Horses with big hair, My Little Ponies that look like Darth Vader, and even a confused pony paying a visit to a cinema. Is there no end to the way innovative horses around the world have managed to grab headlines in 2009?
While most horses have been happy to graze quietly in their paddocks and go out for an occasional ride, others have been overseeing celebrities doing face-plants and even successfully jumping cars on a highway.
Drunken humans continue to do dumb things around equines, with one arrested for throwing a sex toy at a police horse, while another liquored-up individual ended up in trouble for riding a white horse in a snowstorm.
The award for best-groomed horse of the year is a three-way tie, and it's a no-contest. The usual gleaming coat and plaited mane just didn't cut it in 2009.
Advertising photographer Julian Wolkenstein gave three horses a taste of the life of a supermodel in Britain, and the results speak for themselves.
Harmony, Misty and Florence spent hours with the hairdresser and a good deal of time in front of the lights and camera, having their spectacular dreadlocks, striking platinum-blonde locks, and flowing auburn style with spectacular fringe (bangs) recorded on film.
Wolkenstein said: "After working hard in advertising for a while you just need to have some fun. Do something because it makes you smile. No other reason."
Finnish artist Mari Kasurinen saw great artistic possibilities, too, not with big hair but with Hasbro's range of My Little Pony toys.
Kasurinen sets about turning the pint-sized plastic horses into a range of famous movie characters and other figures of popular culture.
If you've never imagined the swashbuckling Pirates of the Caribbean hero Jack Sparrow as a horse, or never thought about an equine Darth Vader, Kasurinen can fill in the gaps. What about Princess Leia in her sexy slave costume? Or Batman and Robin? Even Elvis Presley and the hideous creatures from the Alien movies have not escaped her attention.
In the end, the simplicity of the My Little Pony toys won the day. "I had to find a toy which provided a good basis for my work. I tried Barbies, Action Man, He-Man dolls, tin soldiers, plastic animals ... they didn't fit."
What do her friends think of her choice of artistic endeavour? "My friends think I'm a little nuts but, then again, artists always are a little [that way].
While most moviegoers expect a little on-screen action, there's no extra charge at all when it occurs off-screen.
Three horses in Britain escaped in January from Boldon, in South Tyneside, and one of them wondered through the automatic doors into a nearby cinema.
It crossed the foyer - presumably checking out what was screening - and, not liking any of the offerings, headed back out through the doors. It was later captured and all admission fees were waived.
Celebrities were never far from the news and the Reader's Digest, not exactly renowned for breaking big equestrian stories, had the lowdown on Prince William's girlfriend, Kate Middleton.
It recounted a conversation at a polo match between Australian author Kathy Lette and 27-year-old brunette Middleton, who is known as "Waity Katy" by some in the popular press over her patience in waiting for a proposal from William.
It transpires Middleton may well have a distinctly un-Windsorlike attribute: an allergy to horses. Lette recounted how she had spoken to Middleton, who was sitting alone watching a polo match involving the young prince.
Lette asked Middleton why she didn't play polo, to which she explained: "I'm allergic to horses."
Was she joking? An allergy to horses is a distinct disadvantage in mixing it with the Windsors, with both princes William and Harry keen polo players, and even the Queen still rides.
Madonna took a tumble from a horse in April in New York was treated for minor injuries at hospital.
A statement released on Madonna's behalf said: "The accident occurred when the horse Madonna was riding was startled by paparazzi who jumped out of the bushes to photograph the singer who was visiting friends on Eastern Long Island over the weekend."
Singer Leona Lewis was head-butted by her horse in May. The Bleeding Love singer was reportedly standing beside her horse - apparently a birthday gift from friends - when something startled it.
It flicked its head and struck Lewis in the face, knocking her to the ground.
She was badly shaken and suffered a split lip in the Los Angeles incident.
A new word entered the lexicon, thanks to the observations of a British drug expert who drew comparisons between the risks of taking ecstasy and horse-riding.
Professor David Nutt coined the phrase Equasy in an article published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology. It was entitled "Equasy - An overlooked addiction with implications for the current debate on drug".
The professor, using the term to refer to equine addiction syndrome, said,"There is not much difference between horse-riding and ecstasy", in a reference to risk-taking and potentially harmful behaviours.
The British horse community was not amused and Professor Nutt copped plenty of flak, adding a little agony to the ecstasy debate.
Crooks find the occasional use for horses, too.
In January, two would-be tractor thieves unable to hotwire the vehicle made their getaway on a hijacked pony in Ireland.
A farmer in County Donegal, Ireland, noticed a pony missing from his property and soon after discovered the failed bid to steal his tractor.
The pony was recovered from a field outside a nearby town and a witness later reported that they had seen two men riding it, still with its cover on.
In Macedonia, police seized a horse allegedly involved in a smuggling operation. The horse and carriage were used to smuggle air conditioners in from Serbia.
Police intercepted the horse and found it without a driver. It appears the horse had been set "on course" with a plan for someone to meet it across the border.
Just occasionally, it seems even horses can be the perpetrators of evil deeds.
Police in Durham, Britain, rounded up what they called a "renegade" herd of horses which they said had endangered motorists and blighted the lives of local residents.
About 40 horses and some sheep were taken by trucks to a secure property after the owners could not be traced. The animals had been illegally left on the 185-acre site, where they caused danger and disruption by straying on to a nearby busy road.
"They have also blighted the lives of many locals when roaming loose on the bridleways and in Hunwick itself," the police said.
Other emergency services in Britain also had a spot of horse trouble, but for a quite different reason.
Emergency services in Southampton, England, were frustrated after four callouts from members of the public concerned that a grazing horse may be stuck in mud.
