--- slug: the-conditional-horse passed: 2026-10-19 by: the assay line (research/assay-line/claude-1018b/), Claude fixer (claude-opus-5-5) directed by claude-assaying-boyle-1014; source record by a Claude agent (claude-sonnet-5-5), checked by a Claude agent (claude-opus-5-5) checked: 207 confirmed: 153 wrong: 29 # 6 WRONG + 23 MINOR unverifiable: 12 observed: 13 stale: 0 --- This was a directed repair pass over the 29 triage items in research/assay-line/claude-1018b/the-conditional-horse/triage.json, read at 2ef7ac7f90 (the checker read the layer at e31631a245). The checker raised six WRONG lines and twenty-three MINOR. The fixer re-read the evidence for each WRONG line itself: the OpenAlex abstract of Butler and Hintz 1977 (two groups of seven ponies), the Internet Archive text of Flower's seventh edition with its 1885 memoir (died 1883, reissued without alteration) and Wikipedia's list of his writings, the Europe PMC full text of Greening and McBride 2022 (230.72 against 429.63 minutes, recordings averaging 15.83 h), research/the-conditional-horse/verify.mjs section 2 (only data-fig spans are compared), and the Wayback copy of RAND RR-830 ("worth six officers on foot"). All six are fixed in index.html, figures.json and the verifier's own descriptions, with one dated Corrected line on the page (a new Corrections note above the footer) and in the markdown; JSON-LD dateModified moved to 2026-10-19. The twenty-three MINOR lines were listed by the tier B triage and left unchanged. The layer's verifier passed 67 of 67 after the edits. The record carries forward the checker's 207 claim lines from research/assay-line/claude-1018b/the-conditional-horse/N2-claude.md, including its CONFIRMED, UNVERIFIABLE and OBSERVED lines, without claiming a fresh audit of them. ## Claims - CONFIRMED | [hoof-shoe-61] in the one crossover study that measured the difference, shoeing cut wear at the toe by about 61 per cent and had no detectable effect at all at the sides of the same feet. | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/PMC6940763/fullTextXML | Table 3: dorsal wear L -8.30 barefoot vs -2.88 shod (65.3% less), R -8.56 vs -3.71 (56.7% less), mean 61.0; lateral and medial wear p = 0.15 to 0.99; Discussion: "no significant difference in wear in the unshod versus shod treatments, except at the toe". The 61 is a derived mean, not printed in the paper. - CONFIRMED | [hoof-mares-sand] Malone and Davies watched eleven barefoot Quarter Horse mares lose | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/PMC6940763/fullTextXML | Methods: "Eleven adult Quarter Horse mares ... crossover design ... paddocks with a mostly sand base". - CONFIRMED | [hoof-wear-0169] 0.169 mm a day in a sand paddock, against 0.059 when the same horses were shod. | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/PMC6940763/fullTextXML | Derived: 8.30/49 = 0.169 and 2.88/49 = 0.059 mm/day (left fore). The paper itself rounds it in 4.5: "Unshod subjects had a mean wear of -0.17 mm for the left fore", so the record's "the paper prints no per-day wear rate" is slightly off. - CONFIRMED | [hoof-shod-growth] The same mares' shod forefeet managed 0.19. | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/PMC6940763/fullTextXML | Table 3 dorsal growth shod 9.66 (L) and 9.38 (R) mm over 49 days = 0.197 and 0.191 mm/day. - CONFIRMED | [hoof-flo-wear] Semi-feral ponies on summer pasture reached 0.52 in the high-wear case, | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/PMC6940763/fullTextXML | Malone and Davies 4.5 quoting Florence and McDonnell: "a mean of 0.24 +/- 0.03 mm to 0.52 +/- 0.04 mm"; 0.52 exceeds the highest growth on the page (Butler 0.384). Second hand, as the page says. - CONFIRMED | [hoof-flo-nounit] the sentence it is quoted from states no time unit, in a paper that labels its growth rates as daily explicitly two paragraphs earlier. | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/PMC6940763/fullTextXML | Section 4.5: paragraph 2 says "0.33-0.35 mm +/- 0.02 (mean daily growth +/- SE)"; the wear sentence with no unit is paragraph 4, two paragraphs later. Florence and McDonnell 2006 abstract (Europe PMC 17228579) gives wear only as per cent of June toe length. - CONFIRMED | [hoof-lipizzaner] Forty-two Lipizzaner stallions at the Spanish Riding School grew | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/search?format=json&resultType=core&query=EXT_ID%3A7556044%20AND%20SRC%3AMED | Abstract: "42 stallions from the Spanish Riding School (SRS) in Vienna"; 7 mm/28 days = 0.25 mm/day. The abstract says "horn wall", not "at the toe". - CONFIRMED | [hoof-7mm-28] which Josseck and colleagues report as seven millimetres every twenty-eight days and, in the same sentence, as a wall renewal period of 11 months. | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/search?format=json&resultType=core&query=EXT_ID%3A7556044%20AND%20SRC%3AMED | Abstract, verbatim: "being 7 mm/28 days, giving a wall renewal period of 11 months". - WRONG | [hoof-butler] Shetland ponies on unrestricted feed managed 0.384 mm a day and the same ponies on restricted feed only 0.254, which is a fifty per cent difference from the feed bucket alone. | https://api.openalex.org/works/doi:10.2527/jas1977.442257x | Abstract (OpenAlex inverted index, rebuilt): "A pelleted ration was fed limited or ad libitum to two groups of seven Shetland 8-month-old ponies for 117 days". Two separate groups, so the restricted-feed 0.254 is NOT "the same ponies"; figures.json growthRestricted.note repeats "The same ponies on restricted feed". The 50 per cent and both rates are right. (The ponies were also 8-month-old foals, which the page does not say.) - CONFIRMED | [hoof-reilly018] A slightly lower anchor, 0.18 mm a day, circulates in this literature attached to a 1998 trial. Going and looking for it, that daily rate is not in that paper's own abstract at all: it appears only in a later paper's citation of it. | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/PMC6940763/fullTextXML | Malone and Davies 4.5 gives "0.18 mm +/- 0.09 mm (daily average growth +/- SD)" citing Reilly 1998; the Reilly abstract (Europe PMC 9932095) states no daily rate. Only the abstract was read; "only in a later paper's citation" rests on that. - CONFIRMED | [hoof-folk-cm] the folk figure of about a centimetre a month sits comfortably inside it. | public/strata/the-conditional-horse/figures.json | Arithmetic: 0.19 to 0.384 mm/day x 30.4 days = 5.8 to 11.7 mm a month, so 10 mm is inside. The folk rule itself is not sourced on the page. - CONFIRMED | [hoof-two-wear-studies] There are, as far as this page can establish, two studies that actually measured how fast a horse wears its feet away, both on sand or pasture. | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/search?query=%22hoof%20wear%22 | Absence, hedged "as far as this page can establish". Europe PMC "hoof wear" (41 hits) and the horse-only variant: no third study measuring an equine wear rate; positive control: the same search returns Malone and Davies 2019. - CONFIRMED | [hoof-no-road] And nobody has published a wear rate for a horse working on a road. | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/search?query=%22hoof%20wear%22%20AND%20(road%20OR%20asphalt%20OR%20tarmac%20OR%20concrete) | Absence: 22 hits, cattle claws, accelerations on asphalt, a scoping review; no equine wear rate on a road. Control: "hoof wear" alone finds Malone and Davies. - UNVERIFIABLE | [hoof-no-depletion] Nor, for that matter, has anyone measured how long it takes wear to consume a wall: there is no published depletion time for a hoof at all. | Europe PMC hoof wear searches above; no depletion-time study seen, no dedicated search run | Absence claim; not independently searched beyond the hoof-wear queries. - CONFIRMED | [hoof-cornified] The wall of a hoof is a cornified epidermal appendage of the third digit: the same class of structure as a fingernail or a claw, made from the same family of keratins. | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/PMC11816140/fullTextXML | Eckhart et al. 2025, Animals 15:457: "Further cornified skin appendages of mammals are claws and their equivalents (nails and hooves)"; hair keratins "are not exclusively found in hair but also in nails, hooves". - CONFIRMED | [hoof-aoun] A systematic scoping review of forty-six studies of shoeing and gait, published in 2025, concluded in its own abstract that there was "little consensus among unrelated studies", with small samples, single breeds and no randomisation as the standing limitations. | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/search?format=json&resultType=core&query=EXT_ID%3A39278729%20AND%20SRC%3AMED | Abstract: "A total of 46 studies were included ... little consensus among unrelated studies. Common limitations included ... no randomization, small sample size, single breed". Vet Surg 54(1):31-51, 2025; first online 2024-09-15, which is why the tool flagged the year; the issue year is 2025. - CONFIRMED | [hoof-wickler] Loading the distal limb with 0.6 kg per foot raised metabolic rate at trot by 6.7 per cent, an order of magnitude more than the same mass carried on the back: | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/search?format=json&resultType=core&query=EXT_ID%3A15656514%20AND%20SRC%3AMED | Abstract: 2.4 kg "distributed equally between the 4 limbs" (0.6 kg each); "a 6.7% increase in metabolic rate, an order of magnitude higher than when the mass was added over the back". - CONFIRMED | [hoof-moleman] over an eight-week shoeing interval the hoof angle of sound Warmbloods fell from 55.4 to 51.9 degrees, and the moment about the coffin joint rose significantly while the moment about the joint above it did not. | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/PMC6940763/fullTextXML | The degrees are not in the Moleman abstract but Malone and Davies 2019 (Discussion) quote it: "Moleman et al. also described a decrease in hoof angle (measured from radiographs) from 55.4 +/- 3.2 deg to 51.9 +/- 3 deg ... over an eight-week shoeing interval in nine horses". Moleman abstract: "the moment about the PIPJ did not increase significantly, but the moment about the DIPJ did so". Angles are second hand. - CONFIRMED | [hoof-moleman-ddft] In plain terms, the growth quietly increases the load on the deep digital flexor tendon. | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/search?format=json&resultType=core&query=EXT_ID%3A16536388%20AND%20SRC%3AMED | Abstract: "increased DIPJ extension and consequently an increased loading of the deep digital flexor tendon". - CONFIRMED | [hoof-split-toe] one of them, a split-toe design, has been shown to leave heel movement statistically indistinguishable from barefoot where a conventional nailed shoe does not. | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/search?format=json&resultType=core&query=EXT_ID%3A30902192%20AND%20SRC%3AMED | Brunsting 2019 abstract: "Heel expansion with the ST shoe was not significantly different from the barefoot condition" against "significant restriction" with a conventional shoe. - CONFIRMED | [hoof-14-barefoot] And fourteen previously barefoot horses scored lower on lameness after twelve weeks shod behind. | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/search?format=json&resultType=core&query=EXT_ID%3A36383438%20AND%20SRC%3AMED | Panos 2023 abstract: 14 barefoot horses, hind hooves shod, 12 weeks, "Lower AAEP lameness scores were observed in horses when shod compared with barefoot (P = 0.001)". - UNVERIFIABLE | [hoof-oxygen-shoes] Nobody has ever measured the oxygen cost of an actual set of horseshoes, which is a cheap experiment sitting unperformed in the middle of a century-old argument. | Europe PMC energetics searches; only Wickler 2004 (added mass) seen | Absence claim; I found no study of the oxygen cost of real shoes, but ran no exhaustive search. - UNVERIFIABLE | [hoof-transition] a search of the veterinary literature for a study of barefoot transition returns nothing. | Europe PMC "barefoot" AND transition AND (horse OR hoof), 60 hits, first page read | No transition study on the first page; the rest were not read. - CONFIRMED | [hoof-interval-conv] Six to eight weeks is convention, not a measurement, but what happens when you stretch it has been measured. | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/search?format=json&resultType=core&query=EXT_ID%3A28353665%20AND%20SRC%3AMED | Lesniak 2017 measured changes inside a 4 to 6 week interval and supports 4 to 6 weeks; no study establishing 6 to 8 weeks was found; Moleman 2006 measured the 8-week consequence. The claim stands as worded. - CONFIRMED | [eye-350] A horse, it is said, sees about 350 degrees around itself, with a monocular field of 195 degrees per eye and a binocular overlap of 65 degrees in front. