what's with the horses??

Whilst searching for a suitable choice for the regular House of the Week feature I came across a stunning trend. It turns out for that "perfect image" devoid of such extraneous features such as furniture and people - architects, designers and photographers have opted to place live animals in their photography alas not just your regular domestic fare but instead farm animals, mostly horses. Now the use of people or landscape has often been used in architectural photography for scale but does the average person know how tall a horse is??