There was a time when the pending arrival of a new horse would cause a bit of a stir in a household.

Farmville's new 'buckskin' horse has caused quite a stir.

I’m told that even the anticipated arrival of old Geldoff a few years back caused more than a little excitement.

I’ve caused fair bit of excitement since then, I should add.

Anyway, I digress.

Apparently, there is a game called FarmVille that has proved pretty popular among humans on Facebook.

Farming is a pretty exciting sport, so Geldoff can understand why people would be into it.

Anyway, I digress again!

It transpires you don’t even have to be a REAL horse to cause a bit of a stir these days.

Users on this forum are clearly pretty excited at their first sighting of a unreleased Buckskin horse for FarmVille.

Geldoff has no idea what unreleased means. Clearly, this virtual horse is still in some digital holding pen somewhere.

Obviously, this digital dude is pretty exciting stuff. Just look at some of these comments:

“Number 1,” proclaimed a user by the name of Freaker.

Majigurl said: “Another horse. Nice. I can’t afford all these horses!! lol at least this one is cute!”

Garnet, who declares himself a horse owner in real life for 30 years, makes this observation: “That’s not a buckskin horse. A buckskin would have a black main and tail, as well as a black dorsal stripe (a stripe that goes down the middle of the horse’s back).”

Interesting point, Garnet. Even digital horses should be true to type. Otherwise, what chance would you have when you enter a virtual showring?

Debby Sharp adds: “It’s actually a dun horse … very nice.”

It seems some foreign types also play FarmVille. Take BoBo: “Awsum horse! i am definatley getin this 1.”

Eddie comments: “i could realy youse 1 i only have mars.”

And the effervescent Jewel: “OMG!!! I love him!!! So CUTE!!!”

Now that’s the sort of reaction that should be reserved for REAL horses.

I’ll leave you with the astute Cindy Huxley: “… As to the horse colour/breed – well, there are many variations and the standards in different countries are different. It’s a horse in a game that has just given us a green horse with horns for heaven’s sake – can it matter?”