Toytown (horse) entire 2004 season, and an injury during final preparations for the 2008 Beijing Olympics forced the pair to concede their place in the British team. Zara Phillips officially retired Toytown from competition on the final day of the 2011 Festival of British Eventing at Gatcombe Park. The popular gelding was paraded to fans and spectators in the main arena before leaving for the rolling Gloucestershire countryside of the Gatcombe Estate. Toytown made a post retirement public appearance with Phillips at Cheltenham racecourse in 2012 as part of the 2012 Summer Olympics torch relay. Zara's husband, Mike Tindall, announced Toytown's death
Domestication of the horse horses, and that therefore a subsequent and separate domestication event must have been responsible for the modern domestic horse. The presence of bit wear suggest that a horse was ridden or driven, and the earliest of such evidence from a site in Kazakhstan dates to 3500 BCE. Because horses can be ridden and controlled without bits by using a noseband or a hackamore, and such tools are used even today, the absence of bit wear on horse teeth is not conclusive evidence against domestication, but such materials do not produce significant physiological changes nor are they apt to be preserved