Bireme (horse)

Bireme (2 May 1977 – January 10, 2002) was a British Thoroughbred racehorse and broodmare best known for winning the classic Epsom Oaks in 1980. After winning one of her two starts in 1979, she won the Musidora Stakes on her three-year-old debut before winning the Oaks in record time. Later that summer she broke loose during a training session and sustained career-ending injuries. She was retired to stud with a record of three wins in four races and has had some influence as a broodmare.

Background

Bireme was a chestnut mare with a white blaze bred by her owner Richard Dunbavin "Dick" Hollingsworth at his Arches Hall Stud in Hertfordshire. She was one of the first crop of foals sired by Grundy, an outstanding racehorse who won the Epsom Derby and the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes in 1975. Grundy went on to sire several other good winners, but his stock tended to be slow-maturing stayers and he was sold and exported to Japan in 1983.

Bireme's dam Ripeck was a highly successful broodmare whose other offspring included the Queen Alexandra Stakes winner Balinger and the Coronation Cup winner Buoy. Ripeck was a granddaughter of the Hollingsworth family's influential broodmare Felucca, whose other descendants included Cut Above (St Leger Stakes), Sharp Edge (Irish 2000 Guineas), Longboat (Ascot Gold Cup), Bolas (Irish Oaks), Dash for Cash (Australian Guineas) and Daffodil (AJC Oaks).

Horse

The horse (Equus ferus caballus) is one of two extant subspecies of Equus ferus. It is an odd-toed ungulate mammal belonging to the taxonomic family Equidae. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature, Hyracotherium, into the large, single-toed animal of today. Humans began to domesticate horses around 4000 BC, and their domestication is believed to have been widespread by 3000 BC. Horses in the subspecies caballus are domesticated, although some domesticated populations live in the wild as feral horses. These feral populations are not true wild horses, as this term is used to describe horses that have never been domesticated, such as the endangered Przewalski's horse, a separate subspecies, and the only remaining true wild horse. There is an extensive, specialized vocabulary used to describe equine-related concepts, covering everything from anatomy to life stages, size, colors, markings, breeds, locomotion, and behavior.

Horses' anatomy enables them to make use of speed to escape predators and they have a well-developed sense of balance and a strong fight-or-flight response. Related to this need to flee from predators in the wild is an unusual trait: horses are able to sleep both standing up and lying down. Female horses, called mares, carry their young for approximately 11 months, and a young horse, called a foal, can stand and run shortly following birth. Most domesticated horses begin training under saddle or in harness between the ages of two and four. They reach full adult development by age five, and have an average lifespan of between 25 and 30 years.

Horse (disambiguation)

A horse is a hoofed mammal of the species Equus ferus caballus.

Horse or Horses may also refer to:

Animals

Arts and entertainment

Horse (1941 film)

Uma (馬, also known as Horse) is a 1941 black-and-white Japanese film directed by Kajiro Yamamoto and starring Hideko Takamine, whom Yamamoto had directed in his film Composition Class (Tsuzurikata Kyōshitsu) three years before. Uma was actually completed by assistant director Akira Kurosawa. It follows the story of Ine Onoda, the eldest daughter of a poor family of farmers, who raises a colt from birth and comes to love the horse dearly. When the horse is grown, the government orders it auctioned and sold to the army. Ine struggles to prevent the sale.

Overview

The film is a tale about a young girl and the colt she raises from its birth. But it is also about the struggle of farmers existing on the edge of poverty. Akira Kurosawa is credited as the film's production coordinator, which is equivalent to first assistant director. But Kurosawa's signature is all over this work and is the last film he was to work on as an assistant before starting his own directing career. The film took three years to plan and a year to film. Kajiro Yamamoto had to commute to the far mountainous location but had to turn his attention to his money making comedies in Tokyo and so he left production in the hands of his assistant, Kurosawa.