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The first horses to return to the main continent were 16 specifically identified [clarification needed] horses brought by Hernán Cortés. Subsequent explorers, such as Coronado and De Soto , brought ever-larger numbers, some from Spain and others from breeding establishments set up by the Spanish in the Caribbean.
By 1500, Spanish horses were established in studs on Santo Domingo, and Spanish horses made their way into the ancestry of many breeds founded in North and South America. Many Spanish explorers from the 16th century on brought Spanish horses with them for use as war horses and later as breeding stock. [36]
The original mustangs were Colonial Spanish horses, but many other breeds and types of horses contributed to the modern mustang, now resulting in varying phenotypes. Some free-roaming horses are relatively unchanged from the original Spanish stock, most strongly represented in the most isolated populations.
Colonial Spanish horse is a term for a group of horse breed and feral populations descended from the original Iberian horse stock brought from Spain to the Americas. [1] The ancestral type from which these horses descend was a product of the horse populations that blended between the Iberian horse and the North African Barb. [2]
The Colonial Spanish Horse developed from animals first brought from the Iberian Peninsula to the Americas during the conquest and establishment of the Spanish colony of New Spain in what today is Mexico. [7] As the conquest of Mexico progressed during the 16th century, horse herds spread north and crossed the Rio Grande.
The earliest horses were originally of Spanish, Barb and Arabian ancestry, [29] but a number of uniquely American horse breeds developed in North and South America through selective breeding and by natural selection of animals that escaped to the wild and became feral.
“Horses have been part of us since long before other cultures came to our lands, and we are a part of them,” a Lakota chief said. Horses were part of North America before the Europeans arrived ...
The largest horse in recorded history was probably a Shire horse named Mammoth, who was born in 1848. He stood 21.2 1 ⁄ 4 hands (86.25 inches, 219 cm) high and his peak weight was estimated at 1,524 kilograms (3,360 lb). [28]