Wild Horse Speculation
Apr. 29th, 2026 05:39 pmI have been watching a lot of horse stuff here on Facebook. I've heard a lot of ancient history on YouTube, and this lead to a question/speculation/suggestion.
Okay, so if...
1) Przewalski's horses are either ancient, never tamed step horses, or the initially feral, now wild, descendants of the first domesticated breed of horses, now entirely replaced by a later domesticated breed of horses.
2) Ancient step horses were much smaller, much more robust, and less vulnerable to many of the risks of death that modern domestic horses suffer from. The first uses that humans had for horses was eating them, and then eventually they were domesticated and used for pulling travois and carts. Horses were not initially domesticated for riding: that came later.
3) People breed both ponies and miniature horses, the latter of which are supposed to have the shape of big, modern, horses. Miniature horses pull carts in competitions.
Is anybody breeding a domestic version of ancient step horses? Either from the (highly endangered, so problematic to use) Przewalski's Horse, or from modern domestic horses?
I did a little bit of googling, there are some breeds of horse that are supposed to be like ancient horses, but they don't appear to be particularly common or popular, and I'd don't see anything about them being more robust than regular modern domesticated horses.
So that's my suggestion: horse people should breed some domesticated "step horses" and have them pull carts in breed association shows.