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Title: The Horse in America - A practical treatise on the various types common in the - United States, with something of their history and varying - characteristics
Author: Speed, John Gilmer
Language: English
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THE HORSE IN AMERICA
[Illustration:
Original lithograph published by Currier & Ives.
FLORA TEMPLE
This remarkable mare was the first trotter to go a mile better than
2.20. For more than six years she was called “Queen of the Trotting
Turf.” Nothing is known as to her breeding, but from 1853 to 1859
she beat all the good horses in the country. She was a light bay,
14⅛ hands in height, and weighed 835 pounds when in training.
]
The Horse
IN AMERICA
A PRACTICAL TREATISE ON THE VARIOUS TYPES COMMON IN THE UNITED STATES,
WITH SOMETHING OF THEIR HISTORY AND VARYING CHARACTERISTICS
BY
JOHN GILMER SPEED
[Illustration]
_Illustrated_
NEW YORK
McCLURE, PHILLIPS & CO.
MCMV
_Copyright, 1905, by_
McCLURE, PHILLIPS & CO.
_Published, October, 1905_
THIS BOOK
THE AUTHOR DEDICATES TO HIS FRIEND
COLONEL CLARENCE R. EDWARDS, U.S.A.
WHOSE INHERITED LOVE FOR HORSES HAS
BEEN CULTIVATED BY STUDY AND
STRENGTHENED BY PRACTICE
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER ONE PREHISTORIC AND EARLY HORSES
CHAPTER TWO ARAB AND BARB HORSES
CHAPTER THREE THE THOROUGHBRED IN AMERICA
CHAPTER FOUR THE MORGAN HORSE
CHAPTER FIVE MESSENGER AND THE EARLY TROTTERS
CHAPTER SIX RYSDYK’S HAMBLETONIAN AND THE STANDARD BRED TROTTERS
CHAPTER SEVEN THE CLAY AND CLAY-ARABIAN
CHAPTER EIGHT THE DENMARK, OR KENTUCKY SADDLE-HORSE
CHAPTER NINE THE GOVERNMENT AS A BREEDER
CHAPTER TEN FOREIGN HORSES OF VARIOUS KINDS
CHAPTER ELEVEN THE BREEDING OF MULES
CHAPTER TWELVE HOW TO BUY A HORSE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN THE STABLE AND ITS MANAGEMENT
CHAPTER FOURTEEN RIDING AND DRIVING
CHAPTER FIFTEEN TRAINING VS. BREAKING
CHAPTER SIXTEEN CONFORMATION AND ACTION
INDEX
INTRODUCTION
There have been so many books written about horses that in offering a
new one I feel that an explanation, if not an apology, is due. And I am
embarrassed as to how to frame the explanation without seeming to
reflect on the books previously given to the public. Nothing could be
further from my desire. Most of these previous books have been devoted
to special kinds or types of horses without any effort to cover a very
broad field. Some others have been frankly partizan with the avowed
purpose of proving that this type or that was the only one that was
worth serious consideration. All these are interesting, but valuable
chiefly to the careful student bent on going into the subject of horse
breeding and horse training in all of its branches. To do this an
ordinary reader would have to study half a hundred books with the danger
of becoming confused in the multiplicity of theories and conflicting
statements and with the final result of knowing as little in the end as
in the beginning. In this modest little volume I have endeavored briefly
to show how the horses in America have been developed and have come to
be what they are to-day. If I have succeeded even partly in my purpose I
will have my ample reward; if I fail, my book will end on a few dusty
library shelves along with hundreds of others on kindred subjects.
There is a peculiar characteristic of most writers on the horse. Let a
man be ever so fair in his ordinary business and social life, he is apt,
when he becomes interested in horses, to throw away his judicial
attitude and change into an advocate who sees only one side. When his
interest in that one side carries him to the length of writing, the
tendency is to be so partizan that he is even discourteous to others who
do not agree with him. This queer disposition to wrangle and dispute is
due, no doubt, to the fact that horse breeding is not yet by any means
an exact science, and the data, guiding even those who exercise the
greatest care and intelligence, is not trustworthy. We do not know with
certainty how any of the great types has been produced, for the
beginnings of all of them are covered up by fictions, based on
traditions not recorded, but handed down from generation to generation,
or on fictions that have been manufactured with ingenious mendacity. All
this is a pity, but there is no help for it now. What we can do is to
tell what is true, show what has been demonstrated by known achievements
and go on working in the material that we have at hand, so that we may
assist in increasing the great property value that this country has in
its horses.
That property value is immense. In the beginning of 1905, the
Agricultural Department estimated that the (taxable) value of the horses
in the United States was $1,200,310,020, and of mules $251,840,378, or a
total of $1,452,150,398. This is only about eight per cent less than the
aggregate value of the cows, beef cattle, sheep and hogs in the whole
country. Merely, therefore, from an economic standpoint this question of
preserving and increasing the value of horses is one of prime
importance. At this particular time it is a question not only of
increasing, but even of preserving, this value, for new agencies are
coming into competition with horses for many purposes and are being
substituted for horses in many others. The automobiles and the electric
tramways are not merely passing fads. They have come to stay until
substituted by something else which has not yet swum into our ken. The
common horses will soon be obsolete except on our farms, and even on the
farms they ought to be given up, for, notwithstanding all the great
breeding establishments in the various states, by far the greater number
of the horses are bred on the farms at present. That should always be
the case; but it may not be so when the time comes that is rapidly
approaching and a common horse will have next to no value at all.
Farmers more than others need to realize that only such horses should be
bred that will have a value for other than strictly farm work, for a
farmer should be able to sell his surplus stock with a fair profit. If
farmers have not the foresight to anticipate the inevitable, then they
will have to accept the loss that will surely ensue.
Every breeder whether farmer, amateur or professional, should breed to a
type. Any other method is merely a haphazard waste of time and money.
When I say breed to a type, I mean always a reproducing type. There are
several such in this country, a few of which belong to us, though most
of them are of foreign origin. The Thoroughbred is English, the
Percheron is French, the Hackney is English, the Orlof is Russian, the
Clydesdale is English, the Morgan is American, the Denmark is American,
the Clay-Arabian is American, and the standard bred trotter a kind of
“go-as-you-please” mongrel; nevertheless he is considered by many the
noblest achievement of intelligent American horse breeding. When any one
goes in for horse breeding on either a small or a large scale, whether
with one mare or with one hundred mares, he should, in selecting mates,
always strive for a definite type in the foal. If intelligence and
correct information be guided by experience the results are apt to be
pleasantly satisfactory.
The first cardinal principle of horse breeding was formulated in England
a century and a half ago in the expression: “Like begets like.” This
rule has been followed in the creation and maintenance of all the great
horse types in the civilized world, and singularly enough all of them,
both great and small in size, have descended from Arab and Barb stock.
This concise rule of breeding, “Like begets like,” has been
misunderstood by some who did not take a sufficiently comprehensive view
of it. This likeness does not refer merely to one thing; not to blood
alone, nor to conformation, nor to performance; but to blood and to
conformation and performance, but most of all to blood. Where blood
lines, as to likeness, are disregarded, and conformation and performance
are alone considered, the result is sure to be a lot of mongrels, some
of them, it is true, of most surpassing excellence, but as a general
thing, quite incapable of reproducing themselves with any reasonable
certainty.
The great danger always in breeding horses and other domestic animals
with the idea of improving a type or a family, is that mongrels may be
produced. A mongrel is an animal that results from the union of
dissimilar and heterogeneous blood. An improved and established
reproducing type has hitherto been, and probably always will be, the
result of the mingling of similar and homogeneous blood, crossed and
recrossed until the similar becomes consanguineous. The Arab and Barb, I
have said, are the foundation in blood of all the great types from the
Percheron to the Thoroughbred. To be sure, other and dissimilar blood
was used in the beginning of the making of all the types, but there was
such crossing and recrossing, such grading up by a selection of mates,
that the blood became similar, and the rule: “Like begets like,” being
constantly followed a type becomes established.
When a type has been established and is of unquestioned value to the
world, it should be preserved most carefully. The French, the Russians,
the Germans and the Austrians do this by means of Governmental breeding
farms. The English accomplish the same result by reason of the custom of
primogeniture and entailed estates. Continuity in breeding is essential
to its complete success. In this country when a breeder dies, his
collection of horses is usually dispersed by sale to settle his estate.
Considering our lack of Governmental assistance we have done amazingly
well to become the greatest horse-producing country in the world. Our
greatness, however, is mainly due to the vastness of our area, the
fertility of our soil and consequent cheapness of pasturage, and to the
high average intelligence of the American people. We have not exercised
the scientific intelligence in breeding that some European people have
done. So as breeders we have not a great deal to be proud of. We have
done better as to quantity than quality. But we can do better, and I am
sure that we will, for the time is hard upon us when the four-year-old
horse that is not worth $300 in the market will not be worth his keep.
There is, however, an important public aspect to this question of
improving and maintaining the breed of horses. Without good horses for
cavalry the efficiency of an army is very much crippled. When our Civil
War broke out horseback riding in the North had as an exercise for
pleasure been generally given up, and nine-tenths of the men who went
into the service on the Union side could not ride. On the other hand, at
least seven-tenths of those who went into the Confederate army could
ride. Moreover, the North had a scant supply of horses fit for cavalry,
while in many States of the South such animals were abundant. Here we
had on one side the material for a quickly-made cavalry, and on the
other side practically no material either in horses or men for such a
branch of the army. Critics of the war attribute the early successes of
the South to the superiority of the cavalry. The Northern side was
obliged to wait for nearly two years before that arm of the service was
equal to that of the South. Thus, this distressful war was probably
continued for more than a year longer than it would have been had the
two sides in the beginning been equally supplied with riders and riding
horses. And in the Japanese-Russian War, now in progress, the Japanese
are hampered dreadfully by their lack of cavalry. They have beaten the
Russians time and again only to let the Russians get away because of the
Japanese inability, from lack of horses and horsemen, to cut off the
line of retreat. It is a most distressingly expensive thing to be
without horses in time of war; unless proper horses are abundant in time
of peace, and the people who own them use them under the saddle, when
war comes there is a scarcity of men who know how to ride. Good material
for cavalry in horses and men is an excellent national investment.
In addition to my chapters on the breeding of various types I have added
several others on the keeping, handling and using of horses so that if
an owner have only this one book, he may be able to have at least a
little useful information of many sorts and kinds.
THE HORSE IN AMERICA
CHAPTER ONE
PREHISTORIC AND EARLY HORSES
The paleontologists tell us that the rocks abound with fossils which
show that Equidæ were numerous all over America in the Eocene period.
