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Sturgeon's House

Horse shields AKA weird ideas people force upon animals


Walter_Sobchak

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A while back I was browsing through google patents for information on weird old patents of tanks and weapons.  Somehow I ended up looking at a patent from 1890 for a "horse shield."  Basically, it's a device to keep a Stallion from masturbating.  I had no idea people were concerned with horse masturbation back then, but I guess they were.  In fact, there were several patents for similar devices.  Its funny how human beings take their own weird ideas on what is acceptable behavior and then try to force them upon the animals they live with.  

 

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Refractory period? 

 

If you're breeding horses, you don't want your stallion rubbing one out before he has to meet one of the mares.

 

Even though I was the president of my high school FFA club and had a dad who was a useless horse racing addict, I'll admit that this is not a problem that I'm overly familiar with.

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My wife has mentioned that one of the more unpleasant aspects of horse ownership is sheath cleaning. That, along with detailed descriptions of the use of phantom mare and an explanation for why mares in season need to have their tails tied back, makes me think that it's probably a good thing that parents generally don't know much about horses when they send their little diddums to riding school.

 

As for the invention, maybe it's to prevent unwanted mounting when teasing a mare? It's still fucking stupid, but at least that's a use.

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Victorian and Edwardian people spent a truly worrying amount of time feverishly wondering about how reprehensible and horrible everybody else's sexuality is, I'm not too suprised. We got some fine myths about depraved Romans from them too. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the moral panic stuff sold to people looking for smut.

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For people that spent their time worrying about reprehensible behavior, the Victorians sure did have a lot of kids, hmmm?

 

Personally, I feel modern revisionists have given the Victorians a bad rap. For a people who didn't have a lot to go on, they sure did build a lot of neat things, ended a lot of bad things and left us a lot of good literature, artwork and architecture.

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For the record, Victorian smut is filthy (and screwed up to modern sensibilities in a good few ways, some of which are considered pretty non-negotiable across wide demographic stretches, like incest).

 

They made some great advancements and some cool things but we still have a pretty significantly cancerous cultural legacy from them because there's a lot of "traditional" behavior and thought that stripped away a lot of older safety valves for various groups and behaviors they didn't like.

 

I can't help but think the time was pretty cool though, with it being back when a single person could really push the boundaries of science and technology and make something that caused a huge change.

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  • 1 month later...

I believe you all are overthinking tgis device.

This device looks to be designed with the intention of limiting a stallion's ability to breed.

You see, we never had such a problem, because we kept our stallions in their own pen, away from the mares when we did not want to encourage breeding.

However, back in the day, where land and material may have been at a premium, this appears to be a much cheaper option for assuring a proper breeding schedule.

But yeah, sure, tell yourself its an anti-masturbatory device and giggle at the apparant sexual repression of a past culture. Project project project away.

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  • 1 year later...

We've come a long way from horse shields when it comes to inventions for Man's Second Best Friend.

 

 

Since even nails do come out of horse shoes, I'm a bit skeptical how the polymer can stand up to the impact of a horse running on it. But the idea seems neat.

 

Also, I wonder how this can be used in thoroughbred horse racing and whether it would be considered legal and can it improve a horse's performance in a race?

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  • 1 year later...

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