Somebody better at speculative biology than me please draw this Hell Horse, as I am now curious about how the christ it would look.

Also, @reggiemess

To add on to the bits about the facial muscles, a lot of carnivorous mammals have very large temporalis muscles. These go on the top/back of the skull and attach to the sagittal crest. They take up a lot of space on the head, enough that their skulls look significantly smaller than their heads do from the top.

Here’s a lion:

And here’s a horse:

Here’s something that’s a bit more of a ‘horse as decended from carnivorans’ (because I’m more familiar with them):

Just for funzies here’s how I picture the rest of the beast:

Two-toed hooves, the remaining toes of the carnivore paw are adapted into raptorial claws. Hind dew claws, if present, are vestigial. The neck is shorter than a horse’s and the spine is more limber. Belly is leaner as the intestines are shorter and take up less space in the body.

That’s an excellent illustration of the skull musculature. And the rest of it is just… well I can’t fault it, but I don’t want it to exist.

@princessguards do you ever see something so beautiful you cry a little bit

You stick a horn on that monstrosity and it’s a unicorn. The split toe hooves, the longer tail, the more direct gaze while still maintaining a lot of peripheral vision. Basically the only thing that’s weird is the mouth, but how often do you hear about what unicorns actually eat, anyway? I mean, grass doesn’t let a horse poop rainbows, those unicorns have to be eating something more interesting to achieve that particular effect. Garden gnomes or something.

Well, they were said to be attracted to virgins singing in the woods…