100 Fun Facts About Horse

How long is one hand, the unit used to give a horse's height?

One hand is four inches (101.6 mm), the standard unit for a horse's height at the withers throughout the English-speaking world.

Under most competition rules, what is an equine measuring no more than 14.2 hands at the withers called?

14.2 hands — 58 inches — is the usual dividing line. Above it you have a horse; at or below it, a pony.

Roughly how long does a mare carry a foal before giving birth?

Gestation averages about 340 days, so a little over eleven months, with a normal range of 320 to 370 days.

What is the term for a young female horse, normally one under four years of age?

A filly is a young female; the male equivalent is a colt. A mare is an adult female and a gelding is a castrated male.

Which of a horse's four natural gaits is a three-beat gait?

The walk has four beats, the trot two and the gallop four. The canter, also called the lope, is the three-beat gait at roughly 19–24 km/h.

How many incisors does an adult horse have at the front of its mouth?

Twelve incisors do the biting off of grass, while 24 premolars and molars at the back do the grinding.

Przewalski's horse differs from the domestic horse, which has 64 chromosomes, by carrying how many?

Przewalski's horse has 66 chromosomes to the domestic horse's 64, yet the two can still interbreed and produce fertile foals.

One traditional job of the Shire horse was pulling brewers' vehicles of which kind?

A dray is a heavy flat cart, and Shires hauled them full of beer barrels. The breed also towed canal barges before the railways.

The Lipizzan is the breed most closely associated with which institution?

Vienna's Spanish Riding School has trained Lipizzans in classical dressage for centuries. Most turn white as adults despite being born dark.

Eventing puts one horse and rider through dressage, show jumping and which third phase?

Cross-country is the endurance phase, ridden over fixed solid obstacles. Together with dressage and show jumping it makes up the classic three-day event.

Bucephalus was the celebrated warhorse of which commander?

Alexander the Great rode Bucephalus from Macedonia all the way to the Punjab.

What does the name Bucephalus literally mean?

It combines the Greek boûs, 'ox', with kephalē, 'head' — probably a nod to the horse's broad head or a brand mark on his flank.

Alexander founded the city of Bucephala in his horse's honour, on the bank of which river?

The Hydaspes is today's Jhelum, in Pakistan. The city was founded after the battle fought there in 326 BC.

Every Thoroughbred descends from the Darley Arabian, the Godolphin Arabian and which other stallion?

The Byerley Turk, a stallion captured from the Ottomans at the siege of Buda in 1686, was the earliest of the three foundation sires of the Thoroughbred.

How many pairs of ribs does a typical horse have?

The usual count is 18 pairs. Some Arabians also have five lumbar vertebrae instead of six, which shortens the back.

How many mounted players make up each team in outdoor polo?

Outdoor polo is four a side. Riders swap mounts between periods because one horse cannot last a whole match.

What is a seven-minute period of play in polo called?

A match runs four to eight chukkas, also spelled chukkers, of seven minutes each.

At which racetrack is the Kentucky Derby run?

Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky has staged the Kentucky Derby since its first running on 17 May 1875; the race is the opening leg of the American Triple Crown.

The Kentucky Derby winner is draped in a blanket of which flower?

The garland is hand-sewn from hundreds of red roses onto green satin, and it is where the nickname 'The Run for the Roses' comes from.

In which year did Secretariat take the American Triple Crown?

Secretariat ended a 25-year gap without a Triple Crown winner, setting records in the Derby and the Belmont along the way.

By how many lengths did Secretariat win the Belmont Stakes that completed his Triple Crown?

Secretariat won the 1973 Belmont Stakes by 31 lengths, shattering Count Fleet's 25-length record, and ran the mile and a half in 2:24 flat.

Which English racecourse stages the Grand National?

Aintree in Merseyside, near Liverpool, has staged the National since the 19th century.

Which horse is the only three-time winner of the Grand National?

Red Rum won the National three times in the 1970s and finished second in the two intervening years.

How many separate fences does the Grand National course have?

There are 16 fences, 14 of them jumped twice, which makes 30 jumps in all over four and a quarter miles.

Which Grand National fence is named for a captain unseated into its ditch in 1839?

