A domestic horse with long legs and a mane. Size and build vary among breeds developed by people.
Each foot ends in a large hoof. Coats vary in color and pattern, and long hair forms the mane and tail.
In an experiment on how horses connect voices and expressions, they looked longer at a face that did not match the voice. In 2019, French researchers showed 34 Welsh mares, born and raised at a research institute, animated videos of a woman expressing joy and anger. At the same time, the mares heard a woman’s voice expressing either joy or anger through the same vowel sound.
The mares looked longer at the face whose emotion did not match the voice. An angry voice brought more vigilant posture: the horses raised their heads and pointed their ears forward. A joyful voice brought more relaxed posture, with the neck lowered. Maximum heart rate was also higher during the angry voice.
The recorded voices used the same vowel and were matched in duration and acoustic characteristics. The horses’ responses to the pairing of a face and voice suggest they connected emotion across the two kinds of cue.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.
The UK government’s native equine list, updated in June 2026, classifies the Cleveland Bay Horse as “at risk.” This UK breed-level category covers breeds with an estimated 6,000 or fewer breeding females.