These were the ancestors of the horse that was first domesticated, and
though there were millions of them on the Continent of North America in
the period mentioned there were no horses here at all when Columbus made
his great discovery, and the first explorers came to find out what this
new India was like. The remains of the prehistoric horse, when first
found, baffled the naturalists, and he was called by Richard Owen
Hyracotherium or Hyrax-like-Beast. The first fossils discovered showed
that the horse was millions and millions of years ago under twenty-four
inches in stature, with a spreading foot and five toes. In his
development from this beginning the horse furnishes one of the most
interesting examples of evolution. When he had five toes he lived in
low-lying, marshy land and the toes were needed so that he could get
about. He had a short neck and short jaws, as longer were not needed to
enable him to feed on the easily reached herbage. As the earth became
harder, the waters receding, his neck and jaws lengthened, as it was
necessary for him to reach further to crop the less luxuriant and
shorter grasses. He lost, also one toe after another so that he might
travel faster and so escape his enemies. These toes, of course, did not
disappear all at once, but grew shorter, until they hung above the
ground. The “splint bones” on a horse’s legs are the remains of two of
these once indispensable toes, while the hoof is the nail of the last
remaining toe.
As the neck of the horse grew longer and two toes had been dropped, the
legs lengthened and by the time he became what the scientists call a
“Neohipparion” he was about three feet high, and his skeleton bore a
very striking resemblance to that of the horse of to-day. The teeth also
changed with the rest of the animal. In the earliest specimens
discovered the teeth were short crowned and covered with low, rounded
knobs, similar to the teeth of other omnivorous animals, such as monkeys
and hogs, and were quite different from the grinders of the modern
animal. When the marshy lands of the too-well watered earth had changed
into grassy plains the teeth of the horse also changed from short
crowned to long crowned, so that they could clip the shorter and dryer
grasses and grind them up by thorough mastication into the nutritious
food required for the animal’s well being.
Indeed, the whole history of the evolution of the horse by natural
selection is a complete illustration of adaptation to environment. Even
to-day in the Falkland Islands, where the whole surface is soft, mossy
bogland, the horses’ feet grow to over twelve inches in length, and curl
up so that frequently they can hardly walk upon them. Where we use
horses on hard, artificial roads it is necessary to have this toe-nail
or hoof pared, and protected by shoes.
Where the horse was first domesticated is a matter of dispute upon which
historians are not at all agreed. Some say it was in Egypt, some select
Armenia, and some content themselves with the general statement that
horses were indigenous in Western and Central Asia. It would be
interesting to go into this discussion were it not that it would delay
us too long from the subject in hand. At first they were used only in
war and for sport, the camel being used for journeys and transportation,
and the ox for agriculture. Indeed, I fancy the horse was never used to
the plough until in the tenth century in Europe. The sculptures of
ancient Greece and contemporaneous civilizations give us the best idea
obtainable of what manner of animal the horse was in the periods when
those sculptures were made. Mr. Edward L. Anderson, one of the most
careful students of the horse and his history, says: “Whether Western
Asia is or is not the home of the horse, he was doubtless domesticated
there in very early times, and it was from Syria that the Egyptians
received their horses through their Bedouin conquerors. The horses of
the Babylonians probably came from Persia, and the original source of
all these may have been Central Asia, from which last-named region the
animal also passed into Europe, if the horse were not indigenous to some
of the countries in which history finds it. We learn that Sargon I.
(3800 B.C.) rode in his chariot more than two thousand years before
there is an exhibition of the horse in the Egyptian sculptures or proof
of its existence in Syria, and his kingdom of Akkad bordered upon
Persia, giving a strong presumption that the desert horse came from the
last-named region through Babylonian hands. It seems after an
examination of the representations on the monuments, that the Eastern
horse has changed but little during thousands of years. Taking a copy of
one of the sculptures of the palace of Ashur-bani-pal, supposed to have
been executed about the middle of the seventh century before our era,
and assuming that the bareheaded men were 5 feet 8 inches in height, I
found that the horses would stand about 14½ hands—very near the normal
size of the desert horse of our day. The horses of ancient Greece must
have been starvelings from some Northern clime, for the animals on the
Parthenon frieze are but a trifle over 12 hands in height, and are the
prototypes of the Norwegian Fiord pony—a fixed type of a very valuable
small horse.”
The British horse is as old as history. He was short in stature and
heavy of build. New blood was infused by both the Romans and the
Normans, and when larger horses were needed to carry heavily-armored
knights, Flemish horses were introduced both for use and breeding, so
that by the time the Oriental blood was introduced they had in England
many pretty large horses, resembling somewhat the Cleveland Bay of the
present time, though not so tall by three or four inches, and not so
well finished. The horses that were first brought to America by the
English were such as I have suggested. But the first horses brought
hither were not English, but Spanish, and these were undoubtedly of
Oriental blood as were the horses generally in Spain after the Moslem
occupation. But when the Spanish first came there were no horses, as has
been said before, in either North or South America. Columbus in his
second voyage brought horses with him to Santo Domingo. But Cortez, when
he landed in 1519 in what is now Mexico, was the first to bring horses
to the mainland. They were the wonder of the Indians who believed that
they were fabulous creatures from the sun. The wild horses of Mexico and
Peru were no doubt descended from the escaped war horses of the Spanish
soldiers slain in battle. These escaped horses reproduced rapidly, and
the plains became populous with them. So, also, with the horses
abandoned by De Soto, who returned from his Mississippi expedition in
boats leaving his horses behind. Professor Osborn of the American Museum
of Natural History, has recently been conducting explorations in Mexico,
studying the wild horses there, and his conclusions are proof of the
accuracy of the surmises which have been made by the historians of the
early Spanish adventurers.
Flanders horses were brought to New York in 1625 and English horses to
Massachusetts in 1629. Previous to these importations, however, English
horses had been landed in Virginia, and in 1647 the first French horses
reached Canada, being landed at the still very quaint village of
Tadousac. Indeed, during all the colonial times there were many
importations as well as much breeding, for on horseback was the only way
a journey could be taken, except by foot or in a canoe. They needed good
serviceable horses, and they obtained them both by importation and
breeding. I suspect that the general run of horses in the Colonial era
in New England and along the Atlantic seaboard was very similar to the
horse that is now to be found in the province of Quebec, Canada. Every
one who has visited this province knows that these habitant horses are
very serviceable and handy, besides being quite fast enough for a
country where the roads have not been made first class. Harnessed to a
calash, an ancient, two-wheeled, French carriage, they take great
journeys with much satisfaction to their drivers and small discomfort to
themselves. Then the Colonists had the Narragansett pacer, a horse
highly esteemed not only for speed but for the amble which made his slow
gait most excellent for long journeys. When Silas Deane was the
colleague of Benjamin Franklin at the French Court during the
Revolutionary War, he proposed getting over from Rhode Island one of
these pacers as a present for the queen. Indeed, there are those who
maintain stoutly that the virtues of the American trotter as well as the
American saddle-horse came from these pacers. That may be the case so
far as the trotters are concerned, for of the horses bred to trot fast,
as we shall presently see, more are pacers than trotters. As a matter of
fact, however, Barbs are apt to pace, and these Narragansetts may have
had such an origin. In the blood of all our horse types there is some
proportion of Barb blood, and we find pacers among all except
Thoroughbreds. I am sure I never saw a Thoroughbred that paced, or heard
of one.
The history of the American horses with which we are concerned to-day
may be said to have begun after the War of the Revolution. But the basic
stock upon which the blood of the post-revolutionary importations was
grafted was most important and also interesting. It was gathered from
every country having colonies in North America and blended after its
arrival. The Spanish and French blood was strongly Oriental and mixed
kindly with that from Holland and England. At any rate, when Messenger
came in 1788 and Diomed in 1799 there was good material in the way of
horse-flesh ready and waiting to be improved.
CHAPTER TWO
ARAB AND BARB HORSES
The Arab horse from Nejd and the Berber horse from Barbary are the most
interesting and most important specimens of the equine race. This has
been the case as far back as the history of the horse runs and tradition
makes it to have been so for a much longer period. And, moreover, these
horses in the perpetuation of established European and American types
are as important to-day as ever. From this Nejdee Arabian and Berber of
Barbary have sprung by a mingling of these ancient bloods with other
strains, all of the reproducing horse types of signal value in the
civilized world, including the Percheron of France, the Orlof of Russia,
the charger of Austria, the Thoroughbred of England, the Morgan of
Vermont, Mr. Huntington’s rare but interesting Clay-Arabians of New York
and the Denmarks of Kentucky. The same is the case with other types or
semi-types, but I only particularize these because the mere mention of
them shows to what uses this singularly prepotent blood can be put when
the two extremes of equine types, and those between the extremes as
well, appear to owe their reproducing quality to the blood of these
handsome little animals that have been bred, preserved and, so far as
possible, monopolized by the nomadic tribes of Barbary and of Nejd. Nejd
comprises the nine provinces of Central Arabia, while the Berbers wander
all through the Barbary states which consist of Morocco, Algeria, Tunis,
and Tripoli, but keep as remote as possible from what European influence
that exists in that section of the world.
[Illustration:
NIMR (ARAB)
Imported by Randolph Huntington
]
To most horsemen in America the name of Arab is anathema. They will have
none of him. So far as their light goes they are quite right in their
prejudice. But prejudice in this instance, as in most others, is the
result of ignorance. And I trust in the light of what I shall say about
the Nejdee Arabian, the Berbers of Barbary and the influence of this
blood on the equine stock of the world, I may say this without any
offense. If I give the offense then I preface it with the apology that I
mean none. The truth is that seven out of ten of the Arabian horses
taken into Europe or brought to America have been inferior specimens and
not of the correct breed; twenty per cent at least have been mongrels
and impostures, while of the remaining ten per cent not more than one
per cent have been correct in their breeding, conformation and capacity
to do what was expected of them.
Some men reading the history of this type and that have persuaded
themselves that a few Arabs selected personally in Arabia would enable
them to beat their competitors as breeders and even to win against
horses that traced back one hundred or two hundred years ago to Arab and
Barb ancestors. Such folly always resulted in costly disappointment.
This folly and consequent disappointment will become manifest as my
narrative proceeds. But before going any further I do not wish any of my
readers to harbor the notion that I think an Arab would stand any chance
on an ordinary race-course to outrun an English Thoroughbred, or to
out-trot in harness or under saddle an Orlof or an American. I maintain
no such absurdity. But I do maintain that all these types, so that they
may preserve their reproductive capacities, must get from time to time
fresh infusions of this blood. That is why the purely bred Arabian—and
the Nejdee is the purest of all—is as valuable to-day as when the
Godolphin Barb and the Darley Arabian began the regeneration of the
English horse into that wonderful Thoroughbred, which is one of
England’s proudest achievements and most constant sources of wealth.
Historical records dating back to the fifth century show that the best
quality and the greatest number of Arabian horses were to be found in
Nejd. They are also to be found there to-day, and the number has not, so
far as the records speak, increased. They have never been numerous, as
it has never been the policy of the chiefs to breed for numbers, but for
quality. It is not true, however, that a lack of forage was the
restraining cause of this comparative scarcity of horses in the very
section where they have been kept in their greatest perfection. As a
matter of fact, the pasture land of Arabia is singularly good. The very
desert, during the greater part of the year, supplies sufficient browse
for camels; while the pasture grass for horses, kine, and above all for
sheep on the upper hill slopes, and especially in Nejd, is first-rate.
