Horses : the ultimate treasury

160 Pages·2014·66.904 MB·English

by  Woodward, John

London, New York, First American Edition, 2012
Melbourne, Munich, and Delhi
This paperback edition first published in 2014
in the United States by
DK Publishing
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New York, New York 10014
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Designers Jim Green, Katie Knutton, Copyright © 2012 Dorling Kindersley Limited
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Horses
The Ultimate Treasury
Written by
John Woodward
Consultant
Kim Bryan
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Contents
6 Early horses 28 Native ponies 56 Working horses
8 The horse family 30 Breeds and types 58 Draft horses
10 Cave paintings 32 Breed profile: Exmoor 60 Breed profile: Shire
12 Wild horses 34 Mythical horses 62 On the farm
14 Breed profile: 36 Breed profile: Caspian 64 Breed profile: Percheron
Przewalski’s Horse 38 Horse sense 66 Charioteers
16 Domestication 40 Breed profile: 68 Cattle driving
18 Breed profile: Sorraia Connemara 70 Breed profile:
20 The story of Bucephalus 42 Gypsy horses Quarter Horse
22 Breed profile: Camargue 44 Breed profile: Shetland 72 The story of Mancha
24 Horses that made 46 Understanding horses and Gato
an empire 48 The story of Chetak
26 Breed profile: Arab 50 Breed profile: Haflinger
52 Horse heroes of fiction
54 Breed profile:
Fjord Pony
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74 Horses on show 104 Sport horses 144 Keeping a pony
76 Conforming to type 106 Racing and jump racing 146 Stabling and feeding
78 Breed profile: 108 The story of Seabiscuit 148 Grooming
150 Horse and rider
Andalusian 110 Breed profile:
152 Hoof and tooth care
80 Colors and markings Thoroughbred
154 Staying healthy
82 Breed profile: Appaloosa 112 Equine movie stars
84 Native American horses 114 Racing on wheels
86 Gaits 116 Breed profile: 156 Glossary
88 Breed profile: Standardbred 158 Index
Peruvian Paso 118 Dressage 160 Acknowledgments
90 Horse-drawn carriages 120 Breed profile:
92 Breed profile: Hackney Dutch Warmblood
94 The story of the 122 Show jumping
Pony Express 124 Breed profile:
96 Riding into battle Selle Français
98 Breed profile: 126 Eventing
Cleveland Bay 128 Breed profile:
100 Classical riding Irish Draft
102 Breed profile: 130 Endurance riding
Lipizzaner 132 Breed profile:
Akhal-Teke
134 Le Trec
136 More horseplay
138 Breed profile:
Kathiawari
140 Knight riders
142 Mounted games
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Early horses
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Modern horses evolved on the grassy plains of North America more than four million
years ago, eventually spreading into Asia across the dry land that once linked Alaska
to eastern Siberia. For millennia they lived wild, but roughly 5,500 years ago the
people of central Asia learned to tame them and, in time, how to ride them.
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Early horses
The horse family
Horses are part of a small family of animals consisting
of eight closely related species of horses, asses, and zebras.
They are the survivors of a much more diverse family that
probably originated in North America about 50 million
years ago. Their earliest ancestors were small,
forest-living leaf-eaters, but over time the
process of evolution gave rise to bigger animals
specialized for life on the open grassy plains.
Beginnings
The earliest ancestor of modern horses was the size of
a dog, and lived in woodlands and forests. Known to
scientists as Hyracotherium, it had separate toes instead
of single hooves, and its fossil remains show that it had
low-crowned teeth suitable for eating the tender leaves
of bushes rather than grass. Many more species of
these browsing, forest-living horses evolved over time,
together with others adapted to life on grasslands,
but eventually all the browsing types died out.
The kiang (Equus kiang)
is a wild ass that lives
on the high-level
grasslands of the
Tibetan plateau.
Meet the family
The earliest horses belonging to the
genus Equus seem to have evolved
four to five million years ago in North
America, and before long they spread
to Eurasia. They gave rise to all the
modern species of wild horses,
asses, and zebras, as well as
domestic horses and donkeys.
Bigger and faster
As time went on, the grassland horses evolved
species with bigger teeth better suited to eating
The donkey (Equus
tough, fibrous grass. They also had longer legs
asinus) has been
with fewer toes, giving them the speed to escape reshaped over time by
predators. There were many types, but only the selective breeding.
various Equus species have survived.
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The domestic horse (Equus
ferus caballus) is a race of Przewalski’s Horse (Equus
the wild horse (Equus ferus). ferus przewalski) is the only
surviving truly wild horse.
The Asiatic
ass (Equus
hemionus) still
lives wild, but
is now rare and
endangered.
Plains zebras
(Equus quagga)
live in big herds
on the African
savannas.
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Early horses
Cave paintings Horse’s head
carved from
animal bone
Many Stone Age cave paintings in France and Spain show
the wild horses that were roaming the plains of southern
Europe around 18,000 years ago. This was roughly the Horse painters
height of the last ice age, when life was hard and people The painters were the Magdalenian
people who lived from 18,000 to
depended heavily on hunting wild animals—including wild
10,000 bce. The painted caves were
horses—for food. They painted images of their quarry on
possibly their sacred sites. In
the walls of caves, and miraculously some of these images addition to painting, they made
have survived. The horses they depict are very similar to small carvings, including
images of horses’ heads.
the most primitive wild horses still living today.
Tough times
When the paintings were made, much of northern
Europe was covered by ice. Farther south lay dry
grassland inhabited by wolves, hyenas, bison,
woolly mammoths, and reindeer like this one.
Some animals and people would
have migrated south to
escape the harsh
winters, returning
in spring.
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