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horse | Wikipedia Horse: "a range of vision of more than 350 deg, with approximately 65 deg of this being binocular". Presented by the page as "it is said". - CONFIRMED | [eye-195] A horse, it is said, sees about 350 degrees around itself, with a monocular field of 195 degrees per eye and a binocular overlap of 65 degrees in front. | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/PMC7509108/fullTextXML | Rorvang 2020: "maximum extent of the uniocular field ... is 228 deg with a mean around 195 deg"; binocular "55 deg to 65 deg". - CONFIRMED | [eye-195-228] Those three figures are printed side by side in textbooks and reviews, and they are not three independent measurements. | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/PMC7509108/fullTextXML | T = 2M - B is geometry; 350, 195 and 65 do come from different sources (Wikipedia for 350/65, Rorvang citing Timney and Macuda 2001 for 195 and Hughes 1977 for 55-65). The textbook printing them together (Miller and Murphy) was not read. - CONFIRMED | [eye-ramp-axial] in 1999 a second team found the axial length variation ran the opposite way from the one the ramp required, and measured acuity at 16.5 cycles per degree in the visual streak against 2.7 in the periphery. | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/search?format=json&resultType=core&query=EXT_ID%3A10505953%20AND%20SRC%3AMED | Harman 1999 abstract: 9% axial length variation "in the opposite direction to that proposed for the ramp retina"; "16.5 cycles per degree compared with 2.7". - CONFIRMED | [eye-ramp-1975] It was evaluated in 1975 and rejected, | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/PMC11885525/fullTextXML | Williams 2025, Eye 39:683: "Several authors perpetuated the error that a ramp retina mechanism existed ... Sivak and Allen disproved this anatomically in the post-mortem eye and by in vivo refraction". Harman 1999 speaks of "confirmation". The record said no source read the 1975 conclusion; this one reports it. - CONFIRMED | [eye-nose-up] the horse lifts its nose because the binocular window is down the nose, with a blind area directly in front of the forehead. | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/search?format=json&resultType=core&query=EXT_ID%3A10505953%20AND%20SRC%3AMED | Harman 1999 abstract, verbatim match. - CONFIRMED | [eye-ramp-2025] The idea was still being discussed in a comparative ophthalmology review in 2025, half a century after it was killed. | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/PMC11885525/fullTextXML | Found (the record had none): Williams D, "Engineering for a clear image: a comparative focus on accommodation", Eye 2025;39:683-687 (online 2024-07-13), discusses the ramp retina as an error Sivak and Allen disproved. "Discussed" is accurate; it is discussed as dead, not revived. - CONFIRMED | [eye-flat-first] Across 806764 British flat starts, horses wearing eye cover for the first time had 1.83 times the odds of race-day fatality. | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/PMC5862470/fullTextXML | Rosanowski 2018: 806,764 starts; all-starts model eye cover first time 1.83 (1.25-2.69), 28 fatalities in 20,654 starts. - MINOR | [eye-worn-before] Horses that had worn it before were at no elevated risk at all. | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/PMC5862470/fullTextXML | All-starts model: worn previously OR 1.18 (0.90-1.54), p = 0.23; the authors: "The risk of fatality was not significantly different". "No elevated risk at all" is stronger than a non-significant 1.18 whose interval reaches 1.54; "no detectable elevation" would match. - MINOR | [eye-jump] A larger jump-racing study exists and points the other way. | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/PMC12135743/supplementaryFiles | The 0.874 is real (record could not find it): Allen 2025 Table S3 (hurdles, univariable) "EYE COVER yes ... 0.874 ... 0.139 0.732 1.045". But "larger" holds only for fatalities (1,932 vs 610): 384,408 jump starts against Rosanowski's 806,764, and the eye-cover estimate rests on the 242,486 hurdle starts only; the Allen definition also includes cheekpieces. - CONFIRMED | [eye-ddb2] Horses homozygous for it had four times the risk. | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/search?format=json&resultType=core&query=EXT_ID%3A30903710%20AND%20SRC%3AMED | Knickelbein 2020 abstract: "Relative risk for homozygous horses developing SCC was 4.0". - CONFIRMED | [eye-ddb2-recessive] in Belgian horses is carried by a recessive variant in DDB2, | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/search?format=json&resultType=core&query=EXT_ID%3A30903710%20AND%20SRC%3AMED | Knickelbein 2020: DDB2 c.1013C>T "established as a recessive genetic risk factor" (Haflinger) and "a risk factor for ocular SCC in Belgian horses"; homozygosity associated (P = 7.4e-7). "Carried by" reads slightly stronger than "risk factor"; the next sentence gives the 4.0. - CONFIRMED | [eye-ddb2-function] a gene whose protein locates ultraviolet damage in DNA so it can be repaired. | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/search?format=json&resultType=core&query=EXT_ID%3A28425625%20AND%20SRC%3AMED | Bellone 2017: "DDB2 binds to ultraviolet light damaged DNA and recruits other proteins to perform global genome nucleotide excision repair". - CONFIRMED | [eye-scc-env] Ocular squamous cell carcinoma in horses rises with altitude and solar radiation and falls with latitude, hits unpigmented breeds hardest, | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/search?format=json&resultType=core&query=EXT_ID%3A2004985%20AND%20SRC%3AMED | Found (record had none): Dugan et al. 1991, JAVMA, PMID 2004985: "increased prevalence of SCC with an increase in longitude, altitude, or mean annual solar radiation ... increased with a decrease in latitude"; draft breeds and Appaloosas higher, and lighter hair colours higher than bay, brown or black. - CONFIRMED | [eye-flymask-none] And yet: no study has ever shown that fitting a fly mask prevents any of it. | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/search?query=%22fly%20mask%22%20AND%20(horse%20OR%20horses%20OR%20equine%20OR%20ocular) | Absence: 3 hits, none a prevention study for SCC, uveitis or photosensitivity; positive control: the query finds the 2026 Machtinger tick-barrier study and the Bell 2024 survey. - UNVERIFIABLE | [eye-uv-claims] The UV figures printed on the packaging, 90 and 95 and 98 and 99 per cent, are manufacturer claims; | no manufacturer page fetched | The four percentages were not traced to packaging; that no peer-reviewed transmittance measurement exists was not contradicted by any search run here. - CONFIRMED | [eye-mask-bell] only 3.8 per cent found them effective alone and 50.0 per cent found them not effective at all, | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/PMC10967644/fullTextXML | Bell 2024: "3.8% (n = 4) reported their use as effective when used as a single treatment ... 50.0% (n = 52) found them not effective". - CONFIRMED | [eye-nosenet] while a nose net, which covers no part of the eye, improved roughly 75 per cent of cases in a field trial. | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/search?format=json&resultType=core&query=EXT_ID%3A12553579%20AND%20SRC%3AMED | Mills and Taylor 2003: "Approximately 75 per cent of owners reported some overall improvement with each net". - WRONG | [flower-whip] Edward Fordham Flower, who led the great campaign against the bearing-rein, allowed in 1885 that blinkers "may afford protection to the eyes, if the driver is careless or cruel with his whip", | https://archive.org/download/bitsbearingreins00flowrich/bitsbearingreins00flowrich_djvu.txt | The quotation is verbatim (p. 48), but Flower did not "allow" it "in 1885": the same Internet Archive copy says he "died at his residence ... on the 20th of March, 1883" and that his sons "decided to republish the work without any alteration" after it "exhausted the sixth edition" (preface dated November 1885). Bits and Bearing-Reins dates from 1875 and Horses and Harness from 1876 (Wikipedia, Edward Fordham Flower). Fix: "allowed in the 1870s" or "in a book reissued in 1885". - CONFIRMED | [rous-quote] Admiral Rous put it in a letter Flower printed: "a horse hearing an unusual noise becomes alarmed when he cannot discover the cause, but with his eyes open he is as sensible as a human creature." | https://archive.org/download/bitsbearingreins00flowrich/bitsbearingreins00flowrich_djvu.txt | Verbatim: "I should add the abolition of blinkers: a horse hearing an unusual noise becomes alarmed when he cannot discover the cause, but with his eyes open he is as sensible as a human creature" (OCR "Admiral Eous"). - CONFIRMED | [bb-ch10] The stated purpose is in Black Beauty, chapter 10, and it is the modern one: fear of what is behind, and of the vehicle following. | https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/271/pg271-images.html | Chapter 10: blinkers "are supposed ... to prevent horses from shying and starting"; "frightened to see the wheels of his own cart or carriage coming behind him". - CONFIRMED | [bb-eyes-side] Sewell also has a character make, correctly, the point about lateral eye placement that this section opened with. | https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/271/pg271-images.html | Ginger: foals "should be born with their eyes set just in the middle of their foreheads, instead of on the side". - MINOR | [eye-blindfold-parker] blindfolded horses in two studies took longer, needed more lead-rope pressure, refused more and ran higher heart rates. | https://api.openalex.org/works/doi:10.1016/j.applanim.2024.106180 | Copelin 2024 is itself two studies. Its abstract: blindfolded horses needed "more time and greater lead rope pressure" and showed more "active refusal behaviour" in Study 1 and two