Hot-blooded horse

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A hot-blooded horse is an unscientific term from the field of horse breeding, coined by orientalists and popularized by various hippologists. It refers to a light horse with a lively temperament, primarily the oriental horse breeds of North Africa, the Near East and Central Asia. Such a name is also applied to some horse breeds descended from horses from these geographical regions, such as the Thoroughbred, Anglo-Arabian, and Namib horse.

In the French language, the expression cheval à sang chaud (hot-blooded horse) comes from a class conflict between the bourgeoisie and the aristocracy, from the end of the 18th century. In this context, great importance is given to the genealogy and the "purity" of the animals' blood. The Polish aristocrat and orientalist Wenceslas Severin Rzewuski established a classification of horses by blood temperature in his notes from a trip to the Arabian Najd, from 1817 to 1819. He classifies the Arabian and the Thoroughbred among the breeds with the hottest blood. In reality, horses of all breeds are warm-blooded mammals and have the same body temperature. The notion of a "hot-blooded" horse is nevertheless taken up in later hippological writings, and remains in use today.

Hot-blooded horses are saddle and sport animals, known for their liveliness, finesse, and emotional nature. A positive value judgment often accompanies this concept of a "blood" horse. It is used, in particular, in art and in the spread of hippophagy, as it is said that the qualities of the animal are supposed to be transmitted to human beings.