181 Fun Facts About Horses

What is the average gestation period for a horse?

11 months, or about 340 days, is the average; since northern-hemisphere racehorses all turn a year older on 1 January, breeders aim for births as early in the year as possible.

Which of these is considered one of the basic coat colors for horses?

Chestnut is a base color, red all over with no black hair, and it is recessive: two chestnut parents produce chestnut offspring every time.

What is the primary natural defense mechanism of a horse when faced with danger?

Flight comes first: a horse startles and runs, and only bites, kicks, strikes or rears when escape is impossible or its young are threatened.

In which equestrian discipline do riders guide horses through a pattern of circles, spins and sliding stops?

Reining grew out of ranch work, where a horse had to sprint, stop and turn sharply to handle cattle; the arena pattern of circles, spins and sliding stops shows off those skills.

What unit measures a horse's height from the ground to the withers?

Hand is four inches, and the figure after the point counts inches, not tenths: a horse of 15.2 hands stands 15 hands 2 inches, or 62 inches, at the withers.

Which horse breed was developed by the Nez Perce people?

The Appaloosa, the spotted horse of the Nez Perce, went into decline after the tribe lost most of its herds in the Nez Perce War of 1877; a registry founded in 1938 revived the breed.

Eadweard Muybridge's 1878 photographs of a galloping horse were an early step towards which invention?

Motion pictures built on the experiment: railroad magnate Leland Stanford hired Muybridge to photograph his horses, and the frames proved that a galloping horse lifts all four hooves off the ground at once.

Which organ in a horse's digestive tract is surprisingly small for so large an animal?

The stomach of an average horse holds only some 8 to 19 litres and food passes through it quickly, which is why horses do better grazing through the day than on one or two big meals.

What is a young female horse, typically under the age of four, called?

A filly is a female horse under four, or under five in British and American racing; in the biggest American race for three-year-olds she carries 121 pounds to the males' 126.

Which racing phrase describes a little-known contender who unexpectedly wins?

Dark horse began as racetrack talk for a runner nobody knew enough about to bet on; Benjamin Disraeli used it in his 1831 novel The Young Duke, and politics soon borrowed it for surprise candidates.

The distances of horse races are traditionally given in which old unit of length?

Furlongs began as 'furrow longs', the length of one ploughed furrow in a medieval field, and eight of them make a mile.

'Don't look a gift horse in the mouth' comes from inspecting a horse's teeth to judge what?

Its age: a horse's teeth erupt and wear in a known pattern, so a buyer could estimate its years from its mouth; gums that recede with age also gave us 'long in the tooth'.

In which two-beat gait do the two legs on the same side of the horse move forward together?

The pace is a two-beat lateral gait, both legs on a side swinging together where the trot moves diagonal pairs; racing pacers often wear hobbles, straps linking the legs on each side, to keep them from breaking stride.

What is the specialized name for someone who cares for horses' hooves?

A farrier trims and shoes horses' hooves; the name goes back to the Latin ferrum, 'iron', the same word that gives the metal its chemical symbol, Fe.

The 'Flehmen response' in horses is often seen when they are doing what?

The flehmen response is a way of investigating an unusual scent: curling the upper lip and raising the head routes odours to the vomeronasal organ in the roof of the mouth.

The Shetland pony takes its name from islands that belong to which country?

Scotland's Shetland Islands supplied the coal boom: from the mid-1800s thousands of Shetlands were taken to mainland Britain to haul coal underground as pit ponies, often for their whole lives.

What is the typical lifespan of a domesticated horse?

25-30 years is typical for a domestic horse, though health, care and size all change it: miniature horses, for instance, can live 40 years or more.

Besides directly behind it, where is a horse's other blind spot?

In front of its nose lies a small blind area, so a horse cocks, lowers or raises its head to look at something close; approach from there, or from directly behind, and it may startle.

Most of a horse's wide field of view uses which kind of sight?

Monocular vision covers most of the horse's field of view, each eye scanning its own side; only a wedge of roughly 65 to 80 degrees in front is seen with both eyes, and that overlap is what gives depth perception.

Which of these structures is part of a horse's hindgut?

The cecum opens the hindgut: in a horse it is a blind-ended pouch about 1.2 m long that holds some 27 to 30 litres, while in humans the same structure is the pouch that carries the appendix.

What are the free-roaming horses of the western US, descended from horses the Spanish brought over, called?

Mustangs are the free-roaming horses of the American West; usually called wild, they are properly feral, descended from Colonial Spanish horses brought over from the 1500s.

When a horse shows the whites of its eyes, what emotion is it typically conveying?

Anger or fear is the message: the eye is opened wide enough to show the white sclera, and it often precedes a bite, kick or bolt.

What layer of skin directly beneath the hoof wall contains blood vessels and nerves?

The sensitive laminae are the blood-rich, nerve-filled layer that interlocks with the hoof wall and suspends the coffin bone; when that bond fails, the result is laminitis.

