Time passes fast

What is the horse going to do with prep time? What am I missing? This seems crucial.
- He could have someone put some armor on, I imagine.

Every fucking time this is posted. Goddamit, OP, they'll be at this shit for hours like crows with a diamond ring.
- Like beating a dead horse
  
  Think I can beat that one

That's a short conversation for me:
Anything medium/large-dog size and larger, no.
Below that it can certainly depend (like a venomous snake? We'll both lose. Eagle? Honestly no fucking clue. If I got a hit in, it would be done, but I'm not sure I'd get a strike in).

There's no way a single dude is dropping a horse with their bare hands.
- How many dudes do you think it would take?
  
  I say it takes at least 5 average humans to put a horse in the ground without weapons. And if the horse is also fighting to the death you're losing a couple people for sure.
  Source: my entire ass
- Just wait it out. Domestic horses are good at dropping themselves.
- All you have to do is snap its neck, just jump on it and hang from it.
  
  I don’t think jumping on it while it’s fighting you will be easy at all, unless you’re jumping down from a structure at the right time and have balls of steel

A single rear leg kick from a horse can easily break your skull apart, snap your neck or spine, cave in your entire chest, snap your femur, shatter your hip.
One good connecting hit and basically 99% of people are dead, paralyzed for life, or at best, extremely seriously injured and needing immediate hospitalization.
An unarmed human is not going to win an aggro'd fight with a horse in some kind of cage match scenario, unless its very young, very old, or quite sick or already injured.
Horses can be very dumb though: In a more real world scenario, you may be able to spook them into breaking their own legs on uneven ground, or even just running off of a goddamned cliff or into a tree or some other obstacle.
Alternatively: Spend the hour of prep time getting horse feed and poison.
Don't fight it, befriend it, and then betray that trust.
- An unarmed human is not going to win an aggro'd fight with a horse
  Do I get prep time?
  
  After review by the panel of judges, their response is:
  'Neigh!'
- Nowhere in the rules says it has to be a fair fight. What if I just shoot the horse from outside of its pen?
  
  I mean sure, just learn some trigonometry, grab a map, and a mortar, and kablamo rofl, toss in a grenade, jerry rig an ied drone, rofl.
- unfortunately for the horse, i’m in the 1%
  
  Are you by any chance a centaur, perhaps an andalite?

Is it okay to use the surroundings? Humans are good with this. Also with improvising tools. It's kind of our thing. (If we take this away, we'll be way worse but I would get it.) The problem with that is that it's super hard to measure. I could take on a horse in a jungle, I think, but not in the Eurasian Steppe.
It also depends on the age and character of the animal. I was able to grab a swan by its neck and throw it away because it was barely an adult. I bet it would have been a lot harder if it was a year older and even more aggressive. (This was in self defence of course)
Another thing to consider is the premise. Do I choose an animal and the animal is not aware of the danger? Is it aggressive towards me in the normal range of its species? Does the animal try to kill me with all of its power?
- If I hear of people grabbing animals by the neck and throwing them away I’d normally be concerned but if you tell me it was a Swan or a Goose I’m like yeah makes sense, they probably deserve it the aggressive little pricks.

Animals I have beaten in a fight:
Feral dogs.
Feral dogs likely mixed with eastern coyote. I cheated though, I shot them.
Animals that have beaten me in a fight:
Geese.
A catfish (in my defense, it was massive and the fight was in the water. On land I would have won)
Humans.
Animals I have run from rather than fight:
Hornets.
Bears. Black bear, we startled each other, then I left a trickle down my leg while I ran.
A big pack of dogs. Wasn't armed, and saw them coming.
My record is not exactly impressive
- I mean it’s better than something truly shit like “I once accidentally stepped on a hamster”.
  
  It was no accident.
- I left a trickle down my leg while I ran.
  Wow, sexy bear, huh?
  
  Awww yeeeeahhhh!
- I have about the same. Ran from a snapping turtle in the cumberland river near nashville. Was fishing. Saw what amounts to a dinosaur floating by and … noped the heck out of there.
  
  Oh, no way am I going near a snapper in the water. hell no
  Now, on land, I've had to move some off of roads before, but on land they aren't as agile. They're fast in the water though
- I mean, fending off a single feral dog without a firearm would be fairly impressive imo...
  But you lost to a goose? Geese?
  They're all bark and just a bit of bite. Either get a decent stick, or just accept the pain and then grab them by their stupid fucking necks, now bludgeon the others with your feathery flail.
  ... Running from a bear, and a pack of dogs, on the other hand, I mean thats understandable, choosing to pick a fight with either would be suicidal for ... basically most people.
  Ideally, if a Black Bear has already noticed you, you should intimidate by making yourself appear larger with an exaggerated stance and billowing your coat and what not... shout at it if it approaches... all while evacuating in a controlled manner... you don't run away in a panic because that might actually incite it to give chase when it other wise would not have.
  But yeah a pack of rabid dogs will absolutely fucking kill an average person, even if said person has a gun or decent melee weapon, nothing to be ashamed of for noping the fuck out of those encounters.
  A huge catfish is also quite strong, and other humans have been known to be competent fighters, lol, again, nothing really to be ashamed of there imo.
  
