Q: I was wondering, why does my blind horse constantly pace in circles in an anticlockwise direction? He has been blind for about two years. I rescued him so I really do not know exactly how he became blind, as I am not getting a straight answer from anyone who knew him before me.

Elizabeth Bland, via e-mail

A: Circling is pretty typical of some blind horses, especially when kept in a small enclosure or stall, but they’ll also travel in small circles within a larger paddock. Each blind horse I have known that does this circling behavior has consistently turned in the same direction; some always went clockwise and some always went counterclockwise. One was born without eyes, and his direction was always counterclockwise. He had a head tilt to the left as well. I can only remember about five or six blind horses in our care that we could say with certainty were completely blind in both eyes and had a tendency to circle, so it would be great if readers could let us know their experiences.

In the meantime, I shared your question with our ophthalmologist here at New Bolton Center, Mary Utter, DVM, PhD, Dipl. ACVO, as well as our equine neurologist, Amy Johnson, DVM, Dipl. ACVIM. According to Utter, the reasons for circling are more obvious if a horse is blind only in one eye. He might circle toward the blind eye to point the visual eye forward, or he might circle toward the visual eye to move toward the visual field–although the latter seems less likely