- Breeding
- Horse Breeding, Part 3: Birth and Care of a Foal
- The Missing Equine Link: How the Modern Horse Came to Be
- Breeding Costs: Things to Consider
- General Horse Articles
- The 4 Best Places in America to Go Horseback Riding
- Overcome Your Riding Fears: Recovering from a Riding Accident
- How to Use the Latest Technology to Get Your Equestrian Fix
- Horse Feeding
- A Look at Horse Feed
- You’ve Got the Right Feed, Now What?: Proper Feeding Practices
- 5 Horse Feeding "Don'ts"
- Horse Grooming
- Mane Saving Ideas
- eZall Shine & Detangler Transforms Ratty Manes and Tails Into Flowing Tresses
- Keeping Your Horse Beautiful with Horse Products
- Horse Health Issues
- Horse Dental Problems and Prevention
- Bucking, Shying and other Attention Deficit Disorders
- Horse Breeding: Covering a Mare
- Horse Training
- Two-track to Slow Your Horse's Gaits
- Equestrian Education: Choosing the Right Horse School
- Training Mythunderstandings: Applied Heeding: Backing
- Horses & History
- A Brief History of Horse Breeding
- The Feral Horse and Its Impact
- Horsing around the Sierra Madre - 1974 Style.
- Horses & Sports
- Halter Horse Show
- In Defense of Horses in Sport
- Ask Chelsie Natural Horsemanship - What Does It Mean To Disengage My Horse?
The History of Horse Breeding
05/26/2008
Horse domestication has potentially occurred for thousands of years. During this time, planned horse breeding developed. Documentation of this process is slim, but the few that are available provide interesting insight into the history of it.
Horse domestication has potentially occurred for thousands of years. During this time, planned horse breeding developed. Documentation of this process is slim, but the few that are available provide interesting insight into the history of it.
The earliest documentation of horse breeding was of the Arabian horse, bred for the Bedouin of the Middle East. There were written histories of horse breeds dating back to A.D. 1330, though oral histories could place this process even earlier. The Akhal-Teke of West-Central Asia is also known for breeding horses for war and races. Mongolian nomads are also believed to have been horse breeders for thousands of years.
Horses were bred for a variety of uses: war, messenger carriage, plowing, pulling wagons, packhorses, and many others. The type of horse and the qualities therein determined its use.
The medieval European war horse was named the destrier, and was a very large beast. These massive horses provided strength to carry armor, as well as power behind a knight’s lance. Muslim warriors of the Middle East preferred to breed the faster, agile horse. The Bedouins wanted to outmaneuver their enemy, not overpower them, so these lighter horses were more suitable for them. When Muslims clashed with Europeans, the Muslims would outmaneuver and conquer the powerful, but slower, European destriers. Thus, the Europeans began cross-breeding to create a more balanced, quick and powerful horse, much like today’s Thoroughbreds.
Nobility during the Renaissance began to ride horses for recreation and general mobility. They bred lighter horses to benefit from the war horses’ athletic abilities. These horses were also used by the cavalry, as guns began to be used, and a cavalry horse could assist in a “shoot and run”-type tactic.
The rise of horse racing in the mid-1600s led to the development of the Thoroughbred – considered to be the “ultimate race horse.” James Burnett, Lord Monboddo worked closely with the theories of species relationships and experimented with parentage in horse breeding. In the late 1700s, he established the Thoroughbred breeding hub in Lexington, Kentucky, which became the capital of race horse breeding in America.
In 17th- and 18th-century Europe, fine carriage horses were developed, ushering in the age of the warmblood horse. The warmblood has been one of the most adaptable breeds, developing from carriage horses to the show horses of today.
