3 Main Differences Between Horses and Zebras

Is a zebra a black horse with white stripes or a white horse with black stripes? Actually, zebras are very unlike horses in temperament and physical appearance. However, both zebras and horses share similar herd social structures. Horses and zebras can mate, although the resulting offspring, zebroids or zorses, are sterile. Zebras can also successfully mate with ponies and donkeys, producing zonies and zedonks, respectively, but these are also sterile.

Body Build (Conformation)

Zebras more closely resemble donkeys than horses in conformation. Their ears are long like a donkey's. The manes are short and stand stiffly upright, like a donkey's rather than the long flowing manes of horses. Some breeds of horses such as the Fjord have a mane that will grow up stiffly like a zebras for a couple of inches, but then it falls over. Zebra manes usually grow very short so they never have a chance to fall to one side.

Zebra tails are also built like a donkey's instead of a horse's. They resemble a paintbrush in that the only part covered with hair is at the end. Horses tend to have tails entirely covered with hair.
Zebras also lack withers that horses have. Withers are a slight bump where the neck meets the shoulders. Having withers makes it far easier for a saddle to stay in place. Although differences vary in individual zebras, many zebras have a mostly level spine instead of a dip from withers to middle of the spine and up to the rounded hindquarters seen in many horse breeds.

Vocalization

Both horses and zebras have a wide range of vocal displays from a snort to a scream. Both species can snort and nicker, but the horse whinnies in a more brassy way than a zebra, which "hee-haws" like a donkey.   Zebras will also make barking sounds similar to geese honking.
In contrast, horses can whinny, which can sound quite shrill or even similar to a bugle.  When aggressive, horses can emit a chilling roar.

Temperament

This is the biggest way in which horses and zebras differ. Horses will readily be domesticated. Even feral horses that have spent years living on the range can be domesticated if given a patient and forgiving trainer. But, outside of a few instances using questionable training methods, zebras will not have anything to do with pulling a carriage or letting someone ride them.

In this way, zebras are identical to Przewalski's horse (Equus ferus przewalksii) in that this species refuses to be domesticated.  There have been rare individuals that have been able to pull carts or temporarily allowed themselves to be ridden.  However, Przewalksi's horses are a different species than domestic horses (Equus caballus) in that they have a different number of chromosomes. Domestic horses only have 64 while the Przewalski has 66. A zebra, in contrast, has 44 chromosomes. Both horses and zebras are prone to spooking, but this instinct is intense in the zebra or in zebroids.

Image of a zorse by Christine and David Schmitt for Wikimedia Commons

What the Heck is Hippophobia?

Please Note: This article first appeared at Bright Hub back when it had a mental health section.

Equinophobia or Hippophobia is a powerfully strong and often irrational fear of horses. Hippo is the Greek word for “horse” while equus or equine are Latin words for horses.   The patient does not need to have been injured by a horse in order to develop this phobia.  People with equinophobia often are also afraid of other animals, situations, objects or people. 

Little Hans

The father of modern psychiatry, Sigmund Freud, had a patient that suffered from Hippophobia.  His patient was a 5 year old boy that Freud called “Little Hans” that was intensely afraid of two things -- being bitten by a horse and of growing up to have a large penis.  Freud, already convinced of the strength of the Oedipus complex, concluded that horses represented a father figure.  In the Oedipus complex, boys are often afraid of their fathers cutting off their penises because they wanted the love of their mothers.  Fathers were competition.

In the case of Little Hans, he did seem to be genuinely frightened by an actual horse.  He lived in the early 1900s.  One day, a cart horse collapsed in the street.  The noise of the horse’s collapse frightened the boy.  However, his fear became so intense that just the sound of horse hooves on cobblestones gripped him with terror.  But in his place and time, Little Hans heard horses pass by every day.  Freud wrote extensively about the case in his paper “Analysis of a Phobia in a Five-year-old Boy" (1909.)

Freud’s interpretation of equinophobia in the case of Little Hans is now considered extreme.  Fear of the father may have played some role, but Hans saw and heard horses every day.  Seeing any cart horse triggered the memory.  The panic would return and the boy was frightened all over again.  After a few weeks, Hans had been conditioned to panic whenever he heard or saw a cart horse, according to Michael W. Eysenck, author of “Psychology: An International Perspective” (Psychology Press; 2004.)

