Horse (animal)

The domestic horse (*Equus ferus caballus*) is a subspecies of domesticated odd-toed ungulate. It is one of two surviving subspecies of the wild horse, with the other one being the Przewalski's horse (*Equus ferus przewalskii*). The horse first started to be domesticated around 4000 BCE, and by 3000 BCE the animals were widespread. Horses occur in many different breeds, occuring on all six inhabited continents and have great cultural and practical uses in human societies.

## Appearances in Dorling Kindersley Vision media

### Eyewitness

A total of fifteen episodes of Eyewitness contain domestic horses as either studio-filmed animals or as stock footage. Season Two has the most episodes in which a horse appears, although the horse is most prominent in the episode of the same name. In many episodes, the horse is a background animal at most - in Reptile, for example, partially faded stock footage of a horse appears in the discussion about antivenom, in Arctic and Antarctic horses briefly appear from stock footage of the Scott expedition to the Antarctic and in Monster the horse appears only as a victim of the vampire bat.

* **SEASON ONE**: Horse, Reptile, Skeleton
* **SEASON TWO**: Desert, Tree, Ape, Mammal, Rock and Mineral, Weather, Arctic and Antarctic
* **SEASON THREE**: Flight, Bear, Sight, Mountain, Monster

The Horse episode is also the only Dorling Kindersley Vision episode to contain the Przewalski's horse, the other subspecies of living horse.

### Amazing Animals

Domestic horses appear in eight episodes of Amazing Animals. In Animal Weapons, they serve as the steeds for armoured knights and are shown wearing caparisons. In Animal Pets, a pony is one of the pets considered by Henry. Horses appear only in the form of stock footage in Farm Animals, Extinct Animals, Around the World, Animal Helpers and Mountain Animals.

* **SEASON ONE**: Animal Weapons
* **SEASON TWO**: Animal Pets
* **SEASON THREE**: Farm Animals, Extinct Animals
* **SEASON FOUR**: Around the World, Animal Helpers, Mountain Animals, Tiny Animals

A feral-living type of domestic horse, the konik or Heck horse, wins the Golden Gecko Award in Extinct Animals. These animals were bred, during a time between the two World Wars, to closely resemble the extinct tarpan. Although the episode describes them as tarpan and claims they were brought back from extinction, this is not accurate - they are domestic horses with strong tarpan-like features.

### Creatures Fantastic

From the episodes so far recovered, the domestic horse is the most common recurring species in Creatures Fantastic and appears in a total of seven episodes.

In Creatures of the Night, a horse is filmed as the steed of King Arthur during one of the storyteller's segments, with the animal being frightened by a witch they encounter. Horses also appear as stock footage.

In Dragons, a white horse serves as the steed for Saint George when he sets out to kill the dragon. Black-and-white stock footage showing horses being ridden on a battlefield also plays in this episode.

Mythical Cats includes a pony in one of the storyteller's segments. It is being used by two miners to carry precious metals in the Hyperborean Mountains, but the two miners and presumably the pony itself are killed off-screen by a pair of griffins.

The Apocalypse includes both studio and stock footage of horses. They appear as the steeds of the gods during the Ragnarok battle sequence, and a close-up of a galloping horse represents the four horsemen and the lone rider from the Armageddon story.

Werewolves includes the horse only briefly and as a mainly background animal, with one pulling a cart filled with corpses during a sequence about the plague times of medieval Europe.

In Spirits of the Forest the horse appears only briefly, serving as the steed of the lord during the Gawain and the Green Knight sequence.

Mythical Horses is, perhaps obviously, the main episode in which horses appear. While the full episode has not yet emerged online clips from the episode show stock footage of horses, including the same clip of Pegasus created for Eyewitness Horse. As well as Pegasus, the episode includes the kelpie, a unicorn (which, according to some reviews, is killed during the episode) and centaurs - both the unicorn and centaur appear as studio footage during the opening sequence for Creatures Fantastic.

### Baby Animals

In the episode On The Farm, Doodle the puppy finds a shire horse during the third segment while looking for a calf. In the fifth segment, Doodle is specifically looking for a foal, and eventually finds a herd of Exmoor ponies with their young.

## Total breeds

* Arabian Horse
* Shetland
* Clydesdale