To be sure there are occasional droughts, but few grazing countries in
the world are free from them. No, the scarcity in horses is not due to a
lack of food, but to two other reasons entirely satisfactory to the
chiefs of Nejd. Horses there are not a common possession and used by
all. On the contrary, their ownership is a mark of distinction and an
indication of wealth, as they are never used except for war and the
chase and racing, the camel carrying the burdens and doing the heavy
work of the caravans. The second reason for the scarcity is that Nejdee
horses are very rarely sold to be taken out of the province. This is not
the result of sentiment, but one purely of protection and the desire to
preserve a monopoly in a race that is easily the very purest in the
world.
The traditions as to the origin of the Arabian horse are numerous. Some
hold that they are indigenous. If this were supported, then the
traditions would lose interest. But the traditions are interesting and
in general effect were thus expressed by the Emir Abd-El-Kader in 1854,
in a letter addressed to General Daumas, a division commander who served
long in Arabia and who was later a senator of France. He said that God
created the horse before man, and then this domestic animal was handed
down: “1st. From Adam to Ishmael; 2d, from Ishmael to Solomon; 3d, from
Solomon to Mohammed; 4th, from Mohammed to our own times.” This
tradition, it must be said, is very general and comprehensive in its
scope, but to the Arabs it has a significant meaning, as they claim that
Ishmael, the bastard son of Abraham, was not only one of themselves but
their founder, for is it not written in the Bible that when Hagar, the
concubine of Abraham, fled into the wilderness, an angel appeared to her
and said:
“I will multiply thy seed exceedingly that it shall not be
numbered for multitude. Behold, thou art with child, and shalt
bear a son and shalt call his name Ishmael; and he will be a wild
man; his hand will be against every man, and every man’s hand
against him; and he shall dwell in the presence of all his
brethren.”
Indeed, this son of Abraham was the very personification of the Arabian
people throughout their whole history, and he needed horses as the
Arabian people have needed them ever since to assist in the forays and
expeditions which give to life its spice and its prize. Then again,
there is a tradition that Nejd got its horses from Solomon; another that
they came from Yemen. This seems to me the same tradition, for Yemen’s
ancient name was Sheba; and what more natural than for Solomon to have
rewarded with gifts of horses the Queen of Sheba’s people for giving him
one of his most satisfactory wives. Then there is a story that has been
builded up in our own days by a man who was a Methodist minister before
he became a manufacturer of trotting-horse pedigrees in this country.
This interesting man in his old age, if he did not resume the occupation
of his youth, did study the Bible in the endeavor to show that the
Arabian horses never had been much in quality and many in numbers, and
that their antiquity was not of any importance for they had not been
taken into Arabia from Armenia until the third century. A century or so
made little difference to a man like Wallace, who unwittingly gave to
these horses two centuries more of record than history really accounts
for. But whether the Nejdee Arabs were indigenous or brought into the
land by Ishmael, or sent by Solomon, or taken there by the Armenians, it
is certain that they were there a hundred years before Mohammed became a
prophet, and in characteristics of size, temper and performance they
were the same that we find to-day. So that gives us a long record of
fifteen centuries during which we know that the greatest care has been
taken to keep them pure in blood and to train them to the work for which
they were required.
The tradition as to the Berber horse of Barbary is much simpler, as
these robber tribes have not developed poets or historians, and content
themselves with saying that the horses have always been there. And so
far as we are concerned that statement is as satisfactory as any other.
But we do know that supplies of these horses were obtained by Saladin in
his domestic wars, and were used also in his contests with the
faith-breaking crusaders who vainly tried to destroy the Moslem rule and
obtain perpetual possession of Jerusalem. From the earliest times it has
been a mooted point as to which was the superior, the Berber or the
Nejdee. Among the Europeans who have lived much in Egypt this is still a
disputed matter, and when Count de Lesseps was a young man he endeavored
to decide the question by a series of races at 4½ kilometers (about 2⅘
miles). Other horses, however, were admitted. In the first heat there
were three Nejdee horses all bred in Cairo—the purity of the blood being
open to suspicion—and one Syrian horse. A Cairo-bred Nejdee was the
winner. In the second heat there were three Nejdee horses, one bred in
Cairo, and one Barbary horse from Tunis owned and ridden by Count de
Lesseps himself. The Barb won. In the third heat there were three Nejdee
horses, one of them ridden by de Lesseps, and one Samean horse. A
Cairo-bred Nejdee horse won. In the fourth heat there were three Nejdee
horses and one Egyptian horse from Abfeh. A Nejdee horse was the winner.
Then came the final heat between the winners of the trial heats. The
result was that the de Lesseps Barbary horse was first, a Cairo-bred
Nejdee horse was second, and Nejdee horses third and fourth.
This trial was cited by General Daumas as evidence that at least the
Barb was not inferior to the Nejdee in fleetness. It only indicates to
me that Count de Lesseps was the shrewder of the contestants and had
selected the best individual animal among the sixteen competitors.
However, the Emir Abd-El-Kader believed in the superiority of the Barbs,
and as an instance of this, quoted the practice of Aamrou-El-Kais, an
ancient King of Arabia, who “took infinite pains to secure Barbary
horses wherewith to combat his enemies. He was doubtful of success if
obliged to trust himself to Arab horses. It is not possible, in my
opinion, to give a more invincible proof of the superiority of the
Barb.” This illustration may have been convincing to the learned
Musselman, but to-day we should want, I think, a more modern instance to
be satisfied; and we should want to know more of the individuals in the
de Lesseps’s trials than has been recorded. That the Barbs have had as
great influence in the creation of other types as the Nejdees is
undoubtedly true, for while it has never been easy to get the best
specimens of Barbary horses for exportation, it has never been so
difficult as to get Nejdee Arabians of equivalent excellence. The
Berbers were natives of Palestine and expelled by one of the Persian
kings. They emigrated to Egypt, but were refused permission to settle,
so they crossed over to the other side of the Nile. They were
adventuresome robbers, as they are to-day, and no doubt have taken their
horses with them from their first setting out from Palestine. So I quote
Abd-El-Kader again: “As for the Berbers themselves, everything proves
that they have been known from time immemorial, and that they came from
the East to settle in the Maghreb, where we find them at the present
day.”
Europe did not know much of these Arab and Barb horses until the Arabs
and Moors invaded and conquered Spain. The invasion of Spain began in
the eighth century and the rule lasted until into the thirteenth
century, though the Moors held Grenada for two centuries later. What
became a conquest was begun merely as a raid for rich booty, and, of
course, the Arabs, of whom it has been said, “their kingdom is the
saddle,” were mounted. The Berbers, of course, took their horses, and it
is likely that during those long centuries, it was the first time out of
the Sahara that Arabian and Barb horses were bred extensively and their
blood united. It is undoubtedly a fact that after the expulsion of these
conquerors, Spain was well supplied with excellent horses, horses which
assisted the armies of Spain to hold what her navigators had discovered.
The pilgrims returning from Palestine, also told of the excellent horses
in the East, and the Crusaders, more practical men, had all the evidence
that they needed in their battles with the Musselman to enable them to
testify to the hardiness and the fleetness of the horses of the desert.
And so when lighter cavalry was needed to replace the heavily-armed
knights, whose armor the use of gunpowder had made obsolete, the
soldiers and statesmen of the seventeenth century knew where to look for
the blood that would improve the home-bred horses. It was as difficult
then as now to get Arabs and Barbs of the best blood, but some at least
were obtained, and from the beginning in England in the earliest years
of the eighteenth century we trace back to Eastern horses to find the
founders of the wonderful Thoroughbreds, which in their way are the best
horses the world has seen. In France, too, there were many importations
for the upbuilding of the native stock, but this took a different
direction, and we are not so much concerned with it as with the English.
The English stud book of the Messrs. Weatherby, the first effort to keep
trustworthy records of the breeding of horses, begins with 1700, the
only Eastern horse mentioned before this being the Byerly Turk, a
charger used by Captain Byerly in Ireland in 1689. Then they had the
Darley Arabian, Markham’s Arabian, the Alasker Turk, Leede’s Arabian and
the Godolphin Barb. The most important of these were the Godolphin Barb
and the Darley Arabian. We do not know exactly whence any of these came,
nor do we know the pedigree of any. Indeed, to know, or pretend to know
the pedigree of a Nejdee or Berber horse is to show ignorance or to
confess imposture. The breeders do not keep or give pedigrees except
when they wish to bolster up the merits of an inferior animal. And then
they do it because they have been asked to do so by European or American
purchasers not acquainted with the Arab practices. It seems as sensible
to ask an Arab for the pedigree of a horse as to ask a diamond merchant
for the pedigree of a stone. The Arabs have had these horses time out of
mind. They know them to be purely bred. What more could a sensible man
want? But if the purchaser insists, then he may have any kind of
pedigree that seems to please him most. He can have pure Nejdee, pure
Barb, a cross between the two, or any admixture of Egyptian, Syrian, or
Turkish blood that best suits his taste. But as a matter of fact, these
Eastern pedigrees are pure fakes, merely made up things, such, for
instance, as the recorded pedigree of the famous Hambletonian, the
founder of the standard bred trotter in America. To the Arabs in their
breeding, pedigree makes no more difference in mating than it does to
the birds of the air or the beasts of the forest. They know that they
have animals of pure blood and that the progeny of them will still be
pure no matter how closely the parents may be related. There is
selection, of course, as inferior males are not permitted to be sires.
Instead of that they are sometimes destroyed, or sent to Syria and even
to Mesopotamia to serve the mares of those regions where the mares are
Arabs but not pure Nejdees. Here is one queer fact about the Arab and
Barb blood, and proof also of its wonderful prepotency. So long as it is
mingled with other blood not too heterogeneous, the most close
inbreeding appears not only to do no harm, but actually to do good. This
is particularly so with the English Thoroughbred, the American Morgan,
and the Kentucky Denmark.
All we are told about the Darley Arabian is this. Mr. Darley of
Yorkshire, had a brother who was a merchant in Aleppo. This brother
brought home a black bay[1] stallion some 14 hands in stature, about
1700. He became in 1707 the sire of Flying Childers, the greatest
race-horse in England and the progenitor of most of those on the running
turf in America and England to-day. The dam of Flying Childers was also
rich in Oriental blood, as she was an inbred Spanker and Spanker was by
D’Arcy’s Yellow Turk from the daughter of Morocco Barb and Old Bald Peg,
the latter being by an Arab horse from a Barb mare. So we see that this
first great English race-horse was almost of pure Eastern blood.
Footnote 1:
A very unusual color for a Nejdee.
Of Markham’s Arabian we only know that he met with the disapproval of
the then Master of Horse, the Duke of Newcastle, and had scant chance.
