Wide as a sofa… check. I love him.
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I want one!
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Soo…OP…did you buy him yet? 
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The horse or…? 
Isn’t it odd that we don’t have a good common name for one bovine of undetermined gender (in English anyway)?
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I’ll be seeing him mid-April:). As well as a few others… Hopefully no one else snatches him up first!
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He looks adorable. If the personality matches, he looks like a keeper. Of course he doesn’t look like a lot of the purpose bred dressage horses, but nothing about him says he couldn’t do well enough to enjoy through the levels either.
We do. Cattle beast or cattle beasts. Not many people use that anymore though. Their jobs and handling are specific, a need to know sort of thing, so it’s usual to refer to various ages/sexes as heifer calves, bull calves, heifers, cows, bulls, and steers. ETA my favourite term “baby calves” which refers to both sexes that are young enough to be on milk only (no solid feed or forage).
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Love the “Lookit my shoulder in!” expression at about 3:55 Sweet beast 
88 comments on one photo.
I will say that if my trainer could judge a horse’s ability to reach PSG off one photo she’d have a whole barn of them.
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I have had 4 milk cows, their calves and we have beef cows now. They never " jumped" anything( thankfully).
The closest we got was my 2 year old Jersey steer (we were feeding out ) “attempted” to jump over a 5 ft cattle panel when my young gelding got into his pen. He more or less plowed over the top and smashed it all down getting over.
Beef cows go through fences which is why we reinforce our permanent strong fencing with electric. Some cows can jump but in my experience most go through unless you just have a strand or 2 of electric. We don’t.
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Re thoroughbreds - I was fortunate to buy an older (15) at the time TB, never raced but carefully brought up the dressage pyramid. I was training level rider at the time. In 5 years he taught me and took me to PSG. Though we were close (58-59) comments always said he needed more collection. (at 4th we were in the 63-66 range) Between his age and his tall and long body, that wasn’t going to happen, though if he had been younger we could have probably gotten it done. Heart of gold, work ethic, forward but not too much so. I am a TB believer, and also in my older age a fan of smaller stature. I rather like this guy and for sure would go check him out!
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They know what they can knock down and what they can’t. They’re quite ‘happy’ to jump things they know they can’t knock down.
I’m not sure why this is so hard to understand? LOL! And for J-Lu’s silliness, their legs are WAY better designed to hold weight than horses. They are sturdy! They don’t bow tendons or break legs if you look at them sideways. Feet, otoh, are another matter, but also, sadly, a product of selective (dairy) breeding.
Take a look at the rather frightening video posted above of a whole pile of cattle jumping things they know they can’t knock down.
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Wouldn’t that be the dream?! 
It isn’t that we have a hard time understanding. It is the fact that all cows don’t jump and some cannot to save their life. You can’t lump all cows together as being capable of jumping a fence.
They CAN all jump. Whether they choose to or not is a completely different thing.
Do any of those bulls in that gruesome video look like good jumping stock? No. The one that jumped a 3’ rail with a 5’ drop looked even less so at damned near 8 months pregnant (cows are 9 monthers like humans, not 11s like horses) and never ever having done anything remotely athletic in her life.
As I said in my very original post, “Any cow can jump 1m” is not just a load of crap that my teacher fed us. It’s an actual thing.
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They can all jump something but some ( just like a horse) cannot clear it at a certain height. I don’t know if it was you who was saying their cow jumped a 4 foot + fence from a standstill but that is not common.
Clearing a 4-5 foot fence at speed is also not common . Most cows go through or take the fence down attempting to get over. That is way different than jumping it. Maybe I am splitting hairs here but that is our experience.
An angry bull or momma Cow can do a lot of things. Rage is a good motivator.
ETA: sorry to derail your thread OP. Hurry up and look at the horse already! Some of us can’t wait till mid April.
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Lol - I’ve literally been cracking up with DH and some friends about the cow debate. I actually googled it, and I think barring a physical abnormality, the sources that seemed legit indicated almost all cows can jump freakishly high from a standstill. Interesting and I thought the one I saw was weirdly athletic, but I’m not a bovine expert…. I did joke with my vet during spring shots as I recapped my horse search, and she was very expressive about the cow jumping she’s witnessed. Count me in camp “cows can jump”
And I will update everyone with the next chapters. Spanner in the works - I’m going to Equine Affaire and they have a few organizations doing an adoption fair. I don’t anticipate that being where I meet Mr. Right, but who knows? I won’t commit until I see the TBs April 15th though…. I hope diesel prices drop April 16, lol. I expect I’ll be hauling something soon after the 15th!
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This is Kimmswick…one of our most beautiful Highlands. She once lept over a cattle panel. I had needed to separate her calf (Raeburn Red, who turned into a magnificent breeding bull for us). As you can see here, she was a limber cow as well as athletic.
She is long gone now. A friend of mine honored her this way:
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Have you considered dressage with your bulls though?
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the bulls are too lazy.
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