12 Fascinating Facts about Horses
7. And speaking of bones, here’s a quick shout-out to the amazing Arabian’s special skeleton. With only five lumbar vertebrae in their backs (most horses have six) and one less rib, Arabians tend to have shorter backs than other horse breeds.
8. As anyone who has ever watched a horse race can attest, horses are capable of achieving impressive rates of speed. Although the Thoroughbred is the breed that comes to mind when talking about speedy horses, Thoroughbreds generally excel at carrying their speed over long distances of ¾ of a mile to 1½ miles or more. For short distances, the American Quarter Horse is actually the fastest breed, capable of sustaining 45 mph for ¼ mile.
9. Don’t look that gift horse in the mouth, because you may just discover that he’s a bit older than you expected! Quaint proverbs aside, it’s possible to determine a horse’s age with a fair degree of accuracy simply by examining his teeth. The presence or absence of certain deciduous teeth, the particular markings on the teeth, and the angle of the upper and lower incisors can all be used to help estimate the age of a horse.
10. Horses played an important part in ancient Egyptian history, but only after their introduction to the country in about 1600 BC. The famous pharaoh Ramses the Great (Ramses III) even recorded the names of his two chariot horses; they were “Victory in Thebes” and “Mut is Contented.”
11. Horses have also played an important part of American history. Think of all the iconic scenes from history: hardworking horses on cattle drives, farm horses plowing fields, carriage horses in cities, Pony Express riders galloping across the West. But all of this is fairly recent history, as horses have only been present in North America for about 500 years. Columbus—and shortly after, Spanish explorers—brought the first horses across the Atlantic.
12. And for our final of 12 facts about horses: While the world is populated with hundreds of different horse and pony breeds, the most popular breed in the United States is the American Quarter Horse. The American Quarter Horse Association has registered nearly 6 million horses worldwide since 1940.
