The Shan Horse or Shan Myinn is a Burmese

breed A breed is a specific group of breedable domestic animals having homogeneous appearance (phenotype), homogeneous behavior, and/or other characteristics that distinguish it from other organisms of the same species. In literature, there exist seve ...

of small mountain

horse The horse (''Equus ferus caballus'') is a domesticated, one-toed, hoofed mammal. It belongs to the taxonomic family Equidae and is one of two extant subspecies of ''Equus ferus''. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 mi ...

pony A pony is a type of small horse, usually measured under a specified height at maturity. Ponies often have thicker coats, manes and tails, compared to larger horses, and proportionally shorter legs, wider barrels, heavier , thicker necks and s ...

from the Shan Highland, in

Shan State Shan State (, ; , ) is a administrative divisions of Myanmar, state of Myanmar. Shan State borders China (Yunnan) to the north, Laos (Louang Namtha Province, Louang Namtha and Bokeo Provinces) to the east, and Thailand (Chiang Rai Province, Chia ...

in eastern

Myanmar Myanmar, officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar; and also referred to as Burma (the official English name until 1989), is a country in northwest Southeast Asia. It is the largest country by area in Mainland Southeast Asia and has ...

(Burma). It was traditionally bred by the Shan people of that area. It is one of two horse breeds in Myanmar, the other being the Burmese Horse. It is similar to the Indian Manipuri, Spiti and Bhutia breeds of small horse or pony.

History

A colonial-era description of the ponies of the Shan, published in the ''Gazetteer of Upper Burma and the Shan'' in 1901, calls them "small and coarse". According to an account from 1905, they were of similar size and type to the Mongolian, good carriers of weight, good at jumping, generally useful but slow. The population of the Shan breed was last reported to

DAD-IS DAD-IS is the acronym for the Domestic Animal Diversity Information System, a tool developed and maintained by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations as a part of its programme for management of animal genetic resources for ...

in 1991, when there were stallions and breeding mares. In 2007 its conservation status was recorded by the

FAO The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations; . (FAO) is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations that leads international efforts to defeat hunger and improve nutrition ...

as "not at risk".

Characteristics

The Shan Horse is a small, sturdy mountain horse, well adapted to hot and humid conditions and to altitudes of up to . Its coat is thicker than that of the Burmese breed. It is used as a pack horse, as a

draught horse A draft horse (US) or draught horse (UK), also known as dray horse, carthorse, work horse or heavy horse, is a large horse bred to be a working animal hauling freight and doing heavy agricultural tasks such as plough, plowing. There are a nu ...

, and for riding. The

coat A coat is typically an outer garment for the upper body, worn by any gender for warmth or fashion. Coats typically have long sleeves and are open down the front, and closing by means of buttons, zippers, hook-and-loop fasteners (AKA velcro), ...

may be dark or

grey Grey (more frequent in British English) or gray (more frequent in American English) is an intermediate color between black and white. It is a neutral or achromatic color, meaning that it has no chroma. It is the color of a cloud-covered s ...

References

Horse breeds originating in Myanmar Horse breeds {{bots, deny=Citation bot