Opinion: I Don't Think Horses Should Play Human Football

Hello, friends. I'm Adam Jacobi. As longtime readers of BHGP know, I've worked tirelessly in the field of bringing sports to different types of animals. For example, I founded Dinosaur Racecars, and then I talked a lot more about Dinosaur Racecars and the International Dinosaur Racecars Intersociation. I'm happy to report that Dinosaur Racecars is still going strong, and as long as I'm on these here internets so will Dinosaur Racecars.

But I'm not here to talk about Dinosaur Racecars. I'm here to talk about why not all sports are for all animals. For example, humans should not bobsled or luge. That's a ridiculous sport. Those tracks are made for penguins to slide on their bellies, and if that's what the sport was about the injuries would be minimal. Also, ratings would be sky-high.

Similarly, I've tried to get cats involved in sailing, and they just spend the entire time on the boat scared out of their minds. Worst regatta ever.

What troubled me, however, was this Tweet from esteemed Florida WR coach Joker Phillips, former head coach of the Kentucky Wildcats. It's pretty obvious he's putting the moves on the wrong prospect here.

A new horse has been entered into the #derby #comeplaywrforthejoker twitter.com/jokerphillips/…

— Joker Phillips (@jokerphillips) May 1, 2013

Let's rule one thing out right now: 17-year-olds don't care AT ALL about horse racing, because they're too young to gamble. So he's not using that invented horse name to recruit humans. He's clearly asking that horse to come play wide receiver for Florida, and that is just not a good idea, folks. Here's why I would be very, very upset if a horse was ever recruited to play wide receiver.

1) Horses can't catch. They have clippy-cloppy hooves, ones that may or may not have cleats nailed onto them depending on field conditions. All four of those hooves are not only feet (which is to say on the ground) but also completely lacking in prehensile appendages, meaning there's no way for the horse to grip the football.

"Ah, but you can just put it in the horse's mouth!" OK, look. Leaving aside the fact that that's either terrible for the ball or the horse's teeth, it's also completely illegal. Mouthguards have been required by NCAA football since 1973, and we'll be damned if we'll let the NCAA throw away 40 great years of dental safety in the name of putting a horse in the field of play.

2) Horses can't understand football. Horses aren't completely stupid, and their skills at dressage lead me to believe that an end zone celebration involving a horse hot-stepping could be PHENOMENAL, but football is a very complicated sport with rules and regulations governing virtually everything, and I just can't imagine that a horse would be able to abide by the rules of the line of scrimmage and the snap. False start penalties everywhere, even for just a twitch of the tail. "Set" means "set," horsie.

3) Tackling a horse is problematic at best. Here's the deal with horsies: they're roughly 1,000 pounds of well-crafted muscle racing on leg bones that are made of papier-mâché and wishes. So if you tackle high on a horse in full sprint or gallop or whatever people call it, you're getting stampeded and maybe deaded.

But if you tackle LOW, you're probably putting that horse down. Not as in tackled. As in it's going to be hurt really bad in its legs, and everyone's going to be horrified by what you just did and here's the shotgun, pal, this one's on you. You don't want that horse blood on your hands, or your uniform, or your face.

4) Horses can't qualify academically in the NCAA. Horses don't have people brains and can't take people tests. They are more interested in eating the SAT test sheet than writing bubbles on it in order to demonstrate their intelligence in a series of examinations. It's all a foreign concept to them, and there's only so much work the tutors can do. The NCAA Clearinghouse would never let it fly.

5) Horses doo-doo everywhere all the time and without warning or regard for those around them. You can't just doo-doo on the field. Most fields don't even use real grass anymore, Kinnick included, so don't even give me this "it's good for the field' business. It's just doo-doo. I don't want that on the field and neither does anyone else. And flagging the horses until they stop isn't going to do the trick either, because remember: horses don't know rules.

6) THIS IS FAKE.

FAKE FAKE FAKE FAKE.

I talked about this issue on Twitter this morning, and I have to say I was shocked by how much pushback there was from folks who thought horsies playing human football was a good idea. One person even called me a Horsist. Me, friend of animal and sport, a Horsist. My heart bleeds blood today because of you, sir.

I don't even understand you people sometimes. They're not mentally or physically capable of playing the sport, nor qualifying for it academically. I like watching horses run just like any person with motion sensing capabilities. But they cannot play football and I feel like Joker Phillips needs to acknowledge that before he goes making more reckless entreaties to the equine world.

Thank you for reading this very important story. You may now go back to enjoying your Dinosaur Racecars races.