The horses origin - where horses originated & evolved into what we know them as today, horses evoloution

The modern form of horse evolved from small dog like animals that first appeared 60 million years ago.

 Over time wild ancestors of the modern horse evolved for millions of years in north America. They then spread to other parts of the world by travelling southwards to south America by crossing land bridges that connected north America to Europe and Asia during the ice age.

 Horses vanished from both north and south America in a wave of extinction that occurred at the end of the Pleistocene epoch, about 15,000 years ago.

 Horses nearly became extinct in the rest of the world as well, by about 7000 years ago the worlds only horses were confined to a small area in the still open grasslands steppes of Ukraine and central Asia. 

 They were not seen in the Americas again until 1494, when Italian explorer Christopher Columbus transported them on ships from Spain on his second voyage to the new world.

 Przewalski's horse , which is believed to be the only truly wild horse to survive to modern times, probably became extinct in the wild in Mongolia  in the 1960's.

 About 1100 Przewalski's horses survive today in captivity in Zoos and Wildlife parks.

 All thoroughbreds are descendants of three Arabian stallions that were brought to England in the late 1600s and early 1700s and bred with native European mares.

 Quarter horses were developed in America from crosses between thoroughbreds and descendents of Spanish horses.