Chicago Museum Offers Horse Exhibition

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From clinics, to expos, to lessons with trainers, we have many equine education tools at our fingertips. A new exhibition, however, at The Field Museum of Chicago, invites visitors to see horses in a different way: the machines that helped create the modern world.

The Horse is a comprehensive exhibition that tells the story of the how the horse became the most important animal ever to interact with humans. It features fossils, models, dioramas and cultural objects. The exhibition runs through August 14.

Highlights of the exhibition include equipment such as a full suit of armor from 15th-century Germany and a horse-drawn fire engine from the 19th century. Visitors can also explore new archaeological discoveries and examine the role of horses in sport throughout the ages. A large-scale diorama depicts some of the horse species that lived 10 million years ago in what is now Nebraska.

The Horse also offers numerous interactive stations that invite visitors to discover characteristics of different breeds of horses and take a virtual look inside a life-size horse. Visitors can examine different gaits of a horse by looking through a zoetrope — a precursor to the modern movie projector — seeing a revolutionary series of images by photographer Eadweard Muybridge.

The Horse is organized by the American Museum of Natural History in collaboration with The Field Museum, the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage, the Canadian Museum of Civilization, Gatineau-Ottawa, and the San Diego Natural History Museum.

Tickets to The Horse include basic admission to The Field Museum and are priced at $22 for adults, $18 for seniors and students with ID, and $15 for children. Discounts are available for Chicago residents. For more information, click here.

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