The Appaloosa horse
Appaloosas usually show a leopard spotted skin, pale sclera (the part of the eye close to the cornea) and striped hooves.
The breed background of this distinctive horse is only partly recognized. There is some evidence that mottled horses were present in quite a few geographical regions in Asia, and historians have found cave paintings which are as old as to 18000BC showing spotted horses that might be the origins of the appaloosa we know today. It seems likely that the mottled pattern was by origin a type of camouflage, much as the striped pattern on a zebra.
The present-day Appaloosa descends from horses shipped over to The u.s. by settlers. These were acquired by the Nez perce tribe, who cleverly engineered them into the marvelous horses that we so admire right now.
This wonderful horse was first known as the "Palouse horse", even though over the years the name was changed into the modern-day variation, "Appaloosa".
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