Blue Eats Greens

This is my sister-in-law Lisa's horse Blue, a Kentucky Mountain Saddle Horse.... more

by Sarah Loft

Title

Blue Eats Greens

Artist

Sarah Loft

Medium

Photograph

Description

This is my sister-in-law Lisa's horse Blue, a Kentucky Mountain Saddle Horse.

Per Wikipedia: The horse (Equus ferus caballus) is one of two extant subspecies of Equus ferus. It is an odd-toed ungulate mammal belonging to the taxonomic family Equidae. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature, Eohippus, into the large, single-toed animal of today. Humans began to domesticate horses around 4000 BC, and their domestication is believed to have been widespread by 3000 BC. Horses in the subspecies caballus are domesticated, although some domesticated populations live in the wild as feral horses. These feral populations are not true wild horses, as this term is used to describe horses that have never been domesticated, such as the endangered Przewalski's horse, a separate subspecies, and the only remaining true wild horse. There is an extensive, specialized vocabulary used to describe equine-related concepts, covering everything from anatomy to life stages, size, colors, markings, breeds, locomotion, and behavior.

Horses' anatomy enables them to make use of speed to escape predators and they have a well-developed sense of balance and a strong fight-or-flight response. Related to this need to flee from predators in the wild is an unusual trait: horses are able to sleep both standing up and lying down. Female horses, called mares, carry their young for approximately 11 months, and a young horse, called a foal, can stand and run shortly following birth. Most domesticated horses begin training under saddle or in harness between the ages of two and four. They reach full adult development by age five, and have an average lifespan of between 25 and 30 years.

Horse breeds are loosely divided into three categories based on general temperament: spirited "hot bloods" with speed and endurance; "cold bloods", such as draft horses and some ponies, suitable for slow, heavy work; and "warmbloods", developed from crosses between hot bloods and cold bloods, often focusing on creating breeds for specific riding purposes, particularly in Europe. There are more than 300 breeds of horse in the world today, developed for many different uses.

Per Wikipedia: The Kentucky Mountain Saddle Horse is a horse breed from the U.S. state of Kentucky. Developed as an all-around farm and riding horse in eastern Kentucky, it is related to the Tennessee Walking Horse and other gaited breeds. In 1989 the Kentucky Mountain Saddle Horse Association (KMSHA) was formed, and in 2002, the subsidiary Spotted Mountain Horse Association (SMHA) was developed to register Kentucky Mountain Saddle Horses with excessive white markings and pinto patterns. Conformation standards are the same for the two groups of horses, with the main difference being the color requirements. The KMSHA studbook is now closed to horses from unregistered parents, although it cross-registers with several other registries, while the SMHA studbook remains open.

Kentucky Mountain Saddle Horses are mid-sized horses, with a well-muscled and compact build. The breed has a flat facial profile, a mid-length, well-arched neck, a deep chest and well-sloped shoulders. They are known to be self-sufficient and easy keepers. To be registered, Kentucky Mountain Saddle Horses must demonstrate a "gentle temperament and willing disposition" to registry examiners.

The breed exhibits a natural ambling gait, called the single-foot, which replaces the trot seen in a majority of horse breeds. Both gaits are an intermediate speed between a walk and a canter or gallop; ambling gaits are four-beat gaits, whereas the trot is a two-beat gait. The extra footfalls provide additional smoothness to a rider because the horse always has at least one foot on the ground. This minimizes movement of the horse's topline and removes the bounce of a two-beat gait, caused by a moment of suspension followed by the jolt of two feet hitting the ground as the horse shifts from one pair of legs to the other. The value of an intermediate speed is that the horse conserves energy. More than thirty horse breeds are "gaited," able to perform a four-beat ambling gait, and some can also trot.

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Featured in the Animal Photographs group, June 2020.

Featured in the Our 4-Legged Friends group, June 2020.

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October 25th, 2019