Horses come in all sizes with the tallest horse, a Shire horse appropriately named Sampson, measured 2.2 m tall at the withers and weighed 1,524 kgs; while the shortest horse, again appropriately named Thumbelina, measured 44.5 cm tall.
While many of us agree that horses are intelligent creatures, the brain of an average sized horse is similar in size to a child’s. Sticking with the nervous system, the longest nerve in the horse is the recurrent laryngeal nerve, which measures up to 2.5 m in length in Draft and Thoroughbred horses. Those of us inconvenienced by the recent Cromwell roundabout detours can sympathise with this nerve - it takes a significant detour extending from the brainstem down the spine, around the heart and back up the neck to end close to its origin in the larynx.
Another part of the horse that can boast about its length is the small intestine which if uncoiled would stretch the length of an adult blue whale. In contrast, the stomach of the horse is relatively small. In fact, the horse has the smallest stomach in relation to body size of all domestic animals. So it’s not surprising they like frequent, if not continuous, meals.
To end this brief fact file on horse dimensions, the longest tail recorded on a horse measured 381 cm.