60 Amazing Facts About Horse | Amazing Facts 4U
- Emerging 60 million years ago, the first horse was called Eohippus (The Dawn Horse) and was tiny, weighing only 5 Kg and standing just 14 inches high.
- There are more than 350 breeds of horses in the world. There are estimated around 70 million horses in the world.
- Horses have been domesticated for over 5000 years. Dogs may have become domesticated around 14,000 years ago and cats became our companions about 8500 years ago.
- Chariot racing was the first Olympic sport in 680 B.C.
- Over 75% of the world’s breeding resources are devoted to the 18 most popular horse breeds. The smallest breeds are the Falabellas of Argentina. The tallest breed is the Shire, from England.
- Domestic horses have a lifespan of around 25 years. The oldest recorded horse was “Old Billy,” an English barge horse, who lived to be 62 years old.
- Horses can run shortly after birth.
- Horses, zebras, and donkeys belong to the same genus, and hence can breed with one another!
- Breeding a male donkey to female horse results in a mule. Breeding a male horse to female donkey results in a hinny. Mules and hinnies are almost always sterile.
- The last remaining truly wild horse in existence is the Przewalski Horse (Asiatic Wild Horse) found in Mongolia. It has 66 chromosomes while all other horses have 64.
- The world’s smallest horse is the Falabella which ranges from 15 to 30 inches tall.
- A male horse is called a stallion. A female horse is called a mare. A young male horse is called a colt. A young female horse is called a filly. Ponies are small horses.
- A horse is usually not considered to be a “horse” until it is 5 years old. A young horse under 1 year old is called a foal. Foals have milk teeth, just like human babies. Foals are born with legs 90% of their full adult length.
- It’s impossible to predict a horse’s color from the foal coat color. They will go through several color changes until the color is “fixed” around two years of age.
- Horses have 16 muscles in each ear, allowing them to rotate their ears 180 degrees.
- At around age 3, milk teeth start getting replaced by permanent teeth. A horse’s teeth can give a good estimate of its age up to 9 years!
- You can tell the sex of a horse by its teeth. Most males have 40, females have 36.
- The “interdental space” is an area in a horse’s mouth, both on the upper and lower jaws, where there is not any teeth. This area is between the front teeth (the incisors) and the back teeth (the molars). When a horse is bridled, the interdental space is where the bit rests. On the bottom jaw, most horsemen refer to this area of bare gums as the “bars.”
- Horses don’t grow new teeth as they are born with all the teeth they will have during their lifetime. But most of the tooth structure is above the gum line from which teeth descend throughout a horse’s lifetime. Horses grind down their teeth as they chew. But they can form sharp hooks or unevenness as the horse chews. That is why they must have their teeth filed or “floated” as it’s called at least annually.
- Horses like sweet flavors and will usually reject anything sour or bitter.
- Horses’ larynxes (voice boxes) are higher in their throats than humans. When we choke on something, it shuts off our air supply and we might suffocate very quickly unless the object is dislodged. But when a horse chokes, amazingly they can still breathe. They just can’t swallow until the object is dislodged.
- The horse has one stomach. In contrast, cattle, sheep, goats, deer, and camels are “ruminants” having four digestive chambers instead of just one stomach. The normal horse’s small intestine is about 70 feet long and the large intestine is about 12 feet long.
- The right-hand side of a horse is called the offside. The left-hand side is the near side.
- Horses have 7 common blood types in contrast to 4 blood types in humans.
- A horse’s birthday is celebrated on January 1st (Northern Hemisphere) and on August 1st (southern hemisphere) irrespective of their actual birth date.
- The height of a horse is measured using the unit, “hand”, where one hand equals four inches considered to be the average width across a man’s knuckles. So if a horse measures 16 hands, it is 16×4 which is 64 inches tall.
- A horse is usually considered to be 14.2 (14 hands, 2 inches) or taller when mature. Anything under 14.2 when mature is usually considered to be a pony.
- The amazing fact is that a horse’s brain is just the size of a potato.
- If you hold your hand out to a horse and it approaches you, while then blowing warm air onto the palm of your hand, it means that he/she wants to be friends with you. If it rests its head on your shoulder, it means that he/she trusts you.
- Horses can communicate how they are feeling by their facial expressions. They use their ears, nostrils, and eyes to show their moods. Beware of a horse that has flared nostrils and its ears back. That means it might attack!
- Horses can differentiate between emotions in the human voice. They differentiate tones rather than words.
- Most of the time, a horse’s ear points where the horse is looking. If they are pointed in two different directions, it means both eyes are seeing two things simultaneously.
- Horses have fairly good eyesight due to large eyes having a diameter of 2 inches (5 cm) the largest of any land mammal. Volume-wise a horse’s eye is up to nine times larger than that of a human.
