99 Fun Facts About Horse

What is the average lifespan of a domesticated horse?

25-30 years is typical for a domesticated horse, though breed, nutrition and care all shift the figure, and ponies often live longer than larger horses.

Roughly how many bones does a horse have?

205 bones make up the average horse skeleton, yet there is no muscle below the knees and hocks, only skin, bone, tendons, ligaments and hoof tissue.

What is a young female horse, typically under four years old, called?

Filly is the word for a female horse under four; once she reaches adulthood, usually around four years old, she is called a mare.

What is an uncastrated adult male horse known as?

Stallion is the term for an adult male horse that has not been gelded; a castrated male is a gelding, and a young male is a colt.

Which stage of rest can a horse only reach by lying down?

They need only an hour or two lying down every few days; a horse never allowed to lie down may eventually collapse into REM while standing.

Due to the placement of their eyes, what is the approximate field of vision for a horse?

350 degrees is a horse's approximate field of vision thanks to eyes set on the sides of the head; only about 65 degrees of that is binocular, with blind spots directly in front of the nose and behind the tail.

What colors are horses generally thought to see best?

Blue and Yellow are the two peaks of a horse's dichromatic vision, so red tends to look like a shade of green to them.

What kind of digestion do horses have?

Horses are hindgut fermenters, digesting cellulose in the hindgut rather than in a rumen, and they graze steadily instead of eating meals, taking in about 2 to 2.5 percent of their body weight in dry feed a day.

What is the term for the high-crowned teeth that let horses cope with a lifetime of gritty grazing?

Hypsodont dentition means high-crowned teeth with long reserve crowns; a horse's teeth keep erupting as gritty grazing wears them down, unlike the low-crowned brachydont teeth of humans.

What is the typical range for the number of permanent teeth in a mature horse?

36-44 is the usual range: 12 incisors and 24 cheek teeth, plus up to four canines (common in males, rare in mares) and sometimes vestigial wolf teeth.

What is the average gestation period for a mare?

The average gestation period for a mare is approximately 11 months, though it can vary slightly by individual and breed.

What is the long hair growing along the top of a horse's neck called?

Mane is the long hair along the crest of a horse's neck; the forelock is the part that falls forward between the ears, and feather is the long hair on a draft horse's lower legs.

Which part of a horse's leg is equivalent to the human ankle?

The hock is the horse's tarsal joint, the equivalent of the human ankle; the fetlock, often miscalled the ankle, actually corresponds to the knuckles of a human hand.

Which horse breed is known for its distinctive spotted coat pattern?

The Appaloosa breed is widely recognized for its unique and varied spotted coat patterns, which can range from blankets to leopard spots.

Genomic evidence places the origin of all modern domestic horses at about what date, in the Volga-Don region?

2200 BCE is the date a 2021 ancient-DNA study gave for the DOM2 lineage in the Volga-Don steppes; within a few centuries these horses had replaced nearly every other lineage across Eurasia.

In which equestrian discipline do horses perform a series of predetermined movements in an arena?

Dressage is an equestrian sport where horse and rider perform a memorized series of intricate movements, demonstrating harmony, flexibility, and obedience.

On a horse, what are the withers?

The withers are the ridge between the shoulder blades at the base of the neck; a horse's height is measured from the ground to the top of the withers.

What is the name of the mythological winged horse, often depicted as pure white?

Pegasus is a famous winged horse from Greek mythology, often depicted as pure white and associated with heroes like Bellerophon.

What is a group of horses called?

Herd is the word for a group of horses; a wild herd usually consists of one stallion, several mares and their young, and keeps a clear rank order.

Which horse breed is renowned for its endurance racing ability and distinctive dished face?

Arabians are hot-bloods, prized for endurance and quick learning but intolerant of inept training.

How many toes does a modern horse have on each foot?

One toe per foot: the modern horse walks on a single enlarged third digit inside the hoof, whereas its ancestor Eohippus had four toes on each front foot and three on each hind foot.

What is the major source of nutrients for a horse?

Hay and pasture, collectively called forage, make up the bulk of a horse's diet; even when grain is fed, nutritionists recommend at least half the ration by weight remain forage.

Which of these famous horse races is known as 'The Run for the Roses'?

Kentucky Derby winners are draped in a garland of 554 red roses, hence 'The Run for the Roses'; Dan Fogelberg's 1980 song of that name was written for the race.

