Do racehorses have bigger hearts than other horses?
Racetrack intuition would bet on “yes”, since we’ve been breeding racehorses to run longer and faster for centuries and one would assume that would naturally select for bigger pumps to power a horse to cross the line first.
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Does the hair on the lower legs of Clydesdales have a purpose, or is it strictly decorative?
When the draught horses that were the ancestors of today's Clydesdale were first bred centuries ago in Europe, farmers favoured horses with a lot of hair on their lower legs. It seemed this hair helped protect the horses legs from scratches and cuts as the animals worked in the field.
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