What is the soft, low sound a horse makes in greeting?

A nicker is the low, quiet sound a horse makes to welcome a familiar person, to ask for food or between a mother and her young; the whinny is high-pitched and drawn out so that it carries over distance.

What is the term for a castrated male horse?

A gelding is a castrated male horse; castration makes a male calmer and easier to handle, which is why most males not kept for breeding are gelded.

In which region did the modern horse genus, Equus, first evolve?

North America is where Equus evolved before spreading to the Old World; horses then died out in their homeland about 10,000 years ago and returned only with Spanish ships from 1493.

What is the purpose of the 'stay apparatus' in a horse's legs?

To enable them to sleep standing up, horses lock the main joints of their legs with tendons and ligaments, so they can doze with almost no muscular effort and still bolt the moment danger appears.

Which coat pattern mixes white hairs into the base colour for a frosted look, usually with a solid-coloured head?

Roan mixes white hairs evenly through the body coat while the head and legs stay solid; unlike a grey, a roan is born with the pattern and does not turn whiter with age.

In practice, what does calling horses 'hindgut fermenters' mean?

Fiber digestion primarily occurs in the large intestine, where bacteria ferment roughage into fatty acids the horse burns for energy; cattle do the same job at the front, in a many-chambered stomach.

What is the broad strap under a horse's belly that holds the saddle in place called?

The girth is the strap that keeps the saddle from slipping; Western riders call it a cinch, from the Spanish cincha, and the same word gives English 'a cinch' for a sure thing.

In which sport do Standardbred horses pull a driver in a two-wheeled cart called a sulky?

Harness racing horses must hold a set gait; one that breaks into a gallop has to be slowed and steered to the outside until it is back in stride.

Why can a horse's ears each rotate up to 180 degrees independently?

To pinpoint where a sound came from: the two ears together give 360-degree hearing without the horse having to move its head.

What is the tuft of hair that falls between a horse's ears and over its face called?

The forelock grows from the top of the head and falls forward between the ears; donkeys and zebras, by contrast, have no forelock to speak of.

A sudden change of feed is a classic cause of which ailment in horses?

Colic is a symptom, not a diagnosis: the word covers abdominal pain from any cause, and it is the leading cause of premature death among domesticated horses.

Which small callosities behind a horse's fetlocks share their name with a toxic fungus of rye?

Ergots are small horny growths under the fetlock, from pea-sized to barely detectable; like the rye fungus, they take their name from the Old French for a cock's spur.

What might a horse's high tail position indicate?

A high tail signals alertness or excitement, and the same mood shows in flared nostrils and stiffly pricked ears; a low tail points instead to exhaustion, fear, pain or submission.

Which type of horse is typically bred for speed and used primarily in racing?

The Thoroughbred is a horse breed renowned for its agility, speed, and spirit, primarily bred for racing and often used to improve other light horse breeds.

Which of these is a horse physically unable to do?

Horses cannot vomit: the cardiac sphincter where the esophagus meets the stomach works as a one-way valve, which is part of why a blocked or twisted gut is such an emergency.

Which organ, present in most mammals, is entirely absent in the horse?

Horses have no gall bladder: with no reservoir to store bile, the liver drips it straight into the small intestine all day, which suits an animal built to graze continuously.

What is the rubbery, V-shaped shock absorber on the underside of a horse's hoof called?

The frog is the rubbery V-shaped pad between the heels, with a deep groove on either side; it compresses on every stride and helps pump blood back up the leg.

Which piece of riding equipment, first seen in China in the early 4th century, revolutionised mounted warfare?

The stirrup appears on Chinese figures from the early 4th century; it gave riders a far steadier seat, spread west with the nomads of Central Eurasia and reached Europe by about the 8th century.

Which body part does a horse use to select forage and pick up fine feed such as grain?

Its lips are prehensile and so sensitive they can sort out even small grains; only once the food is gathered do the incisors nip it off and the molars grind it.

Which discipline involves gymnastic exercises performed on a moving horse, often at the canter?

Vaulting is an equestrian discipline where gymnastic and dance exercises are performed on a cantering horse, which is guided on a large circle by a lunger.

What is the bony, fleshy base of a horse's tail, from which the long hairs hang, called?

The dock is the solid part of the tail, as distinct from its hair, and gives us the verb 'to dock'; on donkeys and zebras the long hairs grow only toward the bottom of it.

Which of the two wild Equus ferus subspecies survived into the 21st century?

Przewalski's horse, named after the Russian explorer Nikolai Przhevalsky, vanished from the wild in the 1960s but survived in zoos, and since the 1990s has been released again in Mongolia.

What is the name for a white marking on the head so wide that it extends to or past the eyes?

A bald face is white so wide it reaches or passes the eyes; 'bald' here keeps its old sense of white-marked, the same one that names the bald eagle.

What is the sensitive area at the top of the hoof, from which the hoof grows?

