A mare is an adult female horse or other equine.
In most cases, a mare is a female horse over the age of three, and a filly is a female horse age three and younger. However, in Thoroughbred horse racing, a mare is defined as a female horse more than four years old. The word can also be used for other female equine animals, particularly mules and zebras, though a female donkey is usually called a "jenny." A broodmare is a mare used for breeding. A horse's female parent is known as its dam.
An adult male horse is called a stallion, or, if castrated, a gelding. Occasionally the term "horse" is used in a restrictive sense to designate only a male horse.
Read more about Mare: Reproductive Cycle, Behavior, Uses, Etymology
Famous quotes containing the word mare:
“All but blind
In his chambered hole
Gropes for worms
The four-clawed Mole.”
—Walter De La Mare (1873–1956)
“A harvest mouse goes scampering by,
With silver claws and silver eye;
And moveless fish in the water gleam,
By silver reeds in a silver stream.”
—Walter De La Mare (1873–1956)
“Nature has not placed us in an inferior rank to men, no more than the females of other animals, where we see no distinction of capacity, though I am persuaded if there was a commonwealth of rational horses ... it would be an established maxim amongst them that a mare could not be taught to pace.”
—Mary Wortley, Lady Montagu (1689–1762)