Captain Martin Becher fell there in the first official Grand National of 1839, and the fence has carried his name ever since.

What is the average lifespan of a modern domestic horse?

25 to 30 years is the average, though a few animals reach their 40s; horses are considered fully developed adults by about age five.

Because their eyes sit on the sides of the head, horses have a range of vision of roughly how much?

A horse's field of view is more than 350 degrees, nearly all the way round. Only about 65 degrees of it is binocular, and horses are dichromats, seeing mainly blues and yellows.

What speed did Winning Brew reach in 2008 to set the Guinness record for a horse?

Winning Brew, a two-year-old Thoroughbred, clocked 43.97 mph — about 44 mph — over two furlongs at Penn National in 2008, the Guinness-recognised fastest speed for a racehorse.

Which culture of Kazakhstan, around 3500 BCE, yields the earliest evidence of horse milking?

The Botai culture of northern Kazakhstan left mare's-milk residues in pottery and bit-wear on horse teeth dated to about 3500 BCE, the earliest known evidence of horse husbandry.

What are the four canine-type teeth found behind the incisors of stallions and geldings called?

Tushes are the four canine teeth that grow in the gap behind the incisors of most male horses; wolf teeth are different — tiny vestigial premolars often removed because they interfere with the bit.

Sampson, the tallest horse ever recorded, belonged to which heavy breed?

Sampson, a Shire gelding born at Toddington Mills, Bedfordshire in 1846, stood 21.2½ hands — about 7 ft 2 in at the withers — and was later renamed Mammoth.

Australian racing legend Phar Lap was actually foaled in which country?

His hide is in Melbourne, his skeleton in Wellington and his oversized 6.2 kg heart in Canberra, so three museums share him.

Which Triple Crown winner did Seabiscuit beat in their famous 1938 match race at Pimlico?

Seabiscuit won by four lengths and was voted American Horse of the Year; the two were related, since War Admiral's sire Man o' War was Seabiscuit's grandsire.

Frankel retired in 2012 unbeaten after how many races?

Frankel retired in 2012 unbeaten in 14 races, ten of them Group 1s; Timeform rated him 147, the highest mark in the organisation's history.

The bareback Palio horse race around Siena's Piazza del Campo is run how many times each year?

Twice: on 2 July and 16 August, and the three-lap race usually lasts no more than 90 seconds.

Marengo, the warhorse captured at Waterloo, had carried which leader?

Marengo was Napoleon Bonaparte's grey Arab, named for his 1800 victory; captured at Waterloo, he lived to 38 and his skeleton is displayed at the National Army Museum in Chelsea, London.

What was the real name of the gelding who played TV's talking horse Mister Ed?

Bamboo Harvester was a crossbred of American Saddlebred, Arabian and grade ancestry, and the voice came from Western actor Allan Lane.

Roy Rogers' famous movie horse Trigger had a coat of which colour?

Trigger was a golden palomino with a flaxen mane and tail; he lived from 1934 to 1965, and look-alikes such as Little Trigger and Trigger Jr. stood in for him on tour.

Comanche, famed survivor of the Little Bighorn, was the mount of which 7th Cavalry captain?

Comanche was ridden by Captain Myles Keogh, who died with Custer in 1876; the horse is often called the battle's sole survivor, though many cavalry horses probably lived through it.

Man o' War lost just once in 21 starts, to an aptly named colt called what?

Upset beat Man o' War in the 1919 Sanford Memorial at Saratoga — the only defeat in his 21 starts and one reason the track is nicknamed the Graveyard of Champions.

The Akhal-Teke, nicknamed the 'Golden Horse' for its metallic sheen, comes from which country?

The Akhal-Teke is Turkmenistan's national horse and appears on the state emblem; it is named for the Akhal oasis below the Kopet Dag mountains and the Teke tribe of Turkmen.

The Falabella, one of the world's smallest horse breeds, was developed in which country?

The Falabella was developed in Argentina from 1868 by the Falabella family near Buenos Aires, bred down from local Criollo stock; adults rarely exceed 86 cm at the withers.

The Pony Express mail service, launched in 1860, lasted roughly how long?

