I hope you watched the first segment of the two-part miniseries, Equus: Story of the Horse, on PBS Jan. 16. The next segment is coming up Jan. 23 at 8 p.m. Eastern time, and you don’t want to miss it.
Highlights of part one were the first realistic animation of the 45 million-year-old ancestor of today’s horse, the Dawn horse, and a demonstration of psychology tests that uncover how horses use non-verbal signals to communicate with each other and understand human expressions.Information on how horses breathe while galloping was fascinating as well.
So next up is Episode 2: “Chasing the Wind.” It examines how humans have partnered with the horse throughout the centuries and created more than 400 breeds, from the Yakutian horse of Siberia to the Arab horse. That juxtaposition also demonstrates horses can survive the most extreme climates that earth has to offer.
Here’s an interesting fact from part two–our ancestors drew horses more than any other animal. The first piece of art to depict a living thing was a tiny figurine of a wild horse living somewhere in Europe more than 35,000 years ago..
There’s a look at the world’s only truly wild horses, who live on Canada’s Sable Island, where a population of 500 has been living for at least 40 horse generations. Although descended from domesticated horses abandoned or shipwrecked in the 19th century, these horses receive no care from humans today.
The quality of the first segment makes the second segment must-see TV. No matter what your equine expertise is, there’s still plenty to learn about horses.