Between Wilderness and Tradition: Explore Free Horses in Europe | Speaker at Wild Horse Summit 2025

Are there any wild horses in Europe? Haven't they died out? Are all wild horses dun coloured with zebra markings? Where can Free Horses be found in Europe? What are their traditions? Are horses connected to heritage? And why do I photograph rare and endangered horse breed?
This video gives and introduction to my photography, my motivation and my projects Forgotten Horses, Free Horses and Heritage Horses.

I was part of the 2025 Wild Horse Virtual Summit: Putting the “A” in Advocacy – Arming Yourself with Knowledge to Effectively Advocate — as a speaker, referring about Free Horses in Europe, some of their success stories with the aim to educate and inspire.

Here is the full 60 minutes presentation with a following Q&A discussion. The time frame of the discussion was short, so I invite everybody to connect with me if you have further questions or would like to discuss about Free Horses in Europe and the world, rare and endangered breeds, photography, travel, horses and heritage, .... you name it!

00:00 Welcome to the presentation
01:50 Trailer Explore Free Horses
06:10 Start of presentation
07:48 Photographing Haflinger horses
10:39 Discovering rare horse breeds
12:02 Start of Forgotten Horses
15:40 Discovering Free Horses
17:17 Where do Wild Horses come from?
22:17 Wild Horse Romance
26:22 Defining Types of Free Horses in Europe
43:19 Diversity is cultural
48:19 Horses become cultural heritage
54:28 Heritage through sustainability
57:30 Success Stories
1:07:27 Summary Inspiration
1:09:25 Thank you and start of Q&A

Originally uploaded on @ChasingHorsesWildHorseAd-vj8hm — I have edited the transcript so that the technical terms, locations and horse breeds are correct. This makes it easier to translate the subtitles into other languages. I have added chapter markers to make it easier to browse through the presentation.

Breeds featured in photo, video and/or context: Haflinger, Pfalz-Ardenner Kaltblut, Exmoor Pony, Konik Polski, Heck Pferd, Dülmener Wildpferd, Liebenthaler Wildling, Przewalski / Takhi, Camargue, Altér Real Lusitano, Sorraia, Garrano, Cabalo Galego, Asturcón, Losino, Pottok, Monchino, Cavall Pirinenc Català, Mérens, Bosnian Mountain Horse, Hucul, New Forest Pony, Noriker, Lipizzaner, Icelandic, Gidran, Noniusz, Kisber Felver, Deutsches Sportpferd.

LINKS used in this presentation:
• FAO Biodiversity Report 2019: https://www.fao.org/interactive/state-of-biodiversity-for-food-agriculture/en/
• UNESCO heritage + horses: https://www.unesco.org/en/search?category=UNESCO&text=horse
• Rewilding Europe and Horses: https://rewildingeurope.com/rewilding-in-action/wildlife-comeback/wild-horses/

YouTube snippets used in this educational content - please visit their channels:
"Leonhardt-Ritt" by @DiscoverTheHorse
„Wildpferdefang“ by @WELTDoku
„Caballos Salvajes“ by @JuanRayosFilms

Wild Horses are a symbol of freedom, especially the iconic Mustang from North America has been a dream of every horse girl and boy at least once. I think, almost everybody has been in touch with pictures of wild Mustangs before. Although today in Europe the horse is being reintroduced in nature, the horses in Northern America and Australia are having a hard time, subject to be "removed" by rounding up in inhumane ways or even killing them. I think, even most horse lovers do not know about this.
Wild horse advocates have been fighting for better management for years, however there are only few successes, for complex reasons. 

The Wild Horse Summit 2025 is an initiative to connect, educate and learn about wild horses, tools and offering ideas and inspiration, how to protect free roaming horses. Each of the 35 talks are a mention and I recommend checking the YouTube channel of Chasing Wild Horses to watch them. Some talks are very wide and an introduction into a topic or specific herds, others are rather specific and tailored around a detailed problem of the wild Mustangs in the US, and third there are talks offering tools of advocacy that can be used universally.
@ChasingHorsesWildHorseAd-vj8hm
@saveourwildhorses7261
@WildNarrativeProject


???? Photos and videos by Cécile Zahorka, www.thepixelnomad.com
Cécile is an award-winning photographer and author of the book „Forgotten Horses“. In search of rare, endangered, free-living and traditional horse breeds, she has already photographed over 100 horse breeds for her projects with the aim of raising awareness of endangered, free roaming and heritage horse breeds and contributing to the preservation of the diversity of horse breeds. Discover the world of horses through her photography and videography!

???? Read more about my travels and photography of rare horse breeds in my book FORGOTTEN HORSES! Get your copy now signed by the author (myself ✍️????????‍♀️) on my website www.thepixelnomad.com

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