Which American breed descends entirely from one stallion owned by a Vermont schoolteacher?

Morgan horses all descend from Figure, a stallion foaled around 1789 and owned by Justin Morgan, a Vermont schoolteacher and composer, making the Morgan one of the earliest American breeds.

Which strap passes under a horse's belly to hold the saddle in place?

The girth, called a cinch in Western riding, buckles under the belly to hold the saddle on; a crupper loops under the tail and a martingale limits how high the horse carries its head.

Which horse breed is generally considered the tallest and heaviest?

The Shire horse is recognized as one of the largest and tallest horse breeds, with some individuals holding records for height and weight.

What is the toothless area of a horse's mouth between the incisors and molars called?

Bar is the name for the toothless stretch of gum between a horse's incisors and cheek teeth; the mouthpiece of a bit rests on the bars, which is why a bit works.

In a pedigree, what is a horse's father called?

Sire is the term for a horse's father in a pedigree, while the mother is the dam; a foal is described as 'by' its sire and 'out of' its dam.

Which of these is a common base coat color for horses?

The two pigment genes yield chestnut and black; bay, with its black points, is treated as the third base color.

Which set of races constitutes the American Triple Crown for Thoroughbreds?

Kentucky Derby, Preakness Stakes, Belmont Stakes, run in that order since 1931, form the American Triple Crown; the Preakness is held at Pimlico in Baltimore and the Belmont traditionally at Belmont Park, New York.

Capturing the man-eating mares of which Thracian king was one of the labours of Heracles?

Diomedes, a king of Thrace, kept four man-eating mares; capturing them was the eighth labour of Heracles, who fed the king to his own horses before leading them away.

What is the world-record height for an equestrian high jump, set by Huaso in 1949?

2.47 m (8 ft 1 in) is the record Huaso cleared at Viña del Mar, Chile, in February 1949, ridden by Captain Alberto Larraguibel Morales; the puissance record is 2.40 m.

What is a common term for undesirable habits in horses, such as cribbing or weaving?

Vices, or stable vices, are stereotyped habits such as cribbing, where a horse grabs a surface with its teeth and sucks in air, seen in roughly 2 to 8 percent of stabled horses.

What does a horse typically communicate by pinning its ears flat back against its head?

Anger or pain is what ears pinned flat back signal; it is the clearest warning a horse gives and often comes just before a bite or kick.

Which pony is the smallest of Britain's native breeds?

Shetland ponies stand no more than 42 inches (about 10.2 hands), the smallest of Britain's native breeds; their strength for their size made them pit ponies in 19th-century coal mines.

Which of the following is a natural four-beat gait of a horse?

Walk is the slow four-beat gait in which each hoof lands separately; the trot and the pace are two-beat gaits and the canter is three-beat.

At which Olympic Games did equestrian sports first appear?

1900 Paris staged the first Olympic equestrian events, including jumping plus high and long jump; the three current disciplines of dressage, eventing and show jumping only arrived at Stockholm in 1912.

What are the slender vestigial bones on either side of a horse's cannon bone called?

Splint bones are the remnants of the second and fourth metacarpal bones, lying alongside the cannon bone; the lameness called 'splints' is inflammation of the ligament binding them to it.

What is the curled-upper-lip grimace a horse makes to analyse a scent called?

The flehmen response is the curled-upper-lip grimace that draws scent to the vomeronasal organ in the roof of the mouth; stallions use it to judge a mare's readiness to breed.

Which painful hoof condition, often triggered by grain overload or lush pasture, causes severe lameness?

Laminitis is a painful inflammatory condition of the laminae, the sensitive tissues inside the hoof, which can cause severe lameness.

Which mythical horse-like creature is the national animal of Scotland?

The unicorn, a horse-like creature with a single spiralling horn, is Scotland's national animal; two chained unicorns support the royal arms of Scotland.

Which of these is a heavy draft breed bred for pulling loads?

Belgian draft horses are 'cold bloods' bred for strength and the calm temperament needed to pull a plow; the breed descends from the heavy Brabant horses of Belgium.

What does it indicate if a horse has one ear forward and one ear turned back?

Their attention is divided: each ear swivels toward what that side's eye is watching, so one ear forward and one back means the horse is monitoring two things at once.

Which coat pattern evenly mixes white and colored body hairs but leaves the head solid?

