Amazing and Interesting facts about Horses

There are about 75 million horses in the world.

Horses’ hooves grow approximately 0.25 in a month, and take nearly a year to grow from the coronet band to the ground.

In the state of Arizona, it is illegal for cowboys to walk through a hotel lobby wearing their spurs

Cross-country jumps are marked with a red flag on the right side and a white flag on the left side; the horse has to jump through these two flags or it is considered out of bounds and you are disqualified.

A healthy adult horse should have a pulse of between 36 and 40 beats per minute while at rest

Arabians have one less rib, one less lumbar bone, and one or two fewer tail vertebrae than other horses.



One of the first horses was called a Hyracotherium. It lived about 50 million years ago and was as tall as a fox. It had toes! This horse changed over millions of years to become a modern horse.

Camargue horses are completely white as adults. Their babies are pure black when they are born.

There is a breed of horse from Russia called Akhal-Teke. It can go for days without food or water.

You measure a horse’s height in hands. Each hand equals four inches. If you say a horse is 16.2 hands high, the 2 stands for 2 fingers.

You can tell how old a horse is by how many teeth it has. A horse gets all of its teeth by the time it is five years old. After that, they just get longer.

A female horse is called a mare. In the wild it is the mare that decides when the herd moves on to another spot to find food.

A male horse is called a stallion. Usually only one stallion will stay with a herd.

Any marking on a horse’s forehead is called a star, even if it is not shaped like a star.

Horses and ponies feel safer when they are in a herd.

A hoof is like a fingernail. It is always growing and needs to be clipped so that it won’t be uncomfortable for the horse.

A farrier is a person who makes horse shoes and fits them on your horse. They also clip hooves to keep them from getting overgrown.

A horse can move in four ways: walk, trot, canter, and gallop. A gallop is the fastest gait.


The fastest recorded sprinting speed of a horse was 88 kph (55 mph).

Estimates suggest that there are around 60 million horses in the world.

Scientists believe that horses have evolved over the past 50 million years from much smaller creatures.

A male horse is called a stallion.

A female horse is called a mare.

A young male horse is called a colt.

A young female horse is called a filly.