The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature into the large, single-toed animal of today. Horses are herd animals, with a clear hierarchy of rank, led by a dominant individual, usually a female horse. They are also social creatures that are able to form companionship attachments to their own species and to other animals. They communicate in various ways, including vocalizations such as nickering or whining, mutual grooming, and body language.
Many horses will become difficult to manage if they are isolated, but with training, horses can learn to accept human as a companion, and thus be comfortable away from other horses. Horses excel at simple learning, but also are able to use more advance cognitive abilities that involve categorization and concept learning.
Humans began to domesticate horses around 4,000BC. Since then it has been widespread all over the world. Horses were historically used in warfare, from which a variety of riding and driving techniques developed, using many different styles of equipment and methods of control. Most domesticated horses begin training under saddle or in harness between the ages of 2 and 4. They reach full adult development by age 5, and have an average life span of between 25 and 30 years, depending on breed, management and environment. Most light horse riding breeds were developed for speed, agility, alertness and endurance; natural qualities that extend from their wild ancestors.
Horses exhibit a diverse array of coat colors and distinctive markings. Often, it is classified first by its coat color, before breed or gender. Horses of the same color may be distinguished from one another by white markings, which, along with various spotting patterns, are inherited separately from coat color.
Horse breeds are loosely divided into 3 categories based on temperament: spirited "hot bloods" with speed and endurance; "cold bloods,"such as draft horses (cart horse, work horse, heavy horse) doing hard tasks, and some ponies suitable for slow work; and "warm bloods," developed from crosses between hot and cold bloods. There are more than 300 breeds of horse in the world today, developed for many different uses.
The following terminology is used to describe horses of various ages: Colt, a male horse under the age of four; Filly, a female horse under the age of four; Foal, a horse of either gender less than one year old; Gelding, a castrated male horse of any age; Mare, a female horse four years old and older; Stallion, a non-castrated male horse four years old and older; Yearling, a horse of either gender that is between one and two years old.
The height of horses is measured at the highest point of the ridge between the shoulder blades (withers) where the neck meets the back. It is the most stable point of its anatomy, unlike the head or neck, which move up and down in relation to the body. The horse skeleton averages 205 bones. A significant difference between horse skeleton and that of a human is the lack of a collarbone -the horse's forelimbs are attached to the spinal column by a powerful set of muscles, tendons, and ligaments that attach the shoulder blade to the torso. The horse's legs and hooves are also unique structures. Their leg bones are proportioned differently from those of human. The horse's "knee" is actually made up of the carpal bones that correspond to the human wrist. Similarly, the joint between the tarsal bones and tibia (hock) contains bones equivalent to those in the human ankle and heel. A horse also has no muscles in its legs below the knees and hocks, only skin, hair bone, tendons, ligaments, cartilage, and the assorted specialized tissues that make up the hoof.
Horses' anatomy enables them to make use of speed to escape predators. They have a well-developed sense of balance. Balance is the result of a number of body systems working together: the eyes (visual system), ears (vestibular system), and the body's sense of where it is in space employed in movement.
Horses also have a strong psychological reaction (Fight-or Flight) that occurs in response to a perceived harmful event, attack, or threat to survival, although horses will stand their ground and defend themselves when flight is impossible, or if their young are threatened. Related to this need, horses are able to sleep both standing up and lying down. They also tend to be curious and often hesitate an instant to ascertain the cause of their fright, and may not always flee from something that they perceive as non-threatening.
Horses' senses are based on their status as prey animals, where they must be aware of the surroundings at all times. They have the largest eyes of any land mammal, and their range of vision is more than 350* with approximately 65* of this being binocular vision and the remaining 285* monocular vision.
Horses have excellent day and night vision, but they have two-color vision that it is somewhat like red-green color blindness in humans, where certain colors, especially red and related colors, appear as a shade of green.
The horses' sense of smell, while much better than humans, is not as good as that of a dog. It plays a key role in social interaction of horses as well as detecting other key scents in the environment. They have two olfactory centers. The first is in the nostrils and nasal cavity, the second is located under the nasal cavity, having a separate nerve pathway to the brain and analyze hormones behavior.
The horse's hearing is good, and the visible part of each ear can rotate up to 180,*giving the potential for 360* hearing without moving the head. Noise impacts the behavior of horses and certain kinds of noise contribute to stress. A study indicated that stabled horses were calmest in a quiet setting, or if listening to classical music, but displayed signs of nervousness when listening to jazz and rock music. Another study found that stabled race horses listening to talk radio had a higher rate of gastric ulcers than horses listening to calm music, and race horses stabled where a radio was played had higher rate of ulceration than horses stabled where there was no radio playing. Also, when confined with insuficient companionship, exercise, or stimulation, horses developed an assortment of bad habits, mostly repetitive behavior that include wood chewing, wall kicking, rocking back and forth, and other problems.
The horses have an advance sense of taste, which allows them to sort through fodder and choose what they want, and their gripping lips can easily sort even small grains. Horses generally will not eat poison through plants, but in rare occasions they will eat toxic amounts of poisonous plants even when there is adequate healthy food.
Many products are derived from horses, including meat, milk, hide, hair, bone, and pharmaceuticals extracted from the urine of pregnant mares. Female horses (mares) carry their young for approximately 11 months, and a young horse (foal) can stand and run shortly following birth.
Horses are herbivores with a digestive system adapted to a forage diet of grasses and other plant material, consumed steadily throughout the day. Therefore, compared to humans, they have a relatively small stomach but very long intestines to facilitate a steady flow of nutrients. They are not ruminants, they have only one stomach, like humans, but unlike humans, they can utilize cellulose, a major component of grass, and the most abundant organic polymer on Earth. They can digest cellulose with the help of symbiotic micro-organisms that live in their guts. Horses cannot vomit, so digestion problems can quickly cause colic, a leading cause of death. In human nutrition, cellulose acts as a hydrophilic bulking agent for feces and is often referred to as dietary fiber.
Domesticated horses face greater mental challenges than wild horses, because they live in artificial environments that prevent instinctive behavior grow due to the influence of learning tasks that are not natural. Horses are animals of habit that respond well to regimentation, and respond best when the same routines and techniques are used consistently.
One trainer believes that intelligent horses are reflections of its trainers who effectively use response conditioning techniques and positive reinforcement to train in the style that best fits with an individual's natural inclination.
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