A Modern View on the Horse: How and When It Changed
There are two old, anonymous, sayings, the first is, “A dog may be man’s best friend...but the horse wrote history” and the other, “Look back at our struggle for freedom, Trace our present day’s strength to its source; And you'll find that man’s pathway to glory, is strewn with the bones of a horse.” Both sayings drum up images on how the horse has always been apart of man’s plan to conquer. The conquering can be that of another country or just that of land. Less than one hundred years have past since the horse was re-placed with the automobile. Up until fifty years ago, the horse was still a vital part of every farm in America. Today’s horse plays a different role, no longer a war or transportation horse, he has become a companion to both men and women. The horse has also become a part of entertainment, in both the movies and in sport, and to some a social standing. Has this rapid change in the duties of the horse occurred over-night? Have we, as a society, forgotten the importance the horse has played in our civilization? Without the horse, where would we be today? These three questions I hope to answer.
The horses return to North American started with Christopher Columbus. In 1492, Columbus discovered a continent without horses and on his second voyage from Spain he convinced Queen Isabella to supply him with horses (Burt 19). The supply were a select group of mares and stallions from the provinces of Andalusia and Cordela. Five stallions and seven mares, of Andalusian, Spanish Jennet, and Spanish Barb blood. It would soon be passed under Spanish law that any ship leaving for the new world had to carry so many horses. The Conquistador’s recognized that these mixed horses still carried the Spanish Jennet’s unique gait and proclaimed them “Los Caballos de Paso Fino,” or the horses with the fine step. A remount station was established on the island of the Dominican Republic at Santo Domingo, where the first breedings of the new world horses took place. In 1505, Alonso de Ojeda and Diego de Nicuesa would be the first to take the horses to the mainland when they landed in Panama at the delta of the Rio Arrato. It would be Hernando Cortez who returned the horse to North America in 1515 when he would land in Mexico (Burt 20).
While the horse was just returning to North and South America, the use of the horse in warfare goes back to the time of the Greeks and Romans. One might even suggest that the horse’s greatest contribution would be as a warhorse. It was a time when the efficiency of battle relied on the efficiency of the horse, and in an effort to have an efficient warhorse a new form of training was developed. The top thinker of this era was the general of the Greek Cavalry, Xenophon, who wrote the book, Hippike, translated to be The Art of Horsemanship, which is still in existence today with his methods as popular as ever (Windisch-Graetz 19). Today, we know this training to be the foundation of dressage, a word taken from the French verb dresser, which means to train, to adjust, or to straighten-out. Dressage grew for the intention of producing easily controlled horses that would be assets for army cavalries. The Greeks discovered that a quiet and civilized approach obtained the cooperation of the powerful horses and produced the best results.
When the United States formed their first Calvary in 1775 to meet all the material needs of the American soldier (Livingston 44). The horses were purchased were made via a politically appointed board by the army. The quality of horses purchased is questionable. The year 1832 saw the first battalion of mounted dragoons; infantry troops mounted on horses and functioned as cavalry, organized until the middle of the Civil War. After the Civil War started the lack of knowledge and care of the horses shown through with the amount of loss of equine life. It got to a point that by 1863, the Union was needing an additional five-hundred horses a week to replace those that died. The Calvary Bureau was created to solve the problem and insure the safety of the horses. If it was discovered the horses were not being well cared for, the Bureau was under orders to “transfer cavalry officers, and whole cavalry commands, to the infantry” (Livingston 45). The Bureau also had two other jobs to make sure that the purchasing of new horses were of quality, and that a breeding program be established.
This new breeding program was put into place when it became obvious that a good number of quality horses had been lost during the war and there was no new stock available. Invading armies were stealing family horses to ride, to pull battery, and a as source of food during the winter months. It will take several years and several setbacks before the program would be off its feet and
After the end of World War One, the program of building back up the number of military horses was in full swing. The American Remount Association was formed in 1919 in an effort to bring public awareness to the importance of the military horse. People throughout the country would donate their stallions to the programs. Owners of mares will donate their mare for a breeding, the resulting foal to be kept in the military. By 1930, the U.S. Remount Service would announce that the Army Horse Breeding Program was responsible for twelve thousand foals born each year, with a value of two-million dollars. The following year, a reduction in the number of horses would be approved by the government due to the Depression. A decade later, the German’s would have 791,000 horses in military reserve for use in Russia during their planned winter campaign (Livingston 269). Even with that number, it is thought in America that the horse had no future in modern warfare. The last time horses would be used in war would occur on January 16, 1942, at Morong in the Philippines. Today the military horse plays a much different role. While the breeding program is no longer in use, the military horse has become part of parades for dignitaries, inaugurations and for military funerals. The most famous of being that of John F. Kennedy’s and the horse Black Jack who pranced and threw his head as he followed behind the casket.
