The phrase “healthy as a horse” is found to be “mostly false,” according to researchers with the time to study it and other equine figures of speech.
After decades—perhaps even centuries—of incorrect use, scientists at the Bucephalus Institute in Alexandria, in partnership with Snopes.com, have definitively determined the phrase “healthy as a horse” as being “mostly false.”
“The project began when I saw the fancy car my vet’s wife drives,” says researcher and horse lover, Morgan Bay. “If horses are so healthy, how can veterinarians charge so much? I also wondered if wishes were horses, would beggars ride?”
The 5–year study to debunk the “healthy horse” myth was bolstered not only by the median income of veterinarians, but the skyrocketing horse pharmaceutical industry and a worldwide shortage of glucosamine and apple flavoring. Anecdotal evidence of colic occurrences, general lameness, and some guy named Coggins overtaking Jeff Bezos as the richest person on earth also contributed to the result.
Photo by Ross Hecox
“The evidence, frankly, came straight from the horse’s mouth,” Bay added. “I was worried I was putting the cart before the horse, but at this point, wild horses couldn’t drag me away from my conclusions.”
Of course, there are dissenters to Bay’s findings.
“Horsefeathers!” exclaimed D. Ring Snaffle. “Bay’s entire study is a Trojan horse. There’s not enough credible evidence to choke a horse in her findings. The equine industry should put this study out to pasture.”
Bay, however, was not entirely willing to come down off her high horse.
“Snaffle is attempting to shut the barn door after the horse has already run off,” she said to a gathering of bewildered equine reporters, who were later heard complaining that they were hungry as horses and couldn’t find a meal in this one-horse town.
A local veterinarian, Dr. Gaskin, when presented with the findings of the Bucephalus Institute, urged caution.
“Hold your horses,” he said. “What we’re talking about here is a horse of a completely different color.”
At press time, no further evidence was unearthed to provide any clarity to this obviously satirical article. For those who cannot find the humor in the above screed, however, a nod is as good as a wink to a blind horse.
