Horses and Ponies to Color

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                                                       to learn about the animals etc.

Stallion in the Desert
For Older Children or Adults to Color

The horse is a beautiful animal.  I have drawn some realistic and some more cartoon horses or ponies.  Note that for younger kids coloring I do not draw the horse legs as narrow or as they really are.

  The modern horse, Equs ferus, is thought to have evolved from multi-toed smaller horse-like animals from 55 millions years ago.  If you can find a copy of the BBC documentary Walking With Prehistoric Beasts you can see that giant "Terror Birds" used to eat these small horses.  Some terror birds had a beak the size of a volleyball.  There is a scene in Walking With Prehistoric Beasts where some early horses eat some fermented grapes and that puts them off their guard when a terror bird is on the prowl.  I call that episode, "My Little Drunk Pony."
You can see a collecting site for these early North American mammals at Hagerman Fossils Beds National Monument in Southern Idaho in the USA.

Humans began to domesticate (tame and raise) horses around 4,000 years ago.  By 3,000 years ago horses were being used by man practically everywhere in the world.

A few more interesting facts about horses:
-Horses are measured in "hands" so, one hand equals 4 inches.
-Horses can sleep laying down or standing up
-A female horse is called a mare.
-A pregnant mare carries the offspring for 11 months.
-A male horse is called a stallion.
-In the wild, like wild mustangs...a single male leads the herd and has to fight other males to keep his       leadership position.
-All baby horses are called foals.
-A baby female horse is called a filly.
-A baby male horse is called a colt.
-Smallest known horse was only 17 inches (43 cm) tall and weighed 57 lbs (26 kg)
-Largest horse breed is the Shire.  They can be 7 feet 2 inches tall, (2.18 meters) and weigh 3,300 lbs.(1,497 kg)
-A pony is not a baby horse.  A pony is a small horse that is less than 14 hands tall.

uploading coloring pages over the next few minutes.

I recommend a great book series for older elementary age or Jr. High to High School age kids.  As an adult, I also love these adventure books.  They  are set in a sort of medieval Europe, sort of.  The author, John Flanagan, uses names like "Scandians" for Vikings etc.  He never uses real European country names.  They are so well written. . . and they are clean and safe for kids.  "Tug" is the name of one of the Ranger Ponies.  These small but hearty Ranger ponies, in the stories, are descended from what seems to be Mongolian Ponies brought to "Europe." This is a great series of books for boys and girls!

Tug, the Ranger Horse

Horse in a Meadow

A Paint Pony by a River

Pony with Squirrel Friend

Mother Pony and Filly