  You know, people underestimate how difficult it is to grab a goose that's flapping and pecking at your head
  You can't keep your eyes open, unless you just enjoy having them poked by feathers or beaks. That isn't about pain, it's about the reality of eye injury being a very bad thing.
  There's tricks we used in jujutsu that make use of that reflex. You make fast movements towards the eyes, particularly if you can get close enough to make air hit the eyes from the movement, and the eyes are closing, period. You can be ready for it, watching it come, and you'll still at least blink. It isn't voluntary.
  Sure, you could stand there with your eyes closed, waiting for a chance to grab the bird that's battering you. It isn't going to kill you, it can't unless it gets really lucky and catches your carotid just right. But, while you're groping for that neck, you're getting your face bruised and scratched up. Punching or slapping doesn't do anything because they just move with it.
  So, it's easier to give the bird what it wants: you away from its nest.
  Edit: because I don't have the patience for malarkey.
  It I had wanted to kill a goose, I could have drawn my firearm or a knife and done so. And yes, that would count as a win in some people's minds. But in my mind, the point wasn't to just kill birds for attacking me near their nests, even though I wasn't previously aware said nests existed. You live in farm country, sometimes you fish at farm ponds. Sometimes the local critters get frisky.
  What you don't do when you have the privilege of fishing on private land is go around shooting anything at all, or killing the wildlife without express permission.
  I wasn't hunting down a goose for some kind of grudge match. To the contrary, had I known ahead of time that geese has nested near the pond, I would have fucked right off, left them alone and found somewhere else to fish. But, you can't always see a nest on a casual look around. Hell, generally, the cows were more on my mind since they enjoyed pushing people in the water unless you spent the day scratching their itches for them.
  I'm kind of amazed that anyone wanted to turn this casual and funny comment chain into a dick measuring contest, but here we are.
- A goose? I was going to say it was one of the animals I could beat in a fight considering how fragile birds are in general.
  
  Yeah, seriously. When I was a preteen my mother loved to go feed bread to ducks at the lake (I know, but it was free). More than once I had a goose think it was hot shit and hiss at me, and they, like people, never have a plan for when they get popped in the beak.
  I hated doing it, but I wasn't about to be chased off by an uncooked holiday dinner.
  
  I'm going to copy/paste my response to a similar comment:
  You know, people underestimate how difficult it is to grab a goose that's flapping and pecking at your head
  You can't keep your eyes open, unless you just enjoy having them poked by feathers or beaks. That isn't about pain, it's about the reality of eye injury being a very bad thing.
  There's tricks we used in jujutsu that make use of that reflex. You make fast movements towards the eyes, particularly if you can get close enough to make air hit the eyes from the movement, and the eyes are closing, period. You can be ready for it, watching it come, and you'll still at least blink. It isn't voluntary.
  Sure, you could stand there with your eyes closed, waiting for a chance to grab the bird that's battering you. It isn't going to kill you, it can't unless it gets really lucky and catches your carotid just right. But, while you're groping for that neck, you're getting your face bruised and scratched up. Punching or slapping doesn't do anything because they just move with it.
  So, it's easier to give the bird what it wants: you away from its nest.

What's the girl equivalent of this? I'd like to have some conversations with my wife that don't send her off on list-making/plan-making expeditions or remind her of something she wanted to research on the internet.
- "What do you want to eat tonight?"
  
  NO
- "Which one of your friends could you take in a fight?"
- Try the same question. Maybe just a slightly smaller horse. Prep-time negotiable.

My rule is anything smaller than my knees is gettin it's ass kicked. I've got strong legs and decent form while kicking, and so far haven't found a creature that size I couldn't fend off with a good hit. So far that's mostly meant wild dogs and a goose.
- Wild boar has used tusk to knee. It is really effective!
  
  if a wild boar is shorter than like a foot and a half ig I'll have to grit my teeth and take a stabbing. I'm pretty sure that would have to be a baby or juvenile boar though, and as a general rule I think I can kick any babies.
- Honeybadger
  
  I mean I'd try, and almost certainly get my leg fucked up in the process. Thankfully, I don't think I'm likely to ever encounter one in the wild, and I hope that I'd be able to resolve the situation peacefully if I ever did.
  