The coronet band rings the top of the hoof and produces the wall, which grows down from it much as a fingernail grows out from its base.

A horse's roughly 205 bones nearly match which of these?

Adult human skeletons have 206 bones to the horse's roughly 205, while a newborn baby starts with dozens more than either, because many of its bones fuse together as it grows.

What is an uncastrated adult male horse known as?

A stallion is an uncastrated adult male horse; Thoroughbred registries insist on natural cover, so a popular stallion may breed more than a hundred mares in one season.

Which stage of rest can a horse only reach by lying down?

REM sleep is the one stage a horse cannot reach on its feet: it must lie down for an hour or two every few days, and one never allowed to do so may eventually collapse into REM while standing.

A horse's two-cone colour vision is most like that of a person with which condition?

Red-green colour blindness is the closest human match: horses have two cone types where most people have three, so red and related colours probably look like shades of green to them.

Racehorses usually wear lightweight shoes made of which metal?

Aluminium shoes are lighter than the steel ones most horses wear, which is why racing favours them; either kind is nailed through the insensitive outer hoof wall, which is keratin like a fingernail.

What is the term for the high-crowned teeth that let horses cope with a lifetime of gritty grazing?

Hypsodont dentition means high-crowned teeth with extra material in reserve; a horse's teeth keep erupting through life as gritty grazing wears them down, and the opposite, low-crowned kind is called brachydont.

Which teeth do most male horses have but most females never grow?

Canines, also called tushes, normally come as a full set of four in males, while fewer than three in ten females have any; that is one reason an adult horse can have anywhere from 36 to 44 teeth.

What is a young male horse called?

A colt is a young male horse, usually under four; Baltimore's football team took the name Colts after a fan contest, in honour of the city's horse breeding and racing, and kept it on moving to Indianapolis.

Which part of a horse's leg is equivalent to the human ankle?

The hock, the large angled joint on the hind leg, is the horse's ankle; the fetlock, often miscalled the ankle, actually corresponds to the knuckles of a human hand.

A 2021 genome study traced all modern domestic horses to steppe around which two rivers?

The Volga and Don cross the steppe of what is now southwestern Russia; the horse lineage that arose there spread rapidly from about 4,000 years ago and replaced almost every other across Eurasia.

Which discipline has horse and rider clear a course of coloured fences, knockdowns costing faults?

Show jumping is scored in faults: each pole knocked down usually costs four, and riders who finish level go into a jump-off against the clock.

What is the name of the mythological winged horse, often depicted as pure white?

Pegasus sprang from the Gorgon Medusa when Perseus beheaded her; the hero Bellerophon later tamed him and rode him into battle against the fire-breathing Chimera.

Which animal's name comes from the Greek for 'river horse'?

Hippopotamus joins the Greek hippos, 'horse', and potamos, 'river'; the name misleads, since the animal's closest living relatives are not horses but whales and dolphins.

Which American breed, the most popular in the US, excels at sprint racing and Western events such as cutting?

The American Quarter Horse is named for the quarter-mile sprints it was bred to win; its registry, founded in 1940, is now the largest breed registry in the world.

A horse's hoof is the tip of one toe, matching which human finger?

Middle finger is the match: a horse stands on the tip of its third digit, and its ancestors' other toes dwindled over millions of years until only that central one bore weight.

What is the major source of nutrients for a horse?

Hay and pasture, in other words forage, supply most of a horse's nutrients; even when grain is fed, nutritionists recommend that at least half the diet by weight be forage.

The winner of the Kentucky Derby is draped in a blanket of which flowers?

Red roses, hundreds of them stitched into a blanket for the winner, give the Derby its nickname, 'The Run for the Roses'; the first recorded draping of a winner in roses dates from 1896.

In which modern country was the Botai culture, linked to the earliest evidence of horse domestication?

Kazakhstan's Botai sites, about 5,500 years old, were long taken as the cradle of horse domestication, yet DNA later showed Botai horses were not the ancestors of modern domestic breeds.

Sampson, the tallest horse ever recorded, belonged to which British draught breed?

The Shire Sampson, foaled in 1846, stood about 2.19 m (7 ft 2 in) at the shoulder and was later said to weigh more than 1,500 kg; the breed's size was prized for hauling heavy loads.

What is the toothless area of a horse's mouth between the incisors and molars called?

The bars are the toothless stretches of gum between the incisors and the cheek teeth, which is exactly where the mouthpiece of a bit sits.

What is an adult female horse called?

A mare's estrous cycle runs roughly every 19 to 22 days from early spring into autumn.

Which coat colour is golden with a white or flaxen mane and tail?

Palomino comes from a single copy of the cream gene lightening a red coat to gold; two copies of the gene give the much paler cremello.

Which set of races constitutes the American Triple Crown for Thoroughbreds?

The Kentucky Derby, Preakness Stakes and Belmont Stakes were first swept by Sir Barton in 1919, before the treble had a name; 'Triple Crown' only caught on after Gallant Fox repeated the feat in 1930.

