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Advice on horses and war... (Calling LG!)
March 28th, 2008 (05:40 am)
weather: creative
song: Silence... (not a sound from the--okay, not quoting Cats, really)
weather: creative
song: Silence... (not a sound from the--okay, not quoting Cats, really)
LG, my dear, favorite horse-knowledge-encyclopaedia. Supposing I want a horse to be injured in a battle, but in a recoverable way, although it might be good for easy rides but really not much else (other than happily munching grass) afterwards? ...Mainly, how can I injure the horse, get the rider off, and not have to kill the poor thing from mercy at least?
(Long, long story why I'm worrying about this. I want the horse alive. Mostly 'cause the rider's dead. And I want this image of an old, wounded, fat, grass-munching war-horse. There are Reasons.)
A couple ways, but a permanently-laming leg injury of some sort is probably your best bet. A damaged tendon would probably work; I think severing it might be too much (I'm not sure a horse could stand on it then, and three-legged horses die), but bowed or torn or something would work. There are diseases that would do it, but those aren't caused by battle... unless the horse gets something in its foot during battle (an arrowhead, a splinter of broken sword, a caltrop, heck, a nail) that abcesses later and isn't treated in time, because an untreated abcess, if infected, can mess with a lot of the delicate structures inside the hoof.
And I almost forgot the pulled stifle! Which is dumb of me, because I've had two different horses put pretty much out of commission by that. If the horse catches a hind hoof in something--in my cases it was a hole in the ground and the stall wall, respectively, but in your case it could just as easily be something like a dead guy on the ground--they can pull their stifle trying to get it free. Makes them three-legged-lame for a while (hopping along with the injured leg pulled up), but both Star and Ethel recovered--mostly. Neither were good for more than light riding after that.