Exmoor ponies live out on the moor through the worst of the British winter without a rug in sight, and it isn’t luck. Their coat is doing a very specific job, and understanding it is the quickest way to work out what your own horse actually needs.

Exmoor ponies live out on the moor through the worst of the British winter without a rug in sight, and it isn’t luck. Their coat is doing a very specific job, and understanding it is the quickest way to work out what your own horse actually needs.

The smallest of the Welsh breeds grew up on open hill, worked for the people who farmed it, and was shaped by both. Here is how the Section A pony came to be, what we can say for certain, and what we would rather call a myth.

The Welsh Cob was bred to work hard, travel far and keep going, and the Welsh Pony and Cob Society’s stud book, begun in 1902, is where that story becomes a written record. Here is what the record supports, and what it doesn’t.

The Thoroughbred was made in a few generations for one job, going faster than the next horse over a fixed distance. This is how it happened, and what that record still means in Britain and America.

The Suffolk Punch is a chestnut heavy horse from East Anglia, built for the clay fields of one county. Here is where it came from, what shaped it, and why it is still with us.

From the medieval Great Horse to brewery drays, near extinction and a careful revival, this is how the Shire came to be the horse we know. We trace the work that built it, the people who kept its records and where the breed stands in the UK and the US today.

The Shetland is the smallest of the British native breeds and one of the toughest. Here is where it came from, the work it did, and how that work built the pony we still know.

The Quarter Horse began as a short-distance racer in colonial America and became the working horse of the open range. Here is where it came from, what shaped it, and what that means for the breed today.

The Przewalski’s horse was never bred for field, road or war, and it came very close to vanishing altogether. Here is how it was described, lost and brought back.