We feel like we've heard this before: "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink." Horses are stubborn, just like the humans we use horse metaphors to describe.

Even though War Horse is told from a horse's point of view, the horses don't communicate with each other in any sort of secret language. All Topthorn can do is plead with his eyes, the same way Joey might do to a human if he were in pain. Would Topthorn have survived if he could talk?

Death might be the ultimate abandonment. Joey experienced this earlier with Captain Nicholls, but he wasn't as close to him as he was to Topthorn. With Albert, Emilie, and even Trooper Warren, Joey has a small shot at seeing them again. Death, however, brings the odds of reunion down to zero.