Unlike greys, which also start with intermixed white hairs, roans do not lighten with age.

What reflective structure behind the retina helps horses see in low light?

The tapetum lucidum is a reflective layer behind the retina that bounces light back through it, producing the yellow-green eyeshine seen at night; horses also have roughly 20 rods for every cone.

Which grey breed runs semi-wild in the marshes of the Rhône delta?

Camargue horses, born dark and turning grey with age, live semi-feral in the Camargue wetlands of the Rhône delta, where mounted gardians use them to herd black bulls.

What is the primary function of a horse's vibrissae, or whiskers?

Touch is the job of the vibrissae: a horse cannot see directly in front of its nose, so these sensitive muzzle whiskers feel out food and objects in that blind spot.

Which famous horse from literature was owned by Don Quixote?

Rocinante is Don Quixote's bony nag in Cervantes's novel, a double of his master: awkward, past his prime and taking on tasks beyond his powers.

What is the term for a horse's coat pattern that features irregular patches of white and any other color?

Pinto refers to a horse with a coat color pattern consisting of large patches of white and any other color, distinct from roan which is an intermingling of hairs.

What unit, equal to four inches, is used to measure a horse's height at the withers?

A hand is four inches, so a height of 15.2 means 15 hands plus two inches; because the subdivision is base four, a reading like 15.5 is impossible.

Which Roman emperor was said to have planned to make his horse Incitatus a consul?

Caligula, says Suetonius, gave Incitatus a marble stable, an ivory manger and purple blankets and meant to make him consul, though historians doubt much of the story.

In Norse mythology, how many legs does Odin's horse Sleipnir have?

Eight legs: Sleipnir was foaled by Loki, who took the form of a mare to lure away the giant builder's stallion Svadilfari, and became Odin's mount.

Which engineer coined 'horsepower' to compare his steam engines with draft horses?

James Watt defined horsepower as 33,000 foot-pounds per minute to sell his improved steam engine, having agreed to take royalties from the coal it saved over older Newcomen engines.

Anheuser-Busch tours matched hitch teams of which draught breed for publicity?

Clydesdales, bred in Lanarkshire, Scotland, from the 18th century, are recognisable by heavy feathering on the lower legs; Anheuser-Busch has paraded its Budweiser Clydesdale hitch since 1933.

Mustangs of the American West descend from horses brought over by whom?

Spanish conquistadors and colonists brought the horses from which mustangs descend; the word comes from Spanish mestengo and mostrenco, both meaning stray or ownerless livestock.

What is a specialist who trims hooves and fits horseshoes called?

A farrier trims hooves and fits horseshoes, blending blacksmithing with veterinary knowledge of the lower limb; a cooper makes barrels, a fletcher arrows, and an ostler tended inn horses.

Who wrote the 1877 novel Black Beauty, told from the horse's point of view?

Anna Sewell wrote Black Beauty, her only book, as an invalid in her final years; she died in April 1878, five months after publication, having seen it become a best-seller.

Which Louisville track hosts the first leg of the US Triple Crown each May?

Churchill Downs is named for John and Henry Churchill, who leased the land to founder Meriwether Lewis Clark Jr.; the Kentucky Derby was first run there in 1875.

Which country is home to the always-dun horse breed with a clipped, upright mane?

Norway is home to the Fjord horse, which is always dun; its mane is cut into a crescent 5 to 10 cm high so it stands straight up and shows off the neck.

The Friesian, famed for its all-black coat, originates in which country?

The Netherlands is the Friesian's home, the northern province of Friesland; the studbook, founded in 1879, accepts only black horses, though a chestnut foal is occasionally born as a throwback.

A brumby is a free-roaming feral horse of which country?

Australia's brumbies numbered at least 400,000 by a 2011 estimate; the best-known mobs roam the Australian Alps, and Banjo Paterson's 1890 poem 'The Man from Snowy River' made them famous.

According to legend, Lady Godiva rode naked through the streets of which English city?

Coventry is where Lady Godiva, wife of Earl Leofric, is said to have ridden naked to win relief from his taxes; 'Peeping Tom' comes from later versions in which a tailor who looked was struck blind.

Whose war horse Marengo has its skeleton on display at London's National Army Museum?

Napoleon's small grey Marengo was captured after Waterloo by Lord Petre and lived to 38; the skeleton at the National Army Museum is missing two hooves, one of which became a snuff box.

