The Cowboys have the biggest football stadium in the world, but they don’t have the biggest horse. It’s the Mongolians who have bragging rights to the world’s largest equestrian statue, ridden by none other than Genghis Khan. The Khan is enjoying a public relations makeover in Mongolia something like that of quarterback Michael Vick with the Eagles in Philadelphia.
The massive 250-ton, steel-clad statue of the 13th-century conqueror stands 131 feet tall (the Statue of Liberty measures 151 feet from the top of the base to the tip of her torch), atop a two-story base, and there are plans to develop a theme park on site, where Genghis Khan is reputed to have found his legendary golden whip.
The previous title of “world’s largest equestrian statue” belonged to the 72-foot monument of mounted Hussite general Jan Zizkathe, in the Czech capital of Prague.