Horses and Hunting QI

APPLAUSE

Well...

APPLAUSE CONTINUES

Well, it's lawkes, tally-ho and welcome to an episode

that is all about horses and hunting.

Our four horsemen shooting from the hips are...

a handsome thoroughbred, Jimmy Carr...

APPLAUSE

..A magnificent stallion, Dara O Briain...

APPLAUSE

..A well-bred filly, Clare Balding...

APPLAUSE

..And a My Little Pony, Alan Davies.

APPLAUSE

And their buzzers are all horsey too. Jimmy goes...

HORSE SNORTS

Dara goes...

HORSE NEIGHS

Clare goes...

HORSE GALLOPS

And Alan goes...

DONKEY BRAYS

Well, let the horseplay commence. How did the horses of New York City

kill 20,000 people, in the year 1900?

Were they contagious?

They were not themselves contagious.

Did they poo out something contagious?

Well, yes. Manure, of course.

Well, manure isn't in and of itself contagious.

-That's why I was...

-My mum used to run out in the street

and scrape it up into... my dad's hat. No, into a bag!

LAUGHTER

Horse manure's actually, as manure goes, I think,

rather less offensive than...

-It is, isn't it?

-Something like dog poo really, really smells,

but horse, actually, I think, smells quite nice.

-So you're saying... Have we got favourite poos now?

-Yes!

I had no idea this was going to be the game. This show's changed.

LAUGHTER

-"Dog poo? Horrible. Horse poo?"

-Lovely!

LAUGHTER

When I first went to school, I was told that I smelled of horse poo.

-Oh, really? So you grew up amongst horses.

-I did.

And, as you know, they do indeed produce excreta and...

London and other places, taxis and buses were all pulled by horses.

And there were, in London alone,

50,000 horses just in the public transport system.

And each one of those produces an enormous amount of poo.

New York City - 2.5 million pounds of it, every day.

It was becoming an epidemic problem.

Not only was there that problem, they were also dying.

About 41 a day, on average, died while working in the streets

and they preferred to leave them to putrefy,

cos they were easier to carve up and destroy,

so what we're talking about is huge quantities of manure.

I mean absolutely epic, gigantic quantities, which were vectors for all kinds of diseases.

Where did they bring the poo to, did somebody roll it into the corner?

The problem was, in the early 19th century, it was extremely valuable as a fertiliser.

Didn't they call it black gold?

It had been, but by the time you get to 1900,

there's so much of it that it's like any commodity in economics, it's virtually valueless.

You can grind it down, when it's dry, into a powder.

A very fine powder, indeed.

And William Herschel, the astronomer,

he used it for his speculum, the curved, polished mirror.

In the making of the mould for it, he used ground-up horse manure.

So it did have some uses. But, basically, by the time we're talking about,

traffic was much more dangerous than cars, with horses, because

horses themselves can bolt and drag people off with them and trample them.

The noise in the city was unbelievable.

The iron hooves on the cobbles was almost unbearable.

You could never have a conversation on the street.

And this poo that was transmitting typhus and typhoid and cholera

and goodness knows what else, all kinds of unpleasant things.

And what it is that the motor car - seems peculiar to us -

was an environmental saviour. It made the traffic safer, better, less smelly,

faster. It was just like the answer to the city's prayers.

Did Jeremy Clarkson put you up to this?

-LAUGHTER

-It has that kind of ring about it. "The Saviour of New York City"

We do know that the car, of course, does have its drawbacks,

but it's a lot less dangerous. It's about seven times more dangerous

to have horses in the city than the car, just statistically speaking.

People have pointed out, of course, that traffic now is about as fast as it was in the days of the horse.

But they fail to point out that, of course, there's a lot more of it.

So, in fact, modern transportation is certainly more efficient.

So, before the First World War, the big environmental issue of the day was horse manure,

which filled up the streets as fast as it could be cleared away.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of guide horses for the blind?

I'm going to say the obvious one

is the fact that they could give you a lift.

-LAUGHTER

-If you've got a guide dog, you've got to walk with it.

If you've got a guide horse, you'd be crazy not to climb on.

-You are aware they exist though?

-I wasn't.

