horse breed
A horse breed is a selectively bred population of domesticated horses, often with pedigrees recorded in a breed registry. However, the term is sometimes used in a broader sense to define landrace animals of a common phenotype located within a lim ...
. The breed is thought to have origins in the horses bred by
Mormon
Mormons are a religious and cultural group related to Mormonism, the principal branch of the Latter Day Saint movement started by Joseph Smith in upstate New York during the 1820s. After Smith's death in 1844, the movement split into several ...
people in Utah during the mid-1800s, and it is believed that the Moyle horse of today was bred by Rex Moyle in the mid 20th century, incorporating
Mustangs
The mustang is a free-roaming horse of the Western United States, descended from horses brought to the Americas by the Spanish. Mustangs are often referred to as wild horses, but because they are descended from once-domesticated animals, they ...
and
Cleveland Bay
The Cleveland Bay is a breed of horse that originated in England during the 17th century, named after its colouring and the Cleveland district of Yorkshire. It is a well-muscled horse, with legs that are strong but short in relation ...
s into the lineage. DNA studies in the 1990s indicated that the Moyle horse has genetic markers suggesting some common ancestry with the
Spanish Horse
This is a list of the list of horse breeds, breeds of horse native to the Iberian peninsula, and considered in Portugal and Spain to have originated wholly or partly in those countries. Inclusion here does not necessarily imply that a breed is ...
. Moyle horses often have small frontal skull bosses, referred to as "horns" on their foreheads, a trait seen only in a few breeds, such as the Carthusian horse of Spain. They are also noted for unusual freedom of movement in the shoulder, associated with the positioning of their forelegs a bit farther forward than other breeds.
The Moyle is most commonly
brown
Brown is a color. It can be considered a composite color, but it is mainly a darker shade of orange. In the CMYK color model used in printing or painting, brown is usually made by combining the colors orange and black. In the RGB color model used ...
or bay, but comes in almost all solid coat colors. They rarely have face or leg markings.