Horse terms that make me punch kittens

So there was a thread on the COTH forums about equine terms that made people crazy, and after about two seconds of reflection, I knew what mine were.

"Equestrian"  -  I can't help it, this word makes me want to punch something adorable and furry.  I seem to only hear it from decidedly NON-horsey people.  Horse folks I know never use it willingly, especially when speaking to other horse folk, and I know that I don't use it with other horse people.  When normal people ask me what I do, I tell them "I ride horses."  That immediately sparks that look of intelligence and they fire back, "Oh you're an EQUESTRIAN!!" (*dumb smile*) or "Oh you do EQUESTRIAN!"  Yeah.   This makes me think of the summer Olympics, where all the riding events (which we horsey types would refer to as "Show Jumping," "Eventing," and "Dressage") are all lumped in as "Equestrian!!1!"  It doesn't help that the word sparks visions of hundreds of women from the city dressing up in bad tweed, beige tights and faux riding boots in order to attend the hunt races.  Like they thought it was some type of requirement to look like an equestrian in order to watch our sports.  Sure.  Ridiculous.  I call myself a Rider.  We go riding.

"OTTB" - Before you ask, YES, I see the irony in me saying this word drives me crazy given the fact that I named my blog with it (my bad).  I wasn't very active in the online horse community when I started this blog last summer, and having spent a few months on large discussion forums, I finally realize how completely overused the OTTB term is.  Holy cow.  It is literally getting to a point where people use it almost as a breed itself.  They're Thoroughbreds!  TBs!  You probably don't need to refer to your 15 year old TB (who came off the track at 3 years old having started a couple of races and has been a hunter superstar since then) as an OTTB.  But I guess that's just a matter of opinion.  I'm trying to do my best to refer to Soon as a TB when I describe him online so that I don't add to my own frustration.  Nothing else to say except I kind of wish maybe I had thought out this whole title/web address thing a little better.  Oh well.

"Head Set" -   Holy shit.

^ That GIF just about sums up my reaction.  Get off the head set obsession people!  Drop the gadgets and learn some "back to front" riding.  Make your horse happy and you can be happy too.



And now for today's funny, this is probably going to be a fantastic dressage horse: