Adults today only know about what horses are because of western films.
Although, some people still ride horses for work or fun, but the vast majority has not even touched a horse. Oh, and it really depends on location too. Rich countries switched to machines about a hundred years ago, whereas poor countries still use various animals in normal everyday life.
I grew up in the 90s, and before I was out of college I think I'd ridden 3 different horses maybe 20 or 30ish times combined (never faster than a cantor), and learned the basics of being a stable hand and horse grooming.
Seattle and environs. Had both a friend and a girlfriend that each owned horses.
Ex GF actually lived on a small ranch, had 3 horses.
Former friend had a horse in a managed stable about 3 miles from her house.
She sctually paid me and another friend once to clear out a bunch of pigeons in said stable with a pellet gun.
... I wish we had had a .22. We had to break their necks... the pellet gun was only strong enough to concuss them. I felt sick, evil for a month afterward, couldn't sleep... vowed to myseld to never intentionally harm another living being ever again.
Went on to work in the tech sector as a data analyst, software dev, db admin for MSFT, Intl Import Export Firm, Non Profit...
Now I think I'd rather be a stable hand.
Less arrogant, full of shit, incompetent at their jobs idiots....who commit far, far more evil acts, orders of magnitude more evil things, in the name of profit than I had thought even possible.
Horses can often be assholes, but they are far easier to deal with than malicious people.
Work horses are a lot closer than I expected. I saw them about 15 minutes from the downtown of a top 20 Mexican city. Hitched up like a western, pulling carts, or carrying a person and sack of produce.