thumb|right|1743 engraving depicting an Iberian horse

The Iberian horse is a designation given to a number of horse breeds native to the Iberian Peninsula. At present, some breeds are officially recognized by the FAO, while other horses believed to be native to the peninsula are not. Likewise, some modern breeds are understood from mitochondrial DNA to be descended from historic landraces, while others have origins outside the Iberian peninsula. The remaining FAO-recognized breeds are of well-known foreign blood, or are recently developed breeds.

History

Wild horses have been present in Iberia since the Middle Pleistocene, probably by at least 600,000 years ago. Sequencing of ancient DNA indicates that Late Pleistocene-Holocene wild horses native to the Iberian Peninsula from at least around 27,000 years ago onwards belonged to a highly distinctive lineage of wild horses isolated from other European wild horse populations, that is less closely related to modern domestic horses than Przewalski's horse (as well as the extinct Siberian horse Equus lenensis) is, which one study estimated diverged from their common ancestor around 285-335,000 years ago. These wild horses persisted in the Iberian Peninsula up until the Iron Age, around 500-350 BC. Modern domestic horses were introduced into Iberia during the Bronze Age, around the 2nd millennium BC, probably by around 1850 BC. While interbreeding between Iberian wild horses and domestic horses is documented genetically, the genetic contribution from Iberian wild horses to post-Iron Age Iberian domestic horses is negligible.

Throughout history, Iberian horses have been influenced by many different peoples and cultures who occupied Spain, including the Celts, the Carthaginians, the Romans, various Germanic tribes and the Arabs. The Iberian horse was identified as a talented war horse as early as 450 BCE. Mitochondrial DNA studies of the modern horses of the Iberian Peninsula and Barb horse of North Africa present convincing evidence that horses crossed the Strait of Gibraltar in both directions and crossbred. It is not possible to determine which of these strains is the older one, and both trace to the Roman era, far earlier than the Muslim conquest of Spain that is commonly assumed to mark the beginning of such crossbreeding.

In Spain and Portugal, the 1980s marked the start of efforts to bring back several of the Northern Iberian breeds from extinction, some of which were down to a few dozen individuals. The Cartusian strain of Pure Spanish (Andalusian) horse was also endangered, with a breeding population of about 150 animals.

See also

  • List of Iberian horse breeds
  • Sable Island horse

References

  • Report on DNA of Spanish horses
  • Info on Jaca Navarra (Spanish) (Google translation)