-I can't imagine it.

You didn't know? They use these miniature horses as guide horses.

But, hang on, is the blind person walking a Shetland pony?

Smaller even than a Shetland pony.

OK, an even smaller one. But the blind person must be aware

of the people whispering, "Oh, god, somebody's nicked their dog."

LAUGHTER

-You can see how small they are.

-Oh, it's a Falabella then, it's even smaller...

Exactly. It's very, very small.

And there are many bigger dogs than that.

-Anyway, what are the advantages of a horse rather than a dog?

-Well, the poo's much nicer, isn't it?

-It's cooler.

-It's cooler?

-It's cooler.

You've got a Falabella pony, for god's sake, you've got a tiny, miniature pony.

Bragging rights, you mean.

-It could carry your shopping on its back.

-Shopping on it back is another one.

Pull a little trolley, as well. They're a hardy pulling animal.

Some people, not many, are allergic to dogs. I would say that more people are allergic to horses.

-I would have thought.

-If you're allergic to dogs, you may not be allergic to horses.

It might not go and shag the leg of every passer-by.

If it does, though, it would be more of a problem.

-They do have very good memories, as well, horses.

-Do they?

-Yeah, they do.

It's usually a panicky memory.

It's connected with something that was genuinely painful and distressing for them

and they never forget it. It can be the smallest thing.

So they would remember the way to the shops if they were particularly frightened

by the way to the shops some time ago, and you could just go "AH!" and the horse would go?

That would indeed be a disadvantage. They are flight animals, rather than pack animals. They can spook.

Another advantage, and it's a big one, is simply the relationship you have with your animal is longer.

-They live, what, 30 years?

-20 or 30 years, as opposed to a dog, 8 to 12 years.

So that's a very strong advantage. Another one is simply their stamina is greater than dogs.

-But can you house-train a horse like

-a dog?

Oddly enough, you can.

-Not as well as a dog.

-The occasional accident?

The disadvantage is that restaurants tend to have a policy of "no horses",

or at least they don't have a positive "yes to horses" policy.

And also, if you go into a bar or somewhere a dog is welcome,

the dog can curl up and go to sleep, or go under the table.

The horse will be on the machine, smoking a fag. Chatting up other horses. Terrible in bars.

"I've just got to do the black now..."

LAUGHTER

"You go home, I'm going to stay."

LAUGHTER

They are slightly less able to blend into the background.

How does it work when a blind person with a guide dog wants to cross the road?

Does the dog say when it's clear and make the decision to cross the road?

-I hope so.

-You hope so? Well, oddly enough, it doesn't.

-It's the blind person who makes the decision.

-And the dog keeps stopping him.

The dog has the ability.

It's trained what's called selective disobedience or intelligent disobedience.

The dog will overrule if it must, but otherwise it's down to the master or mistress to initiate it.

And it's all done through the feeling of the harness,

so, when the dog gets to the other end, it puts its paws up on the kerb,

which alters the angle of the harness and the blind person feels that and knows where the kerb is.

My uncle, Harry, takes in guide dogs.

So when they fail the guide dog test, when they're not quite good enough,

-he has one.

-That's rather wonderful.

-So he sort of takes them in.

He was showing me one of his dogs, which was a magnificent creature.

What it would do, just to show how good it was, he would send it out to pee and it would come in

and he'd send it out again and you'd see it's little face going, "I've got to force one out.

"I can't come in till I've done a little wee."

And how long have humans been using dogs for blind people specifically?

-Do you know when it started?

-1806?

-I reckon it's going to be Roman.

-You're absolutely right.

-It's always Roman, innit?

Have you not seen this show before? It's always Roman.

There's a first or second century AD mural at the Herculaneum

which shows quite clearly that it was in use then.

The proper school, the first school for seeing eye dogs, as the Americans call guide dogs,

when would we imagine and why?

18... No, maybe it was after the First World War.

-Very good.

-A lot of blindness.

-Cos the gas and things caused a lot of blindness.

-It was actually the Germans who had the first one, in World War One.

-They had the top dogs for it.

In Britain, it started to take off in the 30s

but members of the public hated it and it caused a lot of fuss. Why, do you think?

