From Adrian Bowyer, University of Bath
Like Dilys Roe and her left-handed parrots (Letters, 2 September) I was unaware that “handedness is something rather like tool use, that’s been seen as uniquely human”, to quote Phil Clapham from the original piece on right-handed humpback whales (New Scientist, Science, 5 August).
It hasn’t been seen as uniquely human by any human who’s ever ridden a horse – which, over all history, may be the majority of us. Horses have a distinct left bias. This is why one should always get on and off a horse on its left-hand side.
I am not sure how many horses I’ve ridden – probably about twenty, which is not a very big statistical sample – but my impression is that only about one in ten of them has a tendency to right-footedness. These few don’t seem to mind being treated like the rest as far as mounting and dismounting are concerned, but – and again this is just an impression – I fancy that they have a higher-than-average tendency to strike off on the wrong canter lead when accelerating round tightish corners in either direction.
