Horse Plush Toy & History

You may not think a horse plush toy can do anything more than sit on a shelf and be admired, but you would be wrong; some horse plush toys are made so large, they can actually be ridden by children weighing up to 100 pounds. While a horse plush toy of this magnitude is not quite as soft and cuddly as the smaller versions of the the same thing, don't be fooled into thinking that a rideable horse plush toy won't want a hug every now and again.

The process of the domestication of the horse is not something that has been fully understood until very recently. It is believed that wild horses were first domesticated in the 3rd millennium B.C. in the Ponto-Caspian steppe region, now known as Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, and Romania. Based on a recent study of ancient DNA from the Late Pleistocene and Middle Ages period, German researchers with cooperation from both American and Spanish scientists, have been able to shed more light on the time and place of horse domestication.

According to scientists, when wild animals became domestic so they could become available for human nutrition, they became the key prerequisite for modern human societies. At the same time, no other domestic species of animal besides the horse, has had such an enormous impact on transportation, communication, and warfare, in human society. Since no direct evidence of saddles or metal bits were ever left behind thousands of years ago to support the timeline of horse domestication, with the use of ancient DNA instead, specific genes could be identified to show the time and place of the horses coat coloration; different colors of a horses coat could not suddenly happen on a large scale unless horses were no longer wild they would have to be bred with other horses to achieve different colors.

The results of the DNA study on the coloration of horses' coats yielded the fact that coloration increased quickly as a result of horses becoming domesticated. Furthermore, the large variation of colors that can be seen in domestic horses today was the result of ancient farmers making selective breeding choices.

Knowing when horses first became domesticated doesn't change the feelings we have regarding horse plush toys; they are one amazing stuffed animal, capable of fulfilling the dreams for those that always wished to have a horse but never could. It's true that a horse plush toy is one of those stuffed animals that looks terrific on display, perhaps front and center next to all the other soft toys on the same shelf, but it's also the kind of soft toy that needs handling whether that means brushing its mane and tail or just petting its soft, plush coat.