The Samolaco is a rare breed of

horse The horse (''Equus ferus caballus'') is a domesticated, one-toed, hoofed mammal. It belongs to the taxonomic family Equidae and is one of two extant subspecies of ''Equus ferus''. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million y ...

originating from the

Valchiavenna The Valchiavenna is an alpine valley in the province of Sondrio, in Lombardy in northern Italy. It lies to the north of Lake Como, and is traversed by the rivers Mera and Liro. It can be divided into three parts which branch from the confl ...

and

Valtellina Valtellina or the Valtelline (occasionally spelled as two words in English: Val Telline; rm, Vuclina (); lmo, Valtelina or ; german: Veltlin; it, Valtellina) is a valley in the Lombardy region of northern Italy, bordering Switzerland. Toda ...

, in

Lombardy Lombardy ( it, Lombardia, Lombard language, Lombard: ''Lombardia'' or ''Lumbardia' '') is an administrative regions of Italy, region of Italy that covers ; it is located in the northern-central part of the country and has a population of about 10 ...

, northern Italy. It takes its name from the town of

Samolaco Samolaco is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Province of Sondrio in the Italian region Lombardy, located about north of the regional capital Milan and about northwest of Sondrio. As of 31 December 2005, it had a population of 2,913 and an are ...

, near

Chiavenna Chiavenna ( lmo, Ciavèna ; la, Clavenna; rm, Clavenna or ''Claven''; archaic german: Cläven or ''Kleven'') is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Province of Sondrio in the northern Italian region of Lombardy. It is the centre of the Alpine ...

in the province of

Sondrio Sondrio (; lmo, Sùndri; rm, Sunder; archaic german: Sünders or ; la, Sundrium) is an Italian city and ''comune'' and Provincial Capital located in the heart of the Valtellina. , Sondrio counts approximately 21,876 inhabitants (2015) and it is ...

. Gravely endangered, it is not among the fifteen indigenous horse "breeds of limited distribution" recognised by the AIA, the Italian breeders' association. The population is listed in

DAD-IS DAD-IS is the acronym of the worldwide Domestic Animal Diversity Information System of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, within the FAO's management of animal genetic resources programme.Domestic Animal Diversity Infor ...

as over 12 in 1994, and under 100 in 1998; one further example of the breed may have been identified during a television broadcast.

History

The Samolaco is thought to have originated from inter-breeding between

indigenous Indigenous may refer to: *Indigenous peoples *Indigenous (ecology), presence in a region as the result of only natural processes, with no human intervention *Indigenous (band), an American blues-rock band *Indigenous (horse), a Hong Kong racehorse ...

animals and

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 ...

s abandoned in about the seventeenth century by the garrisons of Spanish fortifications in the areas known as Trivio di Fuentes and

Pian di Spagna The Riserva Naturale Pian di Spagna e Lago di Mezzola is a nature reserve in Lombardy, Italy. The reserve consists of the Lago di Mezzola and the wetland area which separates it from Lake Como, the Pian di Spagna. It includes parts of the comun ...

, which were surrendered to Prince Eugène of Savoy in 1706. The

FAO The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)french: link=no, Organisation des Nations unies pour l'alimentation et l'agriculture; it, Organizzazione delle Nazioni Unite per l'Alimentazione e l'Agricoltura is an intern ...

describes the breed as a composite of Andalusian and local populations. The horses were usually stabled during the winter and transhumed to higher alpine pasture in summer. Powerful

Bruna Alpina Bruna may refer to: __NOTOC__ People First name *Bruna Amarante da Silva (born 1984), Brazilian footballer *Bruna Benites (born 1985), Brazilian footballer *Bruna Linzmeyer (born 1992), Brazilian actress *Bruna Marquezine (born 1995), Brazilian mode ...

oxen were preferred for agricultural and forestry work in the area, and the Samolaco was never widely distributed. Production of

horsemeat Horse meat forms a significant part of the culinary traditions of many countries, particularly in Eurasia. The eight countries that consume the most horse meat consume about 4.3 million horses a year. For the majority of humanity's early existen ...

was not economically attractive, and raising of the breed was largely abandoned. The few horses seen in the 1980s were gravely degenerated, with poorly conformed legs and heavy heads; their pale

chestnut The chestnuts are the deciduous trees and shrubs in the genus ''Castanea'', in the beech family Fagaceae. They are native to temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere. The name also refers to the edible nuts they produce. The unrelat ...

colouring may be attributed to the systematic introduction of Avelignese blood, which was at first a programme of improvement but effectively became one of outright substitution. The Samolaco is discussed in detail by Fogliata (1910):

References

{{Horse breeds of Italy Horse breeds Horse breeds originating in Italy