The fascinating way a horse reacts when it knows you’re angry.
A new study sheds light on our four-legged friends.
Has a horse ever given you major side-eye?
Think Mariah Carey on season 12 of "American Idol" ...
GIF from "American Idol."
Because if so, it might not have just been in your head.
According to a groundbreaking new study, horses can read our emotions much better than we previously thought.
And their eyes do a lot of their talking.
The new study, out of the University of Sussex in the U.K., analyzed responses from 28 horses when they were shown large photos of people making either angry or happy faces for 30 seconds.
When the horses were shown angry faces, their heart rates increased significantly. They also moved their heads to look at the angry photos through their left eye — a key sign that showed researchers the horses were perceiving a negative stimuli.
Secretary of State John Kerry, a fan of horses. Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images.
So, yeah, you're right — even though that horse gave you that look that one time, it probably wasn't throwing shade Mariah-style. But researchers are confident that this left-eye thing means horses can read human emotion pretty damn well.
To understand this left-eye phenomenon, you've got to understand how the right and left brain works.
At a very 101 level, at least.
Many species (like horses) process what their left eye is seeing in the right hemisphere of their brain. And that's where the brain processes threatening stimuli, researchers noted.
So horses looking at the angry faces with their left eye suggests that they could tell the person in the photo might pose a threat to them.
Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy tries to pet a horse for a pic. Photo by Eric Feferberg/AFP/Getty Images.
“It’s interesting to note that the horses had a strong reaction to the negative expressions, but less so to the positive," researcher Amy Smith, a doctoral student at the university, said in a statement of the findings. "This may be because it is particularly important for animals to recognize threats in their environment. In this context, recognizing angry faces may act as a warning system, allowing horses to anticipate negative human behavior such as rough handling.”
The research isn't just cool — it uncovered a big "first." And it says a lot about how emotionally intelligent horses actually are.
The fact horses can read the facial expressions of another species is a pretty big deal.
"We have known for a long time that horses are a socially sophisticated species," Smith said. "But this is the first time we have seen that they can distinguish between positive and negative human facial expressions."
Queen Elizabeth II: Another world figure who's partial to horses. Photo by Eamonn M. McCormack/Getty Images.
These findings also come on the heels of another study published last summer that discovered horses wear their moods on their faces. You've just got to keep your eyes peeled.
As CNN reported, that study found that horses have 17 various subtle facial expressions that can indicate mood — one more than dogs and four more than chimpanzees.
"It was previously thought that humans possessed the most complex repertoire of facial expressions, and that ... the further away an animal was from humans, the more rudimentary their use of facial expressions would be," researchers wrote. "However ... it is apparent that horses also have an extensive range of facial movements, sharing many ... with humans and other animals."
It seems like the more we understand about these four-legged beauties, the more fascinating they become.
They're downright stunning, super adorable while splashing in water for the first time, and have surprisingly high emotional IQs. What are we going to learn next?
Russian President Vladimir Putin also apparently likes horses. Photo by Alexey Druzhinin/AFP/Getty Images.






A woman is getting angry at her coworker.via
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A husband is angry with his wife. via 
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Two men engaging in a peaceful disagreement.
Resurfaced video of French skier's groin incident has people giving the announcer a gold medal
"The boys took a beating on that one."
Downhill skiing is a sport rife with injuries, but not usually this kind.
A good commentator can make all the difference when watching sports, even when an event goes smoothly. But it's when something goes wrong that great announcers rise to the top. There's no better example of a great announcer in a surprise moment than when French skier Yannick Bertrand took a gate to the groin in a 2007 super-G race.
Competitive skiers fly down runs at incredible speeds, often exceeding 60 mph. Hitting something hard at that speed would definitely hurt, but hitting something hard with a particularly sensitive part of your body would be excruciating. So when Bertrand slammed right into a gate family-jewels-first, his high-pitched scream was unsurprising. What was surprising was the perfect commentary that immediately followed.
This is a clip you really just have to see and hear to fully appreciate:
- YouTube youtu.be
It's unclear who the announcer is, even after multiple Google inquiries, which is unfortunate because that gentleman deserves a medal. The commentary gets better with each repeated viewing, with highlights like:
"The gate the groin for Yannick Bertrand, and you could hear it. And if you're a man, you could feel it."
"Oh, the Frenchman. Oh-ho, monsieurrrrrr."
"The boys took a beating on that one."
"That guy needs a hug."
"Those are the moments that change your life if you're a man, I tell you what."
"When you crash through a gate, when you do it at high rate of speed, it's gonna hurt and it's going to leave a mark in most cases. And in this particular case, not the area where you want to leave a mark."
Imagine watching a man take a hit to the privates at 60 mph and having to make impromptu commentary straddling the line between professionalism and acknowledging the universal reality of what just happened. There are certain things you can't say on network television that you might feel compelled to say. There's a visceral element to this scenario that could easily be taken too far in the commentary, and the inherent humor element could be seen as insensitive and offensive if not handled just right.
The announcer nailed it. 10/10. No notes.
The clip frequently resurfaces during the Winter Olympic Games, though the incident didn't happen during an Olympic event. Yannick Bertrand was competing at the FIS World Cup super-G race in Kvitfjell, Norway in 2007, when the unfortunate accident occurred. Bertrand had competed at the Turin Olympics the year before, however, coming in 24th in the downhill and super-G events.
As painful as the gate to the groin clearly as, Bertrand did not appear to suffer any damage that kept him from the sport. In fact, he continued competing in international downhill and super-G races until 2014.
According to a 2018 study, Alpine skiing is a notoriously dangerous sport with a reported injury rate of 36.7 per 100 World Cup athletes per season. Of course, it's the knees and not the coin purse that are the most common casualty of ski racing, which we saw clearly in U.S. skier Lindsey Vonn's harrowing experiences at the 2026 Olympics. Vonn was competing with a torn ACL and ended up being helicoptered off of the mountain after an ugly crash that did additional damage to her legs, requiring multiple surgeries (though what caused the crash was reportedly unrelated to her ACL tear). Still, she says she has no regrets.
As Bertrand's return to the slopes shows, the risk of injury doesn't stop those who live for the thrill of victory, even when the agony of defeat hits them right in the rocks.