The Mustang Horse
The mustang is a wellknown horse which is seen by many as a symbolic representation of the influential and adventurous spirit of the Old wild west.
But Mustangs are usually referred to as 'wild' horses, the more accurate term is 'feral' horses as all so-called 'wild' horses inside The usa are bred from horses that were originally domestic horses shipped over to Mexico and the u.s. by the early settlers.
Almost all of these imported horses were of Andalusian or Arabian stock, but also included a wide variety of colors and many americans breed types.
Clearly, some of these great horses went wild or were traded by native americans, and soon spread right through the whole country.
The Appaloosa horse
Appaloosas ordinarily show a mottled skin, white sclera (the part of the eye next to the cornea) and vertically striped hooves.
The history of this distinctive horse is not completely understood. There is plenty of evidence that mottled horses were found in a number of nations in Europe, and we know of cave paintings dating back to 18000BC showing spotty horses that could well be be the origins of the modern appaloosa. It is quite likely that the mottled pattern was first a type of camouflage, similar to the striped pattern on a zebra.
The modern-day Appaloosa descends from horses shipped over to The usa by conquistadors. These were somehow acquired by the Nez perce people, who expertly engineered them into the tremendous horses that we so admire these days.
The horse was first called the "Palouse horse", but slowly the name changed into the modern-day form, "Appaloosa".
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