obstacles of Study 2, but "Blindfolding did not have an effect on heart rate in Study 2 (p = 0.1672)". Parker 2004 (the other candidate) reports higher heart rate and "more nervous and difficult to handle", not lead-rope pressure or refusals. On either reading one of the four effects is not shown in both studies. - CONFIRMED | [eye-blindfold-copelin] Faced with an obstacle that was visually frightening, blindfolded horses got past it faster and with less resistance. | https://api.openalex.org/works/doi:10.1016/j.applanim.2024.106180 | Abstract rebuilt from OpenAlex: on the "visually frightening gate obstacle in Study 2, blindfolded horses required less time (p = 0.0053) and lead rope pressure (p = 0.0049) and demonstrated fewer avoidant ... or refusal behaviours". - CONFIRMED | [efsa-blinker] It uses "blinker" exactly once, to recommend removing them before loading, filed under restriction of movement, beside bandages and hobbles, rather than under anything to do with vision. | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/PMC9449990/fullTextXML | Recounted: "blinker" 1 hit, in "Before loading, all wearables (such as bandages, hobbles, blinkers) ... should be removed", followed by "Corrective/mitigating measures for restriction of movement"; controls "hobble" 3, "bandage" 4. - CONFIRMED | [efsa-size] the European Union's 439,000-character scientific opinion on the welfare of horses in transport does not contain the word "blindfold" once. | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/PMC9449990/fullTextXML | Recounted: 439,447 characters of text after stripping tags; "blindfold" 0 hits. - CONFIRMED | [bha-blinkers] Blinkers have cowls "cutting out all vision to the rear but permitting full forward vision". | https://rules.britishhorseracing.com/api/startup?19af3961ed8f49ce907b6bad0e3c9955 | Reached (the record could not): the BHA Rules of Racing glossary served by the app's startup script: Blinkers "means a garment fitted over a horse's head with holes for the eyes and ears, one or both eyeholes being fitted with cowls cutting out all vision to the rear but permitting full forward vision". - MINOR | [bha-seven] British Horseracing Authority's own rulebook distinguishes seven declarable items where common speech has one. | https://rules.britishhorseracing.com/api/startup?19af3961ed8f49ce907b6bad0e3c9955 | The rulebook's own Headgear definition lists SIX: "Headgear: means Blinkers, Cheek Pieces, Eye Covers, Eye Shields, Hoods and Visors", and the page's next sentences name exactly those six. Seven is reached only by counting the tongue strap, which covers no eye. Say six. - CONFIRMED | [eye-no-blinker-study] Searches of the veterinary and vision literature for a measurement of the equine visual field with and without a blinker return nothing. | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/search?query=(blinker%20OR%20blinkers)%20AND%20(horse%20OR%20horses)%20AND%20(%22visual%20field%22%20OR%20perimetry) | Absence: 4 hits (a vision review, eye blinks, the EFSA opinion, one other), no blinker field measurement; control: the query finds the EFSA opinion that mentions blinkers. - UNVERIFIABLE | [eye-no-perimetry] This page could find no perimetry study of the equine visual field of the kind routinely done on humans, and on birds. | Europe PMC (horse OR equine) AND "visual field" AND perimetry: 107 hits, all human on the first page | The query is swamped by human ophthalmology; not settled either way. - CONFIRMED | [eye-shadowroll] There is no peer-reviewed literature on shadow rolls of any kind. | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/search?query=%22shadow%20roll%22 | Recounted: 2 hits, a spaceflight paper and one untitled item; nothing on the device. - UNVERIFIABLE | [eye-untested-prediction] Nobody has tested it in a hundred and forty years. | not searched separately | Parker 2004 and Copelin 2024 test blindfolds, not a rear-field cover; no direct test looked for. - CONFIRMED | [sleep-98] On the authors' own calculation this is about a 98 per cent mechanical saving. | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/search?format=json&resultType=core&query=EXT_ID%3A12739613%20AND%20SRC%3AMED | Abstract: "less than 2% of the force that would be needed in absence of a lock mechanism". - CONFIRMED | [sleep-schuurman] When Schuurman and colleagues took fresh isolated hind limbs, locked the patella by hand and applied small loads, the limb collapsed immediately every time, and in standing horses they recorded continuous low-level activity in the vastus medialis holding it. | https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1571089/ | Full text (via WebFetch; Europe PMC has no XML): "In vitro measurements were carried out on fresh limbs"; small compressive loads "always caused immediate limb flexing"; "tonic, low-level activity of the vastus medialis muscle". The record's worry about "fresh", "every time" and "low-level" is answered by the full text. - WRONG | [sleep-231] Pooled across the polysomnography studies, a horse sleeps about 231 minutes in twenty-four hours, roughly a quarter of what a human sleeps, | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/PMC9428463/fullTextXML | Same sentence of the source: "Studies of equine sleep describe on average 230.72 min (+/-82.87) total sleep time (TST). This is in comparison to an average TST of 429.63 min (+/-25.6) observed for humans". 230.72/429.63 = 54%, a little over HALF, not "roughly a quarter". The 24.3% in the table is the share of observation time, and that observation averaged 15.83 h, so "in twenty-four hours" is also not what was pooled. figures.json sleep.total.note repeats "Around a quarter of what a human sleeps". - CONFIRMED | [sleep-rem40] of which about 40 minutes is paradoxical sleep in bouts averaging 3.7 minutes. | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/PMC9428463/fullTextXML | Greening: REM "40.27 +/- 24.15 min"; "average duration of REM sequence ... 3.72 min". - CONFIRMED | [sleep-standing-mean] Meanwhile a tracked population of eighty-three horses spent 75.6 per cent of the day standing and lay down for a mean of 67.4 minutes, with a range from nothing at all to 319. | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/search?format=json&resultType=core&query=EXT_ID%3A34827921%20AND%20SRC%3AMED | Kelemen abstract: "0 to 319 min per day with an overall mean of 67.4"; standing 75.6%; 83 horses. - MINOR | [sleep-13-none] 13 of the eighty-three never lay down during the study at all, staying up for more than seventy-two hours. | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/PMC8614510/fullTextXML | Kelemen 3.3: "13 of which all suffered from chronic orthopedic disease and did not lie down at all for more than 72 h (Figure 4); five of these horses lay down during subsequent tracking periods for 2-48 min". Horses were tracked 1 to 3 times over 15 months, so five of the 13 did lie down during the study; "never lay down during the study at all" (and the instrument note "Thirteen of them managed none at all") overstates it. - CONFIRMED | [sleep-30min] The welfare literature uses a threshold of 30 minutes of recumbency a day, derived in as many words from the observation that horses need some minimum of paradoxical sleep. | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/PMC5339441/fullTextXML | Burla: "Derived from these findings, it can be assumed that horses need a minimal duration of recumbency of 30 min per 24 h to perform a minimal duration of REM sleep". - CONFIRMED | [sleep-rem-range] The paradoxical sleep durations it derives that from run from 22.5 to 57.6 minutes a night. | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/PMC5339441/fullTextXML | Burla: Kalus "22.5-37.2 min/night", Dallaire "57.6 min/night"; the other figures (28.8, 31.6-53.68, 41.7-52.8) lie inside 22.5 to 57.6. - CONFIRMED | [sleep-standing-rem] One surface-EEG study caught it in one of five horses with numerous partial collapses, | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/search?format=json&resultType=core&query=EXT_ID%3A18466241%20AND%20SRC%3AMED | Williams 2008 abstract: "Five neurologically normal horses ... Standing REM sleep was associated with numerous partial collapses in 1 horse". - CONFIRMED | [sleep-standing-rem2] horses that will not or cannot lie down do enter it standing, over and over, and the way you know is that they start to collapse. | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/PMC5339441/fullTextXML | Burla introduction: horses "reluctant to occupy a recumbent position ... transition into REM sleep while standing, partially collapse, and then wake up suddenly"; Kelemen Figure 1 shows the skin lesions of repeated collapse. "Over and over" is fair. - CONFIRMED | [sleep-deficit] go paradoxical-sleep deficient and begin to buckle. | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/search?format=json&resultType=core&query=EXT_ID%3A34827921%20AND%20SRC%3AMED | Kelemen abstract: "An inability to lie down due to environmental insecurities or pain results in REM sleep deficiency". - CONFIRMED | [sleep-humancriteria] Horse sleep is scored with the criteria written for human sleep, and those criteria include muscle atonia in the definition of the stage. | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/PMC13491436/fullTextXML | Found (record had none): a 2026 equine EEG study: "In horses, one-to-one transfer of AASM N1-N3 terminology is not fully validated"; it adopts "a pragmatic mapping" with REM defined by "REMs and muscle atonia". Human (AASM) criteria with atonia in the REM definition, as the page says. - UNVERIFIABLE | [sleep-energy] The energy cost of standing against lying down, in a horse. | Europe PMC horse energy expenditure standing lying, 334 hits, first page read | No such measurement on the first page; not settled. - UNVERIFIABLE | [sleep-sentinel] And the sentinel story, that horses in a group take turns keeping watch, is repeated everywhere and rests on very little. | Europe PMC (horse OR horses) AND sentinel AND (vigilance OR sleep): noise only | Not settled. - UNVERIFIABLE | [sleep-timetorise] nobody has published a time-to-rise figure against a predation risk. | Europe PMC (horse OR horses) AND "time to rise": no relevant hit on the first page | Not settled. - CONFIRMED | [sleep-titrated] The thirty-minute recumbency threshold has never been titrated against paradoxical-sleep sufficiency; it was inferred. | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/PMC5339441/fullTextXML | Burla: "it can be assumed that horses need ...", an inference from REM durations; no titration study is cited there or was found. - CONFIRMED | [stubbs-18] He dissected horses for eighteen months to make these plates. