According to the estimates published by the Food and Agriculture Organization for the United Nations (FAO), Romania, the United Kingdom (UK), and Germany had the highest number of horses among the countries of the old 28 country strong European Union.

Horses in human culture

Horses play a huge role in human cultures, with uses in leisure activities, sport and for working purposes. Equestrian sports, such as show jumping and dressage, focus on the level of control and balance between horse and rider, while working roles include mounted police units and search and rescue teams. Currently, there are over three hundred breeds of horse worldwide.

Equestrian sports on the British Isles

In 2019, around 18,400 companies worked on raising horses and other equines in Great Britain. Almost 5,500 horses were registered with the British Equestrian Federation, the UKs national body for equestrian sports. For more information about Equestrian sports in the UK visit our topic page.

In Ireland about 1,600 horses, that were aged six years or older, were in race horse training. On average the price of a race horse in the country came to over 28.5 thousand euros.

As of June 2017, there were approximately 170 thousand horses in England. While Scotland has a higher population than Wales there were roughly ten thousand horses less in Scottish ownership.

Private horse ownership

In the UK, about 45 percent of all households owned pets in 2017/2018. However, horses and ponies just miss a spot in the top ten of favorite UK household animals as only 0.3 percent of UK households own one of these animals. Its estimated that roughly 200 thousand of all horses are owned pets. The top spot by household ownership and by number of owned animals in the UK goes to the dog.

The horse as an economic factor

Over 18 thousand enterprises raised horses and other equines in the UK in 2017. The overwhelming majority of these made less than 250 thousand British pounds in revenue. However, five companies had revenues over five million pounds. This is a higher revenue than was made in total with off course horse racing between April 2017 and March 2018 (4.3 million British pounds).

Statistics illustrates most promising supplying countries of horses; live, pure-bred breeding animals in Poland from 2007 to 2024.

In 2022, there were approximately 18.4 thousand horses in Qatar. This was the biggest increase in the number of horses in the country in the period between 2018 and 2022, jumping by roughly 6000 horses. Since 2018, the number of horses in the country has consistently increased each subsequent year.

European Horses Producer Price by Country, 2022 Discover more data with ReportLinker!

Global Horse Meat Production by Country, 2023 Discover more data with ReportLinker!

Statistics illustrates most promising supplying countries of horses, asses, mules and hinnies; live in Latvia from 2007 to 2024.

In 2022, the horse stock in Mongolia was the highest in the Asia-Pacific region, leading with more than 4.8 million head of livestock. In comparison, Sri Lanka had about 152 thousand head of horses that year.

Global Horse Meat Production Share by Country (Metric Tons), 2023 Discover more data with ReportLinker!

Statistics illustrates most promising supplying countries of horses, asses, mules and hinnies; live, pure-bred breeding animals in Belarus from 2007 to 2024.

Global Import of Live Horses Except Pure-Bred Breeding by Country, 2023 Discover more data with ReportLinker!

Statistics illustrates most promising supplying countries of horses, asses, mules and hinnies; live, pure-bred breeding animals in Bahamas from 2007 to 2024.

Statistics illustrates most promising supplying countries of horses, asses, mules and hinnies; live, pure-bred breeding animals in China from 2007 to 2024.

The number of horses in South Africa amounted to almost 328 thousand as of 2021, the highest since 2010. Compared to the previous year, the horse population increased from nearly 325 thousand. Overall, the number of horses in the country increased annually from 300 thousand in 2010. Moreover, the number of horses slaughtered in South Africa amounted to 7.06 thousand in 2021.

The Arabian horse ignites imagination throughout the world. Populations of this breed exist in many countries, and recent genetic work has examined the diversity and ancestry of a few of these populations in isolation. Here we explore seven different populations of Arabians represented by 682 horses. Three of these are Middle Eastern populations from near the historical origin of the breed, including Syrian, Persian, and Saudi Arabian. The remaining Western populations are found in Europe (the Shagya-Arabian and Polish-Arabian) and America (American-Arabian). Analysis of genetic structure was carried out using 15 microsatellite loci. Genetic distances, AMOVA, factorial correspondence analysis and a Bayesian method were applied. The results consistently show higher level of diversity within the Middle Eastern populations than the Western populations. The Western Arabian populations were the main source of among populations variation. Genetic differentiation was not strong among all Middle Eastern populations, but all American-Arabians showed differentiation from Middle Eastern populations and were somewhat uniform among themselves. Here, we explore the diversities of many different populations of Arabian horses, and find that populations not from the Middle East have noticeably lower levels of diversity, which may adversely affect the health of these populations.

Global Import of Live Horses, Asses, Mules and Hinnies Share by Country (US Dollars), 2023 Discover more data with ReportLinker!

Statistics illustrates most promising supplying countries of horses, asses, mules and hinnies; live, pure-bred breeding animals in Uruguay from 2007 to 2024.

In 2023, there were around 15 thousand horses in Jeju, South Korea. Jeju had the largest horse population among cities and provinces in the country. It was followed by Gyeonggi province and Jeonbuk province.

Statistics illustrates most promising supplying countries of horses; live, pure-bred breeding animals in Namibia from 2007 to 2024.

Global Export of Live Pure-Bred Breeding Horses Share by Country (US Dollars), 2023 Discover more data with ReportLinker!