Before the utilization of steam to power boats, quite literally, it was horse-power that you where you wanted to go. The era of horse-powered boats began and ended in the shadow of steamboats. Starting in 1814 and going till the late 1800’s, horse powered ferries were propelled by teams of horses working on a treadmill. The horses provided an inexpensive and a reliable way to cross rivers, bays, and lakes throughout America. These horses were instrumental in travel and to the settlement to new land. An ad from 1814 for the ferry crossing the Hudson between Long Island and New York, boast using eight horses taking eight to eighteen minutes carrying up to two hundred people (Crisman 33). The horse-powered ferries were not without fault. The boats would have mechanical failure and there were even cases that boats sunk, taking the horses with them. The most famous being the Burlington Bay wreck. It is not known how, why or even the name and circumstances surrounding the wreck. There are a half dozen candidates for which boat it was, with two standing out. Too many, the wreck is “an archaeological treasure, a rare find that has shed light on a nearly forgotten aspect of North American maritime history” (Chrisoms 200). The biggest rival to the horse were the steam powered boats. The last known horse-powered ferry ran until the late 1920’s at the Rome crossing the Cumberland River in Tennessee (Crisman 148). Then even steam would not last much longer with the engine gaining popularity, it would not be long before both horse and steam would be put out to pasture.
Besides boat transportation, the horse was also a vital part of trolley cars in cities, the pulling force of fire wagons, as well as the tillers of the land, and even the movers of houses. With the number of horses, some cities passed laws to keep wagons with more than four horses out of the city. Boston made it illegal for horse-drawn traffic to pass by their court houses, this was to allow lawyers and witnesses to be heard. Even city doctors got in on it, saying that the noise horses made with their wagons was the cause of a growing number of “nervous diseases” (Sandler 54). The only noise that was deemed acceptable was that of the fire-wagon.
Every major city had a fire-fighting brigade that kept a team of horses in special stalls. These stalls made it easy to lead the horse from his stall and to the wagon were through a system of pulleys and levy’s the harness would drop down and with some snaps, the horses would be ready to go. Often times, the horses were so accustom to their duty that once they heard the fire alarm, they would take themselves to the front of the wagon and wait to be strapped in. Fire horses had to be fast, agile, and smart. They also had to be very strong to be able to pull the wagon and all the equipment that weighed four-thousand pounds (Sanders 55). With all of this, the horses had to be able to race through the city streets, through traffic, and get the firemen to the fire with as little problems as possible. Fire horses were very important to cities where not only property was concerned, but the lives of many if the fire were to get out of hand. These horses were often the pride and joy of a city that even after the engine was invented, horses were still used to pull the wagon until the late 1920’s in some cities.
The noise that had bothered some city folk in the previous paragraph were probably referring to the equine-bus. Six horses were used to pull the large coach with up to forty people on it. Whether the horse was ridden or driven, it was he who kept the economy going. He hauled people and goods to and from cities. Moved material into factories and brought the finished product out to the public. As America developed and expanded, it the horse that got us where we needed to go. Livery stables could be found in every city where both horse and a buggy could be rented for the day, or longer. When you got out west, a network of stages coach lines were established. Every fifteen miles a fresh team of horses were supplied in a passing town or city (Fox 93). With this switch the driver could keep his horses at a gallop and get his passengers where they wanted to go all that much faster. This was mass transportation in both in the city and out.
The horse was often asked to move people, milk, ice, and bread. That is not the only thing a horse was asked to move. Sometimes it was a 21-ton cylinder, large blocks of granite and sometimes even a house. It was discovered the correct use of horsepower, along with winches, capstans, and cables, a horse could move anything (Fox 75). Sometimes the load would be moved over paved or brick laid roads. Other times the horse was asked to move the load over open country, up and down hills, over rough terrain, through valleys, gullies and gulches. It did not take long before it was realized that there was nothing a horse could not move.
The history of horseracing dates back to the Olympics in 642 B.C. Horseracing in America can trace its roots to England. It was under the Tudors that the first Royal stud became established. Later Stuart monarchic Charles II developed the “sport of kings” in the town of Newmarket in Suffolk (Edward 117). Horseracing during this time was grueling. Horses ran 4-mile races, which were decided after three or four heats, usually separated by half-an-hour between each running.
