Horse Breeds
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
6correct to beat the crowd
50 free Horse Breeds trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
There are hundreds of horse breeds, and almost every one was shaped by a job. Some were bred to carry armoured riders, some to pull ploughs and brewery wagons, some to sprint, and some simply to survive on a windswept island or a frozen plain. Their names often hide a story about a place, a family or a single famous stallion. This quiz asks you to guess the breed from a description: its homeland, its build, its coat and the work it was known for. It also covers the countries and regions that breeds come from, the vocabulary of colours and markings, and the main types, from heavy draft horses to ponies and feral herds. No pictures are needed, so it works for a pony club evening, a classroom, a barn party or a long drive to a show. The easier questions suit young riders and beginners, and the hardest will stretch people who have spent years around stables. Every answer comes with a short explanation.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In the United States, miniature horses are trained for which job more usually done by a dog?
Guiding the blind
Guiding the blind has been a job for miniature horses since 1999, when a US foundation began providing them. Part of the appeal is lifespan: horses live thirty to forty years.
Q 02Which draft breed, named after a river valley, pulls the Budweiser beer wagon in teams of eight?
Clydesdale
Clydesdale teams were first formed by the brewery at the end of Prohibition. Its strict standards for matching horses have led many Americans to believe the breed comes in only one colour.
Q 03After an 1842 law took young children out of the work, thousands of Shetland ponies were sent where?
Coal mines
Coal mines used the small, strong ponies to haul loads underground, and many spent their whole lives there. The last American mine to work Shetland ponies closed in 1971.
Q 04The Marwari, a rare breed whose ears curve inward until the tips meet, comes from which country?
India
India's Marwar region, in Rajasthan, gave the breed its name. It is thought to descend from the war horses of Rajput warriors, and it can rotate those curved ears through 180 degrees.
Q 05Each July, riders move the wild ponies of Assateague Island to Chincoteague by making them do what?
Swim a channel
The ponies swim a channel between the islands in five to ten minutes. The foal auction that follows began in 1924 to buy equipment for Chincoteague's volunteer fire company.
Q 06Which breed has stayed pure since 982 AD, when a Viking-age parliament banned imports to an island?
Icelandic horse
The Icelandic horse is still the only breed in its homeland, and the rule cuts both ways: an animal that leaves the country, even for a competition, is never allowed to return.
Q 07Spotted coats in breeds such as the Danish Knabstrupper come from a gene named after which big cat?
Leopard
Leopard complex is the name for an ancient mutation found in breeds from Asia to western Europe. Along with spots, it gives a horse striped hooves, mottled skin and a white ring around the eye.
Q 08Which breed performs the 'airs above the ground' at the Spanish Riding School in Vienna?
Lipizzaner
Lipizzaner foals are born dark and slowly whiten over six to ten years. The breed is named after Lipica, a stud farm founded in 1580 in what is now Slovenia.
Q 09The Yakutian horse lives unsheltered through winters of minus 70 Celsius in which region?
Siberia
Siberia has been home to the breed for about 800 years. It finds grass under deep snow, and it is thought to cut the volume of blood it circulates in extreme cold to avoid frostbite.
Q 10Przewalski's horse was returned to the wild in the 1990s at Hustai National Park in which country?
Mongolia
Mongolia knows the animal as the takhi. Genetic studies show it is no ancestor of the domestic horse: the two lines differ significantly, and neither descends from the other.
Q 11Which desert breed, prized by the Bedouin, is recognised by a dished face and a high-carried tail?
Arabian
Arabian war mares were so valued that owners sometimes kept them inside the family tent, close to the children and safe from thieves. It is one of the oldest of all modern breeds.
Q 12Which racing breed traces every pedigree to three stallions imported into England around 1700?
Thoroughbred
Thoroughbred foals can only be registered if they were conceived by natural mating. Artificial insemination, routine in other breeds, is banned, which also keeps prices for the best bloodlines high.
Q 13Which free-roaming horse of the American West descends from stock brought by Spanish conquistadors?
Mustang
Q 21The Akhal-Teke, a lean desert breed from Turkmenistan, is famous for a coat that often has what quality?
A metallic sheen
A metallic sheen earned the breed its nickname, the Golden Horses. Tribesmen first used it for raiding, and Turkmenistan's government still hands the horses out as diplomatic gifts.
