Edit: we talking about this article a bit; she reports older men (40+! we do eventually learn) have a clue about how to start a conversation with an attractive woman ("that looks elegant", "how old is your horse?", etc.) so I told her how my grandmother told me inappropriate male attention at school came in the form of dipping her pigtails in inkwells.

I don't get that quip. Is the joker implying that they see horses as food animals? (Yes, I know that some places like France do sometimes eat horse, but it isn't common in English-speaking countries at least).

(fwiw, restaurants here must label the origin of their meat products, and more often than not horse meat comes from North America!)