30 Interesting Horse Facts

Horses aren't just a hobby, they are a lifestyle. Whatever it is that we do with them, they dominate our lives. Knowledge of our equine companions is passed down from generation to generation, with more knowledge added all the time. Sometimes, though, it's just fun to learn some equine trivia. Do you know all of the facts on our list?

1. Horses have 16 muscles in each ear, allowing their ears to rotate 180 degrees.
2. Horses are social animals and get lonely if they are kept alone. They will even mourn a companion passing.
3. The way to tell if a horse is cold is to feel behind its ears.
4. A zebroid is zebra and another of the Equidae family, so a a donkey, pony or horse. A cross between a zebra and a donkey is a zonky, a zebra and pony a zony and a zebra cross horse is a zorse.
5. It can take between 9-12 months for a horse to regrow an entire hoof.
6. Horses can only breathe through their noses, not their mouths. They are 'obligate nasal breathers'
7. They can drink up to 25 gallons of water a day, or even more in hotter climates.
8. It is believed that the first ancestor of the horse lived around 50 million years ago. Known as 'Eohippus,' this prehistoric horse has three padded toes on the back legs and four padded toes on the front.
9. The average weight of a horses heart is 9 or 10 pounds.
10. The highest jump on record by a horses is 8'1" and 1/4 inches. This is held by a horse called Huaso, rdden by Captain Alberto Larraguibel in Vina del Mar on February 5th, 1949.
11. The longest jump over water record is an astonishing 27'6" and 3/4 inches. This record is held by a horse called Something, ridden by Andre Ferreira on the 25th April, 1975 in Johannesburg, South Africa.
12. Horses can create up to 10 gallons of saliva a day.
13. The first horse to be cloned was in Italy, 2003, it was a Haflinger mare.
14. Horses can not be sick.
15. Although horses can see better at night than we can, it actually takes their eyes longer to adjust between light and dark than ours.
16. Horses will not all lie down at the same time because one will serve as a look out to alert the others of danger.
17. The only truly wild horse still in existence is The Przewalski's Horse and the only wild population is in Mongolia.
18. The average gallop speed of a horse is around 27 mph but the fastest recorded speed was 55 mph.
19. Horses can see nearly 360 degrees because of the placement of their eyes.
20. The oldest horse reportedly was 'Old Billy' who lived to the ripe old age of 62.
21. A horses teeth take up more room in its head than its teeth.
22. When it seems like your horse is laughing it is in fact using a nose enhancing technique called 'flehmen' to figure out if a smell is good or bad.
23. Horses have been evolving for around 45 to 55 million years.
24. There are around 205 bones in a horse's body
25. We have had domesticated horses for around 5,000 years
26. The tallest recorded horse was a Shire named Sampson, he was 21.2hh.
27. There are an estimated 60 million horses in the world.
28. Foals are born with soft tissue called foal slippers that stop them from damaging their mother's birth canal and uterus.
29. The smallest horse breed in the world is the Falabella. Sizes can range from 38cm to 76 cm tall.
30. Equinophobia is a fear of horses.

We hope you enjoyed these fun and random horse facts!