Horse Facts & Interesting Horse Trivia

Did you know............ FACTS

A horse can live up to 40 years of age, or more, though it´s average lifespan is 20-25 years. But many horses in captivity only live to age 8!

The oldest recorded horse was Old Billy, who lived to age 62. He was a barge horse on the English Canals.

There are about 75 million horses in the world.

The horse belongs to the "Equus" family which comes from the ancient Greek word meaning "quickness".

One of the first horses was called a Eophippus. It lived about 60 million years ago and was as tall as a fox. It had toes!

6 million years ago this ´horse´ had developed into the single toed Pliohippus that is the basis of todays Equus Domesticus.

Hippophobia and Equinophobia means a fear of horses.

There are over 350 different breeds of horses and ponies.

All horses, including zebras, belong to the genus Equus.

The horse was the last primary animal to be domesticated.

A horse has two ´blind spots´. One directly in front of them and the other directly behind them.

Most of the time, a horse has "monocular" vision. This means a different image is seen by each eye so that a horse is seeing two different pictures at the same time. A horse can also have "binocular" vision. Binocular vision is when both eyes work together to see one picture (humans have binocular vision). A horse only has binocular vision when it is looking down its nose.

A horse´s heart weighs about 4.5 kilos.

The average horses head weighs about 5.3 kilos.

Horses can not breath through their mouths.

Horses can not vomit.

A horse has approximately 205 bones.

Arabians have one less rib, one less lumbar bone and one or two fewer tail vertebrae than other horses.

A healthy adult horse should have a pulse between 36 and 40 beats per minute while at rest. (Adult respiratory rate is 8-16 breaths per minute)

A horse sleeps 2 and 1/2 to 3 hours a day.

Horses lie down only about 43.5 minutes a day.

Horses sleep longer in summer than in the winter.

The horse is a herbivorous mammal. It has a small stomach for its size and needs to eat little and often.

In the wild a horse will graze up to 16 hours a day.

Horses have a prehensile upper lip. Prehensile means "adapted for seizing, grasping, or taking hold of something." Their upper lips are very sensitive and capable of feeling the smallest of differences in objects.

No two horses are identical.

A foal is a baby horse.

A yearling is a foal after its first birthday.

A colt is a young male horse.

A filly is a young female horse.

A stallion is a male horse, when it turns 4 years old.

A mare is a female horse, when it turns 4 years old.

A sire is the word for the father of a horse.

A dam is the word for the mother of a horse.

A mare is pregnant, "in foal", for 11 months. Most mares give birth in the spring and under the protective cover of darkness.

Traditionally a horse was measured in hands. A hand being 4 inches (or 10 cms).

The World's Largest Horse was a Shire gelding named Samson, bred by Thomas Cleaver of Toddington Mills, England. Foaled in 1846, this horse measured 21.2 1/2 hand high (2 m 17.5 cm) in 1850, and weighed 3,360 pounds (1522 kilos).

Adult female horses usually have 35 teeth. Not including wolf teeth, which are usually just found on the upper jaw and are vestigial, meaning through evolution have lost most or all of their function.

Adult male horses usually have 40 to 44 teeth. Again not including wolf teeth.

You can get a good idea of the age of a horse by looking at its teeth up to about aged 10.

Foals are born with milk teeth which they loose between 3 and 5 years of age, being replaced by permanent teeth.

Horses can be either the same colour all over (whole colours) or a mixture of colours (broken colours). There are thousands of different colour combinations for horses. The most commonly recognized whole colours are - bay, black, brown, chestnut, dun, cream, palomino, or grey. The broken colours include piebald (often called pinto), skewbald (also known as paint horses), roan and spotted (Appaloosa) horses.

Horses make 8 basic sounds- snort, squeal, greeting nicker, courtship nicker, maternal nicker, neigh, roar, blow.

A horses hoof grows on average 1 cm per month. The diet and exercise of a horse can be a great determining factor in this growth. The more a horse moves the more its hooves grow.

Did you know................ TRIVIA

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.

In the old black and white films, when the script said that a horse was to be shot, they really did the shooting on screen!

The fastest Pony Express ride was 7 days, 17 hours and was carrying Lincoln's inaugural address.

China not only has the most people in the world, but also has the most Horses with 10,000,000.

With his long limbs and large heart and lungs, the horse is designed for galloping. Jumping is not a natural activity for horses and left to their own devices most will go around obstructions.

The British racehorse Humorist, who won the English Derby in the early 20´s, should never have been able to race. When he died shortly after the derby, an autopsy was made, and it was found out that he had been born with only one lung.

The only horse to defeat the great race horse Man'O War was named 'Upset'.

The world speed record for a horse is 69.52 kilometers per hour (43.2 mph), it was set by a four year old race horse named Big Racket.

The longest tail measured was 6.6 meters long was grown by an American Palomino named Chinook.

The longest mane was 5.4 meters long and grown by a Californian mare named Maude.

The smallest breed is the Falebella of Argentina. The tallest of the breed stands about 74cm (30 inches) at the shoulder.

The smallest pony in history was a stallion named "Little Pumpkin." He stood 35cm (14 inches) and weighed only 9 kilos!

The oldest horse ever to give birth was a 42 year old Australian brood mare.

Rabbits are not rodents. They are lagomorphs, and are more closely related to horses than they are to rats or mice.

According to superstition in Lincolnshire, England, if you see a white dog, you should stay silent until you see a white horse.