The Arabian Horse

Ara­bi­an Horse His­to­ry and Facts l Ara­bi­an Horse price l Ara­bi­an Horse price range l Ara­bi­an Horse life expectan­cy

In this arti­cle, we are going to go through the his­to­ry of the Ara­bi­an horse in brief with some infor­ma­tion about the phys­i­cal char­ac­ter, feed­ing guide, prices and fac­tors that might affect your pur­chase price.

The Ara­bi­an horse derives from their Ara­bi­an penin­su­la in the mid­dle east, where it devel­oped for use by nomadic bedouin tribes.  They have exist­ed for over 3,000 years, such as their impor­tance to their coun­try of ori­gin, there is cur­rent­ly a nation­al pro­gram estab­lished to main­tain breeds stan­dard. The Ara­bi­an horse has also used as a horse for war. With time, they were bred and devel­oped into oth­er horse breeds like the Andalu­sian horse, which is an excel­lent exam­ple. They even­tu­al­ly arrived in the new world with a Span­ish con­quis­ta­dor, even his­tor­i­cal fig­ures such as George Wash­ing­ton owned the Ara­bi­an horse, his famous­ly known as Blue­skin, and Maren­go was the famous war horse of Napoleone Bona­parte.

Arabian Horse Physical characteristics

Arabian Horse History and Facts l Arabian Horse price l Arabian Horse price range l Arabian Horse life expectancy

The Ara­bi­an horse has unique phys­i­cal fea­tures. If we have a look at their skele­tal anato­my, we can see that instead of the usu­al six lum­bar ver­te­brae and 18 ribs of oth­er horse breeds. They only have five lum­bar ver­te­brae and 17 ribs; this gives them their char­ac­ter­is­tics high lift­ed tail. Ara­bi­an is short­er than the major­i­ty of horse breeds mea­sur­ing about 152 cen­time­tres in height. Their weight is between 300–400 kg, reach sex­u­al matu­ri­ty at around four years old and has a life expectan­cy of about 35 years old. Their coat is short and glossy with accept­ed colours from Bay Ches­nut, grey, black and Rome. The Ara­bi­an horse presents a char­ac­ter that is docile respon­sive and par­tic­u­lar­ly com­mu­nica­tive sim­i­lar­ly.

Arabian Horse Feeding guide

Arabian Horse History and Facts l Arabian Horse price l Arabian Horse price range l Arabian Horse life expectancy

Feed­ing Ara­bi­an horse should be based on qual­i­ty offer­ing hay oats, bar­ley bran wheat and corn in addi­tion to grass graz­ing and you can also com­plete their diet with some spe­cif­ic horse feed. Pro­vid­ing a mod­er­ate amount of veg­eta­bles as treats. Some­times peo­ple feed their horse an apple or car­rot as a treat — and some­times hors­es choke on them.  Cut­ting them up small helps pre­vent choke. Plen­ty of fresh, clean water is essen­tial. Also, a salt lick is nec­es­sary. Hors­es require a dai­ly sup­ply of salt. A full-sized horse requires at least one ounce (two lev­el table­spoons or 30 ml) of salt each day. In cold sea­sons, salt helps pro­mote enough water con­sump­tion to pre­vent dehy­dra­tion. In warm sea­sons, salt replaces what lost from per­spi­ra­tion. Over­feed­ing with sup­ple­ments and treats can cause seri­ous — even dead­ly health issues.  Your vet­eri­nar­i­an is your best source of infor­ma­tion about what will be best to offer your Ara­bi­an horse, and in what quan­ti­ty.

Arabian Horse History and Facts l Arabian Horse price l Arabian Horse price range l Arabian Horse life expectancy

Anoth­er crit­i­cal aspect of their coat is car­ing; you need to brush and bath their coat reg­u­lar­ly. You also need to offer good gen­er­al hygiene care, specif­i­cal­ly need­ing to trim their hooves every six weeks or so. Also, they will need plen­ty of phys­i­cal activ­i­ty to avoid poten­tial health prob­lems.

Arabian Horse Purchase Price

The price varies wild­ly, depend­ing on lots of fac­tors. Cur­rent list­ed prices via the Ara­bi­an Horse Asso­ci­a­tion span the range from $500 to $155,000. A more typ­i­cal price range is $5,000 to $85,000. How­ev­er, the major­i­ty of Ara­bi­an hors­es will cost any­where from $5,000 to $20,000.