Huaso set the equestrian high-jump world record of 2.47 metres in 1949 in which country?

Chile: at Viña del Mar, Huaso refused the fence at his first try and knocked it down at his second, then cleared it on the third and last attempt under Captain Alberto Larraguibel.

What is a common term for habits in horses such as cribbing or weaving?

Vices, or stable vices, usually grow out of confinement, boredom, isolation or too little exercise, which is why turnout on grass with company often eases them.

What does a horse typically communicate by pinning its ears flat back against its head?

Anger or pain: ears flattened tight against the head are the clearest signal a horse sends, and aggressive behaviour often follows within moments.

What are the free-roaming feral horses of Australia called?

Brumbies descend from horses that ran away from, or were turned loose by, Australia's early settlers, so they are feral animals and not truly wild ones.

Which of these was an equestrian event at the 1900 Paris Olympics?

The horse long jump was won with a leap of 6.10 metres, more than a metre short of the 7.185 m that won the men's long jump on foot at the same Games.

Which contagious disease, caused by Streptococcus equi, makes the lymph nodes under a horse's jaw abscess?

Strangles gets its name from the swollen lymph nodes, which can press on the throat and windpipe until a badly affected horse struggles to breathe.

Which mythical horse-like creature is the national animal of Scotland?

The unicorn kept its place when Scotland's king inherited the English throne in 1603: he set a unicorn beside England's lion on the royal arms, where the pair still stand.

Which of these is a heavy draft breed bred for pulling loads?

The Belgian, or Brabant, is a heavy draft breed; draft horses are 'cold bloods', bred for strength plus the calm temperament needed to pull a plow.

What does a horse signal by holding one ear forward and one ear turned back?

Their attention is divided: a horse can swivel each ear on its own, so one can stay on its rider while the other tracks what lies ahead.

Which coat colour carries a dark dorsal stripe down the spine and often zebra-like leg bars?

Dun is the wild-type colour: most domestic horses carry mutations that switch this pattern off, while breeds such as the Norwegian Fjord have kept it.

What reflective structure behind the retina helps horses see in low light?

The tapetum lucidum bounces light back through the retina for a second pass, which is why a horse's eyes shine yellowish-green in a torch beam at night.

What was the name of Roy Rogers's palomino, his co-star in a long run of Western films?

Trigger started out as Golden Cloud and carried Maid Marian in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) before Roy Rogers bought and renamed him.

What is the primary function of a horse's vibrissae, or whiskers?

Touch: the whiskers are stiff sensory hairs that tell a horse what its muzzle is about to meet, so shaving them off for the show ring takes away a working sense.

Which famous horse from literature was owned by Don Quixote?

Rocinante is the name Don Quixote spent four days choosing for his bony old hack, sure that so famous a knight needed a steed with a grand-sounding name.

What is the term for a horse's coat pattern that features irregular patches of white and any other color?

Pinto is Spanish for 'painted' or 'spotted', a fair description of a coat that looks as if white had been splashed over a solid-coloured horse.

What is a person who rides racehorses professionally called?

A jockey rides racehorses for a living; flat-race jockeys ride with very short stirrups in the crouched 'monkey' seat popularised by the American Tod Sloan in the 1890s.

What is a fully grown equine that stands no taller than about 148 cm at the shoulder usually called?

Pony status is about height, not age, which makes the name 'polo pony' misleading: the animals ridden in polo are full-sized horses.

In a pedigree, what is a horse's mother called?

Dam began as a variant of 'dame', an old word for a lady or mother, and breeders have used it for a horse's female parent ever since.

Which three-beat gait is faster than a trot but slower than a gallop?

Canter is short for 'Canterbury gallop', the easy speed at which pilgrims were said to ride to the shrine at Canterbury.

What are the cups or flaps fitted beside a racehorse's eyes to stop it seeing to the side called?

Blinkers stop a horse being distracted by rivals, crowds and movement beside or behind it; in the United States they are usually called blinders.

Przewalski's horse differs from the domestic horse, which has 64 chromosomes, by carrying how many?

Przewalski's horse has 66 chromosomes to the domestic horse's 64, yet the two can still interbreed and produce fertile foals.

One traditional job of the Shire horse was pulling brewers' vehicles of which kind?

Drays are low, heavy carts, and Shires hauled them stacked with beer barrels; once engines took over, the breed fell from a million or more horses to a few thousand by the 1960s.

The Lipizzan horse is most closely associated with which institution?

The Spanish Riding School of Vienna has trained Lipizzans for centuries; most are born dark, bay or black, and only gradually turn white.

Eventing puts one horse and rider through dressage, show jumping and which third phase?

Cross-country is the endurance phase, a galloping course over solid fixed obstacles such as logs, ditches and water; the traditional three-day format gave the sport its older name of three-day eventing.

Bucephalus was the celebrated warhorse of which commander?