Which horse carried the Duke of Wellington at the Battle of Waterloo?

Copenhagen, a chestnut part-Thoroughbred, carried Wellington through the day at Waterloo; retired to the Duke's Stratfield Saye estate, he was buried there with military honours in 1836.

Which Triple Crown race did Secretariat win by a record 31 lengths in 1973?

Belmont Stakes: Secretariat's 2:24 flat for the mile and a half in 1973 beat Gallant Man's 16-year-old track record by more than two seconds, a dirt time no horse bettered in the next fifty years.

Which horse won the Grand National in 1973, 1974 and 1977?

Red Rum, trained by Ginger McCain on Southport beach, also finished second in 1975 and 1976; his 1973 win, reeling in Crisp from 30 lengths behind, is rated among the greatest Nationals.

The Melbourne Cup is run on the first Tuesday of which month?

November: the Melbourne Cup, 'the race that stops the nation', has been run at Flemington every year since 1861, when the winner, Archer, earned his owner a gold watch.

Where do Lipizzaner horses famously perform the 'airs above the ground'?

The Spanish Riding School in Vienna, first recorded in 1572, trains Lipizzaners in the airs above the ground; the horses are born dark and grey out over 6 to 10 years, and tradition keeps one bay in residence.

Icelandic horses that are exported abroad face what restriction?

They can never come back: Iceland bars the import of any horse, including returning Icelandic ones, which keeps the island's herd almost free of equine disease.

The metallic-sheened Akhal-Teke, the 'Golden Horse', comes from which country?

Turkmenistan puts the Akhal-Teke on its national emblem; the breed is named for the Akhal line of oases below the Köpetdag mountains and the Teke tribe of Turkmen who bred it.

The Marwari horse of Rajasthan is instantly recognisable by what feature?

Inward-curving ears whose tips can touch or cross are the Marwari's hallmark, shared with the closely related Kathiawari of Gujarat; the breed was first developed by the Rathore rulers of Marwar.

What is the V-shaped structure on the underside of a horse's hoof called?

The frog is the V-shaped rubbery pad on the hoof's underside, covering about a quarter of it; it absorbs shock and helps pump blood back up the leg.

Kumis, a mildly alcoholic drink of the Central Asian steppes, is fermented from what?

Horse's milk, with more lactose than cow's or goat's, ferments into kumis, which ends up stronger than kefir at around one to two per cent alcohol.

Sergeant Reckless, a horse who held official US Marine Corps rank, served in which war?

Korean War: during the Battle for Outpost Vegas in March 1953 Reckless made 51 solo trips in a single day carrying ammunition to the front line, and was promoted to staff sergeant in 1959.

In Scottish folklore, what is the shape-shifting water horse said to haunt lochs?

The kelpie is a shape-shifting water spirit that usually appears as a horse; almost every sizeable Scottish loch has its own kelpie tale, with Loch Ness the most widely reported.

Traveller, a grey American Saddlebred, was the famous mount of which Civil War general?

Robert E. Lee rode Traveller, originally named Jeff Davis, through the war; the horse outlived him by less than a year, dying of tetanus in 1871 after stepping on a nail.

What is the leading cause of premature death among domesticated horses?

Colic, the leading killer of domestic horses, is a symptom rather than a diagnosis: the word simply means abdominal pain, which can have dozens of causes from gas to a twisted gut.

Polo descends from chovgan, a game first played by the nobility of which ancient land?

Persia is the home of chovgan, played there from at least the Sasanian era, before British officers in India codified modern polo; outdoor matches are split into seven-minute chukkas.

Which horse beat Triple Crown winner War Admiral in a famous 1938 match race at Pimlico?

Seabiscuit beat War Admiral by four lengths in the 1938 Pimlico Special; the two were related, War Admiral being a son of Man o' War and Seabiscuit, by Hard Tack, his grandson.

Which wild equine, reintroduced to Mongolia, has 33 chromosome pairs rather than 32?

Przewalski's horse, the takhi of Mongolia, has 66 chromosomes to the domestic horse's 64; extinct in the wild by the 1960s, it was reintroduced from zoo stock to Mongolia's Hustai National Park in the 1990s.

The name of Alexander the Great's horse Bucephalus literally means what?

