Anecdote:
According to David W. Anthony, horses were initially domesticated to benefit from their meat. The reason for the need for horse meat even when other livestock existed is that in the region between the Caucasus and Ukraine where the horse was first domesticated, cows and sheep could not feed themselves in winter conditions when it snowed. Cows do not have the instinct to find the grass under the snow when it falls deep enough to cover the meadows. Sheep can reach the grass by scraping the snow with their noses, but when icing occurs, they are unable to reach the grass and often injure their noses. The horse, however, has the instinct to break the ice with its hooves, so it does not need supplemental feeding in winter. Once this behavior was observed in the wild, horses were domesticated. Until horses began to be harnessed to chariots, the people in the region consumed an increasingly larger amount of horse meat compared to cow or sheep-goat meat. Later, as their use for pulling chariots became more valuable than their meat, horse meat consumption gradually decreased.
Source: The Horse, the Wheel, and Language - How Bronze Age Riders From the Eurasian Steppes Shaped The Modern World (David W. Anthony)
