Why don't equestrians ride or drive zebras?

Did you ever wonder why equestrians don’t generally ride zebras? Why don’t you ever seem to see zebras pulling carriages or carts? Can zebras be trained to drive or work under saddle?

Equestrians have tried to domesticate zebras, but this is difficult to do. Many horse trainers claim that zebras cannot be trained, as the species has remained wild throughout history.

Horses have been bred intentionally for conformation and trainability. Even most of the world’s remaining wild horses may contain some domesticated equines in their bloodlines, either from purposeful or accidental breeding over the years. This is not the case for zebras.

Zebras can be stubborn, irritable and even aggressive. Zebras tend to run in zig-zagging lines. In the wild, this serves as a defensive strategy when they must evade lions and other speedy predators. Frankly, most equestrians would rather ride horses or ponies, which offer smoother rides and softer mouths than zebras.

In addition, the zebra’s physical form does not lend itself well to carrying a saddle.

However, exceptions exist. A few zebras have been trained to carry riders obediently. Circuses have displayed trained zebras in equestrian acts. The 2005 motion picture Racing Stripes (starring Hayden Panettiere, Bruce Greenwood, Wendie Malick and M. Emmett Walsh) shows a zebra (voiced by Frankie Munoz) participating in horse racing. (Actually several trained zebras were used to make the film.)

Some equine breeders have cross-bred zebras to horses, and they have cross-bred zebras to donkeys, creating hybrid equines.