Go Horse – Discovering the "ZEBRALLO"

The Zebrallo or “Zorse” is the mongrel which borns from the cross between a horse and a zebra , generally a male zebra and a female specimen of horse but it is also possible to make a cross between a female zebra and a male horse. There are also crossings with donkeys from which the “Zonkey” borns or the crossing with a pony , the “Zony” . These kind of crosses were made by the Boers in 1800 to give birth to a strong and muscular animal to mainly for the burden and the transport of weapons and food during the wars against England. Cossar Ewart was the first to systematically made a zebra and a horse cross for scientific studies. Discover now all our travels, tours, holidays and horse trekking in Africa. Mongrels tend to assume the morphology of the horse with the color of the coat influenced by the inherited streaks of the zebra, usually seen on the limbs and the neck, but they can also be seen on the back and the head.

In case of crossing with piebald horses, the coat has parts with striped patches and others without stripes. Like most of mongrels, Zebrallo horses are basically sterile due to the genetic heritage of the two species: in fact, horses have 64 chromosomes while the various species of zebras may have between 32 and 46 chromosomes, so most of the mongrels which born from the cross between the two species often have 54 chromosomes. The Zebrallo horses are particularly strong and resistant , they have a more docile character than the zebras, even thought they may not be easy to treat and train; however they can also be trained and used as a saddle or a carthorse. They are rustic animals, they resist to some strains of endemic diseases, they are very healthy and often reach the age of 30.