Telling horses apart

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flirtygerty

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Anyone else have trouble telling their horses apart from a distance.
I have four horses, two are distinctive, being a coloured cob and a trotter x with white legs, the other two are both dark bays, a WB mare and a TB gelding, just tonight, watching them in the field I had to ask my OH is that Shadow or Pippin, whoever it was is slightly lame in trot, my guess is Pippin who has arthritis, time to bring them in for a trot up and book an appointment with specsavers
 
A new flea bitten grey horse of a similar build to mine joined to herd at the yard... I started walking over to catch them before seeing my horse looking at me very puzzled... :)
 
We have two nearly identical Welsh Ds. Both chestnut mares, both four whites, both wide blazes. One is bigger than the other but that isn't easy to see from a distance!
 
Yes! But only from the other side of the field.
Now they've both got their summer coats, Ned and his friend are the exact same colour and I have started to walk towards the wrong one!
 
We have two black WBs on our yard with almost identical markings. Standing together you can tell them apart as one is bigger and his white socks and stripe are a bit bigger but from a distance it is really difficult. To make matters worse they have the same rug in winter! Mine is bay with no white so can also be difficult to pick out.
 
Before the mare died of colic, we has two grey horses very similar and both the instructress and other livery brought her in by mistake. I know the difference but I said if in doubt look underneath.

I suggest either buy different rugs to each other or different fly hoods etc or put different field headcollars. failing that as a last resort put hair colouring on one leg lol
 
I came up one morning to find "my horse" standing in my stable with a very satisfied smirk and an odd look about his head, ........ it was his brother, the yard boy had brought him in the previous night, sharp enough to notice he was "in the wrong field" ....... but not sharp enough to notice he had suddenly acquired a white sock.
 
A couple of years ago our farrier shod the wrong liveries horse instead of ours. Both are coloured cobs. But mine is 13.2 and the other one was 15.2. He'd known both horses for years - but the horse had only recently moved to our yard from another. Some very red faces....
 
Tnavas said:
I had a terrible time at one place I worked, over 100 TB's in training, mostly bays and chestnuts, greys were OK though
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We had 160 and they all went out every day, in pairs which helped a lot. Rugs were shared, but we kept one wee girl on to do yard work mainly because she could tell them all apart, it is surprising how different they are ....... try 400 speckleface ewes!
 
One yard I was at had an open day which included a stallion who was owned by the yard owner, we paraded him, with one of his sons behind, they were like peas in a pod, other than the missing "man bits"
 
My mare had a pasture mate who we always referred to as her twin brother. They were actually about half a hand different in height and he was a slightly darker chestnut, but they had a very similar shaped star and narrow stripe and the white markings on their hind legs were identical but a mirror of each other. I spent 10 minutes caling my girl one evening with no reaction at all until I realised it was her buddy I was shouting at and she was out of earshot in a different part of the field.
 
A couple of years ago I got to the yard to find my young horse going berserk! Running around Whinnying, then I realised the other horse in the field was not my mare.

The owner of the other horse had taken my mare instead of her gelding into the stables where she happily tucked into the geldings feed lol
 
I've got 3 friesians, much of a muchness height wise so from a distance it's a struggle. When I get to the field though I can always tell which is which. Hubby sometimes struggles though :)
 
I never had a problem when I worked at a racing yard full of dark bay tb's, they all looked very different!
I do have trouble telling my bay tb x connemara apart from the bay tb x welsh that he shares his field with though!
 
I bought a bay mare with very similar markings to my bay gelding. When we put them in the field it was hard to tell them apart.

But daughter's cob was delighted - he adored my gelding, but when the bay mare turned up he went loopy - my best friend has just turned into a mare, life doesn't get any better! Gelding was immediately dumped as best friend to be replaced by the mare, causing mayhem of course.

So not just humans!
 
At my old yard my friend had a bay arab that looked a bit like mine and they were stabled next door to one another, the horses had to come in one morning as the fence was being repaired aa few liveries had to bring our horses in, they could not tell them apart until they tried to put my horse in the other arabs stable and he refused to go in clever boy!
 
I have lost count of the times I have asked my OH to bring one of my two girls up to the yard and he's arrived with the wrong one! Both are bright bay with similar markings, however, one is a 14.3 Welsh D and the other is a 16hh warmblood so I am always confused as to how he can't tell them apart when close up.

One of my mares, A, is quite scared by the wind and on one particularly windy day OH wandered down to bring A up to the yard. Arrived at the yard, proudly (smugly) commenting on how calmly A had walked up, no snorting or spooking at the rustling trees. I glanced up only to be confronted with my other horse, T. Felt quite bad having to break the news to OH who was rather red-faced when he realised his mistake.
 
I had a friend bring the wrong horse in from the field when I was on holiday... I guess they had similar face and leg markings and feathers but the horse she brought in was a bay 18.2hh gelding and mine was a chestnut 15.3hh gelding... lol!
 
Im lucky that all of ours are very different on our small yard although once years ago on another yard (which had over 30 horses) my un-horsey mum had turned up and proudly told me she's brought my YOUNG grey prancing arab in .... got to the stable only to find a knackered 30 year old TB in her place - ermmm good effort mum but please put the random horse back in the field where you found it hahahahaha (it was grey in her defence) x
 
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