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Stubbs | Wikipedia: "spent 18 months dissecting horses". - CONFIRMED | [voice-two] every whinny analysed in the study that looked contains two fundamental frequencies that are not multiples of each other. | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/search?format=json&resultType=core&query=EXT_ID%3A25897781%20AND%20SRC%3AMED | Briefer 2015 abstract: "all whinnies contained two fundamental frequencies ... which were not harmonically related". - CONFIRMED | [voice-267] The measurement: 267 whinnies from eighteen horses on five Swiss farms, recorded at five to ten metres, in five situations built around companions leaving and returning. | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/PMC4404681/fullTextXML | Briefer 2015: 267 whinnies from 18 horses (20 tested), "five different farms", recorded "at distances of 5-10 m", "five situations" (a control and four separation and reunion tests); ethics approval under Swiss law. - CONFIRMED | [voice-100] Biphonation was present in 100 per cent of them. | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/PMC4404681/fullTextXML | "the climax part is always (i.e. 100% of whinnies) composed of a second, lower fundamental frequency". - CONFIRMED | [voice-400-arousal] The lower fundamental, around 400 Hz, tracked emotional arousal, validated against the horses' own heart rates. | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/PMC4404681/fullTextXML | F0 "399.22 +/- 99.39 Hz"; arousal levels of the situations were set from heart rate ("The actual emotional arousal level ... was assessed from the horse heart rate"). - CONFIRMED | [voice-1000-valence] The higher one, above 1000 Hz, tracked emotional valence, | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/PMC4404681/fullTextXML | Briefer 2015: G0 "1543.26 +/- 326.45 Hz, range = 493-3012 Hz"; "G0 and whinny duration encoded valence"; Lefevre 2026 ">1,000 Hz". - CONFIRMED | [voice-whistle] It is an aerodynamic whistle, formed inside the larynx. | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/search?format=json&resultType=core&query=EXT_ID%3A41734736%20AND%20SRC%3AMED | Lefevre 2026 abstract: "generated by an aerodynamic whistle mechanism within the larynx". - CONFIRMED | [voice-200-400] The two papers on the whinny give different values for the lower fundamental, around 400 Hz in 2015 and about 200 Hz in 2026, probably because the later figure comes partly from excised larynges. | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/search?format=json&resultType=core&query=EXT_ID%3A41734736%20AND%20SRC%3AMED | 399 Hz (2015) against "a second, lower one (~200 Hz)" (2026); the "probably because" is labelled inference. - CONFIRMED | [voice-snort] The snort has been argued to mark positive states, and that claim has one research group behind it and no independent replication this page could find, | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/PMC11514268/fullTextXML | Found (record searched only the Briefer group): Hall and Kay 2024 systematic review lists the positive reading only from Stomp et al. 2020 (Hausberger group) and notes "Visser et al. (2009) interpreted snorts as negative signs in contrast to Stomp et al. (2020)"; the 2026 follow-up (PMC13320096) is the same group. - CONFIRMED | [voice-recording] The recording is the supplementary audio published with the 2015 paper, trimmed and not otherwise altered. | https://static-content.springer.com/esm/art%3A10.1038%2Fsrep09989/MediaObjects/41598_2015_BFsrep09989_MOESM3_ESM.wav | Recreated: the 169,785 samples of whinny-briefer-2015.wav are byte-identical to the supplement from sample 533,610 on (both 16-bit mono 44.1 kHz): trimmed, not otherwise altered. - CONFIRMED | [mane-fall] The taxonomist of record describes the horses as having a mane that "tends, at least in winter and/or with increasing age, to fall to one side", | https://portals.iucn.org/library/efiles/documents/2002-043.pdf | PDF p. 108 (printed 96), Groves: "the mane that is both long and thick and tends, at least in winter and/or with increasing age, to fall to one side". - MINOR | [mane-asses] the asses as having a short clipped one, the zebras as having long thick upright ones. | https://portals.iucn.org/library/efiles/documents/2002-043.pdf | Groves gives the short clipped mane only to the Asian asses (subgenus Hemionus, p. 109: "the short, seemingly clipped mane"); the true asses (Asinus, p. 113) have "a long, thin scruffy mane", and plains zebras (p. 115) a mane that "varies from long, thick, and neat to shorter, thinner, and even absent altogether". "The asses ... short clipped, the zebras ... long thick upright" holds for Hemionus and for mountain and Grevy's zebras only. The page's own table quotes the scruffy mane. - CONFIRMED | [mane-kiang-long] The kiang's mane is called "relatively long" on one page of a volume and "upright and relatively short" twenty-five pages later in the same volume. | https://portals.iucn.org/library/efiles/documents/2002-043.pdf | PDF p. 109 (printed 97), Groves: "a relatively long mane". - MINOR | [mane-kiang-short] The kiang's mane is called "relatively long" on one page of a volume and "upright and relatively short" twenty-five pages later in the same volume. | https://portals.iucn.org/library/efiles/documents/2002-043.pdf | PDF p. 84 (printed 72), Shah: "The mane is upright and relatively short". That is 25 pages BEFORE the "relatively long" of p. 109, not "twenty-five pages later" as the prose says; the figure caption and figures.json have the order right. - CONFIRMED | [mane-przewalski] Erect mane, no forelock, and it sheds both mane and tail hair once a year, which a domestic horse does not. | https://portals.iucn.org/library/efiles/documents/2002-043.pdf | PDF p. 94 (printed 82): "manes of Przewalski's horses are erect with no forelock ... shed their tail and mane hair once per year". - MINOR | [mane-zebra-maneless] Whole wild populations of plains zebra in a band running from Mount Kenya to southern Sudan are sparse-maned or maneless in three quarters of individuals, and in Somali populations manelessness is fixed; | https://portals.iucn.org/library/efiles/documents/2002-043.pdf | PDF p. 118 (printed 106): the three-quarters band is stated firmly, but for Somalia Groves writes "inadequate evidence suggests that the situation is the same north-east of Mt Kenya ... to the Juba River in Somalia, where the character is apparently fixed". The page drops both hedges ("in Somali populations manelessness is fixed"). - CONFIRMED | [mane-zebra-mughal] a maneless zebra was painted at the Mughal court in 1621. | https://portals.iucn.org/library/efiles/documents/2002-043.pdf | Found in the record's own source, PDF p. 118: "A maneless, white-eared zebra brought from Abyssinia to the Emperor Jahangir's court in Delhi is depicted in a Mughal painting of 1621, now in the Victoria and Albert Museum". V&A IM.23-1925 (api.vam.ac.uk O16756): zebra by Mansur, 1621; the image shows no standing mane. - CONFIRMED | [mane-lion-temp] The one large mammal whose mane has been instrumented is the lion, and the measurement went the wrong way for the thermal story: maned males ran a mean core temperature two tenths of a degree lower than females. | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/search?format=json&resultType=core&query=EXT_ID%3A28070288%20AND%20SRC%3AMED | Trethowan 2017: "males had a 24-hr mean Tb that was 0.2 +/- 0.1 C lower than females". - CONFIRMED | [mane-lion-armour] Neck protection has one test, and not on a horse: in lions, the mane area was not a preferential target of attacks and mane injuries were not more lethal, and the authors reported no compelling evidence of effective protection. | https://eprints.gla.ac.uk/72793/ | Found (record could not read it): West et al. 2006 abstract: "The mane area was not a specific target of attacks, and injuries to the mane area were not associated with higher mortality ... found no compelling evidence that the mane conferred effective protection against wounding". - CONFIRMED | [mane-midges] on a bait horse in Ireland in 1984 the preferential landing and blood-feeding sites were along the mane and the lower legs, and 40.3 per cent of the ten thousand midges attracted took a full blood meal, mostly there. | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/search?format=json&resultType=core&query=EXT_ID%3A6714213%20AND%20SRC%3AMED | Townley 1984: "preferential landing sites for midges were along the mane and lower leg regions ... Of 10,178 midges ... 4097 (40.3 per cent) engorged; the majority ... fed on the mane and lower legs". - CONFIRMED | [mane-sweetitch] It is also the predilection site for sweet itch, which is the disease those midges cause. | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/search?format=json&resultType=core&query=EXT_ID%3A6714213%20AND%20SRC%3AMED | Townley 1984: "Areas along the dorsal midline of the body are predilection sites for sweet itch lesions and are preferential engorging sites also"; the mane lies on that midline. - CONFIRMED | [mane-tabanid] Tabanid horseflies land overwhelmingly on the legs and lower body, 76 per cent on the legs in cattle, so the crest is not where they go. | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/PMC11354260/fullTextXML | Found (record could not): Insects 2024 15:602, beef cattle in Thailand: "legs were the most frequent landing sites (76.35%)"; it cites Muzari et al. for 70-100% on horses' legs. Not universal: a 2025 review notes Haematopota pluvialis landed on legs in only 11.5% of landings. - CONFIRMED | [mane-side] the whole quantitative literature on the domestic horse's mane as a structure is a study of which side it falls on: five hundred and twenty-six Quarter Horses, 69 per cent to the right. | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/search?format=json&resultType=core&query=EXT_ID%3A27535616%20AND%20SRC%3AMED | Whishaw and Kolb: "Of 526, 3-year-old American Quarter horses, 69% of horses had mane directed to the right". - MINOR | [mane-none-tested] Four explanations circulate: warmth, flies, signalling, protection in a fight. Of those, 0 have ever been tested on an equid mane. Not one experiment. | public/strata/the-conditional-horse/index.html | The 0-tested finding stands (no test found; West 2006 and Trethowan 2017 are lions). But the sentence says "Four explanations circulate"; the instrument beside it prints "Of the 5 explanations offered" (verify: "0 tested of 5") and "What this page could not settle" says "any of the five explanations". Four and five on the same page. - CONFIRMED | [rand-6.5] mounted officers generated 6.5 times as many public engagements as officers on foot: 332 per shift against 50. | https://web.archive.org/web/2020id_/https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR800/RR830/RAND_RR830.pdf | p. 57: "approximately 6.5 times as many engagements ... on average 332 engagements per shift for a mounted officer and 50 for an officer on foot". - CONFIRMED | [rand-28] Across twenty-eight observed patrol shifts, | https://web.archive.org/web/2020id_/https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR800/RR830/RAND_RR830.pdf | p. 55: "across 28 patrols (15 mounted and 13 foot patrols)"; p. 57 "The 28 shifts". - CONFIRMED | [rand-quasi] it describes itself, in its own words, as a quasi-experiment because the treatment was not randomised, adding that a direct causal effect therefore cannot be demonstrated. | https://web.archive.org/web/2020id_/https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR800/RR830/RAND_RR830.pdf | "quasi because the treatment ... was not randomised"; "it is not possible to demonstrate a direct causal affect of the mounted patrols on public opinion" (the causal sentence is about public opinion). - CONFIRMED | [rand-oxford] The real flagship evidence is a 2015 RAND and Oxford study, | https://web.archive.org/web/2020id_/https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR800/RR830/RAND_RR830.pdf | "Copyright 2015 RAND Corporation and University of Oxford". - MINOR | [rand-12-12] The engagements longer than a minute, the category that contains every actual conversation and everything crime-related, come in at 12 per shift mounted and 12 per shift on foot. Identical. | https://web.archive.org/web/2020id_/https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR800/RR830/RAND_RR830.pdf | The 12 and 12 are right (Figure 3.10), but the report puts conversations elsewhere too: encounters are "a brief conversation between police and a member of the public ... normally lasting less than a minute" (9 vs 10), and multiple encounters are crowds "with multiple people stopping to briefly chat" (74 vs 2). "The category that contains every actual conversation" is not the report's definition; the report says interactions "include all engagements related to crime". - CONFIRMED | [rand-acknowledge] The entire 6.5 times is made of acknowledgements and of crowds gathering: | https://web.archive.org/web/2020id_/https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR800/RR830/RAND_RR830.pdf | p. 59: "The difference in the total numbers of engagements between foot and mounted patrols is down to larger numbers of acknowledgements and multiple encounters". - CONFIRMED | [rand-three-factors] The report says plainly it could not separate the horse from the height from the rider. | https://web.archive.org/web/2020id_/https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR800/RR830/RAND_RR830.pdf | Summary of Section 3: "could not determine whether it was the sheer visibility mounted patrols offer, an effect of the horse itself or the actions performed by the officers". - CONFIRMED | [rand-doors] the horse as an opener of conversations, people coming out to their doors. | https://web.archive.org/web/2020id_/https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR800/RR830/RAND_RR830.pdf | p. 58: residents "stepping outside their front doors"; p. 54: "the horses also acted as ice-breakers". - CONFIRMED | [dmrb] The British road design standard specifies an equestrian eye height range of 1.5 to 2.7 metres. | https://www.northwarks.gov.uk/downloads/file/1367/cd-143-revision-2-0-1-designing-for-walking-cycling-and-horse-riding-web | CD 143 Version 2.0.1 PDF read: 5.6 ""Y" distances shall be measured from an eye height of 1.5 metres to 2.7 metres for equestrians." - CONFIRMED | [police-eyeheight] An adult on a 16.2 hand horse works out at about 2.48 m, and that figure is an estimate: | http://tools.openlab.psu.edu/publicData/ANSUR_II_MALE_Public.csv | Recomputed: ANSUR II male eyeheightsitting mean 804.51 mm; 16.2 hands = 66 in = 167.6 cm; 167.6 + 80.45 = 248.1 cm. Marked an estimate on the page. - CONFIRMED | [police-clearance] a mounted officer's eyes sit about eighty centimetres above the head-top plane of an adult crowd, and a standing officer's eyes sit about four centimetres below it. | public/strata/the-conditional-horse/figures.json | Arithmetic: 2.48 - 1.686 = 0.794 m; 1.6424 - 1.686 = -0.044 m. The 1.686 crowd height is "mid-sex adult stature" with no named source (ANSUR II mid-sex would be 1.692). - CONFIRMED | [police-ansur] ANSUR II (standing and sitting eye height). | http://tools.openlab.psu.edu/publicData/ANSURII-TR15-007.pdf | Reached (record could not): ANSUR II report, "(D16) EYE HEIGHT ... EYE HEIGHT SITTING plus STATURE minus SITTING HEIGHT", males mean 164.24 cm, SD 6.65; public male data eyeheightsitting mean 80.45 cm. - CONFIRMED | [police-tenfoot] ten feet is 3.05 metres and a helmeted officer on a 16.2 hand horse tops out at about 2.6. | public/strata/the-conditional-horse/figures.json | Arithmetic: 10 ft = 3.048 m; 2.48 m eye plus head and helmet about 0.12 m = about 2.6 m. - UNVERIFIABLE | [police-1912] It traces to 1912, and to 1906 before that: it is in print in a New York paper reprinting a police magazine on the Chicago mounted squad, credited to the fire chief James Horan, and separately in the mouth of a New York school superintendent. | Chronicling America and loc.gov JSON API (Cloudflare challenge to curl); WebSearch for the quote; archive.org search | Positive control: the same loc.gov host also refuses the Vachon record that certainly exists. Consistent detail: James Horan, Chicago fire marshal, died December 1910, so a 1912 reprint crediting him is possible. - CONFIRMED | [police-perth] The paper that gets cited that way is a genuine randomised crossover experiment, in Perth rather than London, in which the words "mounted", "horse" and "equine" do not appear at all. | https://osf.io/kwf98/download | The page does not name the paper; a matching one is Barnes, Williams, Sherman et al. 2020, "Sweet Spots of Residual Deterrence: A Randomized Crossover Experiment in Minimalist Police Patrol" (Western Australia Police, Perth). Counted in its 56-page preprint: mounted 0, horse 0, equine 0 (controls: Perth 6, patrol 283). That it is the paper "cited that way" was not traced. - CONFIRMED | [police-no-rct] There is no randomised trial of mounted policing, | https://web.archive.org/web/2020id_/https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR800/RR830/RAND_RR830.pdf | RAND itself: evidence "not as high as would be provided by a full Randomised Controlled Trial"; OpenAlex searches for randomised police patrol trials found none involving horses (they find the Perth and foot-patrol crossover trials). - CONFIRMED | [police-no-crime] Whether mounted patrol reduces crime. | https://web.archive.org/web/2020id_/https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR800/RR830/RAND_RR830.pdf | RAND: "the data are not able to indicate whether or not mounted police have an impact on crime ... any conclusions to this end are at present speculative". - CONFIRMED | [cit-josseck] Josseck, Zenker and Geyer 1995, Equine Vet J 27:175 (growth rate and wall renewal). | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/search?format=json&resultType=core&query=EXT_ID%3A7556044%20AND%20SRC%3AMED | Europe PMC: Equine Vet J 27:175-182, 1995. - CONFIRMED | [cit-butler] Butler and Hintz 1977, J Anim Sci 44:257 (feed and growth). | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/search?format=json&resultType=core&query=EXT_ID%3A833063%20AND%20SRC%3AMED | J Anim Sci 44:257-261, 1977. - CONFIRMED | [cit-malone] Malone and Davies 2019, Animals 9:1017 (shod against barefoot, growth and wear). | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/search?format=json&resultType=core&query=EXT_ID%3A31766684%20AND%20SRC%3AMED | Animals 9:1017, 2019. - CONFIRMED | [cit-florence] Florence and McDonnell 2006, Equine Vet J 38:642 (self-trimming ponies). | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/search?format=json&resultType=core&query=EXT_ID%3A17228579%20AND%20SRC%3AMED | Equine Vet J 38:642-645, 2006. - CONFIRMED | [cit-moleman] Moleman and colleagues 2006, Equine Vet J 38:170 (what stretching the interval does to the coffin joint). | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/search?format=json&resultType=core&query=EXT_ID%3A16536388%20AND%20SRC%3AMED | Equine Vet J 38:170-174, 2006. - CONFIRMED | [cit-wickler] Wickler and colleagues 2004, Equine Vet J 36:772 (mass on the foot). | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/search?format=json&resultType=core&query=EXT_ID%3A15656514%20AND%20SRC%3AMED | Equine Vet J 36:772-777, 2004. - CONFIRMED | [cit-aoun] Aoun, Takawira and Lopez 2025, Vet Surg 54:31 (the scoping review that finds no consensus). | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/search?format=json&resultType=core&query=EXT_ID%3A39278729%20AND%20SRC%3AMED | Vet Surg 54:31-51, 2025 (issue year; online 2024-09-15, hence the tool's year flag). - CONFIRMED | [cit-harman] Harman, Moore, Hoskins and Keller 1999, Equine Vet J 31:384 (the ramp retina killed; the streak; the binocular window down the nose). | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/search?format=json&resultType=core&query=EXT_ID%3A10505953%20AND%20SRC%3AMED | Equine Vet J 31:384-390, 1999. - CONFIRMED | [cit-sivak] Sivak and Allen 1975, Vision Research 15:1353. | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/search?format=json&resultType=core&query=EXT_ID%3A1210017%20AND%20SRC%3AMED | Vision Res 15:1353-1356, 1975. - CONFIRMED | [cit-timney] Timney and Keil 1992, Vision Research 32:2289 (acuity). | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/search?format=json&resultType=core&query=EXT_ID%3A1288005%20AND%20SRC%3AMED | Vision Res 32:2289-2293, 1992. - CONFIRMED | [cit-carroll] Carroll and colleagues 2001, Journal of Vision 1:80 (the two cone pigments). | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/search?format=json&resultType=core&query=EXT_ID%3A12678603%20AND%20SRC%3AMED | J Vis 1:80-87, 2001. - CONFIRMED | [cit-rosanowski] Rosanowski and colleagues 2018, PLoS ONE 13:e0194299 (eye cover and race-day fatality). | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/search?format=json&resultType=core&query=EXT_ID%3A29561898%20AND%20SRC%3AMED | PLoS One 13:e0194299, 2018. - CONFIRMED | [cit-mills] Mills and Taylor 2003, Vet Rec 152:41 (nose nets). | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/search?format=json&resultType=core&query=EXT_ID%3A12553579%20AND%20SRC%3AMED | Vet Rec 152:41-44, 2003. - CONFIRMED | [cit-schuurman] Schuurman, Kersten and Weijs 2003, J Anat 202:355 (the stay apparatus is not passive). | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/search?format=json&resultType=core&query=EXT_ID%3A12739613%20AND%20SRC%3AMED | J Anat 202:355-362, 2003. - CONFIRMED | [cit-greening] Greening and McBride 2022, Front Vet Sci 9:916737 (the pooled architecture). | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/search?format=json&resultType=core&query=EXT_ID%3A36061116%20AND%20SRC%3AMED | Front Vet Sci 9:916737, 2022. - CONFIRMED | [cit-kelemen] Kelemen and colleagues 2021, Animals 11:3189 (83 horses, recumbency measured). | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/search?format=json&resultType=core&query=EXT_ID%3A34827921%20AND%20SRC%3AMED | Animals 11:3189, 2021. - CONFIRMED | [cit-burla] Burla and colleagues 2017, Front Vet Sci 4:23 (where the 30-minute threshold comes from). | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/search?format=json&resultType=core&query=EXT_ID%3A28326309%20AND%20SRC%3AMED | Front Vet Sci 4:23, 2017. - CONFIRMED | [cit-briefer] Briefer, Maigrot, Mandel, Briefer Freymond, Bachmann and Hillmann 2015, Scientific Reports 5:9989 (biphonation, arousal and valence; and the recording on this page). | https://api.crossref.org/works/10.1038/srep09989 | Crossref: volume 5, article 9989, 2015-04-21, authors Briefer, Maigrot, Mandel, Freymond, Bachmann, Hillmann (Europe PMC lists the volume as 4; Crossref and the page say 5). - CONFIRMED | [cit-lefevre] Lefevre and colleagues 2026, Current Biology, doi:10.1016/j.cub.2026.01.004 (the high frequency is an aerodynamic whistle). | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/search?format=json&resultType=core&query=EXT_ID%3A41734736%20AND%20SRC%3AMED | Curr Biol 36:902-911.e4, 2026, doi 10.1016/j.cub.2026.01.004. - CONFIRMED | [cit-townley] Townley, Baker and Quinn 1984, Equine Vet J 16:117 (where midges actually land on a horse). | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/search?format=json&resultType=core&query=EXT_ID%3A6714213%20AND%20SRC%3AMED | Equine Vet J 16:117-120, 1984. - CONFIRMED | [cit-whishaw] Whishaw and Kolb 2017 (which side it falls on). | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/search?format=json&resultType=core&query=EXT_ID%3A27535616%20AND%20SRC%3AMED | Laterality 22:495-513, 2017 (online 2016-08-18). - CONFIRMED | [cit-trethowan] Trethowan and colleagues 2017 (the lion mane temperature measurement, which went the wrong way for warmth). | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/search?format=json&resultType=core&query=EXT_ID%3A28070288%20AND%20SRC%3AMED | Ecol Evol 7:253-262, 2017 (online 2016-12-20). - CONFIRMED | [cit-west] West and colleagues 2006, Animal Behaviour 71:609 (the one test of mane-as-armour, in lions). | https://api.crossref.org/works/10.1016/j.anbehav.2005.06.009 | Crossref: West, MacCormick, Hopcraft, Whitman, Ericson, Hordinsky, Packer, Animal Behaviour 71:609, 2006; "West and colleagues" is right (the tool's author flag is a false alarm). - CONFIRMED | [cit-copelin] Copelin, Hayman, Bergeron and Merkies 2024, Appl Anim Behav Sci 271:106180 (blindfolds). | https://api.crossref.org/works/10.1016/j.applanim.2024.106180 | Crossref: Copelin, Hayman, Bergeron, Merkies 2024, Appl Anim Behav Sci 271:106180. - CONFIRMED | [cit-giaco] Giacomantonio, Bradford, Davies and Martin 2015, Making and Breaking Barriers, RAND RR-830-ACPO, doi:10.7249/RR830 | https://api.crossref.org/works/10.7249/rr830 | Crossref: Giacomantonio, Bradford, Davies, Martin 2015, doi 10.7249/RR830. - CONFIRMED | [cit-groves] Groves 2002, "Taxonomy of living Equidae", in Equids: Zebras, Asses and Horses, IUCN | https://portals.iucn.org/library/efiles/documents/2002-043.pdf | PDF read: 204 pages; "forelock" occurs once (PDF p. 94, chapter 7, not in Groves's chapter 8); Groves chapter 8 starts printed p. 94. Table pinpoints are PDF pages (printed = PDF minus 12). - CONFIRMED | [cit-flower] Flower, Bits and Bearing-Reins, 1885. | https://archive.org/download/bitsbearingreins00flowrich/bitsbearingreins00flowrich_djvu.txt | The Internet Archive copy is the [1885] Cassell reissue, so the edition date is right; the text it reprints is from 1875-76 (see flower-whip). - CONFIRMED | [cit-sewell] Sewell, Black Beauty, 1877. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Beauty | "an 1877 novel by English author Anna Sewell". - CONFIRMED | [img-snelson] Brian Snelson, 2008, CC BY 2.0. | https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:With_practice_I_can_sleep_standing_up.jpg | Commons API: Artist Brian Snelson, 2008-06-25, CC BY 2.0. - CONFIRMED | [img-laura] Laura f LyceeVictorHugo, 2016, CC BY-SA 4.0: | https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Horse_in_the_recumbent_sleep_phase.jpg | Commons API: Laura f LyceeVictorHugo, 2016-07-14, CC BY-SA 4.0. - CONFIRMED | [img-chinneeb] Chinneeb, 2011, CC BY 4.0. | https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Group_of_Takhi_at_Hustai.jpg | Commons API: Chinneeb, 2011-06-12, CC BY 4.0. - CONFIRMED | [img-wilfredor] Wilfredor, CC0. | https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Equus_quagga_in_S%C3%A3o_Paulo_Zoo.jpg | Commons API: Wilfredor, 2015-12-19, CC0. - CONFIRMED | [img-shixart] Shixart1985, 2021, CC BY 2.0. | https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A_brown_horse_with_long_mane.jpg | Commons API: Shixart1985, 2021-05-15, CC BY 2.0. - CONFIRMED | [img-montanabw] Montanabw, public domain. | https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Black_fly_mask.jpg | Commons API: Montanabw, public domain. - CONFIRMED | [img-whitehead] Photograph by Ian Whitehead for the Portable Antiquities Scheme, CC BY 2.0: | https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SWYOR-C7A27C_Roman_Hipposandel_(FindID_987721).jpg | Commons API: "West Yorkshire Archaeology Advisory Service, Ian Whitehead", CC BY 2.0, credit finds.org.uk (the Portable Antiquities Scheme database). - CONFIRMED | [img-kret] Willem Johannes Kret, Erfgoed Leiden en Omstreken, CC0. | https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hoofd_van_een_ingespannen_paard_met_oogkleppen,_Objectnr_PV_KRET701.jpg | Commons API: Kret, Willem Johannes, 1926, CC0, credit erfgoedleiden.nl. - CONFIRMED | [img-cleveland] Cleveland Museum of Art, CC0. | https://clevelandart.org/art/1990.52 | Cleveland 1990.52, Gericault, The English Farrier, 1821, public domain / CC0. - CONFIRMED | [img-wellcome1] The wall, in section, about 1860. | https://wellcomecollection.org/works/knszrndh | Wellcome knszrndh, ca. 1860, Public Domain Mark; the plate (Anatomy, Plate X) includes "Fig. 1, Section of the foot, pasterns and shank". - CONFIRMED | [img-wellcome2] Two soles side by side, captioned in 1860 as the natural foot of an unshod horse and the same foot as changed in form by shoeing. | public/strata/the-conditional-horse/media/unshod-and-shod-1860.jpg | Read on the plate itself (Anatomy, Plate XI, the next plate): "FIG. 3. NATURAL FOOT OF UNSHOD HORSE" and "FIG. 4. THE FOOT AS CHANGED IN FORM BY SHOEING". The two soles are diagonal on a six-figure plate rather than side by side. - CONFIRMED | [img-met-blinker] A horse blinker, carved in ivory, about the eighth century BCE. | https://collectionapi.metmuseum.org/public/collection/v1/objects/325082 | Met API 325082: "Horse blinker carved in relief with a wedjat eye", ivory, ca. 8th century BCE (begin -800, end -700). - CONFIRMED | [img-stubbs-met] Stubbs, 1766. | https://collectionapi.metmuseum.org/public/collection/v1/objects/359031 | Met API 359031: George Stubbs, The Anatomy of the Horse, 1766. - MINOR | [img-muybridge] Muybridge, 1878. Twelve frames of one stride, made to settle an argument about what a hoof does at the ground. | public/strata/the-conditional-horse/media/muybridge-horse-in-motion-1878.jpg | The card shows 12 frames, but frame 12 is the mare standing still; 11 frames are the gallop. "Twelve frames of one stride" is off by one (the card's own caption says the negatives show "consecutive positions assumed during a single stride", and the 12th plainly is not). Date 1878 and public domain are right ("Copyright, 1878, by Muybridge"). - UNVERIFIABLE | [img-vachon] John Vachon for the Farm Security Administration, public domain. | https://www.loc.gov/item/2017746875/ (403 / Cloudflare to curl and WebFetch) | The image is the LOC FSA digital file fsa 8a33166 (tile.loc.gov copy compared, identical), but the creator and date were not read from LOC. - CONFIRMED | [img-anefo] Harry Pot for Anefo, CC0. | https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Demonstraties_in_Brussel_tegen_de_Eenheidswet,_bereden_Rijkswacht_voert_een_char,_Bestanddeelnr_911-9326.jpg | Found (record had none): Commons copy of the Nationaal Archief record: Artist "Harry Pot / Anefo", 1961-01-03, CC0, handle 10648/a9c4412a-d0b4-102d-bcf8-003048976d84. - CONFIRMED | [img-potter] Paulus Potter, Hinnikend paard, 1652. | https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/nl/collectie/object/RP-P-OB-12.768--963367a09566029aa8adae0bc940f4dd | Rijksmuseum RP-P-OB-12.768: "Hinnikend paard, Paulus Potter, 1652". - WRONG | [d-declared] Every empirical number is declared in figures.json with its source, a confidence tier and, where the literature gives one, a range. Nothing is typed into the prose by hand. A figure left provisional fails the check. | research/the-conditional-horse/verify.mjs | Recreated (mutation, scratch copy of the six published files): changing three numbers typed in plain prose ("fourteen previously barefoot" to "forty", "twenty-eight observed patrol shifts" to "ninety", "roughly a quarter" to "roughly a tenth") leaves the check green, 67/67. Many empirical numbers are typed by hand outside data-fig spans (forty-six studies, eleven mares, twelve weeks, 526, 1984, 1621, the quarter in sleep-231), so "Nothing is typed into the prose by hand" is false. - WRONG | [d-reads-page] The check reads the shipped page and compares every number in the prose against that file. | research/the-conditional-horse/verify.mjs | Same mutation: the check compares the 55 data-fig spans, not "every number in the prose"; editing an untagged number does not turn it red (control: editing the tagged 61 to 71 does, 66/68). The verifier's own closing line ("Every number the page prints is the number its sources support") overclaims the same way. - CONFIRMED | [d-field] It re-derives the visual field arithmetic, and asserts that the canonical published triad does not close and is short by the amount the page states. | research/the-conditional-horse/verify.mjs | Recreated: section 3 of the published check passes, "published total 350, implied 325.0, short by 25.0 deg". - CONFIRMED | [d-controls] It runs the two-voices test on its own controls, and requires it to pass on one synthesised voice and fail on two, because a test that cannot fail measures nothing. | research/the-conditional-horse/verify.mjs | Recreated: one voice 0.0027 locks, two voices 0.2160 do not, the real whinny 0.2266 does not. - CONFIRMED | [d-worked] It works the hoof budget, the sleep budget and the sight line against cases computed by hand in its own comments. | research/the-conditional-horse/verify.mjs | Recreated: section 5, hoof, sleep and sight-line worked cases all ok. - CONFIRMED | [d-media] It requires every self-hosted image and recording to carry creator, title, institution, a verbatim rights statement, a record URL and a retrieval date, and refuses any licence this project may not use. | research/the-conditional-horse/verify.mjs | Recreated: section 7, "every asset carries the full provenance block and a licence we may use [19 assets]". - CONFIRMED | [d-sameengine] This layer's check imports and runs the very module this page runs. | research/the-conditional-horse/verify.mjs | verify.mjs line 48: import * as E from ../../public/strata/the-conditional-horse/engine.mjs. - MINOR | [d-residual] and the gap runs from 15 to 40 degrees depending on which variant of the numbers you pick up. | public/strata/the-conditional-horse/figures.json | figures.json declares monocular 190 to 228 and binocular 55 to 80. 