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The first horse-related animal to appear on earth was right after the dinosaurs went extinct. They were some of the first mammals.

Answer:

The very early ancestors of horses such as Condylarth, were a dog-sized, five-toed creature that lived about 75 million years ago during the early Eocene period. At that time these horse ancestors had feet that were more like rabbit's feet - toes and claws. As the need to run became more important in their lives ( maybe as they left forests to live in grasslands) the faster animals survived. These individuals probably ran more on their toe tips than flat footed. Subsequent generations improved on this trait until the predecessor of modern horses (Eohippus) ran on just one toe tip with a hard hoof, not a claw to provide protection from the ground. Since then horsed grew to be bigger. Men first hunted them for food. The penned them up for food, domesticating them in the process some 5000 years BCE. Eventually we learned to ride them and use them for basts of burden. These ancestral tame horses were bred into the various types we see today.

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16y ago

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