During the reign of the Tudors and the Stuarts, horses imported into England for the first time solely for the reason of racing. The first horses came from Italy and Spain. Not long after, breeds like the Barb, Turks, and Arabians started arriving from North Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean. The mixing of these three breeds with the native English horse gave birth to the early thoroughbred. All of the world’s thoroughbreds are descended from three famous stallions – the Byerley Turk, the Darley Arabian, and the Godolphin Arabian, who came to England at this time.
Horseracing in the United States started from more humble beginnings than it did in England. In America, it was simply a way to settle a wager between two men on who owned the faster horse. Popular thinking puts the first racetrack in the United States to open in Saratoga, New York in 1864 (Bedford 139). Simply not true, the first racetrack was really opened in 1734 in Charleston, South Carolina.
Horseracing in America had its hay-day in the late 1930’s and escalated during the 1940’s with such horses as Seabiscuit, War Admiral, Whirlaway, Count Fleet, Assault, and finally Citation. As quoted in the Blood-Horse:
“There were few stars in the 1940s to rival Citation and jockey Eddie Arcaro on the nation’s sport pages. Baseball had Joe DiMaggio and Jackie Robinson. Boxing had Joe Louis, and football had Slingin’ Sammy Baugh. The college football ranks were led by West Point stars Glenn Davis and Doc Blanchard. Not one of them, however, could rival the team of Citation and Arcaro going six furlongs or two miles” (18).
Decades would past before the public would be thrilled like they were when Citation ran. The horse that eventually did come along was a bright red one. A horse that ran like no other, and equated to possibly the greatest of all American horses Man o’ War. He would be the first horse since Citation, twenty-five years earlier, to win the prestigious Triple Crown. His win of thirty-one lengths in the 1973 Belmont, a mile and half race he ran in 2:24 flat, is still talked about today (Drager 192). This horse came along when America needed him the most. It was a time of the Viet Nam war, the Watergate scandal, and the country needed a hero to forget all that was wrong. They got one who had no scandal linked to him and one who did not require a multi-million dollar contract to perform. They got Secretariat.
Other modern international sports involving horses are show jumping, dressage, and three-day eventing. These sports were dominated by men who were members of their countries Calvary. They were designed to show the superior horsemanship as well as the quality horses in an international setting. Women were not allowed entry into the Olympics until 1952. The only division of the Olympics they could enter was Dressage, and the first woman was Lis Hartel who won the individual silver for Denmark (Burke 6). Ms. Hartel was also the founding member of the first Handicapped Riding program in 1950. An American woman would not enter the Olympics until 1964 when Lana du Pont made the three-day event team. Since then, women have increasingly dominated the international scene.
While these sports are also seen as entertainment, the thrill you witness watching them has yet to compare to the thrill of the pseudo world of film making and television. Ask any baby boomer to name the show with the theme song, “A horse is a horse, of course, of course, and no one can talk to a horse of course, that is, of course, unless the horse is the famous…” From 1961 to 1966, CBS had a hit with a wisecracking equine that embarrassed his human confidant by refusing to talk in front of other humans. His name was Mister Ed, played by Bamboo Harvester. Foaled in El Monte, CA in 1949, on his sire’s side, he was a pure American Saddlebred and on his dam’s pure Polish Arabian, making him what is recognized today as a National Showhorse. A show and parade horse in his early years, Bamboo was 11-years-old when Filmways Television Productions purchased him for $1500, and renamed Ed. After the series ended in 1966, his trainer Les Hilton continued to work with him at his Burbank home. In 1968, at the age of 19, Ed had died after given a tranquilizer by a well-meaning caretaker who thought he was having a seizure. What the caretaker did not know was that because of his top-heavy confirmation, Ed always thrashed about trying to get back on his feet after lying down. Ed’s tragic demise was not revealed to the public, since the series had gone right into syndication, they did not want to upset any fans.