195 with 55 gives a gap of 15 and 195 with 80 gives 40, but 190 (Miller and Murphy's own low figure) with 80 gives 2x190 - 80 = 300, a gap of 50. The page's 15 to 40 holds only with M fixed at 195. - MINOR | [d-207] To reach 350 with a 65 degree overlap a horse would need a monocular field of 207.5 degrees, which is more than any source prints. | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/PMC7509108/fullTextXML | Rorvang 2020 prints "the maximum extent of the uniocular field of view in the horse is 228 deg", larger than 207.5; figures.json and the verifier both qualify it ("as a typical value"; "except its extreme"), but the prose and the instrument say "more than any source prints". - CONFIRMED | [d-325] Put the canonical numbers in and you get 325, not 350. | public/strata/the-conditional-horse/figures.json | 2 x 195 - 65 = 325. - CONFIRMED | [d-134] You cannot fit forty minutes of anything into thirty minutes of lying down. | public/strata/the-conditional-horse/figures.json | 40.27 / 30 = 1.342. - CONFIRMED | [d-3-6mm] At the surplus rates above, a foot gains something like three to six millimetres at the toe over six weeks. | public/strata/the-conditional-horse/figures.json | Presets: (0.197-0.059), (0.238-0.169), (0.18-0.06), (0.33-0.24) x 42 days = 5.8, 2.9, 5.0, 3.8 mm; Malone shod 9.66 - 2.88 = 6.78 mm over 49 days. - CONFIRMED | [d-assets19] nineteen self-hosted commons assets, | public/strata/the-conditional-horse/media/media.json | 19 assets; verify notes 18 of 19 are referenced by the page. - MINOR | [o-shoe-zero] The draft said a horseshoe sets wear to zero. | git show 749e50f0ee9:public/strata/the-conditional-horse/index.html | OBSERVATION checked against the record: the draft at 749e50f0ee9 said "a horseshoe is a device that sets the second rate to nearly zero", and the log quotes "nearly zero". The page's account of its own draft drops "nearly". - OBSERVED | [o-depletion-line] The draft marked where a hoof in deficit reaches live tissue on its own chart. | git show e31631a245:memory/log.d/2026-09-16T2030Z-the-conditional-horse.md | The log: "I drew the depth at which a hoof in deficit reaches live tissue ... The line is deleted"; ui.mjs keeps the comment. - OBSERVED | [o-vision] The draft called the equine visual field figures an error nobody had noticed. | git show e31631a245:memory/log.d/2026-09-16T2030Z-the-conditional-horse.md | "The three vision numbers do not add up and nobody has noticed is too strong". - OBSERVED | [o-eyecover] The draft said the flat-racing odds ratio was the only number that exists on racing eye cover. | git show e31631a245:memory/log.d/2026-09-16T2030Z-the-conditional-horse.md | Log: "The only number that exists. There were two". But see the added line: the body of section 2 still says "The one number that exists" and never mentions the jump study. - OBSERVED | [o-whip] The draft said the stated purpose of a Victorian blinker was whip protection. | git show a8814411632 | Commit message item 5, verbatim. - OBSERVED | [o-insects] The draft said nobody has measured where insects land on a horse relative to its mane. | git show e31631a245:memory/log.d/2026-09-16T2030Z-the-conditional-horse.md | "Nobody has measured where insects land relative to a mane. Somebody did, in 1984". - OBSERVED | [o-forelock] The draft wrote "absent" in the forelock column for three wild equids on the strength of a source that never mentions forelocks for any of them. | git show e31631a245:memory/log.d/2026-09-16T2030Z-the-conditional-horse.md | Log line verbatim; the PDF confirms "forelock" once, p. 94, about Przewalski's horse. - OBSERVED | [o-tenofficers] The draft said the one-mounted-officer-equals-ten claim traces to nothing. | git show e31631a245:memory/log.d/2026-09-16T2030Z-the-conditional-horse.md | "A claim I traced to nothing that traces to 1906". - OBSERVED | [o-clause] And one of this page's own citations was wrong in its pinpoint: a road design standard was quoted accurately and given clause numbers that do not exist in it. | git show f0f3d2f7274 | Commit message, verbatim. - OBSERVED | [o-paradoxical] The draft said paradoxical sleep happens only lying down, full stop. | git show f0f3d2f7274 | Commit message: "Paradoxical sleep happens only lying down. Not as an absolute." - OBSERVED | [o-sept23] Found a week later, on 23 September: the first correction on this list had survived in a second place. | git show e31631a245:memory/log.d/2026-09-23T1600Z-the-page-that-talked-to-search-engines.md | Line 108: "close the tap end off entirely". - OBSERVED | [o-instrument] It was replaced rather than tuned until it agreed, and it is mentioned here because a page that only ever reports the instrument that worked is telling you less than it knows. | git show e31631a245:memory/log.d/2026-09-16T2030Z-the-conditional-horse.md | "It was replaced rather than tuned until it agreed, and the page says so." - OBSERVED | [o-audits] Six research passes, twelve adversarial audits, and a media hunt whose provenance was re-verified by a second pass that trusted none of the first. | git show e31631a245:memory/log.d/2026-09-16T2030Z-the-conditional-horse.md | "six research agents, then two hostile auditors per topic"; "19 commons assets ... every one re-verified by a second agent". - OBSERVED | [o-brief] Two claims in the original brief for this page were wrong and are corrected in the text rather than quietly dropped. | not kept: the human's original brief is not in the repository (log and ledger describe a keyword list only) | The page itself names one (the randomised trial it was "commissioned" to cite); the second wrong claim in the brief is not identified anywhere I looked. - CONFIRMED | [shoe-age] The honest summary is that nailed shoes are securely attested in Europe from the early medieval period and that everything earlier is argued about. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe | Wikipedia Horseshoe: Childeric I tomb, fifth century; written references from about AD 900; the Etruscan find disputed. Secondary source. - CONFIRMED | [shoe-hipposandal] the hipposandal, a strap-on iron plate, is a different device from a nailed shoe and gets conflated with one constantly. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hipposandal | Wikipedia Hipposandal: "a device that protected the hoof ... a predecessor to the horseshoe"; Horseshoe notes early references "may have been to the hipposandal". - CONFIRMED | [sleep-rem-lying] It cannot sustain paradoxical sleep there, the stage a human would call REM, because that stage abolishes the muscle tone the standing posture is made of, and a horse that enters it standing begins to fall and wakes. | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/PMC5339441/fullTextXML | Burla: "REM sleep is the only sleep stage for which recumbency ... is required due to the total loss of muscle tone"; Greening on standing episodes and collapse. - WRONG | (added) [ten-officer, section 6] "What it has never been is a measurement. Nobody has tested it in the hundred and twenty years since, and the one study that could have does not mention it." | https://web.archive.org/web/2020id_/https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR800/RR830/RAND_RR830.pdf | The one study (the RAND report the page cites) does mention it, p. 74: "perhaps in line with suggestions made throughout the research that mounted police are worth six officers on foot in crowd control situations". It mentions and does not test it; "does not mention it" is false. - MINOR | (added) [section 2] "The one number that exists about eye cover in use is a risk figure, not a performance figure. Across 806764 British flat starts ..." | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/PMC12135743/supplementaryFiles | The audit list says the draft's "only number that exists" was corrected and commit a8814411632 says "Both are now on the page", but the body of section 2 never mentions the jump study (0.874, Allen 2025 Table S3); the HTML prints 0.874 nowhere. The corrected claim survives in the body. - MINOR | (added) [hoof instrument preset] "stabled, winter, shod": "Reilly and colleagues' control group over a British winter, with Malone and Davies' shod wear rate." | public/strata/the-conditional-horse/figures.json | surfacePresets[0] sets growth 0.18 from Reilly, after the prose says that figure "is not on the slider below"; the slider minimum is 0.19 (ui.mjs line 58), so the button silently shows 0.190 under Reilly's name. - MINOR | (added) [mane table] Plains zebra, forelock: "disputed" | https://portals.iucn.org/library/efiles/documents/2002-043.pdf | No source in the row mentions a forelock, and the page itself says the word occurs once in the 204-page volume (about Przewalski's horse). The other silent rows say "not described"; this one should too, or cite the dispute. - MINOR | (added) [mane table] African wild ass, mane: "erect", sourced to Groves p. 113 "a long, thin scruffy mane" | https://portals.iucn.org/library/efiles/documents/2002-043.pdf | The quoted source says "long, thin scruffy", not erect or upright; the erect classification (one of the 6 counted) is not supported by the text cited for it. - MINOR | (added) [Met blinker caption] "People have been putting things over horses' eyes for at least two thousand eight hundred years" | https://collectionapi.metmuseum.org/public/collection/v1/objects/325082 | The Met dates it "ca. 8th century BCE", objectBeginDate -800, objectEndDate -700: between about 2,727 and 2,826 years ago. "At least 2,800" is not supported; "about 2,700 to 2,800" is. - MINOR | (added) [could not settle] "because the criteria used to score it were written for humans and rule it out by definition." | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/search?format=json&resultType=core&query=EXT_ID%3A18466241%20AND%20SRC%3AMED | Williams 2008 scored "Standing REM sleep" on EEG in one horse, and the page itself says "the largest series score such epochs by the dozen", so the criteria do not rule the standing stage out by definition. The section 3 wording ("partly made of scoring rules") is the defensible one. - UNVERIFIABLE | (added) [section 3] "and the largest series score such epochs by the dozen" | figures.json sleep.standingRemEpisodes names no paper ("The two largest equine polysomnography series") | The 60 and 199 standing REM epochs a day are unattributed; not checked. - MINOR | (added) [section 6] "being noticed, pointed at, photographed, patted" | https://web.archive.org/web/2020id_/https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR800/RR830/RAND_RR830.pdf | RAND classes patting and photographing as ENCOUNTERS ("Instances where people patted the horse ... or stopped to take a picture or video, were also classified as encounters"), and encounters were 9 mounted against 10 on foot. Pointing is an acknowledgement; pats and photos are not where the 6.5 times comes from. - MINOR | (added) [hoof instrument] "Published range: every measurement study ever made of this, from Butler and Hintz 1977 to Malone and Davies 2019." | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/search?query=%22hoof%20wear%22 | The prose itself says "the studies this page read"; growth has been measured since 2019 (e.g. a 2024 randomised trial of transdermal CO2 on hoof growth, found by the same Europe PMC search), and Reilly 1998 is excluded on purpose. "Every measurement study ever made" is an overclaim. - MINOR | (added) [section 2] "trainers fit first-time blinkers to horses that are already running badly, so the decision to fit is anything but random." | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/PMC5862470/fullTextXML | Rosanowski offer this as one possibility, not a finding: "The reason for the association with fatality ... is unclear ... Alternatively, it could also be that trainers decide to use eye cover in an attempt to enhance performance". The page states it as fact. - CONFIRMED | (added) [mane audit] "The word mane does not appear in the canonical published table of domestication-syndrome traits, and the syndrome itself is under serious challenge." | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/PMC4096361/fullTextXML | Wilkins, Wrangham and Fitch 2014 Table 1: no "mane" (0 in the whole paper; control "floppy" 9); the 2021 reply "to Johnsson, Henriksen, and Wright" (PMC8633094) shows the challenge. - CONFIRMED | (added) [mane audit] lions: "concluding that protection is at most secondary to signalling" | https://eprints.gla.ac.uk/72793/ | West 2006: "protection appears to be secondary to the strong sexually selected advantages of the mane as