Stage 2 of 4
Choosing your horse
Breed does not decide everything, but it decides enough. What each one was bred to do, how big it gets, and what it costs to keep.
A breed is a starting point, not a personality test — every yard has a placid Thoroughbred and a sharp cob. What a breed does tell you is what the horse was built for, roughly how much of it there will be to feed, and what you are likely to meet in the ring.
What to read first
- What is a Thoroughbred?
- Thoroughbred
- Irish Sport Horse
- Hunter
- Cob
- Warmblood
- Hanoverian
- KWPN Dutch Warmblood
- Andalusian
- Arabian
- Friesian
- Cleveland Bay
- Shire
- Haflinger
- Appaloosa
- Paint Horse
- Quarter Horse
- Connemara Pony
- New Forest Pony
- Welsh Pony
- Shetland Pony
- Black horses
Further on
When you have got this far, what comes next is the daily round: Feeding, rugs, mucking out, hoof care: the unglamorous work that makes a stable a life.
Written by Craig Fearn, Stable & Hoof.
From the journal