

"A wonderful resource that I refer to frequently which I think some of you may really enjoy studying!" - Liselle
How DNA works...
In 2023 Barb Bleicher privately funded a project to study and compare the DNA of Timor Ponies in Australia, Timor-Leste and New Zealand. The research was completed by Dr Brandon D Velie and his team at University of Sydney.
Results of this study are being shared on social media in 2025 after a long wait.
"During the release of DNA information from the Timor Pony DNA study, a lot of questions were coming through as well as assumptions that are not correct, but we can understand entirely how most people can land on those conclusions.
To help with explaining the reality of the things we are learning from this study, we have put together a simple mock breeding experiment using beads which is easy to follow and visualise as we work on 'breeding' ponies in our bead simulation.
During the release of DNA information from the Timor Pony DNA study, a lot of questions were coming through as well as assumptions that are not correct, but we can understand entirely how most people can land on those conclusions.
To help with explaining the reality of the things we are learning from this study, we have put together a simple mock breeding experiment using beads which is easy to follow and visualise as we work on 'breeding' ponies in our bead simulation.

VIDEO LIBRARY - Exploring Horse Evolution
A look into the history of the horse, the Tarpan, the Przewalski Horse and the Konik Heck Horse.










Evolution & Domestication of Horses
Przewalski Wild Horses
Tarpan - Horse Ancestor
This website is a work in progress. Please reach out to correct and update information. We would like to feature great educational videos, photos of real horses proving their versatility and strengths, accurate preservation status numbers, news on the breeds from NZ and overseas, up to date contacts, links to websites, registries and associated entities for the breeds and more. In some instances placeholder or international images have been used where some nice local horses could be, we use what we can find at the time (hopefully without getting in trouble). We appreciate images supplied if you have any New Zealand based images.