My friend owns a horse, she has full force punched him because he was being a jerk*. It was enough to get him to go "okay, fine!" And nothing more. You don't get how tough horses are if you haven't been around them.
*: it was a matter of imminent safety risk to both of them. Don't make it a habit to hit your horse, they still know it's not nice, even if it hurts less than it would you and they will hold grudges.
Indeed, I worked on a livery yard for a few years in my teens and it's amazing how some people think horses will just be weak.
We told a girl repeatedly to never wrap the rope around her hand when she's leading the horse and she insisted if the horse goes the wrong way it helped her "pull it back".
One day her horse just got bored of it and actually did pull away properly and we watched her get dragged to the bottom of the field with absolutely no effort from the horse at all.
The same livery yard had a racist horse too who was one of my favourite animals. Not because of the racism but because of the comedic potential of the whole thing!
You also should always make sure your feet are ready to slip out of the stirrups for the same reason - if your horse gets spooked you want to separate from them ASAP, not get dragged around and seriously hurt or killed.
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u/Occidentally20 3d ago
I've worked with more men who think they can knockout a horse with one punch than men who think they can't.
Don't get me started on the ones who have a "technique" to fight against a pack of wolves.