Fun Facts!
About Friesians:
About horses in general:
- Friesians are direct descendants from the horses medieval knights used to ride.
- Friesians are rare: they are only about 45000 registered Friesian horses in the world.
- Friesian horses can be dated back to the 13th century where they were described in Germany. The oldest known artistic display of this breed is from 1568.
About horses in general:
- Horses have better memories than elephants.
- Horses are not color-blind.
- There where no horses in Australia until 1788.
- Human hair, fingernails and horse hooves are made of the same protein.
- We think alfalfa was the first food humans fed to horses in around 100 b.c.
- Eadweard Muybridge (1830-1904) proved that for a moment, at a gallop, all four legs of a horse don't touch the ground by using a series of 24 cameras and photographing a race horse named Sallie Gardner.
- Aristotle (384-322 b.c.) correctly described the sequence of horses footfalls at a walk.
- The names "Philip" or "Philippa" mean "lover of horses".
- Will Rogers (1879-1935), a political humorist, had a horse named Soapsuds!
- The horse is the state animal of New Jersey.
- As of 1993, Moscow (Russia) is again using mounted police.
- James Watt developed the term 'Horsepower' because he wanted a measurement for his steam engine that would be understood easily.
- As a child, Caroline Kennedy (John F. Kennedy's daughter) had a pony called Macaroni. Her brother John had a pony called Leprechaun.
- The ancient Chinese names that were invented for the wheelbarrow were the 'gliding horse' and the 'wooden ox'.
- Two british villages are called Horsey and Donkey town.
- On the island of Hydra in Greece, motorized vehicles are prohibited and all horse-power comes from horses and ponies.
- There is a bone in the human inner ear that is called the stirrup (a stirrup is also where you put your foot when riding a horse).