Horses
Horses are part of the Equidae family, they were once a small creature but over the past 55 million years they have grown into the much larger animal that we know of today. Whilst the majority of horses are now domesticated and have been for decades now, there still remains one breed of wild horses, the Przewalski horse.
Horses all vary in colour, markings, size and behaviour through-out the different breeds of horses, they are all fast moving animals which allows them to be able to escape predators easily. Horses have the ability to sleep both standing and lying down. Horses tend to be listed under three categories, mainly down to their temperament, these categories are; hot bloods, clod bloods and warmbloods which are normally a horse who has been cross bred from a hot blood and cold blood. Hot blooded horses are known for their speed and endurance and their spirited personalities, whereas cold blood horses are used for slow/heavy work and warmbloods are bred for specific purposes, mainly riding.
Horses are used to do a massive number of jobs, from police work, agriculture, learning, therapy and entertainment. Of course they are also used in a number of competitive and non- competitive sports. Horses tend to live to around 25 30 years old, but this does of course vary between the 300 different breeds of horses. In the competitive world on the 1st January every year horses are considered as a year older, in the northern hemisphere and on the 1st August in the southern hemisphere.
In the UK everyone gets together once a year to watch the Grand National event that sees show jumping, endurance riding, harness racing and conventional horse riding across the country and it is a major part of British culture.
There are various types of horses and their title depends on their age, they start out as foals until they reach one years old, when the then become a yearling, then they are titled according to their gender, a male horse under the age of four is called a colt, and a female of the same age is called a filly. After the age of four a male becomes a stallion and a female a gelding. Female's horses carry their young for 11 months; after being born a foal can stand and run fairly soon after and in the case of domesticate horses they tend to be trained under saddle or in harness between the ages of 2 4 years.