Q. My 8-year-old Warmblood gelding loves to "spin" things–anything on a rope, whether a Jolly Ball, a milk jug, his neighbor’s fly mask, the broom … he’ll spin them for hours. This is a video of him from a couple of years ago: www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5lyv37ye3E.

I thought he’d grow out of this phase, but he continues to twirl things. I heard a story on NPR (National Public Radio) about an autistic boy who loved to spin things. My horse is a bit of a character, and we call him dumb, but it is more like there’s some wiring missing–things take a while to make it from brain to body (good when you are doing something like sheath cleaning–he doesn’t react that fast!–but bad when trying to ride him). Maybe he is autistic?

Jill Chilton, Washougal, Wash.

A. What a great video! Thank you sharing the link. I have seen or known of several horses that spin similar "toys" in much the same manner as yours. Foals notoriously twirl "spinnable" objects. They start by shaking the toy, as they do with many objects they can pick up, and then seem to accidentally discover and then fixate on the rotational aspect. Once a foal has spun a given object like that, when he returns to the same toy he tends to immediately resume the spinning as if he picked it up with the intention of spinning