Factors Affecting Arabian Horse Purchase Price

1. Age

Arabian Horse History and Facts l Arabian Horse price l Arabian Horse price range l Arabian Horse life expectancy

The prime age for an Ara­bi­an horse is between 7–14. Hors­es that are old­er than this may still have a high­er cost than oth­ers, depend­ing on the con­di­tion of the horse and its abil­i­ty to breed. It’s impor­tant to remem­ber that hors­es don’t enter into senior sta­tus until around the age of 20, so hors­es that are fur­ther away from that age tend to cost a lit­tle more. You’ll invest more in younger hors­es over time than an old­er horse. Some younger hors­es may be more expen­sive. How­ev­er, you need to do oth­er pric­ing fac­tors that come into play dur­ing the pur­chase process.

2. Genetics and Bloodline

Hors­es can occur from strong blood­lines but have genet­ic issues that affect their health. An Ara­bi­an horse with a known health issue or a minor injury will be cheap­er than oth­er Ara­bi­ans. It is a good idea to bring in a trust­ed vet­eri­nar­i­an dur­ing the sales process if you look to save mon­ey this way to make sure that the over­all health prospects of the horse are still pos­i­tive when looked at in the long-term. Hors­es with strong Ara­bi­an blood­lines with a cham­pi­onship pedi­gree are going to fetch a high­er price.  If blood­lines are essen­tial to you, then the price of a horse with doc­u­ment­ed genet­ics is worth the invest­ment. If you’re look­ing for an Ara­bi­an that is more for recre­ation­al pur­pos­es, you can save some mon­ey by avoid­ing this pric­ing fac­tor. The World Ara­bi­an Horse Orga­ni­za­tion (WAHO) is respon­si­ble for cat­e­go­riz­ing and cat­a­loging Ara­bi­ans from var­i­ous fam­i­lies and may be help­ful if you have pric­ing ques­tions about an indi­vid­ual horse.

3. Personality

Ara­bi­ans are high­ly intel­li­gent hors­es. They are curi­ous, but not over­ly pushy in try­ing to find out what you are doing. Many are mild-man­nered, enjoy receiv­ing a lot of atten­tion, and will work with you with­out much of an issue. Some Ara­bi­ans used to be the Alpha Horse of their herd. Stal­lions, in par­tic­u­lar, can be some­what stub­born and aggres­sive, espe­cial­ly if their behav­iours have been allowed with­out any guid­ance or dis­ci­pline. When there is a hot-tem­pered Ara­bi­an, there is a good chance that the price for the horse is going to be low­er than a com­pa­ra­ble mild-man­nered horse. If you’re used to work­ing with hors­es and don’t mind imple­ment­ing some behav­iour mod­i­fi­ca­tion tech­niques, it is pos­si­ble to save sev­er­al thou­sand dol­lars in this cat­e­go­ry alone.

4. Coat Color

Arabian Horse History and Facts l Arabian Horse price l Arabian Horse price range l Arabian Horse life expectancy

Ara­bi­ans have black skin. This skin col­oration devel­oped in response to their orig­i­nal loca­tion in the APAC region and the Mid­dle East, where deserts are promi­nent. Most Ara­bi­ans will come in sol­id colour shade, includ­ing chest­nut, bay, gray, and black. Spe­cif­ic coat colours are sought after more than oth­ers, espe­cial­ly if the Ara­bi­an has more white mark­ings with­in the coat more than the aver­age. If you’re will­ing to set­tle for a lit­tle less than per­fec­tion in terms of coat appear­ance, then you can poten­tial­ly save a lot on the final price of your new Ara­bi­an horse.

5. Ongoing Costs

The ini­tial invest­ment into an Ara­bi­an horse is essen­tial to con­sid­er, but it is good to con­sid­er the ongo­ing costs as well. There will be vet­eri­nar­i­an ser­vices that must be pro­vid­ed to the horse reg­u­lar­ly, includ­ing vac­ci­na­tions, rou­tine phys­i­cal inspec­tions, and poten­tial emer­gen­cies. There are feed costs to con­sid­er, so even though you may pay an aver­age of $10,000 for the Ara­bi­an ini­tial­ly, you’ll like­ly be pay­ing an aver­age of $300-$600 per month to care for the horse. If you need to board your horse at a third-par­ty sta­ble because you don’t cur­rent­ly have the room to keep the Ara­bi­an on your prop­er­ty, then the ongo­ing costs may dou­ble.