The Pony Express ran only about eighteen months, from April 1860 to October 1861; it cut cross-country message times to about ten days but folded days after the transcontinental telegraph was completed.

Which Roman emperor, according to legend, planned to make his horse Incitatus a consul?

Suetonius records that Caligula gave Incitatus a marble stable, a house and servants and meant to make him consul, though the appointment never happened.

American Pharoah's 2015 Triple Crown ended a drought dating back to which year?

American Pharoah was the 12th Triple Crown winner and the first since Affirmed in 1978, a gap of 37 years.

At which Paris racecourse is the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe normally run?

The Arc is run at Longchamp in the Bois de Boulogne over 2,400 metres; it moved to Chantilly only in 2016 and 2017 while Longchamp was rebuilt.

Over roughly what distance is the Epsom Derby run?

About one and a half miles: a 1991 survey found the exact trip is one mile, four furlongs and 10 yards, or 2,423 metres.

What is the triangular, elastic structure on the underside of a horse's hoof, sitting between the heels, called?

The frog occupies the centre of the hoof between the heels, flanked by two collateral grooves, and helps absorb shock with every stride.

How many Clydesdales are harnessed to the beer wagon in a Budweiser hitch?

Eight Clydesdales pull the wagon in each Budweiser hitch, with two more travelling as alternates; Anheuser-Busch formed the first hitch in 1933 to mark the end of Prohibition.

Eclipse, the undefeated 18th-century champion, gave us 'Eclipse first, the rest' what?

'Eclipse first, the rest nowhere' was owner Dennis O'Kelly's prediction at Epsom in 1769; Eclipse won all 18 of his races, including 11 King's Plates, and the phrase is used for any one-sided win.

Shergar won the 1981 Epsom Derby by a record margin of how many lengths?

Shergar won the 1981 Derby by ten lengths, the biggest margin in the race's history; two years later masked men took him from Ballymany Stud in County Kildare and he was never seen again.

The Melbourne Cup, 'the race that stops the nation', is run on which day each year?

The Melbourne Cup is run on the first Tuesday of November at Flemington over 3,200 metres; the trip was two miles until Australia went metric in 1972.

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

He was sent to Spain in 1813 and sold to Wellington there; he was named for the British victory at the Second Battle of Copenhagen.

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

Lee acquired him in February 1862; the horse outlived him by only a few months before tetanus forced him to be put down.

Black Beauty, the 1877 'autobiography of a horse', was written by whom?

Sewell died just five months after publication, long enough to see her only novel become an immediate best-seller.

Breaking the 'Curse of Apollo', 2018 Derby winner Justify had never done what?

Justify had not raced as a two-year-old; Apollo in 1882 was the last unraced juvenile to win the Derby, so the 'curse' had stood 136 years. Justify became the 13th Triple Crown winner.

Zenyatta, the first mare to win the Breeders' Cup Classic, won how many of her 20 starts?

Zenyatta won 19 of her 20 starts; her only defeat came in her final race, the 2010 Breeders' Cup Classic, where Blame held her off by a head.

Australian mare Winx retired in 2019 on a winning streak of how many races?

Winx retired in 2019 on a streak of 33 consecutive wins; 25 of them came at Group 1 level, a world record, at distances from 1300 to 2200 metres.

Unbeaten Ruffian broke down in a 1975 match race against which Kentucky Derby winner?

Ruffian faced Foolish Pleasure, the 1975 Kentucky Derby winner, in a Belmont match race on 6 July 1975; unbeaten in ten starts, she shattered a foreleg and is buried in Belmont's infield.

Kincsem, unbeaten in all 54 of her races in the 1870s, came from which country?

Kincsem was bred in Hungary by Ernő Blaskovich; her name means 'my treasure', and she beat colts as well as fillies across Europe over four seasons from 1876 to 1879.

Misty of Chincoteague, the 1947 children's classic, is set on an island in which US state?

Chincoteague is a Virginia barrier island; Marguerite Henry based the book on the real Beebe family and a real foal, and it was a 1948 Newbery Honor book.

The spotted Appaloosa breed was developed by which Native American people?

The Nez Perce of the Palouse country bred the spotted Appaloosa; Idaho made it the state horse in 1975, nearly a century after the tribe lost most of its herds in the 1877 war.

