Inside the mysterious minds of horses
Short Wave
NPR
4.7 • 6.6K Ratings
🗓️ 22 June 2026
⏱️ 14 minutes
🔗️ Recording | Apple Podcasts | RSS
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Summary
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You're listening to Shortwave from NPR. |
| 0:07.0 | Horses. Maybe it's because I was born in the year of the horse, according to the Chinese zodiac, but I've always been a bit obsessed with them. |
| 0:14.4 | Their strength, beauty, and high emotional intelligence, which makes horses perfect companions for a neuroscientist like Janet Jones. |
| 0:23.3 | I love all the horses that I work with. No, I'll take that back. I love most of the horses that I work with. |
| 0:30.8 | Janet has been riding since childhood and is now a horse trainer who has her own horse. |
| 0:36.3 | This one horse has become her forever horse, a Dutch |
| 0:38.7 | warm blood from Minnesota. They've been together for years. He approaches you immediately. |
| 0:43.4 | He wants to know who you are and what you smell like and why you're there. And he's just really |
| 0:52.8 | very curious. |
| 0:58.3 | And when they met, she noticed he had this bright white diamond in the center of his forehead. |
| 0:59.9 | They reminded her of the North Star. |
| 1:03.7 | Horses in general are like my compass. |
| 1:06.8 | And so I decided to name him True North. |
| 1:08.4 | Or True, for short. |
| 1:14.2 | Now, Janet's relationship to True, and really to all the horses she's trained, has changed her life. |
| 1:18.8 | And it inspired her to write a book about the cognition and behavior of horses. |
| 1:20.9 | It's called A Horse's World. |
| 1:23.4 | And there just aren't that many books like it. |
| 1:36.3 | It's like there's a huge animal hiding in plain sight, one who has aided human civilization more than any other animal. Horses experience the world in a totally different way than we do. And yet, we ride them, we work with them, |
| 1:49.1 | and so horses are perhaps the best example of an animal that can broaden or stretch the edges |
| 1:59.1 | of our minds. |
| 2:07.7 | So today on the show, inside the mind of one of the most majestic animals on Earth. |
... |
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