Something atypical among zebras

 A mysterious and famous blue horse in South Africa

   The horse family, especially in the domestic horse branch, is full of mysterious cases and controversial members, disconcerting anecdotes and above all, unsolved mysteries, as is the case that we will see today, a possible horse with a rare mutation, come with me, Thanks for reading, and without further ado, let's get started.

A strange blue hairless horse 

  A fascinating and at the same time intriguing case, which has never been solved,

According to the story of a strange horse found in South Africa during 1860, a trader named Lashmar found it with a herd of grazing quaggas, noticing this something that was very strange and different from these, and suddenly saw in their midst a strange looking creature that was drastically different in appearance from the others, and discover to his astonishment that it was not a quagga at all, but a hairless blue horse, grazing free, once he had convinced himself that this was really real, He quickly recognized its great value as an outstanding novelty for display purposes and therefore lost no time in successfully capturing it, after which he was able to closely study its extraordinary appearance. , recording the following details:

Its skin was soft and delicate in texture, it felt like rubber to the touch, and very warm, and formed curious wrinkles when the animal moved, recalling the more ornate and ostentatious folds and folds of skin that the shar-pei dog sported, however, unlike the latter, the horse had no hair and did not even possess roots, in color, its skin was blue-mauve on most of its body, but with a beige face and a large spot of the same color that extended over the middle of his back with numerous dark spots, his tail resembled that of a pig, In general appearance and seen from a distance, this singular steed appeared to have been sculptured from some rare variety of oriental blue marble.

After capturing him, Lashmar sent him to the Cape Colony in South Africa, from where he was taken to England in 1863, where he was trained at Astley's and ridden for three parts of the season with Lord Stamford's hounds, he was also examined by Professor Spooner of the Veterinary College, London, who gave a lecture on his unique appearance to his students, was loved by MrÁMoffat, in February 1868 it was exhibited at the famous Crystal Palace in London, but its original blue coloration had gradually faded since its capture, transforming into a rather more nondescript Elizabethan grey. According to Moffat, the horse was 14.2 hands tall (i.e. just under five feet tall), It had a symmetrical shape and performed well in harness, but required warm clothing due to its hairless nature.

 In the end, after his purchase, little was documented about his life, losing everything about him and falling into oblivion.

Oddities and more oddities

Due to this forgetfulness, the reason for its strange appearance has never been explained, in addition to the fact that nothing similar has been seen, the only example that is remembered in some way is a mare also captured in South Africa, unlike the Lashmar specimen, had a normal coat of hair, but the hair itself was blue, and this was only seen in 1909 and it was a very light blue, that is, It is almost white, with the exception of the mane, tail and legs, which are bluish, and a black star on the forehead. The mare is about 7 years old.

It is curious that this animal mutation has only been seen in South Africa, and even more curious is that it has not been seen among wild quaggas. Where did it come from? Is it a known breed? A wild species? Is it still possible that it exists? For certain, due to more than a century and a half of oblivion it is impossible to know, even so there are more records of supposed bald horses, but so far none comparable to his fame.

[Reading links]

https://karlshuker.blogspot.com/2010/03/blue-horse-of-south-africa.html?m=1