Modern Exposure Therapy

Any sort of phobia, including hippophobia, is now considered an anxiety disorder and not a fear of getting castrated by a parent.  The Anxiety Disorders Association of America explains that although phobias of very specific objects like horses can develop ion childhood, they can also develop at any time of life.  Symptoms of a panic attack can come anytime.  Symptoms include rapid heartbeat, painful tightness of the chest, nausea, sweating and trouble breathing.  Just the fear of having a panic attack, let alone of meeting a horse, can trigger panic attacks. 

Patients with equinophobia may need antidepressants or anti-anxiety medication in conjunction with therapy in order to be calm enough to go through therapy.  The goal of therapy is reprogram a conditioned response with another response.  Patients can watch videos of horses or listen to short tapes of horses whinnying, galloping or making other noises.  The therapist helps supervise these sessions and praises the patient for being calm. 

The goal is to pet a real, live horse without experiencing a panic attack.  However, this may not be necessary depending on the individual patient.  For example, if a patient has many other phobias and getting access to a live horse is difficult, working on another phobia may help cure all of the patient’s phobias.

Over time, the patient can replace the memories of fear caused by horses with the memories of nothing bad happening when a horse appears or makes noises.  Each patient recovers at his or her own rate.

Sources

Simply Psychology. “Sigmund Freud Case Study: Little Hans Case Study.” 

Psychology: An International Perspective. Michael W. Eysenck. Psychology Press; 2004.

Anxiety Disorders Association of America. “Specific Phobias.”

Ailments.com. “Equinophobia.” http://www.ailments.com/716/Equinophobia.html

Image from Wikimedia Commons

If I Won the Lottery: Open a Racehorse Retirement Rescue

If I won the lottery, I wouldn’t stay in the crowded horseless suburbs I live in.  I’d move out to the country, buy one of the many farms going into bankruptcy and turn it into a racehorse retirement home.  I may stay in my home state or move to another state, depending on how much I won and how close good vet care would be.

Taking proper care of horses is expensive.  They need good food, hay, pasture to roam, a warm stable and quality vet care, including a yearly dental check-up.  They also need companionship.  It would drain all of my winnings, even if I won several million dollars.  If I could only save one horse, it would be worth spending all my lottery winnings on.

Why Race Horses?

I used to love horse racing.  All anyone needed to do was shout out a year and I’d tell them what horse won the Kentucky Derby that year and who rode the horse.  Once, when I was homeless in England, I wound up winning big when a 33-1 longshot named Red Marauder won the prestigious Grand National. (Pictured above.)  

But now I have a love-hate relationship with racing.  I hate the inbreeding, the drug use, the complete disregard for the fragility of young horses and especially the way horses are discarded when they can no longer race.  Horses live to an average of 30 years, but ex-racers are dumped like garbage.  Even 1986 Kentucky Derby winner Ferdinand was sent to a slaughterhouse.

I love the horses, though.  I love their courage, their beauty, their obedience even when they are being run to death.  None of those horses deserves to be treated like garbage, disposed of at the whim of their owners or trainers.  Perhaps guilt makes me want to open a retirement home for racehorses.  Perhaps it’s because horses are like dreams on legs and I’m sick of my nightmares.

Easy Does It

The best way to set up a retirement home for racehorses would be turn my farm into a charity instead of a business.  This way it could carry on after the lottery money dried up and could even carry on after my death.  However, it costs a lot of money to set up a charity.  The paperwork is staggering.  I would need to hire a lawyer in order to set the charity up. 

I’d then have to know my limits.  I’d have to accept only a few horses and no more.  Many animal rescues start with good intentions and then take on far too many animals that the manpower or the space can handle.  It then becomes a hoarding situation and the animals are worse off than before.

Unlike many other excellent racehorse rehabilitation charities that retrain horses to other jobs, my charity would be for no-hope horses too lame or too injured to be ridden or pull a buggy.  Retraining racehorses requires land for a riding ring, a well-stocked tack room and a trainer familiar with ex-racehorses.  I’d rather concentrate on saving horses considered no-hopers by other horse rescue groups.