Horse Idioms and Sayings
Over time I have gathered a list of horse idioms I’ve read or heard people use. So, I keep adding to the list as I come across them.
You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink.
Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.
Straight from the horse’s mouth.
A Charlie horse
A horse of different color
Every horse thinks its own pack heaviest
A one-horse race
A Trojan horse
I could eat a horse
He eats like a horse
Don’t back the wrong horse
Don’t beat a dead horse
Don’t change horses midstream
Don’t put the cart before the horse
Don’t spare the horses
For want of a nail the shoe is lost,
for want of a shoe the horse is lost,
for want of a horse the rider is lost.
Get off your high horse
Hold your horses!
Stop horsing around
A dark horse
Horse sense
Horses for courses
If two ride on a horse, one must ride behind
If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride
A nod is as good as a wink to a blind horse
This is a one-horse town
Play the ponies
Put a horse out to pasture
Don’t put the cart before the horse
Shut the stable door after the horse has bolted (or) lock the barn door after the horse is gone
Strong as a horse
Wild horses couldn’t drag him away
That’s Horseplay
Get on one’s hobby horse
Chomping at the bit to go
Let’s hoof it
Horse trading
Work like a horse
As stubborn as a mule
By shank’s mare (by foot)
Dog and pony show
Donkey’s years (long time)
Ride herd on (someone/something)
Old war horse
The South end of a North-facing horse
Here’s some reader submissions:
One white hoof, buy him,
two white hooves, try him,
three white hooves, pass him by,
four white hooves, feed him to the buzzards.
(from a John Wayne movie, but still an old time favorite)
The original saying before the John Wayne movie:
One white foot shy
Two white feet try
Three white feet deny
Four white feet buy.
Brenda says: “I am 65 years old and when I was coming up in the horse world the above was the gospel according to the old time traders and they practiced it. I have seen many a dang good horse passed up by some of them because he had three stockings. Strange but true”
Never talk bad about a man’s horse,
dog, or wife, in that order.
(Words of wisdom I picked up
as a boy from an old rancher)
Horse lovers are stable people.
Saying from the race track:
“that horse can’t run fast enough
to scatter his own manure”
There’s nothin’ in life that’s worth doin’,
if it cain’t be done from a horse…
Fun reading!
If you know of any more, please email me at:
Charlie@HorseTrainingResources.com
Thanks,
Charlie
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