BORN TO RUN

Isabel Thomas rides with the horses who've swapped the stables for life on the wild side.

Horses roamed the world long before humans did. Today, most people tend to think of them as domesticated (tamed by humans) – grazing in fenced fields and sheltering in stables. However, millions of horses and ponies still roam freely in the wild. They can be spotted galloping across the grasslands of central Asia and kicking up dust in the Australian outback. They huddle in herds on English moorlands and gather around watering holes in Africa’s Namib Desert. They charge across the North American prairie and hide among island forests in the middle of the Baltic Sea. How did these herds get there? How do they survive? Are they truly wild, or are they descended from domestic steeds that bucked the trend for living alongside people? To find out, let’s trot back in time and trace the history of both horses and humans.

The first horses

Horses arose in the forests of North America around 50 million years ago. For millions of years, dozens of different types lived alongside each other. Some were as small as today’s dogs, tiptoeing through the undergrowth as they nibbled leaves, fruits and shoots.

Others adapted to live outside the forest, grazing on North America’s vast grasslands, alongside woolly mammoths. These creatures developed unique digestive systems to graze on dry, tough grasses. They also needed long, powerful legs to escape from sabre-toothed cats and other prehistoric predators that prowled the prairie. They included the first animals in the group known as Equus – the ancestors of all today’s horses, donkeys and zebras.