Ox-head, from Greek bous and kephale, perhaps for a brand or the breadth of his head; Alexander was so grieved by the horse's death in 326 BC that he founded the city of Bucephala after him.

How many chromosomes does a mule have?

63: a mule gets 32 chromosomes from its horse mother and 31 from its donkey father, and the mismatched set is why the hybrid is almost always sterile.

Which unbeaten 18th-century racehorse gave us the phrase '... first, the rest nowhere'?

He was foaled during, and named after, the solar eclipse of 1 April 1764, and won all 18 of his races.

The champion racehorse Phar Lap's name comes from a Thai word meaning what?

Lightning: the name comes from the Thai 'fa laep'; trainer Harry Telford split the suggested 'Farlap' into a seven-letter, two-word name, matching a pattern among Melbourne Cup winners.

Which Merseyside racecourse near Liverpool hosts the Grand National?

Aintree's Grand National covers two laps and 30 fences over about four and a quarter miles, including the infamous Becher's Brook, The Chair and the Canal Turn.

Frankel, rated 147 by Timeform, retired unbeaten in 2012 after how many races?

14 races, all won: trained by Sir Henry Cecil and ridden every time by Tom Queally, Frankel retired in October 2012 with a Timeform rating of 147.

What is the small horny growth at the back of a horse's fetlock called?

The ergot is the small horny growth hidden in the hair at the back of the fetlock; the chestnut is the larger callosity on the inside of the leg, and the coronet is the hoof's top band.

Horses, rhinoceroses and tapirs together make up which order of mammals?

Perissodactyla is Greek for 'odd-toed'; the order has only about 17 living species across its three families, all bearing weight on the middle toe, unlike the even-toed Artiodactyla.

Roy Rogers's famous movie horse Trigger was originally named what?

Golden Cloud was Trigger's name when foaled in San Diego in 1934; sired by a Thoroughbred, he appeared in Roy Rogers's films from 1938 and was mounted for display after his death in 1965.

Which coat colour is created by a single cream-gene allele acting on a chestnut base?

Palomino is one cream allele on a chestnut base, giving a gold coat with a white mane and tail; the word is Spanish for a young pigeon, a nod to the birds' gold-and-white colouring.

Old Billy, the longest-lived horse on record, reached what age?

Old Billy lived to a verified 62, after a working life spent towing boats along English canals as a barge horse.

Who commissioned Eadweard Muybridge's 1878 photo sequence of a galloping horse?

Leland Stanford, railroad baron and racehorse owner, hired Muybridge to show whether all four hooves leave the ground; the resulting cards, Sallie Gardner at a Gallop, have been hailed as the first moving pictures.

American Pharoah's 2015 'Grand Slam' added which race to the Triple Crown?

Breeders' Cup Classic: American Pharoah won it at Keeneland in October 2015 after becoming the 12th Triple Crown winner; his oddly spelled name stems from a fan-contest submission.

Legend says the Epsom Derby's name was settled by a coin toss between Lord Derby and whom?

The loser got some consolation: his colt Diomed won the inaugural running in 1780, and Newmarket's Bunbury Cup bears his name.

The last known race in Rome's Circus Maximus was staged in 549 by a king of which people?

Ostrogoths: their king Totila staged the games of 549 during his occupation of Rome; chariot racing lived on in Constantinople, where Blue and Green faction rivalry helped spark the Nika riots of 532.

Comanche, the cavalry horse found alive after Little Bighorn, belonged to which officer?

Myles Keogh, an Irish-born captain in Custer's 7th Cavalry, rode Comanche; the gelding had taken an arrow fighting Comanches in 1868, earning his name, and kept carrying his rider.

Foundation sire the Byerley Turk saw action at which battle of the Williamite War in Ireland?

Battle of the Boyne, 1690: Captain Robert Byerley rode his Turk there and, by early accounts, escaped capture while scouting the enemy only thanks to the horse's superior speed.

Which pope banned the eating of horse meat in 732?

Gregory III, writing to Boniface in 732, called horse meat unclean because of its role in Germanic pagan rites; when Iceland converted in 1000, eating it was among the pagan customs initially permitted.

Strangles, a contagious respiratory infection of horses, is caused by which bacterium?

Streptococcus equi causes strangles; abscessed lymph nodes can squeeze the throat and windpipe until the horse struggles to breathe, which is how the disease got its name.