These resources are brought to you by the Cooperative Extension System and your Local Institution

Articles from our resource area experts.

Have a question? Try asking one of our Experts

Print

Relating Form to Function: Horse's Breed and Sex Characteristics

Last Updated: October 09, 2006 Related resource areas: Horses


Breed characteristics are traits that are unique to a particular breed, such as body type, color pattern, gait, and way of going.

Sex characteristics refer to the masculinity or femininity of the horse. Masculinity refers to male traits such as prominence of jaw and heavy muscle. Femininity refers to female traits such as refinement and attractiveness with adequate muscling. Mares typically have cleaner, more refined necks than stallions. Geldings would fit somewhere between stallions and mares but generally will not be as massive in muscling as stallions. Refinement in geldings is also desirable.

Characteristics of a Stallion, Mare and Gelding Head

Diagram of a Stallion head Diagram of a Mare head Diagram of a Gelding head



More information

horse selection and use

Have a specific question? Try asking one of our Experts

Unlike most other resources on the web, we have experts from Universities around the country ready to answer your questions.

Comments

Subscribe to this page's comments

Post a comment about this topic

Please keep comments on topic. To ask a question, please use Ask an Expert. All comments are held for moderation. Comments that include profanity, personal attacks or other inappropriate material will not be posted to the site.

Did you find this page useful?

Current rating: 2.0

1 ratings. what is this?

not useful
very useful
 1  2  3  4  5

This resource area was created by the:

HorseQuest

community

Copad_horses

Resource Area Feeds

In This Resource Area

Resource Area Tags

animal behavior animal diseases animal nutrition beef cattle corn cotton industry dairy cattle disasters diseases diversity entrepreneurship family caregiving fire ants glossary horse chat horse diseases horse feeds horse health horse management horse nutrition horse reproduction horse training and behavior horticulture instructional videos integrated pest management parenting personal finance science soybeans swine wildlife damage management

Our Sponsors

Read more about our sponsors...