Mare

Mares carry their young (called foals) for approximately 11 months from conception to birth.

Therefore, many breeding farms begin to put mares "under lights" in late winter in order to bring them out of anestrus early and allow conception to occur in February or March.

One exception to this general rule is the field of endurance riding, which requires horses to be 60 true calendar months old (5 years) before competing at longer distances.

The results of a study by the Sydney School of Veterinary Science suggested that women riders have gendered assumptions about the suitability of mares, geldings and stallions for different disciplines and for different riders and chose different and more negative descriptors for the behavior of mares.

[citation needed] Mares are used in every equestrian sport and usually compete equally with stallions and geldings in most events, though some competitions may offer classes open only to one sex of horse or another, particularly in breeding or "in-hand" conformation classes.

However, a few fillies and mares have won classic horse races against colts, including the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe, the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness Stakes, the Belmont Stakes, the Melbourne Cup and the Breeders' Cup Classic.

However, other cultures preferred male horses over mares either due to a desire for more aggressive behavior in a fighting animal, or to not be inconvenienced with a loss of work ability due to a mare's pregnancy, parturition and lactation.

[8] However, one hypothesis links these Indo-European words to Mongolian морь [11] (mori, horse).

[12] [13] In addition, the Wiktionary entry for морь [11] includes a comparison to possibly related words for horse in Korean, Manchu, Chinese (馬/马 mǎ), Japanese (うま uma), and old formal Arabic is Mahrمهر One possible derived term is a mare's nest, an expression for "excitement over something which does not exist".

[8] The term nightmare, is not directly connected etymologically with the word for female horse, but rather to homophones that meant "incubus" or "goblin".