Alexander the Great won Bucephalus as a boy, Plutarch says, by turning the unmanageable horse towards the sun so that it could no longer see the shadow that frightened it.

What does the name Bucephalus literally mean?

Ox-headed joins the Greek bous, 'ox', and kephale, 'head'; one explanation is that the horse carried a brand shaped like an ox's head.

Which grooming tool, worked in circles, is usually the first used on a horse's coat?

The curry comb goes first because it lifts dirt and loose hair to the surface, and the dandy and body brushes that follow sweep it away.

Thoroughbreds descend from the Darley Arabian, Godolphin Arabian and which other stallion?

The Byerley Turk is thought to have been captured at the siege of Buda in 1686; Captain Robert Byerley then rode him to war in Ireland before the horse went to stud.

Which breed often has one fewer pair of ribs and one fewer lumbar vertebra than other horses?

The Arabian often has 17 pairs of ribs instead of 18 and five lumbar vertebrae instead of six, one reason for the breed's short, strong back.

Which mounted sport is played four a side on a grass field 300 yards long?

Polo is played four a side on a grass field 300 yards by 160, and riders change to fresh mounts between, or even during, the periods of play.

What is each period of play in a polo match called?

Chukka comes from the Hindi chakkar, itself from the Sanskrit for 'wheel' or 'circle'; a match has four to eight of them.

At which racetrack is the Kentucky Derby run?

Churchill Downs takes its name from John and Henry Churchill, who provided the land; the track was built by Meriwether Lewis Clark Jr., a grandson of the explorer William Clark.

What is the headgear that holds the bit and carries the reins called?

Bridle is also something people do: to bridle at a remark is to draw up the head and pull in the chin, the way a spirited horse does under a strong rein.

Which 1973 Triple Crown winner took the final leg by 31 lengths?

Secretariat ended a 25-year wait, the first Triple Crown winner since Citation in 1948, and in the opening leg he sped up all the way, covering each section faster than the one before.

Which English racecourse stages the Grand National?

Aintree, near Liverpool, saw its strangest National in 1993, when the race was declared void after 30 of the 39 runners set off and kept racing despite a false start.

Which horse won the Grand National three times in the 1970s?

Red Rum was bought with a debilitating bone disease and trained on the sands at Southport by Ginger McCain, a car dealer with stables behind his showroom.

Which Grand National fence is named after a captain unseated into its ditch in 1839?

Becher's Brook recalls Captain Martin Becher, who fell there from his mount Conrad and took shelter in the brook to avoid injury as the rest of the field came over.

Seabiscuit beat which Triple Crown winner by four lengths in a famous 1938 match race at Pimlico?

War Admiral, the 1937 Triple Crown winner, was allowed to draw level in the Pimlico Special before Seabiscuit pulled away over the final 200 yards to win Horse of the Year.

Man o' War's only defeat in 21 races came against a colt with what fitting name?

Upset beat Man o' War in the 1919 Sanford Memorial at Saratoga; the popular tale that this race gave sport the word 'upset' is a myth, as racing already used the term.

Which Australian racing legend has its heart, hide and skeleton displayed in three different museums?

Phar Lap, the New Zealand-born champion, won 37 of 51 races before dying mysteriously in California in 1932; his heart is in Canberra, his hide in Melbourne and his skeleton in Wellington.

Which unbeaten 18th-century racehorse, namesake of American racing's annual awards, inspired the saying '... first, the rest nowhere'?

Eclipse was foaled during the solar eclipse of 1 April 1764 and won all 18 of his races; his owner Dennis O'Kelly is supposed to have coined the saying.

Which British racehorse retired unbeaten after 14 races in 2012 with Timeform's highest-ever rating?

Frankel was named in memory of the American trainer Bobby Frankel and was himself trained at Newmarket by Sir Henry Cecil; Timeform rated him 147.

The Clydesdale horses that tour America in eight-horse hitches promote which brand of beer?

Budweiser's first hitch was a gift from August Busch Jr. to his father in April 1933, to celebrate the repeal of Prohibition.

The all-black Friesian horse originates from a province of which northern European country?

The Netherlands' province of Friesland gave the breed its name; horses of this type carried medieval knights, yet the breed has come close to extinction more than once.

What is the smooth four-beat ambling gait for which the Icelandic horse is famous called?

The tölt is a four-beat amble; Iceland bans the import of horses, and any horse that leaves the island is never allowed to return.

The Falabella, one of the smallest horse breeds, was developed in which country?

Argentina is where a breeder near Buenos Aires began selecting the smallest local Criollo horses in the mid-19th century; his son-in-law Juan Falabella took over the herd, and the family refined it for generations.

Which breed's metallic-sheen coat earned it the nickname 'Golden Horses'?

The Akhal-Teke takes its name from the Teke tribe and the Akhal oases of Turkmenistan, where it is prized enough to appear on the national emblem and the banknotes.

The Marwari horse of Rajasthan is famous for which unusual physical trait?