Of the Godolphin Barb we know very little previous to his coming to
England, where he was held in such little esteem that he was used as a
teaser for Hobgoblin. We are told, however, that he was first taken to
France and held of such little account that he was used as a cart horse,
in Paris. He was finally brought to England about 1725, and became the
property of Lord Godolphin. He was a brown bay, 15 hands high, and with
an unnaturally high crest. He served Roxana in 1731, the produce being
Lath, next to Flying Childers the greatest horse in England in the first
half of the eighteenth century. Roxana was by Bald Galloway, her dam
sister to Chanter by the Alasker Turk from a daughter by Leedes’s
Arabian and a mare by Spanker. Here we see again the value of these
crosses of Oriental blood. From the mating of the Godolphin Barb and
Roxana also came Cade, the sire of Regulus, the grandam of that most
marvelous horse, Eclipse. When all this had happened the English were
sure they were on the right road. And they have kept on that road with
great persistency, not going back, however, in my opinion, frequently
enough to the pure Nejdee and Berber stock for fresh infusions. That
they have not done this is natural enough, however. A breeder wants
results quickly. To get a collateral strain from fresh Arab and Barb
blood equal to the present thoroughbred would probably take fifty years.
No private breeder cares to do that. And the English government does not
officially breed horses. The French, the Austrians and the Russians all,
however, have agents in Arabia trying to buy the animals that are best
suited to do just what I have suggested. And they all succeed. It is too
much, however, to expect this from a private breeder.[2]
Footnote 2:
According to the reckoning of Major Roger D. Upton of the 9th Royal
Lancers, there were used in the formation of the English stud from the
time of James I, to the beginning of the 19th Century, Eastern horses
to this extent: 101 Arab stallions, 7 Arab mares, 42 Barb stallions,
24 Barb mares, 1 Egyptian stallion, 5 Persian stallions, 20 Turkish
stallions, and 2 “Foreign” stallions, or 210 in all. In the popular
mind of all of these were classed as Arabs. This is not right, as the
real Arab is much purer in blood than the others, though the Barbs
have virtues by no means to be despised.
One, however, in this country has had the courage and the tenacity of
purpose to do this. I allude to Mr. Randolph Huntington, of Oyster Bay
on Long Island. Mr. Huntington has mingled Arab and Barb blood with that
of the Henry Clay family to which he is very partial. His success in
creating a reproducing type has been demonstrated in the face of
handicaps that would have worn out the patience of a less tenacious and
determined man. This experiment of Mr. Huntington makes a story of its
own which I shall tell in a later chapter.
[Illustration: RANDOLPH HUNTINGTON AND HIS IMPORTED ARAB MARE NAOMI, AND
FOAL]
From the time that superior horses began to be imported into this
country, and that was in the Colonial era, there have always been a few
Arabs and Barbs brought over of various degrees of excellence. Of
course, all of the English Thoroughbreds were rich in the blood,
Messenger among them. They came also into Canada with the French, and
the Spaniards who had crossed the Mississippi and gone to California
from Mexico brought many horses all presumably of this breed. The hardy
Mustangs of the West, which were a very distinct type, were evidently
descended from the castaways of the Spanish explorers. To President
Jefferson there came a gift of Arab stallions and mares. These were sold
and the money turned into the treasury. After Ibraheem Pasha overran
Arabia in 1817, and took several hundred head of Nejdee horses to Egypt
it was easier for a time to buy them for exportation. And from there at
about this time there were several importations into America. This
supply, however, was soon exhausted, as the Egyptians are not skilled
horse breeders. Besides, the French got the pick of this captured lot.
Then again, Teysul, King of Nejd, made a present of forty stallions and
mares to Abdul-Azeez, Sultan of Turkey. From this source came Zilcaadi,
the grandsire of the great Morgan horse Golddust, and also the Arab
stallion Leopard, given to General Grant in 1879, when the Barb, Linden
Tree, was also presented to him by the Sultan. It was with these two
Grant stallions, by the way, that Mr. Huntington began the experiment I
just alluded to.
What gave the Arab horse a kind of disrepute in America was the
experiments of Mr. A. Keene Richards. Mr. Richards was a man of wealth
and education and a breeder of race-horses in the Blue Grass section of
Kentucky. In studying the history of the English Thoroughbred he came to
the conclusion he would like to get fresh infusions of the original
blood. He went to Arabia, and personally selected several stallions.
These he mated with his Thoroughbred mares, and when the colts were old
enough he entered them in the races. They were not fast enough to win
even when conceded weight. He went again, this was about 1855, taking
with him the animal painter, Troye. They took their time, and came back
with a superior lot. Mr. Richards tried over again the same experiment
with the same result. The colts did not have the speed to beat the
Thoroughbreds. It seems to me that any one except an incurable
enthusiast would have anticipated exactly what happened. If Mr. Richards
had waited several generations and then injected the new infusions of
the Arab blood, the result probably would have been quite different. The
Civil War came along about this time, however, and the experiment ended
in what was considered a failure. But that blood taken to Kentucky at
that time by Mr. Richards has been valuable in an unexpected way, for it
has been preserved in the half-bred horses in the horse-breeding
section, and it crops out all the time in those wonderful saddle-horses
of the Denmark strain, which are sent all over the country to delight
the lovers of horseback exercise as well as to monopolize the ribbons in
the horse shows. Mr. Wilfrid Blunt, in England, has had experiences
similar to Mr. Richard’s. But he has gone the same wrong road, and has
been in too much of a hurry. Continuity in breeding is something beyond
the capacity of an individual; his life is not long enough. That is why
every government should have a stud to keep up the standard of the
horses. In the United States the interests are so diverse that it is not
likely that this will soon be done in an extensive way, though already
begun on a small scale, but each State, whose people are horse breeders,
should do something of the sort, so that the success of an undertaking
might not depend upon the uncertain life and more uncertain fortunes of
any one man.
In Arabia the horses are trained at a very early age. Indeed, the
suckling colt is handled almost from his birth. As a yearling he is
trained to obey, exercised with the halter and the bit. At two-years old
he is ridden gently but without fear of hurting him. At three there is a
let-up in his work, so that he may acquire his full growth; but he is
used enough to keep him from forgetting what he has been taught. At four
he is considered full-grown and is put to as hard service as the Arab
usually knows. It is a mistaken idea that the Arab horse is considered a
member of the family to which he belongs, and that he is pampered,
petted and caressed by the women and children, and stabled in the same
tents as his owners. Those are all fanciful ideas of the poets. On the
contrary, an Arab horse is early immured to hardships, so that in
emergency he may subsist on scant food and little water. Every one has
heard it said that an Arab would give his last crust to his horse rather
than eat it himself. I readily grant that in some cases he would do so,
and so would any other man of sense in a like predicament. The Arabs are
great robbers and wonderful chaps to run away. In the desert they do not
have telegraphs and telephones to intercept a fleeing thief. There it is
a question of the fastest and longest enduring horse. So of course, a
fleeing Arab, with his pursuers hot on his track, would give his last
crust to his horse rather than eat it himself. He would be a fool if he
did not. That last crust might be the very fuel that would keep life and
strength in his engine of escape. The Arab is not a sentimentalist
except when he talks or makes poetry. In his words he exhausts his whole
supply. Beneath them he is a very shrewd, cold and able man of affairs.
In his horses the Arab has immemorially had the means to gratify his
vanity, to give him his best beloved sport, to enable him to make war,
and, above all, to run away. The distances that these horses can go on
scant rations and small quantities of water seem incredible, while that
they can carry heavy weight without inconvenience is entirely true, for
I have tried them. But we have heard weird stories of them from the
Arabic poets themselves, and also from the English who have used what
they could get for their sports in India, where pony racing has ever
been, since the English occupation, a most attractive diversion. A
frequent expression that one comes across in old books of life in India
is that some named Arab horse had a head so small that it could be put
in a quart cup. That, of course, was an absurd exaggeration, but they
undoubtedly have very small and handsome heads. Their heads, I am sure,
were never so small nor their necks so long as the painters have
represented the heads and necks of the Darley Arabian and the Godolphin
Barb to have been. At that time in England, however, the painters even
took the liberty of exaggerating the length of neck and diminutiveness
of head of the women who sat to them. It was the fashion of the time,
and to that fashion we owe the loss of correct likenesses of two of the
famous horses of those breeds that have left their impress upon the
fleetest racers in the world, besides contributing the reproducing
capacity to all the horse types that amount to anything in the civilized
world.
CHAPTER THREE
THE THOROUGHBRED IN AMERICA
In the previous chapter I have told, as well as I could, how the English
race-horse was developed by a commingling of Oriental blood with that of
horses that had been used for sporting purposes in our mother country. I
confess that my explanation must seem very slipshod to any who are
looking for a mathematically exact exposition of facts. Nothing would
have pleased me better than to have been able to gratify the natural
craving that people have for exactness. But I cannot be less general
than I have, for more specific information is not at my command. It was
simply demonstrated by practical experiments that the mixture of the
bloods mentioned produced a very fast and sturdy horse that was superior
to what had previously been known in England, together with the more
important fact that this new Anglo-Arab was a type that was reproducing
and kept on improving in speed and staying qualities so long as the
cardinal principle of breeding: “like produces like” was adhered to with
the comprehensive intelligence which made the rule embrace performance,
conformation and blood. To the narrow-minded the law “like produces
like,” indicates that the progeny of the fastest stallion and the
fastest mare, when breeding for speed, would be faster than either
parent. It is a well-known fact that mares whose fleetness and gameness
has been demonstrated by long careers on the turf are rarely successful
as dams. Of course, there have been exceptions to this general
statement, but notwithstanding these exceptions, the narrow-minded
application of the rule breaks down just at this point. It is likeness
in blood, conformation and general characteristics that the rule more
particularly refers to. At any rate, the English had, by the middle of
the eighteenth century, developed a distinctive type of horse of most
marvelous fleetness and courage and with a blood prepotency that has
been so great, that after a century and a half the Thoroughbred is as
much improved over what he was at the beginning as the beginners were
better than the common stock of England a century earlier. And this is
the type that we call to-day in America the Thoroughbred.
The importation of the Thoroughbred into this country began in Colonial
Virginia, where there was then probably more sporting blood than there
is now, when it cannot be said to be at all pallid, but on the contrary
very red. The first Thoroughbred of which there is record, and the
record is not as exact as we should like, was brought to Virginia in
1730, by Messrs. Patton and Gist, and was called Bulle Rock. He was said
to have been foaled in 1718, and to have been sired by the Darley
Arabian, first dam by the Byerly Turk. That was good breeding, and the
gentlemen of Virginia accepted, to an extent, at least, the invitation
of Bulle Rock’s owners to use his services in improving the general
stock of the Old Dominion, for every now and then in the very oldest
records he appears in the genealogy. How good the horses were that were
landed in Virginia previous to this time, we can not say, but only
presume that they were as good as the importers could find and afford to
buy, for they were fox hunters and hard riders from the beginning of
their coming. After Bulle Rock’s coming to Virginia, very quickly
Dabster, Jolly Ranger, Janus, and Fearnaught followed.
