Daily Vocabulary for Better Conversation

A colt or filly with its mother

This article is about horses. Filly is also a small village in the Ardennes in Belgium.

A filly is a female horse, specifically one which has not reached sexual maturity. This usually means it is under 24 months of age. After it reaches maturity it is known as a mare. Most horse owners, however, agree that filly means a female horse under the age of 4 years old, while mare is for a physically mature female horse, which is age 4 or above.

In thoroughbred horse racing, the definitions of filly and mare are slightly different. In this context, female horses are not classified as mares until they are five-year-oldsmore precisely, on the fifth January 1 (for horses born in the Northern Hemisphere) or August 1 (for horses born in the Southern Hemisphere) after their actual date of birth. Harness racing sets the cut off age for mares as four years.

The equivalent male is a colt. When horses of either sex are very young, they can also be referred to as foals.

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