Episode 08: All About Friesians

Hello! Welcome to Flip N Tails: a tiny podcast for BIG horse lovers! I’m a horse girl who loves to ride and each week I’ll share about what I learn and love about horses. Today’s episode is number eight and it’s all about the Friesian horse.

What are they? A horse or a pony?

Well, they’re not a pony, they’re a horse. And in fact they’re such a big horse, 15 hands or more they might be bigger, that they’re kind of leaning into the draft part. And a draft, in case you don’t know what that means, it’s basically like “pull horses” or the bigger [carriage] horses.

Describe them

The first thing I want to say was that they have really long wavy manes. And that’s one of the reasons I can tell them out of a big line or a crowd. And they have big tails. At the bottom of their hooves they have extra hair. It’s kind of like an extra feature that mostly only they have and I think that’s really cool. And whenever you look at them, it looks like you put a gloss on them because they really pretty and the sunlight and stuff.

What are they known for?

There about 8,000 of them in the United States. And they’ve actually have been about to go extinct for three times.

Some characteristics

They’re really lovable. They have an easy temperament. They don’t have slim faces, but they have where its straight and then it goes up for a bit of a bump and then it goes down. So some of the influences are the Spanish horse, the Barb horse and the Forest horse.

Warm Blooded, Cold Blooded, Hot Blooded

You probably know that all reptiles are cold blooded. And all mammals are warm blooded. So horses are definitely warm blooded. If you’re talking about temperament, that’s a whole different thing. Because if you hear like, “Oh a Friesian is cold blooded” and you’re like, what, a Friesian is a reptile? No, it’s not a reptile, it’s a mammal. But the person who probably said that was talking about their temperament. The temperament is like, cold blooded would be peaceful, nice, kind. Warm blooded would be trainable and athletic. Hot blooded would be like, ooh let’s go! let’s go! let’s go! let’s go! A racehorse type thing.

What makes them different?

They’re good for pulling because they’re really strong and they can pull bigger loads and things. And a long time ago they were war horses. You might have heard me say that Arabians were war horses on Episode 2: All About Arabians. Those are kind of a cross over because Arabians and Friesians are both pull horses and they’re both war horses because they’re both really strong and they’re both good with moving around fast.

What makes them so cool?

They have a nice soft trot. It’s not like: dum dum dum dum dum dum, it’s like DUM DUM DUM DUM. Whereas most horses are like dum DUM dum DUM dum DUM dum DUM. They have a slower trot because I’m pretty sure they’re a bigger horse so it takes them a little longer to push themselves up into a trot and then go backdown and then push themselves up if you know what I mean by that?

Dressage Horses

Another fun fact, their backs are really straight. I mean, not like the straightest you would ever see, they’re straighter than most ones because they’re actually dressage horses. And in dressage, they’re looking for the horse and the rider are connecting together, and that’s a lot easier to do with a flat back. When you have a flat back, it’s easier to do posting, it’s easier to do diagonal, it’s easier to do trotting, it’s easier to do cantering, it’s easier to do all of that stuff. And so that’s why they’re dressage horses. They have really thick necks. They also have thick things of mane as I said earlier. Perfect for braiding if you’re doing dressage, or if you just want to braid it.

Famous example of a Friesian

A famous example of one is, if you guys have ever watched the Netflix series Free Rein, there’s a main character horse gelding, it’s called Raven [in the show] and it was a Friesian cross and it’s called Maca.

So that’s it! Now you know a tiny bit more about this special horse. Join us next time and subscribe for another episode of Flip N Tails: a tiny podcast for BIG horse lovers!