It is a common enough scenario. The wind is blowing as you lead your riding mount, racing, or performance horse from the stable to the paddock for exercise. A gust of wind sends a piece of paper skittering past on your right. Your horse, despite your quiet, steady hand on the lead shank, acts as though someone has shot off a cannon. It leaps to the left, smashing into you in the process. About that time, a piece of canvas in the hay shed to your left begins flapping in the breeze and your horse leaps to the right, this time nearly pulling the lead shank from your grasp.

What has gotten into this critter to be so rambunctious on this day when the route you are taking is identical to the one you’ve traveled with the animal day after day in the past?

It is in the eyes.

You looked at the skittering piece of paper and the flapping canvas and immediately recognized what they were and didn’t give them a second thought. Your horse didn’t see them the same way you did, and this set off an alarm, a part of its genetic makeup, that traces back hundreds of thousands of years