Bob Millers age 11 of Columbus Ohio for his question:

What was the first horse like?

The Spaniards pranced through the New World on fine noble horses. The sight of the horsemen often terrified the Indians. Many a bold brave scampered to his teepee in panic, For he thought that the horse and rider were one„ And the strange new creature was very alarming to him. Horses had never been seen by the original Americans until the Spaniards brought them here, No one knew then that America was the cradle land of the horse,'

The New World was the hone of the ancestor of the proud modern horse, Here the horse family grew and developed through the ages, To see the first of them we must go back in time some 50 million years. The climate then was warms, and gentle. Palm trees grew in the northwest, Alligators wallowed in the rivers as far north as Canada, Alaska was a land of tropical floweret of magnolias  and fig trees.

The western plains were lush with green forests with elm beech oak and chestnut, The grass was soft and plentiful. The four‑footed animals were small. There were little foxes and deer: and camels no bigger than dogs.

And the horses were small too.  We call this horse of long ago the Dawn Horsey Eohippus, For this is the first we know of the noble family tree of the horse, The Dawn Horses were no bigger than present‑day foxes, In their day they were hunted by the ancestors of the modern fox,

The Dawn Horse was beautiful, His back and his neck were gracefully arched, He wore a mane and a flowing tail, He grazed on the soft grasses and he browsed in the lush forests,

From floor to shoulder level the little horse was about eleven inches tall, He had no hooves and he had soft teeth, He pranced over the ground on 14 little toes, Each front foot had four toes# each back foot had three, The big modern horse is descended from this shy. defenseless little animal.

But Dawn Horse did not remain defenseless through the ages, He grew stronger and swifter and he developed in the face of trouble and hardship.

For the beautiful climate grew colder and drier, The soft grasses perished and tough grasses grew in their stead. Only the horses with the strongest teeth could cope with this kind of food, Only horses with strong teeth lived to have children. In a few million years all the horses left had strong well‑wearing teeth,

In the same way the horses grew bigger, Only the big ones could escape the bigger enemies. They grew swift by standing on tiptoes.  In time the one tiptoe on each foot became a hoof fine for kicking and speedy takeoffs. The other toes wasted away.

It took 40 million years for little Dawn Horse to develop, Meanwhile some of his relatives had trotted over land bridges to Asia and as far as Europe, Those that stayed home perished •• we do not know why, The Spaniards brought some of these roving relatives back home to the cradle land of their ancestors.