a condition-dependent ornament". - CONFIRMED | (added) [device panel] Visor: "Blinkers with holes cut in the cowls, which the rulebook says permit limited side or rear vision." | https://rules.britishhorseracing.com/api/startup?19af3961ed8f49ce907b6bad0e3c9955 | BHA: Visor "means a garment similar to Blinkers in which one or both cowls have holes cut in them permitting limited side or rear vision". Hood, Eye Shield, Eye Cover and Cheek Pieces definitions also match the prose. - CONFIRMED | (added) [device panel] Ear bonnet: "never in decibels; one study measured the horses' responses instead" | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/search?format=json&resultType=core&query=DOI:10.3390/ani13091574 | Hole et al. 2023: 18 horses, ear covers, randomised crossover, "Behavioural and heart rate responses were recorded"; no attenuation measured. - CONFIRMED | (added) [section 4] "Lefevre and colleagues showed in Current Biology in February 2026" | https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/search?format=json&resultType=core&query=EXT_ID%3A41734736%20AND%20SRC%3AMED | Curr Biol 36:902, first publication 2026-02-01; methods as listed (excised larynx with helium, CT, endoscopy, recurrent laryngeal neuropathy). - CONFIRMED | (added) [Potter caption] "Three hundred and sixty-three years before ... and three hundred and seventy-four before ..." | https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/nl/collectie/object/RP-P-OB-12.768--963367a09566029aa8adae0bc940f4dd | 2015 - 1652 = 363; 2026 - 1652 = 374. - CONFIRMED | (added) [Stubbs caption] "the 2003 measurement ... is two hundred and thirty-seven years later" | https://collectionapi.metmuseum.org/public/collection/v1/objects/359031 | 2003 - 1766 = 237. - CONFIRMED | (added) [kiang caption] "one volume calls relatively long on page 109 and upright and relatively short on page 84" | https://portals.iucn.org/library/efiles/documents/2002-043.pdf | Correct in PDF page numbers (printed 97 and 72); this caption has the order right where the prose does not. ## Findings - [fixed] butler-same-ponies (K1, WRONG hoof-butler): the hooves section said the Shetland ponies on restricted feed were "the same ponies" as those on unrestricted feed; Butler and Hintz 1977 fed "two groups of seven Shetland 8-month-old ponies". index.html now says "Of two groups of seven eight-month-old Shetland ponies on the same ration, the group on unrestricted feed managed 0.384 mm a day and the group on restricted feed only 0.254"; figures.json hoof.growthRestricted.note now names a second group of seven of the same age on the same ration. Rates and the fifty per cent unchanged. Covered by the Corrected 2026-10-19 line. - [fixed] flower-1885-dating (K4, WRONG flower-whip): the blinkers section said Flower "allowed in 1885" his whip sentence; the 1885 copy's memoir says he died on 20 March 1883 and his sons republished "without any alteration", and the pamphlets date from 1875 and 1876 (Wikipedia, Writings). index.html now says "allowed in the 1870s"; the source list now reads Bits and Bearing-Reins (1875) and Horses and Harness (1876), read in the unaltered reissue of 1885. The quotation is unchanged. Covered by the Corrected 2026-10-19 line. - [fixed] sleep-quarter-of-human (K7, WRONG sleep-231): the sleep section said a horse sleeps about 231 minutes "in twenty-four hours, roughly a quarter of what a human sleeps"; Greening and McBride 2022 compare 230.72 min with a human 429.63 min (54 per cent) over recordings averaging 15.83 h. index.html now says the recordings averaged about sixteen hours and the figure is "a little over half the human figure pooled alongside it"; figures.json sleep.total note and unit corrected to match. Covered by the Corrected 2026-10-19 line. - [fixed] nothing-typed-by-hand (K15, WRONG d-declared): the check section said every empirical number is declared in figures.json and "Nothing is typed into the prose by hand"; verify.mjs reads only data-fig spans and the prose types many numbers by hand. The bullet now says the page's figures are declared there and that counts, dates and some figures are typed by hand and no program checks those; the verifier's header comment item 1 corrected to match. In the repair stage the same claim was found and corrected in the introduction ("Everything numeric here is in one file with its source", now "The page's figures are in one file with their sources", with counts, dates and some other numbers named as typed by hand), in figures.json meta.note ("Every empirical number this page shows a reader lives here") and in the markdown body ("every figure sourced in one file", now "its checked figures"). Covered by the Corrected 2026-10-19 line, which now names the introduction too. - [fixed] check-compares-every-number (K16, WRONG d-reads-page): the check section said the check "compares every number in the prose"; verify.mjs section 2 compares the data-fig references only. The bullet now says "every number tagged as a figure" and that editing an untagged one does not turn it red; in verify.mjs the header comment item 2, the comment above the reference scan, the ok label (now "every tagged number in the prose matches its figure") and the closing line (now "Every number the page tags as a figure is the number figures.json declares") corrected. Covered by the Corrected 2026-10-19 line. - [fixed] rand-does-not-mention-six-officers (K20, WRONG added, section 6): the police section said the one study that could have tested the officer-equivalence claim "does not mention it"; RAND RR-830 says "perhaps in line with suggestions made throughout the research that mounted police are worth six officers on foot in crowd control situations". index.html now says it mentions it only in passing, as a suggestion made during the research, and does not test it. Covered by the Corrected 2026-10-19 line. - [declined] eye-worn-before-no-risk-at-all (K2, MINOR [eye-worn-before]): Tier B MINOR, from the checker's note: OR 1.18 (0.90 to 1.54), p = 0.23, not significant; "no elevated risk at all" is stronger than the authors' "not significantly different". Loose wording, not false; not in a sentence being fixed. Listed. - [declined] jump-study-larger (K3, MINOR [eye-jump]): Tier B MINOR, from the checker's note: Allen 2025 is larger in fatalities (1,932 vs 610) but has fewer starts (384,408 vs 806,764), and the eye-cover estimate rests on hurdle starts only. A precision slip; listed. - [declined] blindfold-four-effects-two-studies (K5, MINOR [eye-blindfold-parker]): Tier B MINOR, from the checker's note: Copelin 2024 found no heart-rate effect in Study 2 (p = 0.1672), so one of the four effects is not shown in both studies. A slip of precision; listed. - [declined] bha-seven-items (K6, MINOR [bha-seven]): Tier B MINOR, from the checker's note: the BHA Headgear definition lists six items; seven counts the tongue strap, which is also a declarable item but covers no eye. Loose wording; listed. - [declined] kelemen-never-lay-down (K8, MINOR [sleep-13-none]): Tier B MINOR, from the checker's note: Kelemen 3.3 says the 13 did not lie down for more than 72 h and five of them lay down in later tracking periods; "never lay down during the study at all" overstates. Listed. - [declined] asses-short-clipped-mane (K9, MINOR [mane-asses]): Tier B MINOR, from the checker's note: Groves gives the clipped mane to the Asian asses only and a long, thin scruffy mane to the African wild ass; the generalisation is loose. Listed. - [declined] kiang-pages-later (K10, MINOR [mane-kiang-short]): Tier B MINOR, from the checker's note: the "upright and relatively short" (PDF p. 84) comes 25 pages before the "relatively long" (p. 109), not later; caption and figures.json have the order right. A slip; listed. - [declined] somali-maneless-hedges-dropped (K11, MINOR [mane-zebra-maneless]): Tier B MINOR, from the checker's note: Groves hedges Somalia ("inadequate evidence suggests", "apparently fixed"); the page drops the hedges. Listed. - [declined] four-or-five-explanations (K12, MINOR [mane-none-tested]): Tier B MINOR, from the checker's note: the prose says four explanations circulate, the instrument and the verifier count five; the 0-tested finding stands. Listed. - [declined] rand-every-conversation (K13, MINOR [rand-12-12]): Tier B MINOR, from the checker's note: the 12 and 12 are right, but RAND puts brief conversations in encounters too; "contains every actual conversation" is loose. Listed. - [declined] muybridge-twelve-frames (K14, MINOR [img-muybridge]): Tier B MINOR, from the checker's note: the card has 12 frames but the twelfth is the horse standing; 11 frames are the stride. Off by one; listed. - [declined] gap-15-to-40 (K17, MINOR [d-residual]): Tier B MINOR, from the checker's note: 15 to 40 holds with the monocular field fixed at 195; with Miller and Murphy's 190 and binocular 80 the gap is 50. Precision slip; listed. - [declined] 207-more-than-any-source (K18, MINOR [d-207]): Tier B MINOR, from the checker's note: Rorvang 2020 prints a 228 degree maximum uniocular field; figures.json and the verifier qualify it as a typical value, the prose does not. Listed. - [declined] draft-said-zero-not-nearly-zero (K19, MINOR [o-shoe-zero]): Tier B MINOR, from the checker's note: the draft at 749e50f0ee9 said "nearly zero"; the page's account drops "nearly". Listed. - [declined] only-number-survives (K21, MINOR added): Tier B MINOR, from the checker's note: section 2 still calls the risk figure "the one number that exists" though the jump study (0.874) is cited elsewhere on the page. Loose wording; listed. - [declined] reilly-preset-clamped (K22, MINOR added): Tier B MINOR, from the checker's note: the preset sets 0.18 but the slider floor is 0.19, so the button shows 0.190 under Reilly's name. A slip in the instrument; listed. - [declined] plains-zebra-forelock-disputed (K23, MINOR added): Tier B MINOR, from the checker's note: no cited source mentions a plains zebra forelock; the cell should say "not described". Metadata slip; listed. - [declined] african-wild-ass-erect (K24, MINOR added): Tier B MINOR, from the checker's note: the cited "long, thin scruffy mane" does not say erect. A classification slip; listed. - [declined] met-blinker-2800-years (K25, MINOR added): Tier B MINOR, from the checker's note: the Met dates the piece ca. 8th century BCE (800 to 700 BCE), about 2,727 to 2,826 years ago; "at least two thousand eight hundred" is a slip of precision. Listed. - [declined] criteria-rule-it-out-by-definition (K26, MINOR added): Tier B MINOR, from the checker's note: standing REM epochs have been scored (Williams 2008), so "by definition" overstates; the section 3 wording is the defensible one. Listed. - [declined] patted-photographed-encounters (K27, MINOR added): Tier B MINOR, from the checker's note: RAND classes pats and photos as encounters (9 vs 10), not where the 6.5 times comes from. Loose wording; listed. - [declined] every-measurement-study-ever (K28, MINOR added): Tier B MINOR, from the checker's note: "every measurement study ever made" overclaims the page's own reading, which the prose calls "the studies this page read". Listed. - [declined] trainers-already-running-badly (K29, MINOR added): Tier B MINOR, from the checker's note: Rosanowski offer the trainer-selection explanation as one possibility; the page states it as fact. Listed.