Horse Facts

Horse Facts

1. A female horse is called a mare.

2. A male horse is called a stallion.

3. A baby horse is called a foal.

4. Within 1-2 hours of birth, a foal is able to stand and walk.

5. Like humans, horses are born with no teeth.

6. Horses lose their baby teeth just like humans do.

7. The person who cares for a horse’s feet is called a farrier or blacksmith.

8. The four natural paces for a horse are walk, trot, canter, and gallop.

9. Horses have been around in some form or other for at least 50 million years!

10. Foals are born with legs 90% of their full adult length.

11. Most foals are born at night.

12. All Thoroughbreds birthdays are celebrated on the same day - August the first.

13. A horse has two blind spots - right behind the horse and just in front of and beneath the nose.

14. A horse’s height is measured in hands (10.2 cms).A Hand equal about 4 inches.

15. The world’s smallest horse is the Falabella which ranges from 38 -76 cm tall.

16. Apart from Antarctica, Australasia is the only continent with no native horses.

17. The oldest ever horse lived to be 62!

18. Horseshoes are said to be lucky and the luckiest horseshoe of all is one from the hind leg of a gray mare.

19. Foals can stand an hour after they are born.

20. There are over 150 different breeds and types of horses.

21. There are about 75 million horses in the world.

22. A horse has approximately 205 bones.

23. A horse’s teeth can be used to estimate its age.

24. A zebroid or zorse is a cross between a horse and a zebra. A cross between a zebra and a donkey is a zeedonk.

25. The smallest pony ever was a stallion named “Little Pumpkin” who was only 35 cms tall!

26. The fear of horses is known as equinophobia.

27. Horses can’t breathe through their mouths.

28. Breeding a male donkey to a female horse results in a mule. Breeding a male horse to a female donkey results in a hinny.

29. Mules and hinnies are almost always sterile.

30. A donkey stallion is called a jack. A donkey mare is called a jenny.

31. One of the tallest horses on record was a Percheron called Dr Le Gear. He stood 21 hands high (2.13 metres) and weighed 1 370 kilograms!

32..Arab horses have 17 ribs (all other horses have 18), five lumbar vertebrae (other horses have six) and 16 tail vertebrae (other horses have 18).

33. The last remaining truly wild horse is the Przewalski Horse (Asiatic Wild Horse). It has 66 chromosomes all other horses have 64.

34. The Brumby is the feral horse of Australia, the Kaimanawa is the feral horse of New Zealand.

35. The sensitive, wedge-shaped part of a horse’s foot is called the frog.

36. The right hand side of a horse is called the off side. The left hand side is the near side.

37. Horses sleep between two and three hours per day. Only 45 minutes of this sleep time is spent lying down.

38. Modern horses are known as Equus caballus.

39. Zebra stripe patterns are as distinctive as human fingerprints.

40. A mule is the offspring of a male donkey and a female horse.