Nosebags
Horse with nosebag
Image courtesy Wikimedia CommonsI am not obsessed with this subject but something Andrew mentioned made me laugh out loud. He lives in Melbourne, home to the Melbourne Cup, which is next due to take place on Tuesday, 5th November. That date is celebrated in Great Britain – the Protestant parts, anyway – as Guy Fawkes’ Night, more usually known nowadays as Fireworks Night. It is also an important date this year for Americans everywhere as they go to the ballot boxes to vote for the next President, who I hope will have a more natural skin tone than the Republican candidate.
Anyway, Andrew mentioned that tourists can be conveyed by horse-drawn carriage to visit the sights. Horses cannot be house-trained, or road-trained, so, in an effort to keep things neat and tidy, they have been fitted with little bags to catch anything that falls behind them, but, in Andrew’s words, ‘they aren’t terribly effective’ which I take to mean that they’re useless.
I have a vision of horses with nosebags and tail bags trotting about the clean streets of Melbourne, the drivers of the carriages working out how much they’ll get for their bags of dung, for, assuredly, nothing goes to waste.
When I was a kid, when there were horses in the parades, a guy would run behind them with a wheelbarrow and a scoop shovel.
ReplyDeleteI bet he had his work cut out for him!
DeleteThis post and then Elizabeth's comment made me remember the Canada Day parades of my youth when the horses would leave a steaming pile and the poor marching bands and majorette groups would have to walk through it and try to avoid it while keeping their lines straight. Not much fun but they were all good sports :)
ReplyDeleteI always wondered how nosebags worked. Honestly, now I feel quite dense as OF COURSE the horse would let it rest on the ground while they lipped up the contents!
I often wonder how troops in parades feel as their brightly polished boots march through dung . . .
DeleteYour comment about nosebags made me think, so I researched a (very) little and discovered that they eat with their heads up and go to the ground when the bag is nearly empty so that they can finish everything.
That scene is quite ordinary for me since I live in Melbourne. The way you put it now makes me think twice!
ReplyDeleteI learn so much from other people. But for Andrew, I might never have heard of tail end bags!
DeleteI didn't know they had bags behind, it makes sense, though Andrew says it isn't always effective. I remember my childhood when bakers and greengrocers still made deliveries by horse drawn vans and the housewives in the street would wait with buckets and shovels. The earlybirds would get the dung from the milkman's horse.
ReplyDeleteI lived in a town so deliveries were by bicycle or, later, very small vans.
DeleteInteresting that horses can be taught to do so many clever things but can't be house-trained!
ReplyDeleteIt is strange. Even rabbits can be house-trained.
DeleteHa. I damn well wish they would pick up the manure and bag it for sale. One or two horses can make such a mess. I can't imagine what it must have been like when horses ruled the roads.
ReplyDeleteAromatic!
DeleteThe answer for Andrew's question, at least as London was concerned, was barge loads of the stuff shipping across the North Sea to Holland. Doing some research years ago in the Cruising Association library in London I found an account by a barge owner in that trade, sailing laden across the north sea in a storm, his son lashed to the mast to keep him from being washed overboard, his wife going into labour down below and being unable to help her in any way. It still chokes me when I recall it.
DeleteThank you Tigger's Mum. Very interesting. I wonder why Holland didn't have its own horse manure. Maybe just not enough.
DeleteDo you are remember in the post-WW2 decades that vital products were delivered to our homes by horse and cart eg milk, bread, sometimes vegetables and meats? Few in our street had a car, so the horses had to cover a large area. Nosebags made perfect sense.
ReplyDeleteOur deliveries were by bicycle, or later, by small vans.
DeleteI am glad that I don't have the job of emptying those horse nappies.
ReplyDeleteLOL!
DeleteYou made me laugh with your horsebags in front and behind the horse. We still have horses in Waterloo and also in Brussels on the Grand'Place, but they have the front bags only when they rest and can eat. The hind bags I have never seen. But horse "apples" (in Germ it's called like that) is a sign of country and nobody is bothered with that. I think in Brussels today there are no horses anymore, because it is too hard for them to carry around the tourists. I have read it somewhere but I am not sure. It bothers me more what people threw out of their cars and the dirt they leave behind ! I prefer my horse apples. In my street they always disappeared I am sure neighbors were happy to collect them for their garden ! (Recycling ...)
ReplyDeleteI agree with you. 'Horse apples' is a lovely expression and they are far less disgusting than some of the rubbish left lying around.
ReplyDeleteI have seen hoses wearing these bumper bags on some events in London. Never on a military horse though.
ReplyDeleteIt should have said bum bags!
ReplyDeletePredictive text gets it wrong so often ;-) Were the bags really noticeable?
DeleteAmusing and informative 😀😄
ReplyDeleteAlison in Wales x
It amused me - bit undignified for the horses, though ;-)
DeleteAlways something delightfully different here. Someone could follow behind the horse with a wheelbarrow and sweep up the manure. Market it to rose growers.
ReplyDeleteI've heard of bum bags, but I think they are for people.
ReplyDeleteThat's why I didn't use that word for the horses ;-)
DeletePoor horses! How undignified!
ReplyDeleteI agree! Doubtless, the horses are too busy with their nosebags to notice.
DeleteMy first time to visit here. Interesting post. Here in Texas...there are no bags.. Horses just do their natural and move on. lol
ReplyDeleteWelcome:-) Horse dung is far from being the most offensive thing in the world.
DeleteInteresting to read this. There are no bags where I am.
ReplyDeleteIt is a solution, but somehow I think it might create more mess.
DeleteHow funny, I got the same vision of horses with bags back and front trotting down the streets.
ReplyDeleteLike toddlers in nappies!
DeleteBruges is filled with horse-drawn carriages, with most of the horses wearing nosebags. I've never seen one with a tail bag though. The city's got a team which regularly cleans up in the horses' wake! xxx
ReplyDeleteI bet there are some stunning roses in Bruges!
DeleteHow interesting! This brought back a memory of the rag and bone man who used to bring his horse and cart around. Mum would give me some things she needed to get rid of and he would give me a balloon in return. Seemed like a fair trade to me :) I haven’t thought about that in years.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteLovely idea, but can you imagine if that happened today?