The South Carolinians were not long behind the Virginians in their
importations, and by 1760 a jockey club had been established in
Charleston, and regular race meetings were held. Many of the wealthy
land owners imported and bred horses for these contests. In the same
year that this club was founded, Colonel De Lancey, of New York, brought
out Lath from England, and a little later Wildair, the horse supposed by
some to have been the great grandsire of the dam of Justin Morgan,
founder of the Morgan type of Vermont. About the same time there came to
New York the Cub Mare and Fair Rachel, both still famous in the
pedigrees in the “American Stud Book.” These matrons found homes in
Virginia, and assisted in the making of those old time “four mile heat”
horses, the only kind which our ancestors deemed really first rate.
Before the Revolutionary War there was much racing in Long Island as
well as in Virginia and the Carolinas, but the great contests between
states and sections did not begin till a later date. During the
Revolutionary War there were few importations of Thoroughbreds, but when
the young country had a little recovered in her industries from the
effects of that conflict, the importations began again and in 1788 the
gray stallion Messenger, the founder in some measure of our trotting
stock, was brought out, and in 1799 the Derby winner Diomed—the most
important of all horses, so far as race-horses in America are
concerned—came out to Virginia. Of Messenger, much will be said in the
proper place; of Diomed, here is the place to speak of his record and
his influence on the Thoroughbreds born to America. As a race-horse he
was par excellence the horse of his day in England, carrying practically
everything before him while that day lasted. But he was kept in training
too long—for what may be called two days instead of one—and rather lost
his fame before he was retired to the stud. In the stud he was
successful, but was not fashionable, his standing fee being reduced to
two guineas before he was sold to Colonel Hoomes to be taken to
Virginia. In Virginia he was an immense success as a sire, and few
successful horses of American stock up to the present time lack a strain
of this blood. Among his American progeny were Sir Archie, Florizel,
Potomac, Peacemaker, Top Gallant, Hamiltonian, Vingt-un, Duroc, Hampton,
Commodore Trixton, the dam of Sir Henry and the dam of Eliza White. He
was in the stud only eight years in this country, but left an
imperishable impression. While he lived he dominated all other stallions
in America, and afterwards his sons worthily took his place. He was a
chestnut, 15.3 in stature, and was got by Florizel out of a Spectator
mare, her dam by Blank, grandam by Childers out of Miss Belvoir by Gray
Grantham, and so forth. The greatest race-horse of Diomed’s get in
America was Sir Archy; and Sir Archy rivaled his sire’s performances in
the stud. He was retired early and, living to a great age, had
opportunities denied to Diomed.
[Illustration:
LEXINGTON
Bred by Dr. Warfield and owned by Mr. Ten Broeck and Mr. Alexander
]
Before the death of Sir Archy, racing was well established in America in
several sections and was pre-eminently the sport of gentlemen. The
wagers made were heavy—would be considered heavy to-day when the sport
has become defiled by being very much of a gambler’s game—but the races
run were comparatively few. Section against section soon became
popular—the North against the South, Virginia against South Carolina,
Kentucky against Tennessee, and so on. The first, and in many regards
the most important of these contests, was a race at four mile heats over
the Union Course on Long Island in 1823, for a wager of $20,000 a side.
Sir Henry, the representative of the South, was by Sir Archy, dam by
Diomed and grandam by Bel Air. He was four years old, and carried 108
pounds. Eclipse (or American Eclipse) was by Duroc, his dam being
Miller’s Damsel by Messenger. He was nine years old and carried 126
pounds. So it will be seen that the contestants were both grandsons of
Diomed; indeed, Sir Henry was a grandson through both sire and dam. The
description of the race I take from that entertaining book, “Figures of
the Past,” by the late Josiah Quincy, with the consent of the
publishers, Messrs. Little, Brown & Co., of Boston. Here is what Mr.
Quincy wrote from his diary.
“ECLIPSE” AGAINST THE WORLD
“On the 27th of May, 1823, nearly fifty-seven years ago, there was great
excitement in the city of New York, for on that day the long-expected
race of ‘_Eclipse_ against the world’ was to be decided on the
race-course on Long Island. It was an amicable contest between the North
and the South. The New York votaries of the turf—a much more prominent
interest than at present—had offered to run _Eclipse_ against any horse
that could be produced, for a purse of $10,000; and the Southern
gentlemen had accepted the challenge. I could obtain no carriage to take
me to the course, as every conveyance in the city was engaged. Carriages
of every description formed an unbroken line from the ferry to the
ground. They were driven rapidly, and were in very close connection; so
much so that when one of them suddenly stopped, the poles of at least a
dozen carriages broke through the panels of those preceding them. The
drivers were, naturally, much enraged at this accident; but it seemed a
necessary consequence of the crush and hurry of the day, and nobody
could be blamed for it. The party that I was with, seeing there was no
chance of riding, was compelled to foot it. But after plodding some way,
we had the luck to fall in with a returning carriage, which we chartered
to take us to the course. On arriving, we found an assembly which was
simply overpowering; it was estimated that there were over one hundred
thousand persons upon the ground. The condition of the race were
four-mile heats, the best two in three; the course was a mile in length.
A college friend, the late David P. Hall, had procured for me a ticket
for the jockey-box, which commanded a view of the whole field. There was
great difficulty in clearing the track, until _Eclipse_ and _Sir Henry_
(the Southern horse), were brought to the stand. They were both in brave
spirits, throwing their heels high into the air; they soon effected that
scattering of the multitude which all other methods had failed to
accomplish. And now a great disappointment fell, like a wet blanket, on
more than half the spectators. It was suddenly announced that Purdy, the
jockey of _Eclipse_, had had a difficulty with his owner and refused to
ride. To substitute another in his place seemed almost like giving up
the contest; but the man was absolutely stubborn, and the time had come.
Another rider was provided, and the signal for the start was given. I
stood exactly opposite the judges’ seat, where the mastering excitement
found its climax. Off went the horses, every eye straining to follow
them. Four times they dashed by the judges’ stand, and every time _Sir
Henry_ was in the lead. The spirits of the Southerners seemed to leap up
beyond control, while the depression of the more phlegmatic North set in
like a physical chill. Directly before me sat John Randolph, the great
orator of Virginia. Apart from his intense sectional pride, he had
personal reasons to rejoice at the turn things were taking; for he had
bet heavily on the contest, and, it was said, proposed to sail for
Europe upon clearing enough to pay his expenses. Half an hour elapsed
for the horses to get their wind, and again they were brought to the
stand. But now a circumstance occurred which raised a deafening shout
from the partizans of the North. Purdy was to ride. How his scruples had
been overcome did not appear, but there he stood before us, and was
mounting _Eclipse_. Again, amidst breathless suspense, the word “Go!”
was heard, and again _Sir Henry_ took the inside track, and kept the
lead for more than two miles and a half. _Eclipse_ followed close on his
heels and, at short intervals, attempted to pass. At every spurt he made
to get ahead, Randolph’s high-pitched and penetrating voice was heard
each time shriller than before: ‘You can’t do it, Mr. Purdy! You can’t
do it, Mr. Purdy! You can’t do it, Mr. Purdy!’ But Mr. Purdy _did_ do
it. And as he took the lead what a roar of excitement went up! Tens of
thousands of dollars were in suspense, and, although I had not a cent
depending, I lost my breath, and felt as if a sword had passed through
me. Purdy kept the lead and came in a length or so ahead. The horses had
run eight miles, and the third heat was to decide the day. The
confidence on the part of the Southern gentlemen was abated. The manager
of _Sir Henry_ rode up to the front of our box and, calling to a
gentleman, said: ‘You must ride the next heat; there are hundreds of
thousands of Southern money depending on it. That boy don’t know how to
ride; he don’t keep his horse’s mouth open!’ The gentleman positively
refused, saying that he had not been in the saddle for months. The
manager begged him to come down, and John Randolph was summoned to use
his eloquent persuasions. When the horses were next brought to the
stand, behold the gentleman[3] appeared, booted and spurred, with a red
jacket on his back, and a jockey cap on his head. On the third heat
_Eclipse_ took the lead, and, by dint of constant whipping and spurring,
won by a length this closely contested race.
Footnote 3:
Arthur Taylor, a Virginian.
“There was never contest more exciting. Sectional feeling and heavy
pecuniary stakes were both involved. The length of time before it was
decided, the change of riders, the varying fortunes, all intensified the
interest. I have seen the great Derby races; but they finish almost as
soon as they begin, and were tame enough in comparison to this. Here for
nearly two hours there was no abatement in the strain. I was unconscious
of everything else, and found, when the race was concluded, that the sun
had actually blistered my cheek without my perceiving it. The victors
were, of course, exultant, and Purdy mounted on _Eclipse_, was led up to
the judges’ stand, the band playing, ‘See the Conquering Hero Comes.’
The Southerners bore their losses like gentlemen, and with a good grace.
It was suggested that the comparative chances of Adams and Jackson at
the approaching presidential election should be tested by a vote of that
gathering. ‘Ah,’ said Mr. Randolph, ‘if the question of the Presidency
could be settled by this assembly, there would be no opposition: Mr.
Purdy would go to the White House by acclamation.’”
[Illustration:
TEN BROECK (THOROUGHBRED)
Bred and owned by John Harper
]
The first heat was run in 7.37½, the second in 7.49, and the third in
8.24. Not very fast time considering what has been done since; and
contemptible according to the pretensions made by race-horse owners of
the present day, when “four-mile heats” are obsolete because they
interfere with the _business_ of the sport, and do not give the
bookmakers frequent enough chance to turn over the money of the public.
They base these pretensions on the performance of Lucretia Borgia, a
four-year-old, that ran a four-mile dash in 1897, in California, in
7.11, carrying eighty-five pounds. I have no doubt that the
Thoroughbreds of the present are much faster than those of 1823, but the
only way to compare them as to gameness and bottom is to have them
repeat and repeat again, and see whether or not this increased fleetness
is maintained. Probably it will not be done, for the one-time sport of
gentlemen is nowadays very much a mere gambler’s game.
The next great contest that old-time racing men spoke of with a respect
that was akin to awe was that between Gray Eagle, a Kentucky horse, by
Woodpecker out of Ophelia by Medley, and a Louisiana horse, Wagner, by
Sir Charles out of Maria West by Marion, at four-mile heats. This was at
Louisville in 1839. Wagner won the first two heats, Gray Eagle being
badly ridden, in 7.48 and 7.44. This race was run on a Monday. The
following Saturday the race was repeated. Gray Eagle won the first heat
in 7.51; Wagner took the second heat in 7.43. Gray Eagle broke down on
the second mile of the third race, and no time was kept. Though I was
not born for many years after these races were run, they were so
important in the history of the neighborhood where I lived and such
frequent topics of conversation that I sometimes have difficulty in
persuading myself that I was not present. In this I somewhat resemble
the gallant King of England, who believed that he was at the battle of
Waterloo.
