Choctaw Horse
Herd of Choctaw Horses | |
| Conservation status | FAO: National risk level
IUCN Red List: None Livestock Conservancy: Critical |
|---|---|
| Country of origin | United States of America |
| Use | Riding |
| Traits | |
| Weight |
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| Height |
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| Color | Very variable |
The Choctaw Horse is an American breed or strain of small riding horse of Colonial Spanish type. Like all Colonial Spanish horses, it derives from the horses brought to the Americas by the Conquistadores in and after the late fifteenth century and introduced in the seventeenth century into what is now the United States. As is clear from the name, the Choctaw Horse is strongly associated with the indigenous Choctaw people of America, who originally bred it in their traditional homeland in the area of modern-day Alabama and Mississippi, and continued to do so after their forced removal to the Indian Territory – modern Oklahoma – in the 1830s.
It is an endangered breed and is listed – with all other Colonial Spanish breeds – by the Livestock Conservancy as 'critical'. In 2009 no more than 200 horses of the Choctaw and Cherokee strains were thought to remain.