-Were they using German Shepherd dogs?

-No, it wasn't that.

Good point. There was a lot of anti-German feeling. No, they thought it was cruel to the dog.

And they would berate the trainers and users. "You can't do that to a dog!" It was just bizarre.

They seemed to have that rather British view

that anything you do with an animal that isn't normal must, therefore, be cruel.

And yet they'd been racing horses since 17-whatever and that was just fine(!)

Do you remember what happened with Blue Peter?

-Collecting milk bottle tops.

-It was milk bottle tops, in the days if milk bottles.

-Happy days.

-And it was 22 million milk bottle tops to train one dog.

-And the children of Britain...

-..Trained one dog.

LAUGHTER

-Still, it made a happy blind person.

-It was really well trained, though.

He was sick of milk, though, at the end of it.

Good. Well done, everybody. Miniature horses can be trained as guides for the blind,

though they have significant disadvantages and you're probably better off with a dog.

How would you use one of these to calm a horse down?

Oh. Is this...? Oh...

Calm it down?!

What I'm thinking of is not going to calm it down!

Have these been used? Cos if they are what I think they are, I don't think I want to touch it.

-Scrupulously cleaned.

-Something over its nose?

-Over its snout?

-It's that big.

-On the tail?

-You fire an arrow at the horse?

Well, the points have gone to Alan. Alan has identified where it goes.

-Not the full number of points.

-CLARE'S BUZZER

-Yes, Clare?

-It's a twitch.

-It's a twitch, she knows.

Of course she knows, she's Clare Balding!

LAUGHTER

-I couldn't let Alan get any more of it. I thought, "I'll give him a go", and he was nearly right!

-They are.

Imagine you have to give medication...

This is like... Here, I'll do...

"twing-ning-ning!"

This isn't calming me.

Is this Whose Line Is It Anyway from ten years ago?

Imagine you're giving a horse medication or something.

They're very nervous animals and they don't like being fiddled around with any more than anyone else

but the trouble is, when they're uncomfortable,

they can hurt themselves as much as they can hurt a vet or anyone attending them,

because they strike out. So you need to calm a horse down and there's a very magical thing about horses.

Most peculiar. And what is it, Clare?

If you take their top lip, and you can do it with your hands

or a bit of rope - this, to me, looks a little severe...

-There it is.

-And you basically take their top lip and they won't move.

-They just go into a state of almost trance-like...

-Yeah.

And it's a bit like the old rabbits in the headlight freeze. It makes them go completely...

-And then you can...

-Yeah, like that.

-You can administer...

-He's gone.

Alan is a horse.

Give me the drugs now, give me the drugs.

-You don't need them now.

-Actually, with some you can take their ear and it has the same effect.

How did they find that out?! Must have been a lot of experimentation.

"I suppose we'll try the... That went badly, let's try the lip now."

LAUGHTER

It was thought originally that it was a distraction,

that if you did that, it couldn't concentrate on something else happening to it,

but it was discovered that it released endorphins. It just gets blissed out.

It's rather nice to know, cos it looks...

-LAUGHTER

-It looks a bit cruel.

-I'm fine, I'm fine.

-Oh, good.

There's another thing you may like to know. That's when you calm a horse down, but, sometimes,

you might want to get a horse more active. For example, if you're a horse dealer

and you've got a knackered old nag, you might want them to look coltish and spring-like.

How do you do the opposite, then? How do you...?

What, just hit 'em in the nads?

A little bit further back, even.

-We're talking bottoms.

-Really?

-Yes, but what in the bottom? That's the key.

-Well, anything really!

LAUGHTER

-Ice cube.

-Ice cube? That would be good.

-The favourite thing...

-Or a popsicle!

Sounds like there might be a story there, Alan!

-LAUGHTER

-Goes back to the hot summer of '76.

LAUGHTER

What were the milk ones called? I loved the milk ones?

You know, the milk ones, you know the one I mean.

But for purely normal consumption, Clare.

LAUGHTER

In the normal way? Clare, Clare, in the normal way, you like them?

-Yes.

-Yes, good. Just checking.

I really don't think flavour is a major issue

when you're talking about the ones to shove up your arse.

