March 7, 2005

That was oddly satisfying...
posted by buriednexttoyou at 10:16 AM on March 7, 2005

Won't anyone think of the balls?!
posted by gwint at 10:18 AM on March 7, 2005

That's great! It never occured to me that a horse would be as playful as the ordinary house pet given something to "kick around".

Definitely oddly satisfying.
posted by Qubit at 10:25 AM on March 7, 2005

Windsucking. For anyone who heard it and went, "Huh?"
posted by GeekAnimator at 10:26 AM on March 7, 2005

That was great! Thanks Swampjazz!
posted by petebest at 10:41 AM on March 7, 2005

My sister did a lot of work with horses. She says they have a sense of humor.
posted by StickyCarpet at 10:42 AM on March 7, 2005

Um. Looks to real to be fake.
And too fake to be real.
posted by psychotic_venom at 10:45 AM on March 7, 2005

"There's a major benefit to Horseball. They help cut down on boredom..."

Hey, not just for the horse; I was mesmerized.
posted by bachelor#3 at 11:08 AM on March 7, 2005

GeekAnimator, thanks for the link. I did go, "Huh?"
posted by Crackerbelly at 11:09 AM on March 7, 2005

I first saw this site in 1999 and then soon after at a party, while drunkenly passing on the find to someone else, the idea to register "sweatyhorseballs.com" came up. So of course the next day I did. (technically the idea was to make it a mailing-list/discussion board of parties to crash since the party I was at was one I had inadvertently crashed as had the person I was talking to)

I owned that domain for about 3 years before finally letting it expire.

I used to get about one call a month from people who wanted to help me build content for the site, and I think before I got better about blocking spam I probably had 100 emails from people who wanted me to buy other horse-themed domain names from them.
I would always respond to them as if I were offended that their horse domain names in no way were sexual and then reprimand them for wasting my time.

I still own a variety of random/weird domain names and occasionally amusing things come up because of them - but none were as great in terms of having conversations with people trying to sell me things with a straight face.

Maybe I should get that domain name back.
posted by MrFancypants at 11:11 AM on March 7, 2005

If any of you guys are bored, I have a couple of sweaty horse balls you can play with.
posted by berek at 11:28 AM on March 7, 2005

Our horse had one of these and went absolutely apeshit playing with it all the time. Then one day he broke his leg and we had to shoot him. But he loved that ball.
posted by Ron at 11:56 AM on March 7, 2005

Was he good eating?
posted by five fresh fish at 1:05 PM on March 7, 2005

Ooh, cute!
posted by carter at 1:34 PM on March 7, 2005

Get it off my nose! Get it off!
posted by gottabefunky at 2:19 PM on March 7, 2005

My mom's horses have one of these, except theirs now has two handles instead of one thanks to one too many games of tug-of-war with it.

And Sticky Carpet -- Your sister's right. Horses do have a great sense of humor. Unfortunately for us, Mom's horses seem to think pranks are comedy gold.
posted by aine42 at 3:12 PM on March 7, 2005

That's great! It never occured to me that a horse would be as playful as the ordinary house pet given something to "kick around".

Growing up in the big city, my only exposure to horses was through television and books; consequently, I always thought of horses as a work animal with no sense of humor or play.

Then, as a teenager, a girlfriend took me to a stable to go riding. When we arrived, there were a group of children (5-12) sitting on the fence, and a beautiful white/tan horse with a long mane standing across the field from them, staring at them.

As we watched, the horse lowered its head and pawed the ground, as if it were angry and going to attack. Suddenly, it made a beeline straight for the kids on the fence. I flinched, but the kids just waited. The horse ran right up to the fence, and at the last second, veered away.

The kids erupted in laughter, and the horse rolled onto the ground and started rolling around on its back in the dirt, just like an itchy dog. After a bit of this, the horse got back up, trotted across the field, faced the children, and did the exact same thing again.

I was delighted; since then, I've kept an open mind about animals and their sense of fun, and witnessed many moments of play that I might otherwise have overlooked or misunderstood.

Then one day he broke his leg and we had to shoot him. But he loved that ball.

Sorry to hear that. Did he break his leg while "going apeshit with the ball", or was that unrelated? I'm just curious, because I know when my dogs are playing with rawhide, they run into walls and do lots of other stupid stuff they wouldn't normally do, and I'm amazed they don't injure themselves more often.
posted by davejay at 5:01 PM on March 7, 2005

Well, my horse Christmas shopping's done!
posted by obloquy at 6:15 PM on March 7, 2005

Yeah, that was the cutest thing I saw all day. Those horses looked so happy.
posted by dammitjim at 6:37 PM on March 7, 2005

"Maybe now they'll leave their water and feed buckets for what they were intended — water and feed!"

This is really a great link. Seeing those horses so happy made me happy.
posted by rafter at 6:42 PM on March 7, 2005

I wonder what it is about flinging teh ball around that appeals to the horses. Do they do anything like that in the wild? How would that behavior come to be evolutionarily advantageous?
posted by orthogonality at 8:37 PM on March 7, 2005

Direct video link for those of us with uncooperative browsers.

We have smaller versions of these to teach the dogs to bring things to a person on a horse...never thought it would work *for* the horse. Cheers for the great link!
posted by gren at 7:31 AM on March 9, 2005