Dogs have the accolade of being “man’s best friend”, and rightfully so, but there is another animal who has done humankind much service down through the centuries - the humble horse!!

Modern horses are descended from Eohippus (meaning “dawn horse”), which was a small dog-sized, multi-toed mammal that appeared after the extinction of the dinosaurs. It lived in marshy areas, where its many toes helped it to walk and run on the soft ground.

Humankind first used horses as a source of food, hunting them for meat, but then they were domesticated and used like cattle for meat and milk, before someone at some point decided it was a good idea to get on its back or tie it to something large that needed moving!!

So, horses became a means of transport, helping humans to move themselves and their goods around the world, as well as helping with agricultural work and herding other animals, and also becoming a war machine in the form of light cavalry or the heavily-armoured charger of the medieval period.

In many parts of the world, horses, and their cousins the donkey and the mule, still fulfil many of these roles, often in poor working conditions. Even in the more mechanised western world, horses can work much better in woodland where machinery would struggle to manoeuvre through the trees.

Modern breeds of horse range from the tiny miniature horses, through the hardy mountain and moorland ponies, the swift thoroughbred, the elegant warmbloods, the beautiful Arabian, all the way to the massive heavy horses. We have pleasure riding horses, cowboy horses, carriage horses, and racehorses.

Some of us are lucky enough to have had horses or ponies of our own. Others may have had pony or donkey rides at the fair or on the beach.

But whatever our personal memories or thoughts are of horses, we as a species owe much to this gentle herbivore. The world would not be the same without their input down the millennia!

Please share your own thoughts on horses, or pictures, gifs, videos and music you like of them, or any personal memories you have of contact with horses, ponies, donkeys or mules.

All are welcome. And please feel free to recommend and share all discussions you enjoy.

There is no obligation to follow any of our informal themes. They are simply for fun. This is an open topic chat thread, so please just post or talk about anything you like!