Kentucky had become prominent before this time as a breeding place for
Thoroughbreds. The Kentuckians, mainly from Virginia in the early days,
were horse lovers by inheritance and habit, so they took with them to
their new homes very little but good stock. They were not impoverished
adventurers seeking new pioneer homes because they had failed in the
places of their birth. Not a bit of it. They were well born and of good
substance, and they went to this new country to found estates, for the
gentlemen of that period had not outgrown the Elizabethan land hunger
which took so many of the cavaliers to Virginia in an earlier century.
That they took good horses with them was a matter of course. And
arriving there they found that the native blue grass, which grew
plentifully even in the woods, was pasturage upon which horses
flourished mightily. The advertisements in the _Kentucky Gazette_ from
1787 to 1805 show that there were many Thoroughbred stallions standing
in the neighborhood of Lexington during those years, and not a few of
them were imported from England, the others coming from Virginia, the
noble pedigrees being printed at full length, with references nearly
always to the Newmarket Racing Calendar to substantiate the turf
performances of the sires advertised. So Kentucky was prepared with
stock of her own to take the place of the Virginia horse breeders when
the wasteful methods of agriculture, and the costly habits of
hospitality, had impoverished the mother State and made racing a sport
too expensive for the depleted purses of the gentlemen who stayed at
home. The Sir Archy blood was what the Kentuckians seem to have been
after, and soon there was more of it in Kentucky than in Virginia. Some
six of Sir Archy’s sons stood in the neighborhood of Lexington at one
time, and there were mares there fit to mate with Diomed’s grandsons.
The Whip family were also well represented, and among the other English
stallions taken thither may be mentioned Buzzard, Royalist, Dragon,
Speculator, Spread Eagle, Forrester, Alderman, Eagle, Pretender,
Touchstone and Archer. All a reader, who wishes to go deeper, needs to
do is to look at the stud book and see what pure and royal blood the
Kentuckians were working with to make that foundation stock which made
the State so famous, that at this time there are more Thoroughbreds
foaled there than in all the other States of the Union combined.
The breeders there were amateurs, however—men who bred for the love of
the horse and the love of sport—until Mr. Robert A. Alexander began his
operations at the famous Woodburn farm, where the breeding of
Thoroughbreds was more extensively carried on than in any other place in
the world. Mr. Alexander was a native Kentuckian, but educated at
Cambridge in England. He died at forty-eight, but he gave a great
impetus to stock breeding in Kentucky. When I first visited Woodburn,
the great Lexington was at the head of the stud. Later Mr. Alexander, as
well as his brother and successor, had many other great stallions and
brood mares, and colts and fillies from this farm for a score of years
captured the richest prizes of the American turf. The history of
Woodburn from 1850 to 1880 would almost amount to the same thing as a
history of Thoroughbred breeding in Kentucky for that period, though
there were many other smaller breeders, as there are now, when the James
B. Haggin Elmendorf farm has taken the premier place, and that, too, on
a very much larger scale even than Alexander’s Woodburn. As it was in
Alexander’s time, however, the smaller breeders, particularly Mr. Keene
and Mr. Belmont, are still fortunate in producing most admirable horses;
and it will be a bad thing for the Thoroughbred industry in Kentucky
when this is no longer so. The result of a monopoly of breeding horses
would be the same as the result produced by the trusts in oil, in steel
and in beef; the industry would be controlled by one man, or several in
combination, and the only competition that would remain would be between
the men who attend to the gambling end of the game. This is not likely
to happen, unless a corporation be formed to take over the chief
breeding farms, for in nine cases out of ten, when an owner dies, his
horses are sold and his collection dispersed so as to settle his estate.
After the Gray Eagle-Wagner race, the next one that was watched with
breathless interest by the whole country was the match at four-mile
heats between Fashion and Boston for $20,000 a side. This was run on
Long Island in 1842, and both heats were won by Fashion, the time being
7.32½ and 7.45. The time of this race, it will be seen, was an
improvement on that of the Eclipse-Sir Henry race, and also on the time
in the race between Gray Eagle and Wagner. It was called a match between
North and South, and the North was again the winner. Fashion was bred in
New Jersey, and was by Commodore Stockton’s imported stallion Trustee
out of the Virginia bred mare, Bonnets o’ Blue. Boston came from
Virginia, and was by Timoleon out of Robin Brown’s dam by Florizel.
Boston was a grandson of Sir Archy, and foaled in 1833. From the time of
his training as a three-year-old until he met Fashion, six years later,
he had campaigned all over the country and had meet with almost
universal success. He was considered the greatest horse of his day, and
there are many students of Thoroughbreds who to-day consider that he was
the greatest influence for good of any horse ever bred in this country,
greater even than his very wonderful son, Lexington.
The last great race—classic races, the turf writers call them—prior to
the Civil War, was at New Orleans, between two sons of Boston—Lexington
and Lecompte. The former was out of Alice Carneal by imported Sarpedon,
the latter out of Reel by imported Glencoe. This race was in 1854 and,
of course, at four-mile-heats, for the Great State Post Stakes. The city
of New Orleans, the place of the race, was packed with visitors from all
over the country. Lecompte won the two first heats, the time being 7.26
and 7.38¾. Mr. Richard Ten Broeck, the owner of Lexington, was so
dissatisfied that he tried to arrange a match with Lecompte. This came
to nothing, so he issued a challenge to run Lexington against Lecompte’s
time, 7.26, which was the record. This challenge was accepted and the
trial was made over the Metarie Course in New Orleans in April, 1855.
The most famous jockey of the time, Gil Patrick, was taken from Kentucky
to ride Mr. Ten Broeck’s horse, and again the sporting world of the
country crowded to New Orleans. Lexington beat the record, doing the
four miles in 7.19¾, and Mr. Ten Broeck was $20,000 richer for his
belief in his horse. There was at that time, and is now for that matter,
a feeling that a record made against time is not so satisfactory as one
made in an actual race, so the friends of Lecompte were not cast down by
Lexington’s performance. This trial against time took place on the 2d of
April. On the 24th of April was to be run the Jockey Club Purse of
$1000, and both Lecompte and Lexington were entered. Mr. Ten Broeck and
General Wells, the owner of Lecompte, bet $2500 against each other,
though in the general betting Lexington was the favorite at $100 to $80.
A writer of the day thus describes the race:
“Both animals were in the finest possible condition, and the weather and
the track, had they been manufactured to a sportsman’s order, could not
have been improved. At last the final signal of ‘Bring up your horses’
sounded from the bugle; and prompt to call Gil Patrick, the well-known
rider of Boston, put his foot in Lexington’s stirrup, and the negro boy
of General Wells sprang into the saddle of Lecompte. They advanced
slowly and daintily forward to the stand, and when they halted at the
score, the immense concourse that had, up to this moment, been swaying
to and fro, were fixed as stone. It was a beautiful sight to see these
superb animals standing at the score, filled with unknown qualities of
flight, and quietly awaiting the conclusion of the directions to the
riders for the tap of the drum.
“At length the tap of the drum came, and instantly it struck the
stationary steeds leaped forward with a start that sent everybody’s
heart into his mouth. With bound on bound, as if life were staked on
every spring, they flew up the quarter stretch, Lexington at the turn
drawing his nose a shadow in advance, but when they reached the
half-mile post—53 seconds—both were exactly side by side. On they went
at the same flying pace, Lexington again drawing gradually forward,
first his neck, then his shoulder, and increasing up the straight side
amid a wild roar of cheers, flew by the standard at the end of the first
mile three-quarters of a length in the lead. One hundred to seventy-five
on Lexington! Time, 1.49½.
“Onward they plunge; onward without pause! What makes this throbbing at
my heart? What are these brilliant brutes to me? Why do I lean forward
and insensibly unite my voice with the roar of this mad multitude? Alas,
I but share the infatuation of the horses, and the leveling spirit
common to all strife has seized on all alike. Where are they now? Ah,
here they fly around the first turn! By Heaven! Lecompte is overhauling
him!
“And so he was, for on entering the back stretch of the second mile the
hero of 7.26 made his most desperate effort, reaching first the girth,
then the shoulder, then the neck of Lexington, and finally, when he
reached the half-mile post, laid himself alongside him, nose by nose.
Then the mass, which during the few seconds of this special struggle had
been breathless with hope and fear, burst into a shout that rang for
miles, and amid the din of which might be heard here and there, ‘One
hundred even on Lecompte!’
“But this equality was only for a moment’s term. Lexington threw his eye
jealously askant; Gil Patrick relaxed a little of his rein, which up to
this time he had held close in hand, and without violence or startling
effort, the racer of racers stole ahead, gently, but steadily and
surely, as before, until he drew himself a clear length in the lead, in
which position they closed the second mile. Time, 1.51.
“Again the hurrah rises as they pass the stand—‘One hundred to
seventy-five on Lexington!’—and swells in wider volume when Lexington
increases his one length to three from the stand to the turn of the back
stretch. In vain Lecompte struggled; in vain he called to mind his
former laurels; in vain his rider struck him with the steel; his great
spirit was a sharper spur, and when his tail fell, as it did from this
time out, I could imagine he felt a sinking of the heart as he saw
streaming before him the waving flag of Lexington, now held straight out
in race-horse fashion, and anon nervously flung up as if it were a plume
of triumph.
“‘One hundred to fifty on Lexington!’ The three lengths were increased
to four, and again the shout arose, as in this relative condition they
went for the third time over the course. Time, 1.51.
“The last crisis of the strife had now arrived, and Lecompte, if he had
any resources left, must call upon them straight. So thought his rider,
for the steel went to his sides; but it was in vain, he had done his
best, while, as for Lexington, it seemed as if he had just begun to run.
Gil Patrick now gave him a full rein, and for a time as he went down the
back stretch, it actually seemed as if he were running for the very fun
of the thing. It was now $100 to $10 on Lexington, or any kind of odds,
but there were no takers. He had the laurel in his teeth and was going
for a distance.
“But at this inglorious prospect Lecompte desperately rallied, and
escaped the humiliation by drawing himself a few lengths within the
distance pole, while Lexington dashed past the stand, hard in hand, and
actually running away with his rider—making the last mile in 1.52¼ and
completing the four in the unprecedented time of 7.23¾, I say
unprecedented, because it beats Lecompte’s 7.26, and is, therefore, the
fastest heat ever made in a match.”
I have taken pains to transcribe this account of the race for a double
purpose. This race fixed Lexington’s place as the best horse in the
country and it was also his last public appearance. Then, again, I think
it interesting to show how the reporters of half a century ago dealt
with an important sporting event. After this race Lexington was taken
back to Kentucky and covered thirty mares without being thrown entirely
out of training. It was Mr. Ten Broeck’s intention to take the horse to
England and race him there. Unfortunately, exactly how even Mr. Ten
Broeck never knew, the horse was over-fed just before a long gallop and
went blind, so he never faced a starter after his contest with Lecompte
at New Orleans. Mr. Ten Broeck and Mr. A. J. Alexander meeting in
England, where Mr. Alexander had gone in search of a stallion for
Woodburn, a bargain was struck and Lexington changed hands for $15,000.