I'll tell you what is an issue - the Calippo.

LAUGHTER

It's thick in the wrong way. It comes out thick and then goes thin.

It depends which way you start your Calippo. You novice!

LAUGHTER

Let's... It's disappointing to discover that, in fact,

it's nothing to do with any kind of ice cream confection whatsoever.

But we are in the right channel, the right passage.

-And it is a foodstuff.

-Ginger?

-Ginger is the right answer.

-Oh, I didn't know that, I guessed.

-I just thought it was a bit hot.

-You pop ginger out the bottom

and they spring about and look lively and it takes 10 years off 'em.

It's a really good episode of How To Look 10 Years Younger...

Yes, exactly!

-That woman with the glasses, I don't like her...

-Ginger snaps.

-No, no, don't eat him.

-Someone up there likes a ginger snap!

"I love ginger snaps!"

Is it legal in horse-racing?

If you were at the Derby or whatever, or the Grand National,

-could you just throw some ginger...

-I think that would count as nobbling.

-I don't know if it's on the banned list.

-Really?

-I don't know, I'll have to check it.

-Please do.

-What about Calippos?

-Calippos probably have...

-A ginger Calippo, that's going to change...

LAUGHTER DROWNS SPEECH

So, yes, you can calm a horse down by grabbing hold of its upper lip

then rev it up again by sticking a bit of ginger up its rectum, which is nice.

What is this sound?

GUTTURAL GROWLING

I'm going to say it's that bear.

KLAXON

What?! In the conventions of TV, if you show a picture of something...the noise over the top.

We showed a black bear and as you know, black bears don't roar.

Oh, no, of course.

So it can't have been that bear making that noise.

It's probably a wolf or a lion which is what Hollywood, and documentary makers to their eternal shame,

sometimes will put on. You see them open their mouth and you expect a roar and it makes it convincing.

But they don't roar. They barely growl.

ALAN SQUEAKS

-Yeah, that kind of noise, probably.

-That won't do at all.

I don't think I find it less frightening, it's relatively frightening anyway

but I would be perplexed. That would stop me in my running away.

If the bear went... HE MOUTHS

-You'd wait to see what it had to say.

-A bear miming?!

Many of their defenders would say they are pretty harmless.

There's a hunting season for black bear in America, that's the species.

They don't really attack people. Not like grizzlies which can be tricky.

Though they can climb trees and they say you know the difference between a black bear and a brown bear,

it's not always the colour, if you climb a tree. The black bear will climb after you,

if it's a grizzly, it will pull the tree down and then eat you that way.

So you'll know which one has eaten you.

The other way of stopping them attacking you is just put a pane of glass in front of them.

That's miming! We were talking about their mime skills...

Have you got a bear walking against the wind?

They don't eat us. They eat fruit.

They really love insect larvae, grubs and ants and all kinds of stuff like that.

-It is lovely, though, isn't it?

-Yes! Oh, fabulous, absolutely.

Their strength is not in order to wrestle us or bite us, and their claws,

it's to upturn stones and bark to get at these woodlice and things.

There you are. Black bears don't actually roar so their vocal parts

in films are usually given to lions and wolves.

One million British forces were sent to the First World War front.

What happened to the ones that survived?

They settled in the South of France and opened a caravan park.

They couldn't learn the language, ended up moving back.

-What they didn't do is move back.

-Did the French eat them?

Lots of people ate them. They were turned into food or rendered into products.

The point is one million horses, that's a heck of a lot,

but almost none came home.

-Some did cos in War Horse, he did.

-Yes.

-He came back.

-Really?

-He did come back.

-One million horses?

-Went to the First World War?

-From Britain, yeah.

-That's extraordinary.

If you think about the logistics of getting one million horses across the Channel,

-they're not all David Walliams.

-Exactly.

According to Michael Morpurgo, who wrote that book, War Horse,

8-10 million horses died in the First World War.

They didn't have a nice time of it even if they did survive.

They thought they'd be diseased when they came back as well.

So they just didn't want them. It was a very sad chapter

-in our story.

-Yes.

It's a bummer, isn't it? I've silenced you.

It's like when they play the Black Beauty music, I just start crying.