The all-black Friesian horse originates in a northern province of which country?

The Friesian comes from Friesland in the north of the Netherlands; the breed standard calls for black with no white markings beyond a small star.

Under Icelandic law, what happens to an Icelandic horse once it has been exported?

An exported Icelandic horse may never return: the import ban has kept equine diseases out of Iceland for centuries. The breed is five-gaited, adding the tölt and flying pace.

Haflinger horses from the Tyrol, with their flaxen manes, are always which coat colour?

Haflingers are always chestnut, from pale gold to dark liver, with a white or flaxen mane and tail; the breed is named for the village of Hafling in South Tyrol.

Every Morgan horse traces to a single foundation stallion originally named what?

Figure, foaled in 1789, was the stallion later called Justin Morgan after his best-known owner; every Morgan descends from him, and the breed is Vermont's official state animal.

A free-roaming feral horse in Australia is known by what name?

A brumby is Australia's feral horse; a 2011 survey counted at least 400,000 of them.

Which mechanism lets a horse doze on its feet with almost no muscular effort?

The stay apparatus is a system of tendons and ligaments that locks the stifle and hock so a horse can doze standing with little muscular effort — a legacy of life as a prey animal.

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

Old Billy, a canal barge horse from Lancashire, died in 1822 aged 62, the oldest recorded; his skull is kept at the Manchester Museum.

In dressage, what is the name for a highly collected trot performed almost on the spot?

The piaffe, from the French piaffer, is a cadenced trot almost on the spot; the horse must keep the trot's rhythm and tempo while barely moving forward. The passage is its forward-moving cousin.

The 1956 Melbourne Olympics held their equestrian events in which city instead?

Stockholm staged the 1956 equestrian events in June, five months before the Melbourne Games, because Australia's six-month horse quarantine made shipping competitors impractical.

Ascot Racecourse was founded in 1711 by which British monarch?

Queen Anne founded Ascot in 1711, and her plans were announced in The London Gazette that July.

The painted wooden Dala horse is a national symbol of which country?

Sweden's Dala horse began as a carving livelihood in Dalarna; the classic version is reddish orange with a painted harness.

Clever Hans, the German horse who seemed to do arithmetic, was really responding to what?

Hans was reading his trainer's and questioners' unconscious reactions — tiny shifts in posture as he neared the right count; Oskar Pfungst exposed this in 1907, and the 'Clever Hans effect' names observer bias.

Roughly how long is the prehistoric Uffington White Horse on its Oxfordshire hillside?

The Uffington White Horse is about 110 metres (360 ft) long; optical dating places its cutting between about 1380 and 550 BC, from trenches packed with crushed chalk.

Golden Miller won the Cheltenham Gold Cup how many years running in the 1930s?

Golden Miller won five consecutive Gold Cups from 1932 to 1936; in 1934 he also won the Grand National, the only horse ever to take both races in the same year.

Northern Dancer in 1964 became the first Kentucky Derby winner bred in which country?

Bred at E. P. Taylor's Windfields Farm in Ontario, Northern Dancer was the first Canadian-bred Derby winner and became one of the century's great sires; he entered Canada's Sports Hall of Fame in 1965.

Nijinsky in 1970 was the 20th century's last winner of which racing series?

Nijinsky won the English Triple Crown — 2000 Guineas, Derby and St Leger — in 1970, the first to do so since Bahram in 1935; no horse managed it again in the 20th century.

The Mongol Derby, the world's longest horse race, covers roughly what distance?

The Mongol Derby runs about 1,000 km across the Mongolian steppe, recreating Genghis Khan's postal relay; riders change horses roughly every 40 km at some 25 stations.

A bay horse has black 'points' on its mane, tail and legs and a body of which colour?

A bay has a reddish-brown body — anything from light copper to dark mahogany — with black mane, tail and lower legs; without those black points a horse is not classed as a bay.

Pimlico Race Course, traditional home of the Preakness Stakes, is in which city?

Pimlico is in Baltimore, Maryland; the Preakness was first run there in 1873, two years before the Kentucky Derby, and is named for the colt who won Pimlico's first Dinner Party Stakes in 1870.