In recent years, horses have been making a comeback on the silver screen. They are, once again, becoming a focal point in movies. Ask anyone who they think is the most famous fictional horse and eight out of ten people will say Walter Farley’s Black Stallion. Two movies brought the legendary stallion to life, 1979’s The Black Stallion and 1983’s The Return of the Black Stallion. In both movies the stallion was largely portrayed by the Arabian stallion Cass-Olé. Born in Goliad, Texas on March 6, 1969, and purchased at age two by Dr. Leo Cuello from breeder Gerald Donahue, Cass had a white blaze and four white legs that were dyed black for his role as the Black. Before his movie career, Cass was a successful show horse. He was National Champion in Western Pleasure AOTR in 1975, National Reserve Champion in Ladies Side Saddle in 1976, and was US Top Ten English Pleasure AOTR in both 1975 and 1976. In all, Cass accumulated over fifty championships and over twenty Reserve Championships in his show career, and was high point winner for the American Horse Show Association for several years winning the King Saud Trophy (Mitchum 139). In 1980, Cass received the Humane Society Award for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals at the International Horse Show in Washington DC, and the International Award from the Arabian Horse Association. He was specifically invited to the Inauguration Parade for President Reagan. Cass-Olé traveled to Italy twice, Sardinia, Algeria and Morocco where he performed for the Royal Family. Was the main attraction at fund raisers for such charities as the American Heart Association, Epilepsy Society, Ophthalmological Society; to name just a few, as well as raising funds for politicians. Cass-Olé was one example of how a fictional horse, a horse actor, could still make a difference. His stud career was handled by the San Antonio Arabians, were he sired one hundred and thirty foals, and where his life was humanly ended on June 29, 1993. Up until the end, Cass continued to make personal appearances.
Ed and the Black are the short list of a longer list of memorial equine actors that also include Trigger, Buttermilk and Silver. Even in the last three years where three horse themed movies have been released, Hidalgo, brought to life by the American Paint stallion RH Tecontender, Dreamer: Inspired by a True Story, played by Harbor Mist, and finally Seabiscuit. For the ‘Biscuit’ to be successfully brought to life, a total of nine doubles backed up the one lead horse, Fighting Furrari. Those three movies have made a combined $220,456,462 at the box office. Just goes to show that there is an audience for equine themed films, the feel good movies that are suitable for the whole family.
Sometimes the least pleasant role of today’s horse is that of a social standing. There was a time in our recent history to own any horse, you had to have money. Much thanks can be given to backyard breeders that have over-populated the horse world to the point of driving down prices on good horses, as well as inflating genetic diseases by breeding too close to family lines. While there are still expensive horses, the world’s most being Seattle Dancer, half brother to 1977 Triple Crown winner Seattle Slew. Seattle Dancer’s claim to fame came in July 1985 at the Keeneland July select yearling sale. Where he was bought by a syndicate of bidders for $13.1-million. His racing career was short lived, only racing as a three-year-old five times and winning twice. Today he stands stud in Germany. Today people with money not only buy horses that are less than spectacular, they also built them barns that make European royalty green with envy. Innovative Equine Systems, out of Minden, Nevada, specializes in just that. For a million dollars, you to can have your horse sleeping in better quarters than yourself.
The history of the horse is intertwined intimately with human history, so closely together that they are one. Less than one hundred years ago, all modern civilizations relied on the horse for transportation, for work, and to fill spots within the military. Today this is not remembered. We think of horses as large nuisances that stink and belong out of our cities and even on dinner plates. People do not care that our American Mustangs are no longer protected by the Bureau of Land Management, who can be removed from public land and sent to slaughter for consumption or placed in glue. This is how we now treat these magnificent animals, which gave themselves for our selfish needs. A horse stands for many things, independence, pride, beauty, strength, and intelligence. They learn how to amuse us with tricks, thrill us in sports, and help defend our freedom in war. They’ve provided us with food and transportation. Just last year, Congress did something that surprised many. They passed S. RES. 452, which designated December 13, 2004, as National Day of the Horse. In passing this, Congress encouraged the people of the United States to be mindful of the contribution of horses to the economy, history, and character of the United States. Within that bill it read:
“Whereas the horse is a living link to the history of the United States; Whereas without horses, the economy, history, and character of the United States would be profoundly different; Whereas horses continue to permeate the society of the United States, as witnessed on movie screens, on open land, and in our own backyards; Whereas horses are a vital part of the collective experience of the United States and deserve protection and compassion; Whereas because of increasing pressure from modern society, wild and domestic horses rely on humans for adequate food, water, and shelter; and Whereas the Congressional Horse Caucus estimates that the horse industry contributes much more than $100,000,000,000 each year to the economy of the United States: Now, therefore, be it Resolved, That the Senate--
(1) designates December 13, 2004, as ‘National Day of the Horse’, in recognition of the importance of horses to the security, economy, recreation, and heritage of the United States;
(2) encourages all people of the United States to be mindful of the contribution of horses to the economy, history, and character of the United States; and
(3) requests that the President issue a proclamation calling on the people of the United States and interested organizations to observe the day with appropriate programs and activities.”
The question has the change in the duties of the horse occurred over-night? The duties and activities the horse has played in our history did not change over night. It changed over a long period of time. We have just long forgotten the price they have paid for it, and have taken it for granted.
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