Can people ride zebras?

Question

..and if they do, in which countries does this occur?

Answer 1

Zebras...Yes

They are really just members of the horse family.

However, generally, zebras are too cantankerous to ride. They are vicious and unpredictable and it takes a lot of effort to train them to a stage where you can saddle or harness them. That is why they have never been domesticated.

Answer 2

I would say this would occur in some of the middle to southern countries of Africa.

I suppose it's entirely possible for a zebra to be tamed, broken, and trained to be ridden.

A wild zebra may be cantankerous as I've seen mentioned several times, but so can horses be. Have you ever heard the term "buckin' bronco?" It refers to an unbroken horse being ridden in a rodeo, to see how long the rider can stay on before being bucked off (just like they do with bulls).

However, horses have had centuries of domestication and are not considered wild animals (except for wild horses still running free today), unlike zebras. The difference between a horse and a zebra is much like the difference between a golden retriever and a wolf. While they can both be raised and tamed by human hands, the wolf and the zebra still have "fresh" wild instincts and can be unpredictable, whereas the horse and the dog have had generations of handling, and that instinct has been mostly bred out of them.

Answer 3

Yes, people can ride zebras. My daughter had a zebra ride in the zoo with zoo keeper help.

However, zebras this days are more of just being an animal in the wild and some being zoo animals.The fact that they are similar to horses makes the possibility that people can ride in them.

Zebras are considered as wild horses and there are evidences that zebras can be tamed. Do you know that Rosendo Ribeiro, the first doctor in Nairobi, Kenya, bought a zebra in 1907, and visited his patients on zebra-back? For more details, check out this link and have a look of the pictures zebra back riding: http://messybeast.com/history/working.htm-back.

Answer 4

I can remember discussing this point in anatomy lectures
The spine of horses and zebras is relatively inflexible and designed to be loaded from below, to support the guts, not from above as in riding. This is why back injuries are so common in horses, especially when ridden at too young an age.
As the spine of a zebra is weaker than a horses, perhaps the questions should not be, "Can people ride zebras?" but "Should people ride zebras?"

Answer 5

While many 'horse-like' critters have the wrong kind of back bone structure, a Zebra is closely related to horses but is so cantankerous (hard to deal with) few have been trained to ride.

Answer 6

i used to wonder that too . then one day on TV i saw in Africa people kind of riding the zebra's i say kind of riding as they did not act like horses and sure did not want to give people a ride. none the less people were riding them and having races.

Answer 7

Don't see why not! But for some reason, they are not ridden, in any country as far as I know. Anyway, they only have zebras in Africa. And of course we have them here in the UK as well, but we don't ride 'em, just use them to get across the road.

Answer 8

yes,there is a film which is a girl racing but ride a zebra.

Answer 9

Yes. In Africa. And zebra meat tastes awful BTW.

Answer 10

Yes, they can be broken for riding just like any equine.