Wild Horse

Wild horse:

Evolution of the Wild Horses

Ancestors of the modern horse inhabited the ancient plains and primeval forests of North America, beginning in the Eocene Epoch, 57 million years ago. Equidae, the family of horses, comprises, in fact, some of the oldest mammals known on earth.

Horses began their evolutionary journey with diminutive Hyracotherium, a fox-sized quadruped with stripes, possessing four toes in front and three behind. This oldest-known horse was called "eohippus" or the "dawn horse," by Othniel Charles Marsh in 1876, but, later, it was found that an older name, Hyracotherium, had already been applied in 1840 by British anatomist Richard Owen.

Observing scientific precedent, therefore, the earlier name, Hyracotherium, stands. Horse evolution took place in North

While nearly all natural experiments in horse evolution failed, with almost all side branches of the horse family tree becoming extinct, one branch did survive and kept growing, changing in reaction to ecological challenges. The genus Equus, which includes modern horses, zebras, and asses, is the only surviving genus in a once diverse family of horses.

PRE-HISTORY: North America was the original home of the horse species. They evolved here, and thrived here for millions of years.

The plant and animal communities of North American ecology evolved with the wild horses playing an integral role. About 8,000 - 10,000 years ago (coinciding with Human settlement) they became extinct in the land of their origin, although luckily by that time they had migrated to Asia, where they spread into Europe and North Africa.

When the Spanish explorers brought horses to the continent, the horses were returning home. When given the opportunity, the horses simply took up residence in the landscape their ancestors had helped to form.

Descended from the mounts of the Conquistadors, shaped by a vanishing frontier, these wild horses have been renegades for centuries, becoming romantic symbols of freedom.

History and literature alike are rife with tales of uncommon bonds between heroes and the horses they tamed to ride into battle.



The horse of the Conquistadors consisted mainly of Spanish, Ginete, Arabian, Villano, Berber and Barb blood known as Andalusian.

The evolution and development of North American eco-systems definitely included horses! 25,000 year old frozen remains of horses identical to today's wild horses have been found in the Arctic Tundra.

Horses are generally believed to have become extinct in their land of origin about 8000 - 10,000 years ago - probably at the hands of the first human immigrants.

These horses were indigenous to North America, populating the continent before the Ice Age. They moved north across the Bering land bridge, fanned out from Siberia to the rest of Asia, Europe, and the Middle East, then became extinct in North America.

"Although the basis of legends, escaped horses from the early Spanish expeditions were not the seed stock of the wild horse herds of the American West.

Only after the mission system in New Spain was established did horses begin to populate North America. Native groups, like the Apache, raided the missions for horses, and undoubtedly a few horses would have escaped.

As the horse, emigrating out of North America, spread across Asia, Europe, and Northern Africa, somewhere along the line various human cultures discovered that the horse could be domesticated and trained to be far more valuable than simple prey, and the horse became one of the most valuable of all species.

With roots dating back to the Native American Indian Pony, today’s “Mustang” has been preserved through selective breeding by some of the most knowledgably Spanish Mustang experts across the country.

Many years ago five Indian tribes, including the Choctaw, Chickasaw, Cree, Seminole and Cherokee people developed a breeding program to enhance the powerful characteristics of these tough and iron willed horses.

These five tribes were some of the earliest to domesticate horses for farming. What they found in the Spanish Colonial Mustang was a horse with a natural herding ability and a lot of cow sense. These horses survived the most violent weather, near starvation, stampedes and purposeful inbreeding by the US Calvary.

From 1860 to 1740, horses spread across the West. By the mid-1740's the Native American Horsemen cultures were in full bloom.

The American West at that time was much less a desert than it is now. Severe overgrazing in the 19th and 20th centuries have permanently altered the arid Western ecosystems. Much of the land that is now desert was then short grass prairie, supporting large bison and pronghorn herds, and the wild horses found it most easy and natural to join them on their ancestral grounds.

For the next 700 years, the horse herds have been the haven for horses from trappers, explorers, pioneers, miners, and ranchers.



An estimated 1 million captured and "broken" mustangs went to Europe and Africa during the later years of the Nineteenth Century and first half of the 20th Century, to fight various causes - usually European, occasionally American. None returned.

When the Native Americans were subjugated and forced into reservations, thousands of their wonderful "Indian Ponies" were released into the wilderness.

Regionally, wild herds today bear the unmistakable marks of both their original Spanish ancestors and the domestic breeds added to them.

Some herds carry the genes of carriage horses, trotting and pacing horses, heavy Percherons and Shires and Belgian draft horses, the American Standard bred, etc. Others type similar to Thoroughbreds or Quarter Horses, still others show Morgan or Shire ancestry.

Although throughout Human history, people have tried to domesticate almost every species known to them, only a handful have made the successful transition to domesticity. The wild horse is one of these, due to its innate hard-wiring to accept leadership, to live in a social unit, etc.

The horse, along with the cat and perhaps the pig, is one of an

The wild horse has been a part of history in their wild state, as they are now, still roaming on the high and low plains of America to around the world.

Preserving the wild horses is as important as it ever was in its history. They remain a mystery to us in their wild state, of wild abandon, that our romantic affair that we have with this beautiful creature should still have the ore of the wild herds roaming wild on all the lands of the world.

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