Shire horses racing…to the brink?

The Express (UK) reports that Shire horse numbers have dropped to an alarming low in their native Britain. While the Shire Horse Society takes steps to preserve the breed, a comment at the bottom of the article caught my eye:

The revelation comes ahead of a shire horse race to be held at Lingfield Park racecourse in Surrey.

On June 15, eight shires will take to the track in Britain’s first professional race over two furlongs.

The Showerking Flying Feathers Maiden Stakes was won by Joey; video here: http://www.lingfieldpark.co.uk/news/racing-shires-to-appear-on-bbcs-the-one-show/

 

World’s Oldest Genome Sequenced From 700,000-Year-Old Horse DNA

 

World’s Oldest Genome Sequenced From 700,000-Year-Old Horse DNA

Samples from a horse leg bone more than 700,000 years old have yielded the oldest full genome known to date.

The ancient horse genome also allowed the team to determine the evolutionary relationship between modern domestic horses and the endangered Przewalski’s horse, a native to the Mongolian steppes that represents the last living breed of wild horse.

The team found that Przewalski’s horses were an offshoot of the lineage that gave rise to domestic horses. The two groups diverged around 50,000 years ago.

More at NatGeo: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/06/130626-ancient-dna-oldest-sequenced-horse-paleontology-science