This came across my timeline, thought it was an interesting question, which would you choose?
Early on with my horse I dreamed she could talk and she was one of those whiny heavy set types that complained constantly about her feet hurting.
We already talk quite a bit and understand each other. It doesn’t mean she will do anything I ask. It means she wants to talk about it and offer an opinion.
We tend to evaluate animals “intelligence” not just by how much they understand but by how fast they obey. We don’t take into consideration understanding perfectly well but arguing.
She would have excelled in my grad school program. “I would like to complicate that question by asking…”. “I want to see where this up to now forbidden path goes.”
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I would absolutely want to be able to speak and vocally hear my horse. He already is quite amenable and does everything asked of him. I’d like to know what feels wrong. Or weirdly hard when it used to be easy. How do you feel ? Are you pushing through to be your perfect pleasing self ? Etc etc so blue.
Blue in a heartbeat. Just hearing an answer to “where does it hurt” would be priceless. I’ll bet every veterinarian out there would choose blue.
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Blue! I have old timers and would like to hear about their aches and pains.
I don’t want a horse to do everything I ask because I might ask something stupid, then what???
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Blue. The ones I’ve had for a while have become easier to understand, but even they have their off days, physically or mentally, and I’d love to be able to know why. Being able to talk to the new ones would help us get past the “getting to know you” phase and into the training phase so much faster!
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our horses are purple as they work on voice commands
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Blue.
I find as I have learned to “understand” what the horses are trying to tell me that the horses obey my aids a LOT better. Like any other communicating creature horses want their riders/handlers to LISTEN to what the horse is saying.
Blue…but also I’m not sure I’m prepared to hear all of her opinions in English lol.
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Blue. My horse tries his best to give me what I ask for pretty much always so I’d love to be able to communicate with him about why he maybe can’t give me something. He’s also too smart for his own good so I would love to know what’s going on in his head most of the time just for the sake of it, lol.
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Blue - we would have great conversation while trail riding around the local state parks. It would also be great to explain to her that I don’t want to do that today because I don’t have time but I promise, we will do it on a weekend.
That and also diagnosing lameness issues…I can ask her where it hurts and she can actually tell me - that would have solved some issues years ago!
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Blue. I value my horse as a thinking partner.
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Oh yes I’ve encountered this before!!
Dora: I would like to trail ride today (while turning to walk up the hill instead of down to the arena)
Me: I understand that, but I have 4 other horses to ride today. We’ll go tomorrow.
I say it out loud anyway, but after 22 years, her English is still limited to a few phrases. 
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Blue - talking to horses seems more useful.
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My horse’s verbal English is not quite native speaker level, but his Irish is fluent, articulate, and compelling.
I am convinced he understands every word I say to him and simply doesn’t care. I’d like to be able to converse with him in the same tongue so that I can validate this assumption. On the other hand, he might delight too much in telling me what he thinks of me.
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Ah yes, the going down the driveway and instead of turning left at a bit of a neck rein and seat/leg, she PULLS her nose out and to the right - towards wher we jump.
“I’m sorry, going across the street to jump takes to much time and I have to go to work”
Pulling continues and I have to resort to direct rein, stronger leg, another apology, and more promises…sight…
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