There are no wild horses in North America

… nor are there any in Australia.  The takhi is the only true wild horse left in the world.  “Wild” horses in the United States and the rest of North America are actually “feral”.

According to the American Museum of Natural History, a domestic animal becomes “feral” simply by fending for itself when left in the wild, without being helped or managed by humans in any way. If it finds others of its own species, reproduces, and the offspring also fend for themselves in the wild, the result is a feral population.

Feral horses do live in self-sustaining populations in the wild, though they—or their ancestors—once belonged to domestic populations that were bred, for thousands of years, for ease of handling. The truly wild horses of the Copper Age were probably tougher and more aggressive than today’s feral stock. The takhi, having never been genetically manipulated, has a reputation for being hard to handle and almost impossible to ride.

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