I’ve said it before, and I will say it again, I love Australians. In college, I was lucky enough to work at a summer camp in Nevada City. The staff was composed of half Californians, and half foreigners from English speaking countries. I worked in the barn (naturally) along with one or two Australians. This is where I learned how to speak the language of Horsey Australian.
In the camp’s barn, we spent a lot of time trying to figure out what eachother was talking about. Some words I recognized from horse books, but I’d never heard said out loud . Now I’m lucky enough to have a fantastic groom from Australia working for me. Nel has been in California for a little while so she has gotten accustomed to the difference in the way we talk about horse things. However, since I love Australians, I find myself parroting back some of the Australian terms for things when I’m talking to her.
Nel helped me make a list of translations for horse words in Australian and Californian. Let’s face it, I have to say Californian instead of American English because we’ve got our own dialect out here on the left coast. Before I get to the list, I want to share some of the stumpers that I’ve encountered when talking about horses with Australians.
Numnah (AUS)= fluffy pad (CA)
This one took days for me to figure out. Australians basically pronounce this as “loosen.” Lucerne (AUS) = Alfalfa (CA)
Float boots (AUS) = Shipping boots (CA)
And then there are the different types of mounts you might ride:
Clumper (AUS) = Draft Cross (CA)
Hack (AUS) = Horse (over 15h) (CA)
Galloway (AUS) = Hony (CA). Is it a small horse or a large pony? This distinction is for mounts between 14 and 15 hands. It’s a mount I always seem to be in the market for, but is hard to find.
Ponies are ponies in all the world. This mount is 14.2 hands or shorter. Ponies are smart, they walk on bridges instead of running through water.
Here is the rest of the list that Nel and I made:
Australian Term Californian Term
- bib bra, shoulder guard
- breaking in breaking, starting
- clumper draft cross
- feed bin feed tub
- float horse trailer
- float boots shipping boots
- galloway hony, large pony, small horse
- hack horse
- Head collar halter
- hogged mane roached name
- joddies breeches
- jodphur boots paddock boots
- jump wings standards
- jumper sweatshirt
- lucerne alfalfa
- long boots tall boots
- near side left side
- numnah fluffy pad
- off side right side
- paddock pasture
- rain scald rain rot
- rake fork
- roller surcingle
- round yard round pen
- rug blanket
- saddle cloth saddle pad
- skinny hood sleazy
- stable stall
- stalls tie rack
- stock saddle Australian saddle
- tack box track trunk
- ute SUV
- wind sucking cribbing
- witches hat cone