Inward-curving ears whose tips meet mark the Marwari; India banned exports of its native horse breeds for decades, so hardly any went abroad until a few were licensed to go around 2000.

Which invention put the Pony Express out of business in 1861, after only 18 months of operation?

The telegraph line across the continent was finished in October 1861, and the Pony Express, which had cut coast-to-coast mail to about 10 days, closed within days of it.

Which Roman emperor supposedly planned to make his favourite horse, Incitatus, a consul?

Caligula's horse had a marble stable, an ivory manger and purple blankets, Suetonius wrote, though ancient writers agree the consulship never happened.

Which Australian race, run over 3200 metres at Flemington, is called 'the race that stops the nation'?

The Melbourne Cup was a two-mile race until Australia went metric in 1972, which trimmed it by about 18 metres; it has been run every year since 1861.

Which author's 1947 novel Misty of Chincoteague made the island's ponies world famous?

Marguerite Henry based Misty of Chincoteague on a real pony; every July riders swim the Virginia herd from Assateague Island across the channel to Chincoteague.

The white horses of the Camargue roam semi-wild in the delta of which river?

The Rhône's delta in southern France is the Camargue; its horses are born dark and only gradually turn white as adults, over black skin.

In British usage, what is a horse with large black-and-white patches called?

Piebald takes its 'pie' from the magpie, a black-and-white bird; patches of white on any other colour make a horse a skewbald.

Which bone found in the human skeleton is absent in a horse's?

Horses have no collarbone; instead the forelimbs hang from the body in a sling of muscles, tendons and ligaments linking the shoulder blade to the torso.

How often do most domesticated horses need their hooves trimmed?

Every five to eight weeks is typical because the hoof never stops growing; wild horses wear theirs down on the move, and growth slows in winter, when the gap can stretch.

Which tiny 'dawn horse', an early member of the horse family, had four toes on each front foot?

Eohippus stood only about 30 cm at the shoulder, with four toes in front and three behind; the same fossils were long filed under the name Hyracotherium.

What is the informal name for the vestigial remnants of lost side toes below a horse's knee?

Splint bones are the small metacarpals flanking the cannon bone; a knock or strain there can raise a hard bony lump that horsemen also call a splint.

What name, from the Spanish for 'wild', is given to a bucking horse in rodeo?

A bronco is prized in rodeo for exactly what a rider would normally dread: the harder it bucks, the more it is wanted for the event.

What fermented drink do the Mongols traditionally make from mare's milk?

Kumis, known as airag in Mongolia, is mildly alcoholic because mare's milk carries more sugar than cow's or goat's milk, and that sugar ferments.

Horse tail hair is traditionally used to make which part of instruments like the violin and cello?

The bow's horsehair is rubbed with rosin so that it grips the strings and sets them vibrating; hair from cold climates such as Mongolia is said to grip best.

Which Epsom Derby winner was stolen from an Irish stud farm by armed men in 1983 and never found?

Shergar had won the 1981 Derby by ten lengths, the widest margin the race had ever seen. The thieves demanded a £2 million ransom that was never paid, and his body has never been identified.

A male donkey and a female horse produce which hybrid, usually sterile owing to its 63 chromosomes?

Mule chromosomes come 32 from the horse mother and 31 from the donkey father, an odd total that makes forming eggs or sperm difficult. Swap the parents and the rarer result is a hinny.

In which Shakespeare play does a king, unhorsed at Bosworth Field, cry 'My kingdom for a horse'?

Richard III gives the king the line moments before his death in battle. In the 1995 film with Ian McKellen, set in a fascist 1930s England, he shouts it from a jeep stuck in rubble.

Which first name, shared by one of the twelve apostles, comes from the Greek for 'fond of horses'?

Philip joins the Greek philos, 'loving', to hippos, 'horse'. The same root gives the hippodrome, the stadium where ancient Greeks raced horses and chariots.

In the Book of Revelation, Death, the last of the Four Horsemen, rides a horse of which colour?

Pale translates the Greek khloros, which can also mean greenish yellow and is the root of the word chlorophyll. The first three riders come on white, red and black horses.

Which Italian carmaker's prancing horse badge first flew on a First World War fighter ace's plane?

Ferrari was given the emblem by the family of Francesco Baracca, who said he took it from his old cavalry regiment and who painted it black to stand out on his fuselage.

Which of these animals is a close relative of horses, sharing their odd-toed order with the tapirs?

Rhinoceros, tapir and horse families are the only living members of the order Perissodactyla, about 17 species in all. Hippos, giraffes and cattle sit on the even-toed side.

In Animal Farm, which loyal cart-horse vows 'I will work harder' until the pigs sell him off?

Boxer stands for the betrayed Russian working class. When he collapses, the pigs send him to the knacker's yard and spend the money on a case of whisky.

Which photographer's 1878 series The Horse in Motion proved a gallop lifts all four hooves at once?

Eadweard Muybridge shot the sequence with a row of cameras for the tycoon Leland Stanford. The airborne moment comes with the legs gathered under the body, not stretched out as painters had shown.

