Hello, I just wanted to ask if horses were bread differently back during olden times when a horse needed to be strong rather than fast and graceful. I remover a professor telling me that horse were bread for strength and stamina rather than speed and grace. If this is true are there places you can see what older horses would look like? Do they still breed them for strength somewhere in the world? Sorry about the vague question.
Insofar as comparing modern breeding with historical...this is AskHistorians and there is a 20-year rule for the sub so I will not make any statements about modern breeding (save the one I make at the end). However, historically, the traits that horses were bred for varied based on culture to culture and the times which they lived in. We've been breeding horses for over 5,500 years across 6 continents so there is a lot of variation. You had some like the Blackfoot Tribe that bred their horses more based on coat colors than actual speed or strength, and then you had the emergence of the draft breeds in Europe that were bred for pulling carts and plows.
To state they weren’t bred for gracefulness is not accurate, however it again depends on the culture and time period. Graceful movements and looks have been the focus of the Spanish Riding School’s breeding program for their Lipizzaners for centuries. If you’re looking for resources on historical horse breeding programs, you may want to figure out where you want to start. To do that, well you can’t go wrong starting with the International Museum of the Horse’s website. As far as other (online) resources, the British Museum has a number of artifacts with depictions of horses, particularly from the ancient world, in case you're looking for how certain traits were emphasized through artwork.
If you're looking for which modern breeds have remained unchanged the most throughout history, then both the Arabian and the Akhal Teke breeds vie for the title. Both claim ancestry to the ancient Nisean horses but I'm not presently aware if any studies have unearthed a definite answer for which actually is the oldest. You could even argue that Przewalski's horse is actually the oldest as they have more genetic similarities to the horses of the Botai culture than our domesticated stock.
Horses were bred for a lot of different traits, and we continue to breed them for a lot of different traits today. To make blanket statements about historical horse breeding is impossible.
Ok thank you!!