Q 22The Lusitano, still ridden in mounted bullfighting, is named after the Roman name for which country?
Portugal
Portugal adopted the Lusitano name only in 1966, when it split its studbook from Spain's. Before that, Iberian horses on both sides of the border went by a single shared name.
Q 23The Percheron, which made up 70% of American draft horses in the 1930s, comes from which country?
France
Mustang probably comes from Spanish words for stray, ownerless livestock. Because their ancestors were tame, the herds are formally classed as feral rather than wild.
Q 14Which breed, the most popular in the United States, is named for outsprinting rivals over 440 yards?
American Quarter Horse
The American Quarter Horse has the largest breed registry in the world. Colonists bred it as a sprinter for courses that were far shorter than the classic racetracks of England.
Q 15Which draft breed produced Sampson, an 1846 gelding thought to be the tallest horse ever recorded?
Shire
Shire horses were the staple breed for pulling brewers' drays, and they towed barges when canals were Britain's main freight route. Sampson stood over 21 hands and was later renamed Mammoth.
Q 16Which breed from the northern Netherlands is nearly always black and is often cast in films?
Friesian
Friesian horses suit film-makers because they stay calm amid the bustle of a set and look elegant on camera, which is why they turn up so often in historical and fantasy dramas.
Q 17Which spotted breed was developed by the Nez Perce and probably named after the Palouse River?
Appaloosa
Appaloosa numbers collapsed after the Nez Perce War of 1877, when the tribe lost most of its horses. The breed recovered to become the state horse of Idaho in 1975.
Q 18Which American breed traces to a single stallion called Figure and bears his owner's surname?
Morgan
Morgan horses all descend from Figure, who was handed to a man named Justin Morgan in 1792 to settle a debt. The breed later served as cavalry mounts on both sides of the Civil War.
Q 19Which harness-racing breed is named for a rule that breeding stock trot a mile within 2 minutes 30?
Standardbred
Standardbred horses race at either a trot or a pace. Breeders now mate trotters with trotters and pacers with pacers so strictly that the breed is splitting into two distinct populations.
Q 20Which Iberian breed, officially the Pura Raza Española, was known as the 'royal horse of Europe'?
Andalusian
Andalusian exports from Spain were restricted until the 1960s. Since then the breed's arched neck and energetic gaits have made it a film favourite, from Gladiator to The Lord of the Rings.
France shipped thousands of Percherons to the United States before the First World War. Once the fighting began, some American horses were sent back across the Atlantic to help the war effort.
Q 24The Connemara pony, a hardy breed shaped by a harsh Atlantic landscape, is native to which country?
Ireland
Ireland's County Galway is its home. A well-known myth says horses set loose from wrecked Spanish Armada galleons in 1588 bred with the local ponies.
Q 25Which country is home to the brumby, a feral horse descended from animals lost by early settlers?
Australia
Australia had at least 400,000 brumbies in a 2011 survey. Plans to cull them to protect native ecosystems meet resistance from people who see the horses as part of the national heritage.
Q 26The Caspian, a tiny ancient breed rediscovered by a breeder in 1965, comes from which country?
Iran
Iran's Elburz Mountains sheltered the handful of small horses from which Louise Firouz and her husband revived the breed. Remains of a similar horse found in the north of the country in 2011 date to about 3400 BCE.
Q 27The Orlov Trotter, a harness breed created by a count in the late 1700s, comes from which country?
Russia
Russia's most famous horse was developed by Count Alexei Orlov and driven by the nobility and the Romanovs. Heavy crossbreeding with faster foreign trotters later brought it close to extinction.
Q 28The Mangalarga Marchador, a breed that never trots, is the national horse of which country?
Brazil
Brazil has more than half a million of them, which makes it one of the most numerous riding breeds in the world. It began when a baron crossed an imported Lusitano stallion with his farm mares.
Q 29The Barb, whose ancestors carried eighth-century invaders into Europe, comes from which region?
North Africa
North Africa's Berber peoples are so closely linked to the Barb that one writer calls their histories inseparable. The breed is known for great hardiness and stamina.
Q 30Feral horses probably descended from German cavalry mounts survive near Garub in which desert?
Namib
Namib horses gather on the Garub Plains because of a man-made watering point there. Their origin has never been fully proven, though most were probably released around the First World War.