how did the phrase hold your horses get to    mean to wait a minute?
93755
This is probably a reference to the fact that when riding in a horse drawn buggy to make the horse stop you hold the reins so that holding your houses would actually cause them to wait.
27242
If you are talking about in dance or marching band, it means to allow yourself free movement.  \n\nThis was a phrase my band director was constantly saying, and it was because marchers would often lock their knees.  You might not think this is a bad thing, but, in the heat, this caused quite a few people to pass out.  He'd have us randomly bend our knees or flex our legs to help keep this from happening.
947644
Because you put the reins on a horse before you ride it.
18371
It is an idiom intended to mean "be careful, pay attention to detail"  it has morphed, in recent times, to mean many other things including "be polite".\n\nThere are several theories about it's origin, but the one I believe makes the most sense is - mind your Pints and Quarts.  Meaning to keep track of what you order in a pup so you are not over charged.
79395
actually this question was AOL's home page the other day I believe. The saying came from the horse racing track. People would offer a tip and a horse that would win and if was an insider ( jockey, trainer, ect)  or reliable tip they would say it came "straight from the horses mouth"
654860
I have to say it is the basic fight or flight instinct.  Horses are built more for the flight, they are good at it.  When a horse gets spooked, it will bolt.  TB's are bred down for their speed and stamina.  This selective breeding produces horses that are easily trained to break from a gait and race away.  The jockey may signal a horse that things are okay and the horse will hold back, then the jockey tenses and asks the horse for more speed, the horse senses this as a need to run away faster.  Jockeys race toward the finish line, horses run away from something.  If the horse injures itself, the thing it thinks it is running from is still there.  In nature the weak or injured are the ones who get eaten.
1025992
Let's just say that there's a lot of money to be made when the rider can hold a horse back from the finish line, rather than having them get there first!  Enough said.
650718
Ya, they're right! It means, "It wasn't the coin / token" or something to that affect. The people who said, "that isn't a coin" or whatever, are wrong. The verb era is from the verb ser, which is to be. Era is in the imperfect tense, meaning that it is in a past tense, so it means was. Because there is a no in front of it, it means wasn't. Also, there is nothing saying that at all, so i don't know where they got that idea from! hope this helps!
473430
It doesn't really have a meaning, it's more of an exclamation of excitement or a way to say 'big deal' depending on how you use it.  It originated in Old West movies, real cowboys never actually said it.
631733
I think you've got a mixed metaphor there!\nThere are two phrases .... "Wild horses couldn't drag me away" - meaning that the attraction of something was so great that even the strength of wild horses wouldn't be enough to pull you away from it.\n\n"To be on tenter-hooks" means to be in a state of suspense or anxiety.
577566
It refers to the height...  Check out wiki...\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hands_%28horses%29
1140865
I know when we used it while I was in the Marines, it meant "fast."\nAs in, "Get that done ricky tick!"  Its got to do with the story of Ricky Ticky Tavy, and how he was so fast a cobra couldn't catch him.
292922
not so sure of the origin and history behind the phrase but if you find it ranining cat's and dogs be careful not to step in a poodle... i looked it up for you and yu can find the answer at the link below
638125
I don't know, but I'd like to find out, I went on that site, that she recommended, but it didn't look that convincing.\n\n\n\n\nMore than you can shake a stick at\n\nDefinition from Steve Sabram: 1) a military phrase of guerrilla warfare where you do not have much in weapons and you fight with what you get from the land (i.e. sticks). If you have so many people to fight or animals to hunt, you cannot count let alone chase them all. 2) Another I heard of is it is an old shepherding term where you have so many animals to herd, you cannot shake you stick at every individual animal to herd them.\n\nDavid Windmueller: I remember reading in a book that it came from the revolutionary war. There was some scene where Washington was waving a wooden ceremonial sword over the British forces that he had just been victorious over.
325948
It doesn't translate.  Some people are very quick...get to full speed in a hurry.  Others take more time, but reach faster speeds.  It is much like the Quarter Horse vs Thorobred.  Have I confused you enough?  I could go on....
539953
3) If you put the cart before the horse then the horse can't push it in other words you have to see the way to the goal not just the goal\n\n4) Means let the past stay in the past, you can't change the past so just move on\n\n5) Friends will come and go but family is forever, you can change your friends but you can never change your family\n\n2) Boys will act in the traditional way boys always have.\nOr boys can't help acting that way it's in their genes\n\n1) Sorry no idea
506908
We use down to the wire for any situation which is tense because its outcome may not be decided until the very last moment.\n\nIt’s a favourite phrase of commentators in most sports pretty much everywhere in the English-speaking world and it has been borrowed for any problematic situation, especially in business and politics. An example in the Birmingham Post in April 2003 referred to football, but in a more melancholic sense: “I would say the future is quite bright for Notts County but simply because of the complexities of bringing a football club out of administration, the number of hoops we have to jump through, it could go right down to the wire”.\n\nThe origin is indeed in sport, though not football but horse-racing. American racetracks in the latter part of the nineteenth century—before the days of cameras—had a wire strung across the track above the finishing line to help stewards decide which nose had got across the line first. An early example appeared in Scribner’s Magazine in July 1889: “As the end of the stand was reached Timarch worked up to Petrel, and the two raced down to the ‘wire,’ cheered on by the applause of the spectators. They ended the first half mile of the race head and head, passing lapped together under the wire, and beginning in earnest the mile which was yet to be traversed”. So, a race that was undecided until the very last moment was said to go down to the wire.\n\nAnother wire was often placed across the track at the starting post to help check for false starts; this led to another expression: from wire to wire, from the starting post to the finishing line, hence from end to end of a contest. When you are under the wire, you’re at the finishing line, figuratively at the last possible opportunity or just in time.