Horse new Findings

This is about the horse, and what i did not know.

In evolution going back to fossil records, 65 million years ago, the horse had three fingers all touching the ground. then by 55 million years asgo, the two outer fingers got shorter and the middle one got longer. so we have records of fossils going back to 45, then 35 and 25 million years ago. the two outer fingers get more and more shorter ultimately now there are two protruberances, where all the fingers meet in the hand.

17, 000 years ago the horses were wild animals only as a food source for human. Then 6000 years ago the humans realised that horses can be herded and trained to ride on.

For 4000 years, the horse was used to draw carriges and to be used in war fare. Like the dogs, the horses evolved with us, and can be justified to say that horses like dogs colonised us.

Of all the thoroughbred, race horses you find in the world today descended from just three stallions. These were in the 18th century, 25 generations ago. One noted, Darly Arabian's genes are found in more than 95% of the race horses today.

We been nailing horse shoes for the last 1500 years. The outer layer of the hoof is ok to mess around with but the inner layer is horses, while shoeing the horse.

So the foreleg has four parts. shoulder upto the elbow is right inside the body. very strong muscles. the the long fore arm upto the wrist has only one big bone instead of two like our's. Then the wrist upto the fingers is just one strong bone. the finger is another strong bone with the nail becoming the hoof.


The coffin bone (the last digit of your finger), is not attached directly to the sole of the foot, but hangs free surrounded by soft tissue called laminae. This means, everytime the foot lands on the foot, the half a ton of weight is transferred to the hoof wall, which is bell shaped and dapenes the force. The hoof wall is made of horn, which further softens the landing by stretching. The youngest cells are in the heel.

horse has 18 ribs instead of 12 like in human's. That gives an enormous cavity to take the lungs. Horse fills its lungs 140 times a minute. When Horse is gallping it takes a breadth on every stride. Blimey 140 strides a minute? When in flight the head goes up, the stomach moves back and the breadth is taken, then when it lands the head goes down it releases the air inside. This connection to the diaphram which makes it possible to get a large amount of air. Galloping Horse takes in about 40 litres of air every sec.

The larynx lookes like a female shag hole but, there is a flap at the top of the opening, which is triangular. When the opening is closed the food goes down a completely different path to the oesophagus. The opening is controlled by muscles which makes it open in a diamond shaped fashion. The soft pallate is above it. If it is working the horse is ok for racing otherwise no. When checked on a horse with breathing difficulties, with an endoscope while running and galloping you can see the problems. while running and galloping the opening is ok. But when going up a slope galloping things go wrong. The soft pallate goes under and covers the hole. this is about being suffocating. animal lovers, good point to be taken here.

The heart is as large as, a bonney big size, 36d bra and 14 stone woman. Human athlete's resting heart rate in 40 or 50, and the exersize mode it goes upto 180. In Horse resting rate is 25 or 30, galloping goes upto 240. that means 4 beats a secondo! Thoroughbred's heart is 10% bigger than other breads. Phar lap the famous horse had twise the size of normal horses.

Then comes the spleen, admirably large and gorgeous. No not to eat but to look at it. When the Horse is resting some of the red blood cells go into the spleen. when galloping the spleen sqeezes the cells into circulation. so a large heart will have to go with a large spleen in a race horse. So it dopes itself in flight.

Back leg has 25 k muscles on each side. These muscles pulls the leg and forward 140 times a min, and propels itself at over 40 miles per hour.

Recently a boffin in Dublin has isolated the gene which makes the Horse sprint or have stamina. the Animal Lovers will love this. Now the Horse can be selected for the right type of race. Yeah I agree with that. Horse will not have come to this in the evolution without a helping hand from the human. How many people get paid a decent amount of money every year, so that they can bring a family up due to Horse?

Finding a winner though is still a mystery.



I am a selfish person.If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!