I’m not experienced with horses. I know many are trained to work for just about anyone. They were used in wars and police still use horses this day and age for crowd control, so I guess they can stomach a bit of violence and chaos. But most domestic animals behave differently with people they’re familiar with vs random strangers, so I presume horses would follow suit?
My question is inspired by countless movie/videogame scenarios in which there are a bunch of random horses tied, and a character just picks any, hops on and rides away.
Or, there’s a fight, horse owner gets killed and the thief rides away on the horse.
Regarding horse behaviour only, are these realistic scenarios?
How likely is that a horse would resist being mounted by a random?
Wouldn’t they be scared or angry if their previous rider just got killed right there?
Is it possible for an experienced person to tell at a glance how obedient a horse is? (How?)
These are my sudden horse questions. TIA
We owned horses for years. Horses aren’t really like dogs. If the horse rider is experienced, and the horse is already saddled, then it’ll most likely be successful. It has more to do with the rider’s experience than the horse’s familiarity.