You know the bit where Ginger dies? It's really, really sad.

You know why they call him Ginger.

I would have that music at my funeral, definitely. Black Beauty music.

-It's a deal. I'll arrange it.

-Thanks.

-We'll make sure it happens.

How fast is that coffin going to be moving?

At quite a lick, by the sounds of things!

One of the most popular ones to have now with the coffin going is the Countdown theme.

Do-do-do-do-do-do-BOONG! Like that.

It is bizarre the way people go crazy for horses though.

I remember in primary school, a really weird thing which stuck in my head.

There was a little girl in our primary school class, we were six years old,

and she was just in floods of tears, bawling her eyes out,

we went, "What's the matter?"

And she went, "I just love horses so much."

Ohh! Is that how you were?

I don't see why that's strange.

You know, sometimes they ask you to write things for, you know, your first love.

Genuinely, my first love was Frank and he was a pony.

He wasn't very handsome. He had brown ears and a spotty neck and really bad sweet itch,

so his mane just kind of stood up in sections and my mother always said

if you could love Frank, everything in the world would always be beautiful

-cos you thought he was beautiful and I did.

-That's so touching!

He was lovely, he understood me.

He DID understand me.

Why little girls? Little boys don't care about ponies.

I know families who move for the sake of having more space so they can maybe get a horse.

CLARE: We're emotionally mature a little earlier.

-Yeah.

-About 50 years earlier.

I would never move for a child's hobby.

"But Dad, I like ponies." "Yeah, well, I like this house.

"When you pay for the mortgage, you can stick a pony in every room."

"Thanks, Dad(!)

"All right, I'm only asking, God!"

You're Dad, all right?

All right. Thank you.

So, the fact is very few horses, sadly, made it home from the front.

If they weren't killed in action, they were likely to be fed to prisoners or turned into fertiliser.

What are these horses thinking? Picture is behind you there.

From left to right.

-What is it we're after here?

-The one on the right's thinking, "Clare Balding."

"She loves me!"

Yeah, the one in the middle's going, "I'll be Frank!"

-It's something to do with the ears, is it?

-It's the ears.

The language and moods of the horse are often interpreted by its ears.

Are you...what's your sense on the one on the left, then?

The one on the left is very alert and has seen something that's slightly startled it...woo!

-That's straight up, a kind of...yeah.

-Slightly startled.

The one in the middle is eager, keen, wanting to go forward, sees something it likes.

-You can do the position...

-Fantastic. Thank you so much.

So, that'll be...I'm a bit alarmed.

-Right.

-That, I'm...

DARA: Before we're accused...

The only woman on the panel is the one wearing the bunny ears.

Can Jimmy wear the ears? Just for...

He doesn't know the horse ear language whereas you do.

I'm not sure about sideways, actually.

-Sideways, we have written down...

-Flat back is very scared or very angry.

That could mean it's moving at quite a pace.

-Wind tunnel, horse in a wind tunnel.

-Or going under a door.

-Or going in a door.

-It's amazing. If you watch racing,

you watch how many horses prick their ears as they get to the winning post.

-Yeah.

-Cos they think if they just get the ears over quickly,

-it'll be...

-They'll break the tape.

Apparently, flopping sideways means knackered or "I surrender," to another horse or person.

-Then there's flicking...

-Yeah, and one back and one forward.

-What does that mean? What does flicking mean?

-Left, left!

Panic, supposedly.

Panic. Then back, you mentioned, is angry, aggressive, upset...

-Is this ALL horses?

-Yes.

-The universal language of horses?

-Putting their ears back is a bad sign.

-I think I've broken this now.

-You have!

-Violence, there.

-Permanently sad.

-You look very sweet.

-Just permanently confused.

Drooping sideways, one down, one up, the way you are there,

it could be that you're on drugs, apparently.

I can absolutely assure you that I'm not.

-Doped with depressants or stimulants...

-One up, one down?

No, whether it's completely rigid or flat down.

Rigid would be stimulants, I think.

Horses do use a lot of body language. They talk with their ears.

Now we plunge head-long into the dung heap of General Ignorance

to see who comes up smelling of roses. Put your fingers on the buzzers.

