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TEN INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT HORSES

1) The horse is descended from a prehistoric creature called eohippus. It was the size of fox, had four toes on each foot, and looked rather like a small tapir.

2) Horses are measured in hands', from the days when the animal's height would be gauged by a man placing one hand above another up the horse's side from the ground to the wither ( the highest point of the horse's shoulder, just in front of where the saddle sits.) Later, it was agreed that the average man's hand was 4 inches ( 10 cms) across the palm ; hence a hand' is 4 inches of height. So, a pony of 12 hands high would measure 48 inches from ground to wither. If it measured " 12.1 hh " ( hands high), it would be 49 inches.

3) The tallest horses tend to be the heavy draught breeds, such as Shires, which can reach over 20 hands.
The smallest horses are the miniature Falabellas, and miniature Shetland ponies, both of which can be 9 hands or even less.

4) Horses are not deemed mature until they are four years old, though some individuals can grow on till they are five. Generally horses are capable of breeding from the age of two, but are not usually broken in for riding or driving till three or four. They can live to be over thirty, but most will be lucky to see twenty-five, even if they have had a good and easy life.

5) A horse's age can be discerned from its teeth. This is quite accurate up to the age of eight, as the teeth grow and develop in the same specific ways in all horses up to this point. Later on, the changes in the teeth are more gradual and less easy to spot, so age can only be estimated in approximate five-year spans after the age of eight or nine.

6) Many people believe that a herd of wild horses is led by a stallion, but this is not so. Certainly the dominant male will assert his breeding rights ! The true leader of the herd, though ( as with herds of elephants) is the dominant female. This mare matriarch will decide when and where the herd will stop to graze, or drink, when to flee from danger, and when to rest, and which members of the herd can stay - and which must be shunned or driven off. The stallion, meanwhile, simply prances around looking macho and flashy.

7) Most horses have four gaits ( ways of moving): walk, trot, canter and gallop. But some breeds have a fifth gait, which makes them uniquely suited to either harness racing, as in the case of trotters and pacers, or long-distance riding, as with the Icelandic pony and the Marwari horses of India.

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