The horses in the book were based on a few sources.  I wanted them to be as accurate a representation of what type of horses would truly have lived there as possible, so I combined the archeological information about the newly-discovered, Yukon Horse with information about the types of horses already living wild in the Chilcotin area, since I figured that the horses in The Hidden Valley would be something of a combination of these.   The Yukon Beringia Interpretive Centre website was particularly helpful. (I had briefly considered visiting, but finances proved prohibitive.  But I digress.)

Remarkably small amounts of mustang blood (most modern wild mustangs descended from escaped horses brought to North America by the Spanish Conquistadors in the 1600s) was found when the cayuses were tested.  There was less than 10%, in fact.  But a surprising amount of their heritage was Russian.  On average, the Chilcotin mustangs had over 80% Yakutian horse blood.  The other percentage was filled in with modern domesticated breed types.

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So I studied the information about the Yukon horse and found an interesting fact: these horses were not all one colour or simple dun pattern like the Przewalski's variety (depicted in cave paintings and now found wild in Asia.)  They had differing colours of fur, but likely with a primitive pattern over most of it, indicated by variations in the colour found on different parts of the horse.  

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To explain this surprise, the article cited a theory that there were small Russian settlements along the islands and coast of BC in the 1800s and that their settlers had brought horses with them.  People were known to transport horses on ships in those days; it seems likely.  Of these horses, originally brought to help with farm work, some inadvertently escaped to become the root of the bloodstock of the wild cayuses.   These horses, however, are said to have always been part of the culture and heritage of the first nations peoples in the area, primarily, the Xeni Gwet'in.  The natives claim that horses have always been a part of their heritage, not just for the past 200 years.  Could there have been a small surviving population of the Yukon horses that came over from Russia on the land bridge that are in fact the living relatives of the Yakutian horses today?  This is definitely a question worth pondering. 

I was pleasantly surprised to find that the horses chosen for the Pleistocene Park experiment were of Yakutian stock.  And they look just like how I imagined (and drew) The Hidden Valley horses.

Pleistocene Park is a science experiment by father-and-son team, Sergey and Nikita Zimov.  It's goal: to slow the release of carbon from the permafrost, and therefore, global warming.  Check out this video which explains it further.

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So if someone ever manages to clone a woolly mammoth, it will have a place to call home!