The Belmont Stakes, 'The Test of the Champion', is also nicknamed the Run for the what?

The Belmont winner is draped in white carnations, hence 'Run for the Carnations'; run over a mile and a half, it is the oldest of the three Triple Crown races, dating from 1867.

In British usage, a pinto pattern on a black base coat is called what?

Piebald is the British term for black-and-white patches; skewbald covers the same pattern on any other base colour, most often bay and white.

Which 'air above the ground' has the horse leap up and kick out its hind legs in mid-air?

In the capriole — Italian for 'leap of a goat' — the horse springs into the air and kicks out its hind legs at the top of the jump; it is regarded as the hardest of the airs.

In Norse myth, which shape-shifting god gave birth to Odin's horse Sleipnir?

Loki took the form of a mare to lure away the stallion Svaðilfari, and the resulting foal became the best of horses.

Pegasus sprang from the blood of which Gorgon when she was beheaded by Perseus?

Pegasus and Chrysaor sprang from Medusa's neck when Perseus beheaded her; his sire was Poseidon in his role as horse-god, and Bellerophon tamed him at the fountain of Peirene.

Which Greek hero is traditionally credited with devising the Trojan Horse?

Odysseus (Ulysses) is credited with the stratagem and Epeius with building the horse; the episode is absent from the Iliad, which ends before the war does, and is told in the Odyssey and Virgil's Aeneid.

Lady Godiva's legendary naked ride was through the streets of which English city?

Lady Godiva rode through Coventry to protest the taxes levied by her husband Leofric, Earl of Mercia; 'Peeping Tom' entered the tale only in 17th-century retellings.

The Charge of the Light Brigade took place at which Crimean War battle in 1854?

The charge came at the Battle of Balaclava on 25 October 1854, with Lord Cardigan leading the Light Brigade down the valley; Tennyson's poem appeared just six weeks later.

In Michael Morpurgo's novel War Horse, what is the name of the horse bought by the army?

Joey is the farm horse sold to the army in 1914 and followed through the war by Albert; published in 1982, the novel became a stage hit in 2007 with Handspring's life-size puppets.

Foinavon won the 1967 Grand National at what odds after a pile-up at the 23rd fence?

Foinavon started at 100/1 and came through the chaos at the 23rd; in 1984 the course named that fence after him, and at 4 ft 6 in it is one of the smallest on the track.

Which future novelist was aboard Devon Loch when he collapsed in the 1956 Grand National?

Dick Francis, later a best-selling thriller writer, was the jockey; the horse belonged to Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, and the sudden collapse on the run-in was never explained.

Lester Piggott won the Epsom Derby a record how many times?

Lester Piggott won the Derby nine times, from Never Say Die in 1954 to Teenoso in 1983, a record; nicknamed 'The Long Fellow', he rode 4,493 winners on the flat in Britain.

How many winners did Frankie Dettori ride when he went 'through the card' at Ascot on 28 September 1996?

Seven winners from seven races; the accumulator paid 25,095-1 and reportedly cost the betting industry around £40 million.

How many seconds must a rodeo bronc rider stay aboard for the ride to count?

Touching the horse with the free hand disqualifies the ride, so everything is done one-handed.

Which horse was the first in history to earn US$1 million in prize money?

Citation, bred by Calumet Farm, swept the 1948 Triple Crown, taking the Belmont by eight lengths, and passed the million-dollar mark with his final win in 1951.

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

James Watt coined 'horsepower' in the 1780s to sell his steam engines against the draught horses they replaced; one imperial horsepower is about 745.7 watts, the SI unit fittingly named for him.

A furlong, the standard unit of racing distance, equals how many yards?

A furlong is 220 yards, an eighth of a mile, so a classic mile-and-a-half race is 12 furlongs.

The Marwari horse of Rajasthan is instantly recognised by which feature?

The Marwari's inward-curving ears are its hallmark — the tips often touch, and the horse can rotate them through 180 degrees.

The Horse Whisperer (1998) was directed by and starred which actor?

Robert Redford directed and played the Montana horse trainer Tom Booker; a young Scarlett Johansson played the injured teenager whose horse he is hired to heal.