Tuesday, November 6, 2007

What is a horse?

I was reading this book : What is a horse? to Athena before her bedtime earlier on.

I know many people always have the misconception that a Pony is a baby horse. But it's not! There are three kinds of horses ( I don't mean breed) and you can tell by measuring its height. A horse's height is measured in hands, from the ground to the withers.
A pony is less than 14 hands high. The Shetland pony is even smaller, around 8-10 hands high. Followed by a light horse and then a heavy horse which is around 17 hands high. (then those horses we see in Buckingham Palace and the guards are super heavy horses. They're really big and I love em' coz' it's so nice to see them trot.)

This is even more interesting :
A baby horse is called a foal
A one-year old male is called a colt
A one-year old female is called a filly
Horses stop growing when they're 5 years old. Adult males are called stallions, and adult females are called mares

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