The dog may be man’s best friend, but the human being would be nothing without the horse. Some facts about horses are so interesting, it sleeps standing and runs like a car. Domesticated around the year 3500 BC probably in the region where is now Kazakhstan, horses were used by men as working animals, especially for the transport and operation of simple machines such as plows and mills, but also as cutting an animal in certain parts of Europe and Asia.

Time passed and the man never distanced himself from the horse. Today it is used in a multitude of tasks, such as at work, war, sport, therapeutic trials, for entertainment and culture. It is estimated that there are in the world about 60 million horses, of which 34 million are in the Americas, a continent where only arrived after the discovery since they are a species naturally present only in Europe and Asia.

Full Speed

Horses are among the fastest land animals in the world, so are widely used in racing today. They are provided with horse salt lick so that they can stay at their prime of their health. Since ancient times, these horses are used in speed and power disputes, as the chariot races in ancient Rome, which had cheerleaders who fought in the streets of the Eternal City. The fastest speed ever recorded of a racehorse is impressive 70.76 km / h.

Genetic Manipulation

The horses suffered a series of artificial genetic alterations at the hands of human beings throughout history, as well as with other domesticated animals, such as cat and dog. This generated a lot of different breeds and colors, sizes, and shapes various.

There are huge horses, pompous, that you can even imagine wearing armor in a medieval warfare, but there are also small, like the famous ponies, which the kids love. The smallest horse ever recorded is only 43 cm high and weighs a mere 26 kg. Is not it cute? Already the largest was 2.2 m high and reached weigh 1.5 tons.

His Excellency, the horse

It is no secret that some of the Roman emperors were half crazy, right? But one of the most preposterous stories of Imperial Rome involves Emperor Caligula, the Roman senate, and a horse. Calm down, I’ll explain: the depraved emperor decided to appoint his favorite horse, Incitatus as consul of Rome, a political position like a senator.

Reports of Historian Suetonius  in his book “The Twelve Caesars” say Incitatus had a stable made of marble, an ivory manger, wore purple fabrics and a  gemstone halter. In the end, more recent historians believe that the possession of Incitatus as a council has nothing to do with madness, but with poking fun. Caligula was actually wanting to ridicule the Roman senate to put between them a horse, demoting them to pack animals.

An Offer That Can’t Be Refused

“The Godfather” is considered by many one of the best films in the history of the Seventh Art, and one scene, in particular, has become a classic. In it, the actor John Marley, as Jack Woltz, a film producer who was unwilling to give the aid requested by Godfather Don Corleone (Marlon Brando), wakes up and faces the terrifying scene: beside you in bed he finds the severed head of Khartoum, his award horse worth millions of dollars.

What most people do not know is that this head was not an artificial object made by the special effects team, but a real horse’s head. After protests by organizations defending the rights of animals, the director Francis Ford Coppola explained, the head belonged to a killed horse by a producer of an animal feed company and was donated to the director for the filming of the scene, that is, no horse was dead specifically for the realization of that outlet. The real head was crucial to the shock that the scene requires and makes it clear that one should not deny a request from the Godfather.

Sleeping Standing

Horses have curious habits related to sleep: they are one of the few animals able to sleep standing up. This is an adaptation to their physiology suffered so they could rest in inhospitable places. However, a horse only really rests when lying down.

In addition, horses in a group sleep in shifts, to always be animals awake to warn of the approach of danger. The average daily sleep time of a horse is only three hours.