Dosanko
Japanese breed of horse
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Dosanko (道産子)[a] is a Japanese breed of small horse. It is one of eight extant indigenous horse breeds of Japan, and the only one of them not critically endangered.[2]: 8 It originated on the island of Hokkaido, in the far north of the country, and is found particularly along the Pacific (eastern) coast of the island.[3] The people of Hokkaido may be nicknamed "Dosanko" after the horses.[4]: 37
History
Japanese horses are thought to derive from stock brought at several different times from various parts of the Asian mainland; the first such importations took place by the sixth century at the latest.[5] Horses were used for farming – as pack-animals although not for draught power; until the advent of firearms in the later sixteenth century, they were much used for warfare.[2]: 67 The horses were not large: remains of some 130 horses have been excavated from battlefields dating to the Kamakura period (1185–1333 AD); they ranged from 110 to 140 cm in height at the withers.[2]: 67
The Dosanko is thought to derive from horses brought to the island from the Tōhoku region of north-eastern Honshu in the late Tokugawa period (1603–1868), and abandoned there.[4]: 37
Total numbers of the breed grew from 1180 in 1973 to almost 3000 head in the early 1990s, but by the year 2000 had fallen to 1950 horses.[2]: table 10 A herd-book was established in 1979.[6]: 12 [3] Hokkaido University receives a grant to study conservation measures for the breed.[2]: 11
The conservation status of the Dosanko was listed by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations as "not at risk" in 2007.[1]: 71 Population data has not been reported to DAD-IS since 2008, when there were 1254 horses, and in 2025 the conservation status of the breed was not known.[3]
Notes
- Also known as the Hokkaido Horse (北海道馬, Hokkaido uma) or Hokkaido Pony (北海道ポニー, Hokkaido ponii)
