Steppe war horses

[WindGuru]

Hey all

I've heard that the Mongols relied heavily on their small, light ponies for transport, food, fuel and war. I've also heard that other nomadic groups throughout history have also used small ponies. But many others seemed to have had more heavily armoured "cataphract" style horses, and I've heard that those were a larger breed? I can't really find much information on if the Mongols used these too, or how large they really were in comparison to the "ponies". Can anyone help or provide more info?

[G-Megas-Doux]

Hi there the Mongolian horses vary in size. They are smaller because they spend their entire lives outside in harsh environments where it gets exceptionally cold and as such they expend much of their energy keeping warm. The odd thing is that they have also developed not to require much sustenance when it comes to food and water. The size would be in measures of hands where one hand (across the palm) which is considered to be four inches. You usually measure a horse from the base of the feet to the top of the front shoulders. There is no breeding standard other then leave the horse outside and if it lives great. As such there is a variance in size but it is rare for a horse to get much bigger than 14.2 hands, the decimal means 1,2 or 3 inches. They can also be as small as 12 hands.

The nearest European horse to the Mongolian Steppe Horse (the feral and semi feral domesticated horses of Mongolia not the wild horse) would be the Norwegian Fjord Horse which is a horse and not a pony it is 14.2 Hands tall and has similar characteristics. The breeding of the horse is not completely pure as another breed from Norway was used in the central book in the 19th century. Oddly horse breeding when done by book always leads to a bread being destroyed when the breeders try to improve the breed and thus new classifications are needed. The Mongolian horses don't use the books so it is survival of the fittest. It exhibits similar characteristics of the Mustang in that cold harsh climates select for smaller horses that need less food and water.

[hellheaven1987]

Crusaders of First Crusade actually were quite surprised and fond about the toughness of Turkish horse.

[G-Megas-Doux]

It is not the speed of the horse, it was that it could just keep moving at a constant speed and need very little food to maintain it. Genghis Khan's Mongles would travel with a large number of horses 4-5 horses per rider and change on a regular basis which one they were riding as such they could cover a large area in a short time with the only risk being to having a large baggage train of horses. Other nomadic tribes would have horses that adapted to the conditions they were bred and used in. So for example the Turkish horse would have different effectiveness in bred for several generations in Arabia then it would if it were bred in the Steppes or if it were bred in Anatolia.