Initially I'd thought ひき is for small animals and 頭 is for animals that are not small ("big" animals) however EDICT (http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/cgi-bin/wwwjdic.cgi?1MUE%E3%81%B2%E3%81%8D) seems to claim that horses belong to the ひき group and not the 頭 group (yet of course I think we can agree that a horse is not "small" at all!).
1) Basically I was wondering is it true that "horses" is the exception where we ignore the "small" / "big" rule and they are always counted with ひき (regardless of the size of the horse) instead of 頭 ?
2) Are there any cases when ひき is used to refer to a non-small animal?
Answer
I don't personally know the answer, but exploring my way through EDICT:
a) In the definition, sense 3 - counter for horses - is listed only as "き only" (so not ひき); it is also marked as an archaic term.
b) Skimming the examples page for 馬, I could only find one example using a counter:
そのレースで争った馬は４頭だけだった。
Only four horses competed in the race.
Edit:
Actually, I found another one as well:
彼は牛を２頭の馬と交換した。
He exchanged his cow for two horses.
So both of the examples use 頭 for the counter.
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