Why don't people ride zebras?

Throughout history, humans have tried to ride a variety of animals, including turtles, ostriches, camels, elephants, yaks, bulls and goats. We especially like creatures that live next to horses, mules, donkeys...

But zebras seem to be an exception. Why doesn't anyone ride a zebra? Is it because it's not worth it?

In 19th century South Africa, people used to ride in horse-drawn carriages. Unfortunately, large-scale domestication of zebras is almost impossible.

In<< Guns, Germs, and Steel>>, the renowned evolutionary biologist Diamond lays out Anna Karenina's Principle of domestication: "Any animal that can be tamed can be tamed; Each untamed animal is untamed in its own way."

According to Diamond, there are several factors that make an animal worthwhile and potentially useful to humans:

The first is the cost of feed, since animals cannot eat more than they earn. Second is the growth rate, reproduction difficulty, if the growth is too slow or can not reproduce in artificial environment, will always bring difficulties; An animal's personality is also important. If it is prone to murder, or is too nervous and difficult to approach, of course it is not a reasonable target.

Finally, social structure should be taken into account. Most solitary animals are difficult to domesticate, with the exception of cats -- although cats are not domesticated for herding, and they remain solitary after domestication.

Zebras, close relatives of horses and donkeys, are social animals with a top speed of more than 60 km/h, a little slower than the horse's top speed (more than 80 km/h), but faster than the donkey.Zebra's conditions seem to be quite moderate, horse and donkey as its relatives, have also been put into the human embrace, but why only the zebra is still running alone on the African savannah?

The zebra has not been domesticated in the first place because of its personality. The African native, accustomed to the dangerous savannah, has long developed restless instincts and powerful kicks to take on lions, cheetahs and hyenas.

Zebras are grumpy and difficult to agree to ride for more than a few minutes, far from being tame foals. In the prairie wild for a long time, resistance is also very strong, if you happen to stand behind the zebra ass, but also kicked by it, I'm afraid the injury is not light, and even life danger.

Moreover, zebras have a keen evasive response to the perennial risk of arrest. It would have been very difficult for a strong man to harness it, let alone take it home and tame it for his own mount.

Zebras have the same gestation period as normal horses -- one year, but zebras don't mate well in captivity, making domestication unsustainable.

Nor could it handle many of the heavy lifting, transport work that horses do. Zebras are smaller than horses and have a different spine shape, making it nearly impossible to ride them for long periods of time. Your sitting is uncomfortable. It takes centuries and generations to domesticate an animal. In a modern world of rapid technological development, horses are no longer needed as a primary means of transportation, and few people are willing to spend the time, patience, interest or resources to tame a zebra.

What's more, zebras are unique to the African continent and must have been familiar to early humans. Humans and zebras have coexisted for so long without becoming good friends. How can future generations have confidence to tame them?