Which 1877 novel did Anna Sewell tell as a working horse's own life story, from farm to London cab?

Black Beauty was Sewell's only novel, and she died five months after it came out. Its picture of suffering working animals is said to have helped end the painful bearing rein.

In Greek legend, which city fell after its people dragged in a giant wooden horse full of soldiers?

Troy's wooden horse never appears in Homer's Iliad, which ends before the war does. The fullest surviving account is Roman, in Virgil's Aeneid.

Marengo, a grey charger whose skeleton is in London's National Army Museum, carried which commander?

Napoleon Bonaparte is said to have ridden him at Austerlitz, Jena and Wagram, through eight wounds. The British captured him at Waterloo, and one hoof was later made into an inkwell.

Which charger carried the Duke of Wellington for 17 hours without a break at the Battle of Waterloo?

Copenhagen had been a modest racehorse, winning two races before going to war. He retired to the Duke's Stratfield Saye estate, where a marble headstone marks his grave.

Which Confederate general rode Traveller, an iron-grey horse originally named Jeff Davis?

Robert E. Lee bought the horse in 1862 and rode him in many battles. Traveller outlived his master by only a few months, put down after catching tetanus.

Comanche, Captain Keogh's mount, was long hailed as the US cavalry's lone survivor of which battle?

Little Bighorn's 'only survivor' was no such thing, since probably more than a hundred cavalry horses lived through the 1876 battle. Comanche's preserved body went on show at the University of Kansas.

Sergeant Reckless, a horse who made 51 solo ammunition runs in a day, served US Marines in which war?

Korean War Marines bought the little Mongolian-bred packhorse for a recoilless rifle platoon. She roamed camp eating scrambled eggs and drinking beer, and was promoted to staff sergeant in 1959.

Which horse seemed to do arithmetic by tapping a hoof, until a 1907 study showed it read human cues?

Clever Hans was responding to involuntary cues in the body language of a trainer who had no idea he was giving them. Unintended cueing of a test subject is now called the Clever Hans effect.

Which racehorse ended a 37-year US Triple Crown drought in 2015, then won the Breeders' Cup Classic?

American Pharoah was the first horse to sweep the series since Affirmed in 1978. The misspelling of 'Pharaoh' in his name was inadvertent, but it is permanent.

Which Australian racehorse won her last 33 races in a row, with four Cox Plates among them?

Winx won 37 of her 43 starts, and no horse before her had taken the Cox Plate four times. Twenty-five of her wins came at Group 1 level, a world record when she retired.

Which Irish jumps champion, known simply as 'Himself', won three Cheltenham Gold Cups in the 1960s?

Arkle was named by his owner, the Duchess of Westminster, after a mountain bordering her Scottish estate. He became a national hero in Ireland during his own lifetime.

In which film does a Hollywood producer wake beside the severed head of his prized racehorse?

The Godfather used an actual severed horse's head for the scene. Khartoum's owner, studio boss Jack Woltz, promptly gives Vito Corleone's godson the film role he wanted.

Which talking horse of 1960s American TV would speak only to his owner, architect Wilbur Post?

Mister Ed was played by a horse called Bamboo Harvester, who won four PATSY Awards for animal performers, while a former Western film actor supplied the voice.

In the Toy Story films, which toy horse belongs to the Woody's Roundup gang with Woody and Jessie?

Bullseye gets his whinnies and snorts from the voice artist Frank Welker. In the fictional 1950s puppet show that made the gang collectable, he is both Woody's and Jessie's horse.

The Lone Ranger won which horse's loyalty by saving him from an enraged buffalo?

Silver gave up his wild life to carry the masked man, whose cry of 'Hi-yo, Silver!' opened the show. Tonto's horse Scout turned up later as Silver's companion.

In The Lord of the Rings, which horse carries Gandalf alone against the Lord of the Nazgûl?

Shadowfax later leaves Middle-earth with the wizard, boarding the ship at the Grey Havens alongside Frodo and Bilbo.

In Norse mythology, which eight-legged horse, a child of Loki, carries Odin to the realm of Hel?

Sleipnir is described in the Old Norse sources as the best of all horses, and his name means something like 'slippy' or 'the slipper'.

Which shape-shifting Scottish loch spirit gives its name to two giant steel horse heads near Falkirk?

Kelpie legends tell of water-horses haunting lochs, but sculptor Andy Scott says his 30-metre heads also honour the heavy horses that hauled Scotland's barges, ploughs and wagons.

In the Legend of Zelda games, Link's horse shares its name with which Gallo-Roman goddess of horses?

Epona was usually shown riding sidesaddle or enthroned among young horses, and the Roman satirist Juvenal linked her worship to stables.

In 1944's National Velvet, which young actress played a girl who wins a horse in a raffle?

Elizabeth Taylor's Velvet Brown trains her raffle prize, The Pie, for the Grand National, in a cast that also included Mickey Rooney and Angela Lansbury.

