It is one of eight Japanese native horse breeds, and lives as a feral horse in a natural setting in a designated National Monument on Cape Toi (also known as Toimisaki) within the municipal boundaries of Kushima at the south end of Miyazaki Prefecture on the island of Kyūshū.

[2]: 16 Japanese horses are thought to derive from stock brought at several different times from various parts of the Asian mainland; the first such importations took place by the sixth century at the latest.

[3] Horses were used for farming – as pack-animals although not for draught power; until the advent of firearms in the later sixteenth century, they were much used for warfare.

[citation needed] The Misaki and the area in which it lives, Cape Toi, were declared a Natural Monument in 1953 (Shōwa 28).[5].

[8]: 379  In 2011, twelve horses of the Misaki herd gave positive Coggins test results for equine infectious anaemia.