The horse's name is Mayflower and her problem is not so much mud, but extraordinarily short legs. Mayflower, now nicknamed Shorty by her newfound mates in the emergency services, looks for all the world as if she is stuck, especially when eyed alongside the long-legged horses who graze the same pasture.
Mayflower stands just 71cm tall. Each callout cost long-suffering taxpayers nearly £2000.
In Pennsylvania, a man was jailed for trying to organise a hit on his estranged wife's two horses. The man admitted charges that included attempting to solicit the killing or maiming of a domestic animal. He was sentenced to six to 12 months in jail.
Police were tipped off to his intentions and a detective posing as a potential horse hit man telephoned the 27-year-old defendant. The detective was offered $US1000 to kill the horses and $US500 to run the defendant's wife off the road.
An Indonesian horse with a mean streak grabbed headlines in March, when he chomped a construction worker in the crotch, severing a testicle.
The man was reportedly unloading a car when the horse attacked.
He was loaded into a car and taken to Aloe Saboe Hospital.
A bystander uplifted the severed testicle from the pavement and took it to the hospital. It is not known whether an attempt was made to re-attach the organ.
In March, a man discovered you can throw your toys out of the cot but you can't throw them at a police horse.
The Wichita Eagle newspaper reported a sorry end to a bachelorette party which involved, of all things, a five-foot inflatable penis.
The sole male in the gathering of women was fooling with the toy and allegedly launched it in the direction of a passing mounted police officer.
The toy struck the horse, causing it to spook. The man was arrested for assaulting the horse.
Just like the penis, things quickly blew out of all proportion. A woman who objected was arrested after grabbing an officer by the arm, and another woman was later arrested for hitting a horse's head after it stood on her foot while working to disperse the crowd.
A fight was looming in Texas after Ben McCleary was ticketed for littering over the deposit left in the town of Roman Forest by his two-year-old colt, Rascal.
McLeary branded the ticketing as un-Texan.
If horse dung is your thing, we hope you didn't miss September's two-day conference in Texas for those on the cutting edge of manure management.
The question was not if those involved in animal waste management could afford to attend the upcoming conference. It was whether they can afford not to, according to Dr Saqib Mukhtar, Texas AgriLife Extension Service agricultural engineer.
It had been 10 years since the university's last manure management conference, Mukhtar said. Perhaps the police who ticketed Mr McLeary should have gone along.
Seattle-based artist Kim Graham gave us her Digitigrade Leg Extensions, allowing users to get around on a pair of lookalike equine legs.
The spring-loaded cloven hooves are an optional extra. For added equine realism, you can even add some hair to your overall ensemble.
She says it takes 10 to 15 minutes to learn to walk comfortably in them. "If you snowboard, it takes about 15 seconds!" Graham explains.
New Zealand made headlines, too.
The famous talking horse,
Mr Ed, make his triumphant return to the small screen.
However, the English-speaking palomino that entertained generations of children had one important difference: gone was his laid-back American drawl, replaced by a Maori voice-over.
Yes, the bilingual Mr Ed was joined by the rest of the cast in speaking Maori on New Zealand's Maori TV channel.
New Zealand's Advertising Standards Authority had to rule on a truly important question: Is the sight of horses doing the wild thing in a TV commercial acceptable?
Well, yes it is, but with some provisos.
Complaints centred around two horses depicted having sex in a television ad for Cadbury Moro chocolate bars.
The creators described the campaign as deliberately irreverent and light-hearted and noted that the horses were in the background.
The actual sex bit lasted only three seconds. The scene was suggestive and certainly not graphic or explicit. The voiceover contained no sexual references, and the sequence was unlikely to be regarded as sexual by children, they argued.
The Complaints Board, in its decision, said: "The incident did not depict anything that was not seen on a daily basis on farms throughout the country."
It ruled the advertisement had been prepared and played with a due sense of social responsibility.
Horses and highways are always a dangerous combination, as
footage taken in Israel proved.
In August, a horse escaped with minor injuries after jumping a car on a highway.
A tourist in a car was videoing three horses galloping down a main highway in northern Israel when the accident unfolded.
Two of the horses swerved out of the way of the approaching car but the larger third horse tried to vault it.
Its front legs smashed the car's windshield as it ploughed across the roof section before landing on its feet on the other side.
The horse was saved from more serious injury because the driver had slowed almost to a halt as the horses approached.
The driver escaped with minor cuts and the horse was described as suffering only light injuries.
The city of Cody, Wyoming, managed a unique twist to a recurrent story from 2009 - horse owners riding while drunk.
A man, 28, was found riding his white horse down a city street during a snowstorm. A passing motorist telephoned police.
Police stopped the rider to explain the visibility issues, and noticed the man was "highly intoxicated", according to a report in the local media. He was also seen to be drinking beer.
Police decided to hold the rider until he was sober and a friend of the man's picked up the horse.
Finally, horses may have leapt cars in a single bound, banded together as a renegade mob to make the lives of locals a misery and put the bite on unsuspecting construction workers, but the Toughest Horse of the Year award goes to an Arabian horse named Eddie, from Wyoming.
Eddie, 9, miraculously survived a 5.3-kilometre swim through an irrigation tunnel after being sucked into its intake.
Eddie had slipped into the Shoshone River and was drawn into the Corbett tunnel, carrying 740 cubic feet of water a second on the day of the accident.
Breathing with only about 60cm of head room, Eddie swam for about 45 to 50 minutes to emerge at the other end. He was submerged for the first 30.5m of the tunnel journey, and was also forced under when he entered the head gates.
Eddie had a lot of scrapes and cuts but only one of them - on a leg - was serious enough to require bandaging. He was back to his normal self only days after the accident.
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