What colour is this horse?

Grey.

KLAXON

-Yeah?

-White.

-It's white.

It's a white horse. You said grey because almost all white horses

-are, in fact, known as greys to people.

-And they're born very dark.

All those horses that you see at the Spanish Riding School

-that become beautiful and white, I've been to see them as foals...

-Lipizzaners.

-Yeah.

-..they're born almost jet black.

-Are they?

-They go grey and if you ever get the chance...

You must know that. You must have seen Crimson Tide with Gene Hackman

-and Denzel Washington...

-Oh, yes...

It's a whole thing, a big a-ha-ha-ha!

Does Denzel Washington go white?

The thing is, "But they're born black! Da-da-da!"

-It's a big twist.

-So, yes, white horses.

If it's a Thoroughbred grey, what do you know about it?

It's a bit snobby.

A bit self-important. Thoroughbreds...

-All Thoroughbred greys are descended from one grey.

-Jesus.

LAUGHTER

No. No.

It was a wild stab in the dark. If it had come off, my God, you would have got points.

It would have been so impressive. But unfortunately, it wasn't the answer on this occasion.

Alcock, is the answer. Alcock Arabian.

All Thoroughbred horses around the world are descend from...

Three.

Three. Can you name them?

Darley Arabian, Godolphin Arabian and the Byerley Turk?

-Absolutely right, you must have points for that.

-Yes, that's correct.

-Thank you.

-Three Arab stallions came over in the late 17th century

and they are the origins of all Thoroughbred horses in racing.

So, horsey people call most white horses grey.

But the ones in our picture, well, that one was an honest-to-goodness white horse.

Now a story of horror and hostility, a shoal of piranhas

meets a dolphin. What happens next?

Does the dolphin eat the piranhas?

Yes! You're learning. That's good.

I only said that cos it was the opposite of what I thought.

The fact is, the whole idea that piranhas are these aggressive, flesh-eating creatures

is pretty nonsensical, actually.

It really goes back to Teddy Roosevelt, it seems, that's maybe one of the first times

that people who'd never travelled to South America, he'd been there

and they'd put on a display for him and he rather exaggerated this idea.

He'd said if you put your arm in the water, it'd be stripped to the bone.

The fact is, they just don't do that. They're frightened of humans.

If you're swimming with piranhas, they'll go away.

They scavenge on dead things, mostly. Contrary to their reputation,

piranhas are scavengers, not predators.

They're actually eaten by dolphins, not the other way round.

So, what weapon did 19th century whalers use to kill whales?

Are you looking for a harpoon?

KLAXON

OK, not a harpoon.

No, the harpoon is used for...

Dragging it in.

It's tiring it out, really.

You fire or they threw a harpoon, with rope attached,

it's barbed so it would stick in to the flesh of the beast

and then what was called a Nantucket Sleighride would take place,

where this whale would drag the whaling boat,

which was quite small, as you can see, and eventually,

the whale would tire out. You just keep on and you don't let go.

Then when it's tired out,

lances finish it off.

-It was a pretty extraordinary industry.

-There's a lot of it still going on, isn't there?

I fear there is. Most nations are signatories of a ban on whaling...

-That's all changing...

-Notably, Norway and Japan are not.

Japan say it's all for research - researching the perfect whale sandwich.

-Yes.

-And they won't stop until they've got it!

Mmm, delicious.

So, yes, 19th century whalers used lances to kill whales,

harpoons were used to catch them before they were killed, which brings us to our final scores.

Oh, my goodness! An interesting one today.

Falling at the first fence, I'm sorry to say,

with minus 13 in fourth place, it's Jimmy Carr!

APPLAUSE

And a very relieved Alan Davies has only made a slight foal of himself,

on minus six.

APPLAUSE

And just beaten in the final furlong, with four points,

Dara O'Briain.

APPLAUSE

Oh, who would believe it? It's maiden stakes for her, her first race,

and she's galloping away as a winner, five points, Clare Balding!

APPLAUSE

It's good night from Clare, Jimmy, Dara and Alan and I leave you with this thought from Rita Mae Brown.

"If the world was truly a rational place, it would be men who rode side saddle."

Thank you and good night.

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