Half wilde horse The Konik. (Geuzenbos)

The Tarpan (Equus ferus ferus) lived in the Ukraine and eastern Europe and became extinct in the wild around 1897. It is commonly thought to be the predominant ancestor of the domesticated horse. In the 1930s a group of dedicated breeders began a program to try to "breed back" to the tarpan from existing domestic horses. They selected breeds that most closely resembled descriptions of the original tarpan and by selective breeding produced an animal that probably gives a good idea of what the original wild European horse looked like.

The most successful and legitimate efforts were made in Poland and centered on the konik, which is thought to retain a high percentage of tarpan genetic material. The Munich zoo produced a tarpan-like horse by selectively breeding domestic horses known to have tarpan ancestry.4 There now are about 200 tarpan-like horses at field stations in Poland and others are established at zoos in Europe and the United States.3

I blipped this "old" male in "het Geuzenbos" where we walk the dogs. Once we were attact. A male came running from the bushes as we were walking over the open gras. A friend shouted and waved her arms as I was getting the dogs away. Somewhat frightning but usually they are friendly as they were today.