MANE ATTRACTION “The Horse” doesn’t sidestep controversy.

Timing is everything: The American Museum of Natural History spent months preparing “The Horse” for its Saturday 17 opening, only to have the shocking death of Eight Belles at the Kentucky Derby threaten to cast a pall over what should be a joyous paean.

Although curators were still debating how to address the tragedy as of press time, the exhibit doesn’t avoid addressing animal cruelty. A sample of Polytrack, a type of artificial turf that’s more forgiving than the dirt currently used in places like Churchill Downs, is included in a display on horseback riding. And among the items devoted to workhorses are bones of Shetland ponies used in mines more than a century ago. “The ‘pit ponies’ were taken down there very young, and spent their entire lives pulling ore trucks,” explains AMNH curator Ross MacPhee. “That’s why Shetlands were bred in the first place—to work in confined areas.”

But, MacPhee elaborates, the real story of the exhibition is how humans made horses, at least as we know them today, and how they “made” us—by aiding the birth and growth of civilization. “I think it could be said there’s no domesticated animal that’s been more important to humans,” he says. “Cows, pigs and even dogs were bred for just one purpose, or maybe a small range. The horse was really our first machine. It transformed warfare, labor and transportation.”

Examples of the creature’s intrinsic value are everywhere: Equine armor from medieval Germany celebrates its role in combat, while rodeo and polo gear takes us into the arena of sports (as do the Triple Crown trophies). Even the horse’s place in the arts is represented—in Paleolithic cave drawings, ancient Chinese figurines, a Currier & Ives print and Eadweard Muybridge’s zoetrope of a galloping thoroughbred, which revolutionized our understanding of the horse’s gait.

Celestial horse figurine, Han Dynasty.

Photograph: D. Finnin/AMNH

Of course, our relationship with the horse has changed so much over the centuries that some relics are hardly recognizable. Visitors are challenged to identify odd-looking antiquities, including a Japanese samurai saddle, a riding whip used in the Central Asian game of buzkashi, and Roman horseshoes (which were tied, rather than nailed to the hoof). More familiar items include a saddle from the Pony Express (which, contrary to popular lore, operated only from April 1860 to October 1861) and an SUV-size horse-drawn fire engine used to battle blazes in the late 19th century. “Horses can be trained to do amazing things,” says MacPhee. “Even things that are against their instincts.”

Exactly when man first tamed the horse is still largely unknown, although cocurator Sandra Olsen of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh suggests a date of about 4000 B.C. “It still took another 2,000 years for noticeable differences in skeletal structure to emerge,” she clarifies. A leading authority on equine domestication, Olsen brings a wealth of scientific knowledge to the show. A diorama re-creating her excavations in Kazakhstan reveals how essential the horse was to the Botai people more than 5,000 years ago. “They used every part of it—the flesh, the marrow, the bones, the hide,” she explains. Even today, koumiss—made from fermented mare’s milk—is the preferred drink in Central Asia. Olsen admits, “It’s an acquired taste.”

The horse’s impressive physiology is a big part of its allure (no one’s ever had to piss like a rooster) and the animal’s digestive system is on view in “The Nature of Horses,” where a virtual display tracks how food comes in, moves through the stomach and comes out the other end. (“Kids will be delighted by that, I’m sure,” quips MacPhee.) Elsewhere, a device allowing visitors to try to exert even a single horsepower illustrates the stallion’s extraordinary strength.

The final word on the dynamic between humans and horses is given, not surprisingly, to humans. The exhibition closes with “The Enduring Bond,” a series of videos featuring contemporary riders, including a New York City mounted-police officer and a group of disabled children. “You see these children that can only really manipulate their muscles on horseback,” Olsen says. “It’s so moving—I dare you to keep a dry eye.” With such an uplifting example of how horses enrich our lives, it’s all the more distressing to see them treated as fodder for our amusement.

“The Horse” opens May 17, 2008, at the American Museum of Natural History.

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