I have a friend who owns a beautiful 5 year old. Now, I have been around horses almost all my life, and last night, this horse had hicups!! Really loud ones!! I have never heard a horse with hicups before, and I have been around a lot of horses..... I have also never had anyone tell me that their horses sometimes have hicups. (I almost wonder where I have been all these years???)
It was actually kinda cute to watch him while hicuping, cause he has such a ''baby face''....but I was wondering if this was normal, and what could be causing them? I must add that when he is on cross ties, he tends to get a ''little anxious'', so maybe this is what causes them, because this seemed to start when he was ''becoming anxious'' on the cross ties.
Has anyone out there ever had, or heard of, another horse that has had hicups before? They sounded like real human hicups...

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Here's a cute story on hicuping horses and it tells you how it is caused. It's very simular to humans

http://www.ecmagazine.net/sp04htm/hiccupsp04.htm

Well I must say I did not know this either, very interesting and cute to read.

And it surprises me more horses don't get them. Tension can be a cause of hiccups because we gulp air when we are tense and not breathing deep enough. Well horses hold their breath when we are riding them and they are tense. Just try deep breathing while you are riding and see how much your horse relaxes and starts to blow means he is breathing more too.

Tense ride holding breath = same for horse.