Bill the Bastard was a big, fiery, cranky chestnut gelding famous for his buck… but he was one of Australia’s greatest war horses and became a legend, famed for his incredible stamina and for saving many soldiers’ lives. An Australian-bred Waler, Bill earned his not-so-illustrious nickname thanks to his incredible bucks, unseating rider after rider. […]

Did you know that the first ever motion picture featured a horse and rider? In 1873, Leland Stanford, horse breeder and founder of Stanford University, commissioned Eadweard Muybridge to photograph his prized trotter, Occident. In doing so, Stanford wanted to settle a long-disputed question: does a horse have all four hooves off the ground at […]

With ANZAC Day today, April 25, I wanted to dedicate a post to two true blue Australian War Horse heroes from WWI. Staggeringly, in the First World War, 136,000 horses were sent overseas for use by Australian, British and Indian forces. To me, that number of horses is absolutely inconceivable. Tragically, only ONE horse from […]

Roy Rogers was an American singer and cowboy actor who was one of the most popular Western stars of his era. He appeared in over 100 films and numerous radio and television episodes of The Roy Rogers Show, which ran on radio for nine years before moving to television from 1951 to 1957. His productions […]

Back in 2008, with just the local crowd and a handful of unwavering supporters to witness, twelve-year-old Angus Paradice proved his mettle in a race against the children of the Mongolian steppe. Angus and his family had visited Mongolia two years prior, their travels coinciding with a local Naadam festival. At these festivals, competitors test […]

Elyne Mitchell is best known as the author of the much-loved children’s book series, The Silver Brumby. I’m sure I am not the only globetrotter who can say that the silver brumby galloped through my childhood dreams! But there was far more to Elyne’s life than children’s books. Born in Melbourne in 1913, Elyne Mitchell […]

On the 31st of October, 1917, the Fourth Australian Light Horse Brigade charged the city of Beersheba in what was then Ottoman Palestine, storming through the Turkish defences. This is widely remembered as the last great cavalry charge. It resulted in the capture of Beersheba and, ultimately, victory for the British Empire’s allied forces in […]

On the 19th of January 2010, Big Jake officially became the world record holder for ‘Tallest Horse Living’. Standing a whopping 20.2 hands high (82 inches, or 210 centimetres), Big Jake is a Belgian Draught Horse gelding. He was born to two average-sized Belgian horses, but by the time he came to his current owners […]

From the 1870s to the 1920s, the hansom cab was one of the most popular means of transport on the bustling streets of Sydney. Hansom cabs were pulled by only one horse, with two to three passengers seated inside the cab and the driver seated behind, looking over the roof. Their speed, affordability and agility […]

Marengo was the favourite mount of Napoleon, a white stallion known for his courage and toughness. When he was depicted in the above painting by Jacques Louis David, Marengo became a symbol of the French revolution, shaping Napoleon’s public image across Europe. However idealised the painting may be, perhaps the most unrealistic element is Napoleon […]

Breed name: Waler Country of origin: Australia Breed origin: The Waler was developed in colonial Australia by crossing a huge number of breeds including heavy draught types, strong coach horses, Timor Ponies and native British ponies, Thoroughbreds, Arabians and the African Cape Horse. To handle the harsh Australian conditions and the tough work required of […]

Name of breed: Tarpan Country of origin: Russia, although Tarpans once roamed over most of Europe. Breed origin: The original Tarpan is an extinct subspecies of horse whose scientific name is Equus ferus ferus. The Tarpan developed during the ice age as a subspecies of Equus ferus, which lived all over the land from western […]

The Guinness World Record for the highest jump by a horse was set by Captain Alberto Larraguibel and ‘Huaso’ in Chile, 1949. The pair jumped 2.47 metres! Formerly named Faithful, Huaso was born in Chile in 1933. After a failed racing career, a near-fatal injury crushing his new owner’s dressage aspirations and an unpromising start […]

A ship the size of the Titanic needed some serious stopping gear! The anchor commissioned for the vessel weighed a whopping 16 tonnes, and was forged at Noah Hingley & Sons ironworks in Netherton, in England’s Midlands. In order to get the anchor to the Titanic, it needed to be transported from the Netherton ironworks […]

Long-haired horses have been revered throughout history. The first famous long-haired horse was a Percheron called Prince Imperial. First owned by Napoleon’s nephew, Emperor Charles Louis Napoleon Bonaparte III, Prince Imperial was bought by Jacob Howser, who took him to the USA to improve local bloodlines. Credited with having the longest forelock and mane in […]

Copenhagen was a chestnut stallion of Arabian and Thoroughbred breeding who saw the Duke of Wellington emerge unscathed and victorious at Waterloo. But that’s not all there is to his story. Copenhagen’s dam, Lady Catherine, was the war horse of a brigade commander at the Battle of Copenhagen in 1807. Unbeknownst to her rider, she […]

Few horses can claim to have had more effect on the modern Thoroughbred than the Godolphin Arabian. Now the subject of poems, novels and paintings, this stallion had a pretty rough start. From what history can tell us, it seems he was a small, golden-bay Arabian horse born on the Barbary Coast of northern Africa […]

Tent pegging is a high adrenaline sport that many people around the world participate in. The game originated from a military exercise of ancient origins and is one of the few equestrian sports that is recognised by the FEI. Tentpegging is a mounted game where people gallop at a series of ground targets holding a […]

The Philippaerts are a Belgium family who has horse riding and show jumping in their blood! Ludo Philippaerts was a showjumping wizard and his wife Veronique was a master in the dressage arena before they had their four sons (Olivier, Nicola, Thibault and Anthony) to carry on their name in the equestrian world. Their passion […]

Prometea, the first-ever cloned horse, was born in a province of Italy on May 28, 2003. This year, the Halflinger cross mare will be 15 years old! It was declared the turn of a new century for the equine world and saw the start of cloning elite horses in polo and the racing industry. But […]

The Australian Light Horse Brigade was a group of mounted troops who served in the Second Boer War and World War I as part of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC). The Australian Light Horse Brigade had both cavalry and infantry characteristics and by the outbreak of WWI, there were 23 light horse […]