Horsetalk's crazy world of horses

Horses are one of the few animals that, like humans, can develop asthma-like conditions. However, a British horse is finding the going particularly tough - she is allergic to grass.

Pandora is forced to wear a specially made coat and eye mask made of polyester-based breatheable fabric to protect her from the stuff.

Henley-on-Thames owner Emily Pearce first noticed five-year-old Pandora's allergic reaction last year.

She noticed the horse became unwell, developed breathing difficulties and broke out in large boils when she came into contact with grass.

Pandora is forced to spend summer days inside and the key elements of diet centre on sugarbeet, some chaffed roughage and soya oil. She takes more than a dozen antihistamine tablets each day.

It is unclear what triggered Pandora's allergy.

You can throw your toys out of the cot but you can't throw them at a police horse.

The Wichita Eagle newspaper reports 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. 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 construction worker in Indonesia was taken to hospital after a horse bit him 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.

The incident occurred in Gorontalo Province.

Emergency services in Southampton, England, are 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 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.

The callouts cost nearly £2000 each.