  Nope. You can't.
- Crocodile?
  
  Damn this is a good point. I've never been anywhere where they'd be an issue.
  I've always heard they're quite slow on land though, is that true? If so, yeah I'm pretty sure it won't like getting stomped really hard from behind.
  I'm also not sure if I'm counting it if the animal is very long. The technical formula is total volume of animal > height to my knee, so I'd only try to kick a baby to juvenile croc. I don't think my kicks would do much good to like a 300lb crocodile as long as I am tall.
  
  just yoink it
- anything smaller than my knees
  How big are your knees?
  
  I mean like total volume of creature > height of my knee.
- A goose? You're scary!

Let's say it was reasonable to 1v1 a horse.
I wanna know what a lone horse does to prepare for a fight, that turns the tables from winning to losing...
- You can sneak up on a horse or suckerpunch it. If it gets prep time it knows it has to fight immediately and you are fucked
  
  If it gets prep time it knows it has to fight immediately
  How? It's a horse. It's not like you can coach a horse...
  'you see that guy over there, he's gonna come throw hands in 45min. You better be ready horse'
  That horse won't know/understand it's fighting until the human takes the first swing; unless they run at the horse screaming like a maniac...
- Eats, shits, pisses, and complains.
  No clue how that helps it win, but thats about all a horse is gonna do with an hour of solo prep time, lol.

he better be riding the horse over a rocky steep incline and not actually trying to fight it. why do they go for big animals? I can take a cat. maybe. most birds native to North America.
- A cat can be nasty. If it goes straight for your eyes with its sharp claws you are fucked… If you manage to kick it properly first, then it's fucked. I think the outcome of the fight can really be black or white.
- So I assume that doesn't count condors or eagles?
  
  They really aren't great in a land battle.

What's a horse going to do with prep time? Grow opposable thumbs and learn how to use tools?
- Cut to the horse doing a Rocky IV training montage
- Run? You can't beat the horse if you can't catch up to it.

- Is that Minecraft server still online?
  
  Oh lol. I didnt even see that when i googled for the steroid horse

Just the one hour?
I mean, just to cover the invertebrates part of the list would be several hours.

Then no... Hahajah

We had this question in a board game where the other people have to guess what animal I would pick. I opted for a herbivore - goat or sheep or something. I can only remember one other answer and that was my 7 year old son who quite brilliantly thought I could take a sperm whale.
Maybe on land.
- Herbivores can be more dangerous than carnivores because when they fight or flight it is for their lives and carnivores don't want to be injured while killing.
  A panicked deer will destroy you if it happens to flee into you. Not because it is trying to harm you, but because it weighs a lot and is flailing around like a madman. A goat would do some damage, especially if it gets a chance to head butt you and decides to follow up.
  
  Do. Not. Fuck. With. A. Moose.

Unarmed, I think I could comfortably defeat almost any four legged creature that stands lower than my knee.
- I want to see you fight a crocodile.
  
  I was very clear when I said almost
  
  Ffff... scrblmlmlblm chewing noises

I want to trash-talk her for wasting time in a way that involves wasting another human's time, but its a bigger problem that so many people are lonely and afraid of wasting the time of others. Get out there and troll IRL, people!!

I could take a sloth. Probably.
- I'm betting on the sloth.
  
  Those dudes got claws and natural armor. Like, armor made of nature.

I’m not going to fight an animal. I’m easily pinned down by a house cat and they’re pretty small.

I grow out my nails for acoustic guitar so I technically always have a weapon for eye gouging. After blinding the beast I'd go after their throat as hard and as many times as I can while trying to keep distance where possible. It would never work on obvious human killing machines like tigers, gorrilas, bears, etcetera, but it might be helpful on a wolf or anything I can get my arms around. I'm getting older and don't have the stamina for fighting that I used to though so I'll probably die.

I can wrestle a modestly sized gator on land. I know I can catch certain nonvenomous snakes. Catching turtles and tortoises is pretty trivial, aside from snapping types.
Size really does count for a lot. So does a creature's inability to bend enough to bite you if you grab it a certain way. Finally, how willing are you to deal with some pain? Because you're probably gonna bleed.

I'm going with a couple ants.
- Bullet ants?
  
  That sounds a little too dangerous for me

Def not a squirrel, those are too fast. Maybe a smallish-medium fish and prob a goat
- I won't lie about your odds, but you have my sympathies:
  https://richardbradbury.com/wp-content/gallery/guinness/Final-Goat_-221b.jpg

Tiny dog breeds, depending on how hard it bites. Maybe a chicken but definitely not a rooster

Maybe one of those giant constricting snakes. Do I get a shiv? If I have a shiv that snake is fucked. I like snakes by the way but I think it would be easy to fight one.