"razor horse" = zebra?

[king of nowhere]

my reread reached the point where mat buys a horse for tuon, and he finds the rare and prized domani stock called "razor". i just noticed that the description (black and while lines very clearly defined) is very consistent with that of a zebra. it is also somewhat smaller than most horses, which zebras are, and higher quality; i only have wikipedia there, but it would seem that zebras are indeed slightly faster than horses (wikipedia gives the record speed for a horse as slightly higher than that for a zebra, however if you consider how many horse races they make and how much they train and breed racing horses, while nothing similar is done for the zebras, it stands to reason that zebras would be faster, all else being equal).

two factors are against this interpretation: zebras live in warm climate, while razor horses were native of arad doman, a cold country. and zebras are too aggressive to become domesticated. both those changes could happen by normal evolution within the time scale separating our time from the third age.

so, is tuon actually riding a zebra?

[Dunkum he/him]

that's always been my intepretation, yea

[Caden335]

Yep

[Caden335]

Yep

[Caden335]

Yep

[Caden335]

 

[Chanarach]

Nope. Just a horse with some artistic license.  Here's the relevant quote. 

 

Quote

INTERVIEW: Jan 20th, 2006

Robert Jordan's Blog: IT'S BEEN AWHILE (Verbatim)

 

 

ROBERT JORDAN

For those of you who think the razor that Mat gave to Tuon is a zebra, it isn't. I was thinking of a horse I once saw a picture of, an American paint, which in memory seemed to fit my description (white meeting black along dead-straight lines) very closely. In fact, the memory fit so well that I decided not to check whether the actual horse looked the way I recalled it. The recollection made a terrific image.

 

[Cheyenne Sedai she/her]

I'd say its a pinto Mustang. A zebra just does not seem likely, and now that RJ mentioned that it isn't, I guess that's confirmed. But Mustangs are really fast, being wild horses. Besides, pinto patterns are really varied, its really likely one fits this description. For the record, paints aren't a breed, they're a coloring of horses.