- Horses can’t properly focus their eyes as humans do. Instead, the lower parts of their retina see objects at a distance, and the upper ones are for closer viewing.
- A horse has considerably wide vision having the largest eyes of any land mammal, being able to see a total field of up to 350 degrees. Horses have two blind spots, the first is directly in front of them and the other is directly behind their head.
- Horses are not color blind. They have a “two-color” vision. Horses can perceive blue and green tones and color variations based on them. However, they have difficulty with other colors, including reds.
- Most of the time, a horse has “monocular” vision meaning a different image is seen by each eye at the same time. A horse can also have “binocular” vision when both eyes work together to see one picture happening only when it is looking down its nose.
- Scent-detecting horses can take their place alongside dogs in search and rescue operations. Riders generally take more training than the horses. Horses have known all their lives how to follow scents. The reason it hasn’t caught on is that people don’t understand how to read the horse correctly.
- The “nasolacrimal duct” is a tear duct that drains tears from the corner of the eye, down the tube-like nasolacrimal duct, and out through an opening at the bottom of the nose. This opening is large enough to be visible to the naked eye inside the horse’s nostril. Its blockage leads to excessive eye tears.
- Horses can sleep both lying down and standing up. They sleep only 3 – 4 hours per day! While standing they lock their legs when they sleep so they don’t fall over.
- Horses are herbivores (plant-eaters) and grazers.
- A horse can move in four ways: walk, trot, canter, and gallop. Galloping is the fastest. Horses gallop at around 44 kph (27 mph).
- The fastest recorded sprinting speed of a horse was 88 kph (55 mph).
- The hoof of a horse never stops growing, like a fingernail, and has to be clipped on a regular basis. The coronary band is a band of tissue circling a horse’s leg just above the hoof which is the source from which the hoof wall grows. An injury to the coronary band can sometimes result in irregular hoof growth
- On the underside of a horse’s hoof is a triangular-shaped area called the “frog.” Each time the frog comes into contact with the ground it acts as a shock absorber for a horse’s leg, and also helps to pump blood back up the leg. A healthy, functioning frog is vital to the hoof and leg health of a horse.
- Horses suffocate if both nostrils are obstructed due to a snake bite or allergy because they can’t breathe through the mouth. They can only breathe through the mouth.
- Akhal-Teke, a horse breed from Russia, can go for days without food or water.
- The amazing fact is that horses can’t vomit. The horse’s digestive tract operates in one direction. In fact, they have a strong band of muscles around their esophagus. This band is so strong that a horse’s stomach would typically burst before it would vomit.
- The horse memory is at least as good as that of an elephant. If a horse is treated kindly, it will remember the person as a friend for as long as it lives instantly resuming friendship when it sees him again, regardless of how long they have been apart. They also remember places very well
- American Quarter Horse is the world’s most popular breed.
- The most majestic of horses is the Arabian horse. The Arabian horse is unique in that it is the purest of all of the breeds. Arabian horses have 17 ribs (all other horses have 18), five lumbar vertebrae (other horses have six), and 16 tail vertebrae (other horses have 18).
- Arabian horses are considered some of the strongest endurance runners in the animal kingdom, capable of running over 160 kilometers (100 mi) without rest.
- Cars with Horse names are the Ford’s Mustang, Pinto, Bronco, and the Dodge’s ColJames.
- Horses have also played a part in the invention of movie technology. In the 1870s a man named Leland Stanford was convinced that, at some point in the gallop, all four of the horse’s legs simultaneously left the ground. He recruited photographer Eadweard Muybridge to help him prove this. But Muybridge realized that camera technology at the time was far too clumsy to prove it. He set up a series of 24 cameras side by side, each taking a picture right after the other, capturing the famed racehorse called Sallie Gardner in 24 different stages of the gallop. Sallie Gardner could indeed be seen with all four legs off the ground, creating the illusion that she was flying but essentially created a 24-frame animated film. The movie industry originated this way.
- Watt developed the term ‘Horsepower’ because he wanted a measurement for his steam engine that would be readily understood.
- If a statue in the park of a person on a horse has both front legs in the air, the person died in battle; if the horse has one front leg in the air, the person died as a result of wounds received in battle; if the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died of natural causes.
- Horses evolved in North America but became extinct here about 16000 years ago. “Wild” horses in the Americas are descended from horses brought over by Europeans.
- The name ‘Philip,’ and the feminine variant, ‘Philippa,’ mean ‘lover of horses.’
- On the island of Hydra in Greece, motorized vehicles are prohibited and all horse-power comes from horses & ponies.
- There are many crazy horse laws. In several cities throughout the United States, newly married men were not allowed to ride alone, unless they had been married longer than 12 months.
A great thought to start your day! Follow our blog on: www.delightfulquotes.com