There never was a horse in Kentucky, or in the world for that matter,
that was held in such esteem as was Lexington. The feeling for him was
actually one of reverence. I remember being taken to see him when I was
a boy by my father. We felt and acted as though we were visiting a
shrine. When the sightless veteran was brought from his box it was the
most natural thing in the world for us to remove our hats. A few years
before I had been taken to the White House to see Mr. Lincoln. Upon my
word Lexington to me at the time seemed the greater and more impressive
of the two.
This best four-mile record of Lexington lasted for nineteen years, when
one-quarter of a second was clipped from it at Saratoga by Fellowcraft,
a colt by imported Australian out of Aerolite, a daughter of Lexington.
This only lasted two years, when at Louisville it was beaten by Ten
Broeck, by Mr. Ten Broeck’s imported Phaeton[4], the dam being Fanny
Holten by Lexington. Ten Broeck’s time was 7.15¾. Mr. Ten Broeck, by the
way, was the first man to take American horses to race in England. He
met with moderate success and thoroughly persuaded the English that we
had first class horses in this country. His Prioress ran fifth for the
Goodwood Cup, much to the chagrin of the Americans who had backed her
heavily. Even the “Autocrat at the Breakfast Table” preached a charming
sermon on the occasion. It was left for Mr. Pierre Lorillard and Mr.
Keene to win classic events on the other side, the Derby for one, the
Grand Prix and Oaks for the other. Lexington’s great influence as a sire
was rather through his daughters; when bred to imported English sires
they were wonderfully successful in producing winners. The name of
Lexington probably recurs more frequently than that of any other horse,
except his own ancestors, in American Thoroughbred genealogies.
Footnote 4:
This splendid sire was not appreciated in Kentucky until after his
death. Lexington lost his eyes through neglect, and Phaeton actually
lost his life. So Mr. Ten Broeck had bad luck with the two best sires
he ever owned. But Lexington’s loss of his eyesight was probably
America’s gain, for it is very unlikely, if this great horse had ever
gone to England, that he would have been suffered to return.
During the Civil War the breeding of Thoroughbreds was severely
interrupted, as in Kentucky and the South generally there were sterner
things to be done. Besides, the armies were always looking for horses
without any prejudices against Thoroughbreds, and the guerrilla bands
had an absolute fondness for them. It did not cease, but languished.
Immediately afterwards it started again, there being many new
importations from England, and in 1866 Jerome Park was opened and a new
era in racing began. In this new era the first horse to catch the
popular affection was Harry Bassett, by Lexington out of Canary by
imported Albion. This horse was the people’s idol, and whenever he was
to run the accommodations of the race-course were all too small to hold
the crowds. As a two and three-year old he won all of his engagements,
except the first, in which he started, when a blunder at the post took
away his chances. Although bred in Kentucky, the Kentuckians sought a
horse to clip his laurels, and the choice fell on old John Harper’s
Longfellow, by imported Leamington, dam Nantura (the dam, also, of Fanny
Holton, Ten Broeck’s dam). The two met at Long Branch for the Monmouth
Cup, two miles and a half, in July, 1872. Longfellow won so easily that
it was difficult to believe that Harry Bassett was at his best. And he
was not, for two weeks later at Saratoga, for the Saratoga Cup, two
miles and a quarter, Bassett won. One of Longfellow’s plates (shoes)
became twisted after he had gone a mile and a half, and for the
remaining distance the horse had the entire use of only three feet. They
never met again. In the stud Longfellow was a great success, and Bassett
practically a failure. The whole country watched for intelligence of
these two races, and they proved conclusively that the old-time sporting
blood of the people was as rich as it had been in the earlier years.
[Illustration: LONGFELLOW AND OLD JOHN HARPER, WITH BOBBY SWIM IN THE
SADDLE]
By this time the four-mile heat races, indeed, any kind of heat races,
were becoming unpopular with the managers of the turf, and both breeders
and trainers were called upon to turn out horses that could go shorter
distances at an increased rate of speed. Indeed, the English methods
were coming more into vogue. That the votaries of the turf might have
what they wanted, the breeders imported many new stallions and not a few
mares from England. The result was that what was needed for the new
style of racing was obtained. I have often had doubts whether this
change was a good thing either for the turf or for the breed of horses.
The short dashes enable the bookmakers to bet against six races in an
afternoon, and so largely increase the toll they levy on the public. The
racing stables are enabled to contest for more purses and so increase
their earnings. There is a greater demand for race-horses, so the
breeders have a larger and a better market. But, after all, the sport of
racing is only permitted because it tends to improve the breed of
horses; not race-horses alone, but because the Thoroughbred, when
crossed with other strains and types, tends to improve those types. Now,
does the blood of the new-fashioned horse assimilate so well with the
common blood as that of the more compact, and possibly sturdier, horse
of thirty or fifty years ago? My opinion is that it does not. The modern
race-horse is merely a racing machine, a racing machine very much as a
Herreshoff yacht is. The contrast between this racing machine and a
Denmark, a Morgan, or even an ordinary trotter is too great, and good
results from the crossing of the strains is hardly to be expected; but
the tendency is all towards greater speed for shorter journeys, and it
will doubtless continue until the men who encourage and insist on the
new style of racing bring racing under the ban of the law. Then will
come the deluge. The racing machine horses will not be worth their oats,
and the race-tracks will be cut up into building lots for suburban
villas.
Between 1870 and 1880 the coming of the modern type was clearly
indicated, but the horses that were raced in that period were certainly
grand specimens. The Bonnie Scotlands were at this time particularly
strong. Among these Luke Blackburn, Glidelia, and Bramble were probably
the best. It is a pity that Bonnie Scotland did not have a better chance
in his earlier career. When he arrived in America it was at Boston,
whence he was taken to Ohio. It was only in 1872 that he joined the stud
of the Belle Meade Farm in Tennessee. He lived only a few years later,
but in 1882 the winnings of his get led the list. It was during this
period that Mr. Keene sent Foxall to Europe, where he won the Grand Prix
de Paris, was second to Bend Or for the City and Suburban, won the
Cesarewitch and other great stakes. Then there were Falsetto, Duke of
Magenta, Duke of Montrose, Aristides, Eolus, Grenada, Grinstead, Himyar,
Kingfisher, Monarchist, Sensation, Springbok, Tom Ochiltree, Uncas,
Virgil, and Spendthrift, the latter seeming to me to best represent the
virtues of the old and the new-fashioned horse than any other of this
middle period. But Bramble was the most useful of them all, being up to
any weight and ready to start every day in the week.
The present period may be said to have begun at Coney Island in 1880.
There have been so many wonderfully fast horses developed in this
twenty-five years that even to enumerate them and their breeding would
take a book by itself. The chief characteristics of the breeding,
however, may be said to be in the larger infusions of the English blood,
the English having gone into the racing machine business before we did.
I shall have to content myself with going along very rapidly now, and
mention only those horses and events that have enduring prominence. One
of these horses was Hindoo, by Virgil, the winner of many of the
greatest stakes, and the sire of Hanover and many another star
performer. Thora, by Longfellow, was one of the greatest fillies that
ever looked through a bridle, and as a matron is one of the exceptions
to the rule that hardly worked race-horses rarely reproduce themselves
in their offspring. Miss Woodford, by Billet out of Fancy Jane, came
along about this time, and was so splendid a racer that she was more
than once barred in the betting as invincible. In 1884 was foaled
Hamburg, by Hindoo out of Bourbon Belle. This horse outclassed all of
his time, winning thirty-two races out of fifty starts, was thirteen
times second, three times third and unplaced only twice. His dam was by
imported Bonnie Scotland. We also had Firenzi, Troubadour, The Bard, and
Emperor of Norfolk. Among the most notable contests was that between
Salvator and Tenny in 1890, over the Coney Island Jockey Club track.
Salvator won the Suburban and a challenge was sent by Tenny’s owner for
$5,000 a side. Mr. Haggin, Salvator’s owner, accepted. Murphy rode
Salvator, and Garrison had the mount on Tenny. When the distance was
half over it seemed Salvator’s race in a gallop, but Tenny made up lost
ground in the last half, and Salvator won by only half a head. The first
mile had been run in 1.39¾, while the mile and a quarter was covered in
2.05. Mr. Haggin, who is said to be the most laconic and imperturbable
man alive, is reported to have remarked, with a sigh of relief when the
race was finished: “Uncomfortably close.” After this match Salvator made
one more distinguished appearance. This was at Monmouth Park, where, in
a mile straight away, he ran against time and covered the distance in
1.35½. Salvator was by imported Prince Charlie. Salvator was not a
success in the stud.
[Illustration:
DOMINO (THOROUGHBRED)
Bred and owned by J. R. KEENE
]
In 1893 appeared another popular champion in Mr. Keene’s Domino, a son
of Himyar out of Mannie Gray. Domino was the perfection of what I have
called a racing machine. He won the Futurity at two years old, carrying
130 pounds, but by a very narrow margin. As the chestnut colt Dobbins,
by Mr. Pickwick, had carried the same weight and seemed to have gained
on Domino in the last few strides, there were many, Dobbins’ owner
included, who thought Dobbins the better colt. So it was arranged that
they should run a match over the Futurity course, each carrying 118
pounds. They ran like a matched team the whole distance, and the judges
not being able to separate them, it was declared a dead heat. The heat
was not run off. Domino made a clean sweep of his first season. The next
year he went amiss, and was retired to the stud. Though he only had one
or two seasons in the harem, he was a success, and his name will be
perpetuated in the American Stud Book.
The next great horse after Domino was Hamburg, by Hanover out of Lady
Reel by Fellowcraft. This was a phenomenal race-horse during a long
career, and his get are now doing him honor on the turf. The colts by
imported Watercress have been most distinguished, and one, Waterboy, was
the star of his year. Indeed, the horses now winning the laurels seem to
be mainly by imported sires, though Ben Brush and Hamburg appear to be
holding their own as sires.
These rapidly sketched events I have only meant as illustrations of the
four periods in the development of the English Thoroughbred in this
country. The first period was Colonial; the second period was up to the
Civil War; the third period from the end of the Civil War to 1880, and
the fourth from 1880 till the present writing.
CHAPTER FOUR
THE MORGAN HORSE
The Morgan horse is the most distinctive reproducing native type in
America, and has been so since the family was recognized as a type in
Vermont some seventy-five years ago. For symmetry, docility,
intelligence, sturdiness, and speed, the Morgans have been justly famous
and have met with the approval of good judges of horse-flesh during the
whole of their history. They reached their highest fame during the two
decades between 1850 and 1870. After that, both as a type and as a
family, they came near perishing, a victim to the desire, which merits
the name of craze, to produce trotting horses of phenomenal speed by
means of crossing and recrossing with the Hambletonian blood. That there
is a revival of Morgan breeding is an excellent thing for the country,
for the Morgan is about the best all-round, everyday, general utility
horse that this country has had and probably as good as any type in the
world.
