The Appaloosa
Appaloosas customarily have a mottled coat, pale sclera (the part of the eye close to the cornea) and vertically striped hooves.
The breed history of this unusual horse is not fully recognized. There is plenty of proof that mottled horses were present in a good number of geographical regions in Asia, and historians have found cave pictures dating back to 18000BC clearly showing spotty horses that could well be be related to the horse we know today. It is possible that the mottled coat was originally a form of camouflage, serving a similar purpose to the zebra's stripes.
The modern-day Appaloosa descends from horses carried to America by early colonists. These were passed on to the Nez perce people, who expertly engineered them into the terrific horses that we know and love right now.
The appaloosa was initially called the "Palouse horse", even though over the years the name changed into the contemporary alternative, "Appaloosa".
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