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| Fact File | |||
| <<<There
are more than 150 different breeds of horses in the world. <<<The term ‘Cold-blood’ is used for heavy draught breeds believed to be descendants of the prehistoric horse of North Europe. ‘Warm-blood’ refers to the lighter, riding type of horse. <<<The modern horse belongs to the same family as asses and zebras. <<<The horse is a herbivore and exists mainly on grass. In the wild, a horse spends twenty out of twenty four hours grazing. <<<Horses are, by nature, herd animals. In the wild, they live in groups of around 12 within a larger group (the herd). Each group consists of a stallion, some mares, foals, yearlings and perhaps, a few one or two-year-olds. <<< Horses mutually groom each other with their teeth. They also play and doze together. <<< Horses communicate with each other by a number of means, both vocal and physical. Their vocabulary includes nickering, neighing, squealing and rarely, roaring. <<< A horse can see almost everything around it due to the position of its eyes. The only blind spots are immediately behind and a little way in front of its head. <<< A horse has a highly developed sense of touch, which is enhanced by whiskers on its muzzle which enables it to gauge the distance of an object in front of it and also in assessing texture, for example, while grazing. <<< Smell is very important to horses. When horses meet, they put their noses close to each other, often blowing down each other’s nostrils as a prelude to deciding whether to be friends or not. <<< A horse’s ears are very mobile and reflect its moods. While drooping ears indicate a dozing state, ears turned back show that its attention is focused somewhere behind him <<< A horse is always described by its coat colouring, followed by other distinguishing features, such as marking of its mane or tail. <<< Although truly wild horses are difficult to find nowadays due to their increased domestication, they still retain much of their instinctive behaviour. |