Horses sleep while standing: Here is the how and why of it 

What do you do when you feel sleepy? You hit the bed right away, isn’t it? But there is an animal who prefers to sleep in standing posture. Yes, we are talking about horses here. Are you wondering how they even manage to do so? Well, let us find out. 

Dozing off while standing: The mechanism  
Looks like, horse has a special characteristic and it’s called stay apparatus. Okay, so what does it mean? It means that horses have a unique arrangement where the muscles, the ligaments and the tendons are all connected in such a way that they can easily stand on three legs while resting the fourth one. Wait, the surprise isn’t over. Turns out, this fourth leg also gets a chance to rest when it is replaced by all the others, turn by turn. This means that all the legs get to rest, one after the another. After all, an average male horse weighs around 500 kgs, so this rest is highly essential to prevent fatigue. Are you wondering how a horse manages to sleep while standing without really falling over? It’s actually fairly simple – it locks its knees before dozing off. Here’s another fun fact, horses prefer to sleep during the day thanks to their fear of predators.  

Why does the horse sleep standing up? 
Now that we have understood how horses sleep while standing, let us shift our focus to the why of it. As some of you might know, horses are deemed for their intelligence. Turns out, they prefer sleeping in the standing posture so that they can see clearly and act rapidly if a predator is around. After all, they are native to open lands and are prey species.  

Moreover, since horses have the special characteristic by dint of which they can both take rest as well as be on high alert for potential attackers. Turns out, there’s also a downside to stay apparatus as it makes the back of the horses straight. This doesn’t allow horses to get up fast. So, if they get the slightest hint that they are in danger, standing up gives them the edge to quickly run away and lying down would mean almost surrendering to the enemy. Maybe, that is one of the reasons why horses are natural fast runners. It’s their flight response after all!  

But horses can also lie down while sleeping. If they are in a group, they not only take turns for sleeping and staying alert for possible attacks, but also choose to lie down and get deep sleep.