Which Jonathan Swift satire features the Houyhnhnms, rational horses living beside savage Yahoos?

Gulliver's Travels saves the horses for its fourth and last voyage. Gulliver so admires them that he ends up rejecting his fellow humans as mere Yahoos.

Which imperial unit, one eighth of a mile, gives the standard measure of horse race distances?

Furlong comes from the Old English for 'furrow long': the distance a team of oxen could plough without resting, which works out at 220 yards.

Which kind of horse race began as cross-country dashes towards a distant village landmark?

Steeplechase riders originally steered by a church steeple on the horizon, clearing whatever fences and ditches lay in between. The sport began in Ireland.

In racing, what is a horse yet to win a race called, like the entry-level contests for such runners?

Maiden status can outlast a win: where jump and flat racing are treated separately, a horse with several jumps victories may still enter flat races for non-winners.

Which Tuscan city stages the Palio, a bareback race around its main square, on 2 July and 16 August?

Siena's race can be won by a horse that has thrown its rider. Ten of the city's seventeen wards, the contrade, get a runner each time, three of them picked by draw.

Which English racecourse, founded by Queen Anne in 1711, lies about six miles from Windsor Castle?

Ascot marks the founder's gift by opening its Royal meeting, a centrepiece of the British summer social calendar, with the Queen Anne Stakes over the straight mile.

Whatever its real birth date, a Northern Hemisphere racehorse has its official birthday on which day?

New Year's Day is the shared birthday north of the equator, while horses in Australia and New Zealand all turn a year older on 1 August, whatever date they were actually born.

In buzkashi, Afghanistan's national sport, horse-mounted players fight to carry what into a goal?

A goat carcass, or sometimes a calf's, is the prize, and the game's name means 'goat-pulling'. Matches are often played on Fridays and draw thousands of fans.

Which rider won all seven races on one British card in 1996, costing bookmakers some £40 million?

Frankie Dettori's 'Magnificent Seven' came off at combined odds of 25,095 to 1. His trademark flying dismount was learned in California from the rider Ángel Cordero Jr.

Which stadium in ancient Rome held more than 150,000 spectators for its horse-drawn chariot races?

Circus Maximus means 'largest circus', and at 621 metres long it filled the valley between the Aventine and Palatine hills.

Which engineer adopted the term 'horsepower' to market his steam engines against draft horses?

James Watt based the figure on a mill horse, which he reckoned turned the wheel 144 times an hour. Most countries now measure power in a unit that carries his own surname.

What name is given to Australia's free-roaming feral horses, best known from the Australian Alps?

Brumby may come from Sergeant James Brumby, who left horses behind in New South Wales when he moved to Tasmania in 1804, though that is only one of several theories.

Which rock forms the Uffington White Horse, a 110-metre prehistoric figure on an English hill?

Chalk, crushed and packed into deep trenches, forms the figure, which dates from the late Bronze Age or early Iron Age. It is by far the oldest of Britain's white horses.

Which artist's giant bronze horse for Milan's duke was never cast, the metal going to make cannons?

Leonardo da Vinci got as far as a full-size clay model, shown off at a Sforza wedding in 1493 and later destroyed. At nearly 8 metres tall it would have dwarfed the horse monuments of Donatello and Verrocchio.

Which phrase for a take-it-or-leave-it offer is said to recall a Cambridge man who hired out horses?

Hobson's choice supposedly honours Thomas Hobson, who let customers take the horse in the stall nearest the door or none at all. Milton, a Cambridge student in Hobson's day, popularised the phrase.

Black Bess, ridden in legend from London to York in one night, was the horse of which highwayman?

Dick Turpin never made the 200-mile ride. A Victorian novelist, William Harrison Ainsworth, made the story famous almost a century after Turpin was executed at York for horse theft.

Which American breed, descended from an English import named Messenger, is known for harness racing?

Standardbred breeding stock once had to meet a set standard, trotting a mile in under two minutes and 30 seconds, and that test gave the breed its name.

In 1945 the Lipizzaner horses' director asked which US general, an ex-Olympian, to protect them?

George S. Patton, whose Third Army had learned the horses were nearby, was treated to a special performance before the request was made. The rescue later became a Disney film.

Which British artist painted Whistlejacket, a life-size rearing racehorse in the National Gallery?

George Stubbs gave the huge canvas no background at all, which so astonished his contemporaries that legends grew up to explain why the picture was left 'unfinished'.

Which Athenian soldier and historian wrote On Horsemanship, a riding manual from about 355 BC?

Xenophon's manual was long thought the oldest surviving work on the subject, until a Hittite horse-training text about a thousand years older was published in 1931.

Which band took 'A Horse with No Name' to the top of the US Billboard Hot 100 in 1972?

America wrote the song in the Dorset countryside under the working title 'Desert Song', drawing on Dewey Bunnell's childhood memories of Arizona and New Mexico.