What is counted as a horse?

[Seaweed-Headed Dragon 359]

In the "Hearts strong as horses" song, What is a horse exactly?

 

I mean Twilight and the mane 6 is still a pony right?

 

So how old do you have to be to become a horse?

 

[Malinter 3,064]

Size and proportion I'd imagine are the factors was to what is a horse and what is a pony.

[Bucky McGillyCuddy 956]

Someone in the official episode discussion questioned if horses have ever actually appeared in the show and another user posted this image (which I completely forgot about). They definitely look more horse-ish than the other characters. Saddle Arabian horses look freaking awesome by the way. Would really like to see more of them.

Edited December 14, 2013 by Bucky_McGillycuddy

[Fhaolan 4,484]

In real life ponies are specific breeds of horses. It has nothing to do with age, but with 'conformation' (which is basically body shape and size). There are miniature horses that are smaller than ponies, and draft horses are shaped just like ponies, so the dividing line is pretty arbitrary really. There's some speculation that ponies and draft horses should be divided from miniature and regular horses as two 'separate' subspecies, but that's based on older taxonomy methods that are based more on morphology than genetic.

 

In MLP:FiM, the ponies have referred to horses before as if they are a different race. Twilight turned mice into what she called horses in the Grand Galloping Gala episode. I believe Discord called them horses at one point, and was corrected that they were ponies, but I could be misremembering something there. And the Saddle Arabians, when presented looked a lot more like the mice/horses that Twilight created than regular ponies.

 

Basically the ponies of MLP seem to treat horses as separate in the same way they treat donkeys and zebras as separate.

[DarligPegasi 315]

To me it seemed as though the silhouette of the horse that they showed was bulkier and had thicker legs and basically a lot more muscular than regular ponies, so probably that. 

[KikiTwilight 90]

I actually thought they meant strong and masculine full-grown stallions.

 

I don't think they meant necessarily real horses, maybe simply better grown and stronger ponies, but males.

[Scootalove 10,689]

Horses have a different body shape and size, where they look bigger compared to ponies. Ponies are of a separate breed mentioned in the show, it could be that.

[ShadOBabe 19,014]

 

 

  On 2013-12-14 at 5:42 PM, Fhaolan said:

I believe Discord called them horses at one point, and was corrected that they were ponies, but I could be misremembering something there.

 

No I think he just said, "Makes me want to pinch your little horsey cheeks". No one corrected him.

But ponies are just little horses, so no correction really necessary.

[Naive Wolf Josh 93]

No cutie marks on the Saddle Arabian horses... hmm...

[Fhaolan 4,484]

  On 2013-12-14 at 9:39 PM, ShadOBabe said:

No I think he just said, "Makes me want to pinch your little horsey cheeks". No one corrected him.

But ponies are just little horses, so no correction really necessary.

 

I could have sworn... Oh well. I haven't gotten back up to the Discord episodes in my 'Episode Watching Blog' yet. Maybe I'm thinking of some other incident with a different character being corrected. Or maybe a fan-work. Actually, that's far more likely.

 

  On 2013-12-14 at 9:43 PM, Naive Wolf Josh said:

No cutie marks on the Saddle Arabian horses... hmm...

Or on donkeys, but the one zebra we've run into has a cutie-mark-like symbol on her flank. Which might be something else, but... hrmmm....

[ShadOBabe 19,014]

 

 

  On 2013-12-14 at 10:24 PM, Fhaolan said:

Or maybe a fan-work. Actually, that's far more likely.

 

I know for certain that it happened in Turnabout Storm if you've seen that. X3

[Side Bird 566]

Well

http://wallpaperswa.com/download/view?resolution=2560x1920&file=MTI4MHg5NDUvMjAxMjA3MDcvaG9yc2VzIGZvYWxzIDEyODB4OTQ1IHdhbGxwYXBlcl93YWxscGFwZXJzd2EuY29tXzUwLmpwZw==&name=aG9yc2VzX2ZvYWxzXzEyODB4OTQ1X3dhbGxwYXBlcg==

That's a pony

And this

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9a/Avenger_-_Westphalian_horse.jpg

Is a horse.

There are a lot of differences between ponies and horses. A horse would be bigger. And they look different.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horse

[Fhaolan 4,484]

  On 2013-12-14 at 10:27 PM, ShadOBabe said:

I know for certain that it happened in Turnabout Storm if you've seen that. X3

Bingo, that's what I was remembering. Nevermind then.

[~Vallo~ 409]

A pony is defined as a small horse.

[hawkflame 3,310]

New personal headcanon:  Horses are the "immortals"- Celestia, Luna, and presumably the Saddle Arabian leaders.  Everyone else is a pony, even if they're Alicorns.