Donna Adams, age 11, of Minden, Louisiana, for her question:

Which is the oldest breed of horse on record?

A breed is taken to be a strain of domestic animals, produced by selecting animal parents with special qualities. The offspring inherit the qualities of their parents. Before the dawn of history, our ancestors began selecting their superior horses to get superior offspring. But they left no records of these earliest breeds.

Picture the prehistoric world, when countless herds of wild woolly ponies roamed the grassy savannahs of Europe and Asia. The horses of one herd tended to differ from another. Nobody knows from which herds mankind selected his first tame or partly tame horses. But some selections were superior and some became the ancestors of special breeds.

Naturally, the early breeds were not recorded in the strict modern sense. But at least one was not forgotten. His magnificent portrait was painted on walls and carved in Greek temples. He is called the Oriental Horse because it is thought that his ancestors were wild ponies of Asia. Several thousand years ago, he became the ancestor of the oldest official breed on record. This is the small, sturdy Arab horse, handsome and graceful and fast. His splendid qualities seem too good to be true and this famous horse is among the ancestors of all the 100 or so recognized modern breeds.

The conquering Romans introduced oriental type horses throughout Europe. People bred them with their native ponies. In the Netherlands, they were crossed to produce a strain called the Great Horse, a whopping charger to carry heavily armored knights. In 1715, a Great Horse from Holland was taken to Scotland, where he became the ancestor of the magnificent Clydesdale breed. Other breeds of heavy draft and work horses also descended from other big horses of the Middle Ages.

The conquering Moors bred their Arabs with native Spanish horses, producing the sturdy strains that came to the New World. Early in the 1800s, Charles II imported three very famous Arab stallions for his English mares. They fathered the stout hearted, fleet footed breed of racers known as the Thoroughbreeds.

The best horses tend to produce the best offs spring. But certain parents have a special quality of transmitting their superior qualities through countless generations. When carefully selected, they become the ancestors of special strains or breeds.

One such horse was Janus of Virginia. In the 1750s and 1760s, he fathered the famous quarter horse breed a sturdy strain renowned as fast, short distance sprinters. Another was a horse born in Vermont in 1793. He fathered the very stylish, light breed called the Morgan horse. Among the ancestors of these and other fine horses we find at least one Arab, the oldest breed on record.