The renascence of the Morgan horse is due to the horse shows, which have
become deservedly popular in many parts of the United States. There are
those who speak of the horse shows rather contemptuously as society fads
in which the horses exhibited are of secondary importance and interest.
To many, who care nothing about horses and know less, it is doubtless
true that the social side of horse shows is the important, if not the
only side. This attitude, even if it be the attitude of the majority of
those who attend the exhibitions, does not detract from the value of the
shows so long as the work in the ring be of the right sort, and high
standards be established and maintained as to the various classes of
horses that are produced in this country. Indeed, it is a good thing for
the shows that people with no fondness for or taste in horses should
still patronize them, for their money helps pay expenses and makes it
possible to offer the handsome prizes which go along with the awards. If
the horse shows had done nothing else than stimulate the renewed effort
to re-establish the Morgan type they would have served a purpose far
from vain.
[Illustration: THE JUSTIN MORGAN TYPE]
Twenty years or so ago, when the horse shows began to take the place of
the old-time county fairs, the driving horse that was popular in the
United States was the Standard Bred Trotter, which usually traced back
to Messenger through Hambletonian, who has been celebrated with such
insistence of praise as the great begetter of trotters that the majority
of Americans believe all that has been said of him as the actual and
indisputable truth. It is not a grateful task to destroy established and
well-liked fictions, so for the moment I shall pass the Hambletonian
fiction by, and devote myself to telling about horses of superior
breeding, better manners, higher courage, greater symmetry and above
all, a prepotency of blood which reproduces itself in offspring from
generation to generation, so that we have in the Morgans an easily
recognized and most valuable type. Before going on with my story,
however, I must disavow any intention to detract from the merits of
those who have bred and trained the wonderful trotters that have, year
by year, been clipping seconds off the mile record until the two minute
mark has been passed. At the same time I wish to insist that the
breeding and training of these phenomenal animals should be left to the
very rich, just, for instance, as yacht racing is. The breeding of
trotters is far from an exact science, as the trotter, as such, is not a
reproducing type, and only two or three in a hundred of the standard
breeds ever go very fast, while more of the fast horses among them pace
than trot. They are not a type in conformation, in action or in gait;
they come in all sizes and all shapes, and are not to be judged by the
two or three per cent that develop speed. Moreover, they do not pay.
Counting the cost of the ninety-seven or ninety-eight per cent of
failures, I venture to say that the production of each successful
trotter must cost in the neighborhood of ten thousand dollars. Lottery
prizes, when lotteries were in vogue, were as high as that; but buying
lottery tickets was never considered a good commercial enterprise. I
sincerely hope, however, that rich men will continue to breed for
extreme speed, as they can afford such costly and interesting
experiments. The breeder, however, who wishes to make his stock farm
pay, and the ordinary farmer who raises a few colts annually will surely
find a more profitable business in trying to secure high-grade Morgans
than in pursuing the elusive course which frequently leads to bankruptcy
by the well-known Hambletonian road.
The founder of the Morgan type was a horse born somewhere about 1789,
and was the property of Justin Morgan, who kept a tavern in West
Springfield, Massachusetts, until he moved to Randolph, Vermont, in the
year the colt that has perpetuated his owner’s name was foaled. I have
examined all the testimony available as to the pedigree of this first
Morgan horse, and I must say with regret, but with entire respect for
those who have gathered the evidence, that none of it seems to me quite
convincing. This was the conclusion of Mr. D. C. Linsley, who published
a valuable book in 1857, called “Morgan Horses.” Mr. Linsley in his book
printed all the stories and traditions about the breeding of the Justin
Morgan with candid impartiality, but he did not decide that any was
correct. According to these stories the first Morgan was anything from a
Thoroughbred to a Canadian pony. Recently Col. Joseph Battell, of
Middlebury, Vermont, himself a breeder of Morgans and the editor and
publisher of the “Morgan Horse and Register,” has re-examined all the
records extant as to the owner of the first Morgan horse, and he
announces, with a thorough belief in his conclusions, that the horse was
a Thoroughbred, got by Colonel De Lancey’s True Briton (also called
Beautiful Bay and Traveler) out of a daughter of Diamond, also a
Thoroughbred. According to the Battell pedigree, Justin Morgan had many
infusions of the blood of the Godolphin Barb, the Darley Arabian, and
the Byerly Turk, and was worthy to be registered in the stud book
established by the Messrs. Weatherby, in England. Indeed, Colonel
Battell personally told me that he thoroughly believed in the accuracy
of this pedigree, adding, however, “that while the evidence is strong
enough to transfer property on, it would not hang a man.”
As I said before, none of the evidence seems quite convincing to me. And
no wonder. This horse died in Vermont in 1820, and not until nearly
thirty years after was there any systematic effort made to trace his
pedigree. During his life he was known only in his own neighborhood
where, notwithstanding his acknowledged value as a stallion, he was used
the greater part of every year as a common work horse. My own belief is
that this horse was very rich in Arab and Barb blood, but not an English
Thoroughbred. He had, so far as his history has been told, none of the
Thoroughbred characteristics. Nor had his descendants. But whence his
ancestors came and where he was born or when are not matters of so much
importance as the indisputable fact that his progeny now for a hundred
years have had similar excellent characteristics and have remained a
fixed type, through good and evil repute, so that we know by what we can
see to-day that the old stories and songs of our grandfathers as to the
strength, the speed, the beauty and the courage of Morgan horses were
more than mere songs and stories—they were the truth put into pleasing
form.
This founder of the type, when the property of Justin Morgan, who, after
he gave up tavern keeping in Massachusetts, became a schoolteacher, a
drawing and music master in Vermont, was called Figure. When the produce
of his sons began achieving fame, and the family and type needed a
distinctive name, he was called after his old owner (maybe his breeder,
for all that I can say to the contrary), Justin Morgan. His most famous
son was Sherman Morgan, though there were eight or ten others of his
colts kept entire, and the progeny of them have found place in the
Morgan Register. Mr. Linsley’s description of the first Morgan is worthy
of transcription:
“The original, or Justin Morgan, was about 14 hands high and weighed
about 950 pounds. His color was dark bay, with black legs, mane and
tail. His mane and tail were coarse and heavy, but not so massive as has
sometimes been described; the hair of both was straight and not inclined
to curl. His head was good, not extremely small, but lean and bony, the
face straight, forehead broad, ears small and very fine, but set very
wide apart. His eyes were medium size, very dark and prominent, with a
spirited but pleasant expression, and showed no white round the edge of
the lid. His nostrils were very large, the muzzle small and the lips
close and firm. His back and legs were perhaps his most noticeable
point. The former was very short, the shoulder blades and hip bones
being very long and oblique, and the loins extremely long and muscular.
His body was rather round, long and deep, close ribbed up; chest deep
and wide, with the breast bone projecting a good deal in front. His legs
were short, close jointed, thin, but very wide, hard and free from meat,
with muscles that were remarkably large for a horse of his size, and
this superabundance of muscle exhibited itself at every step. His hair
was short and at almost all seasons soft and glossy. He had a little
long hair about the fetlocks and for two or three inches above the
fetlocks on the back sides of the legs; the rest of the limbs were
entirely free from it. His feet were small but well shaped, and he was
in every respect perfectly sound and free from every sort of blemish. He
was a very fast walker. In trotting his gait was low and smooth, and his
step short and nervous; he was not what in these days (1857) would be
called fast, and we think it doubtful if he could trot a mile much, if
any, within four minutes, though it is claimed by many that he could
trot it in three.”
So we see that the founder of this great type was, whatever his
breeding, a pony of most admirable conformation. In his performances he
was the most remarkable horse in the neighborhood of his owner. He won
against all comers in the various contests that were indulged in by the
somewhat primitive sportsmen of the Green Mountain State. He won at
walking, trotting, and running and also at pulling. Besides he was in
great demand on muster day as the mount of the commanding officer, who
would make a great show on this elegant, graceful, and intelligent
horse. So we see the founder was exactly what the Morgans have been and
are to-day, a good all-round, general utility horse. And his progeny
have been like him. Many of them, however, have been much larger and
much faster as trotters, and, as we shall presently see, a breeder of
Morgans stands as much chance to produce a very fast trotter as he who
breeds with speed alone as his ultimate object.
[Illustration:
DUKE OF ALBANY (MORGAN)
Bred by Joseph Battell
]
Justin Morgan was in the stud for more than twenty years in Vermont, and
became the father of many sons and daughters. How many sons were kept
entire is not known. Mr. Linsley mentions only six, but Colonel Battell
accounts for twelve or fourteen on “information more or less reliable.”
Of the daughters we have very little direct information, but that there
were many and that they had a great influence on the stock of New
England, and particularly of Vermont, is inevitable. The records of most
of the sons as sires have not been kept with either fullness or
certainty, and the evidence is usually speculative rather than exact.
This as a rule; sometimes, however, it is exact. This is the case with
some of the progeny of Sherman Morgan, Bulrush and Woodbury Morgan. As
to the others—Brutus, Weasel or Fenton Horse, Young Traveler or Hawkins
Horse, Revenge, the Gordon Horse, the Randolph Horse, and one or two
that went to the neighborhood of Boston—the records are not
satisfactory. For instance, here is the kind of story that was once
current. Revenge was in the stud at Surrey, New Hampshire, in 1823. The
dam of the famous Henry Clay by Andrew Jackson was the noted mare Lady
Surrey, foaled about 1824. She was said by some to be sired by Revenge.
Mr. Randolph Huntington, the historian of the Clay family of horses and
the staunchest advocate of their merits, does not endorse this, as he
says that Lady Surrey was a Kanuck, and brought to New York with twelve
other horses from the neighborhood of Quebec. Had she been the
granddaughter of the original Morgan, the fact would hardly have escaped
Mr. Huntington, who has also always been a believer in the Morgan blood.
But there is very little profit in discussing or analyzing these old
stories. There is no mortal way of getting at the truth, and we can do
little more than grant that many of them are not impossible. What is
important is that in the course of three horse generations the Morgan
was a fixed and reproducing type in Vermont, a type which had attracted
the attention of breeders and horsemen all over the country to such an
extent that commissioners were sent, even from Kentucky, to examine and
report upon the stock.
Sherman Morgan was foaled in 1808, his dam being a Rhode Island mare
taken to Vermont in 1799. Of her pedigree nothing is certainly known,
but Mr. Sherman, her owner, spoke of her as of Spanish breed, which
means that she was, in all probability, a Barb. Her high quality,
docility, speed, spirit and stamina have been testified to in unusually
trustworthy fashion. She was taller than Justin Morgan, but her colt,
Sherman Morgan, was not so tall even as his sire, being only 13¾ hands
high, and weighing only 925 pounds. He was worked hard as a young horse
on a farm, and for many years also driven in a stage from Lyndon,
Vermont, to Portland, Maine. His team mate was another son of Justin
Morgan, and the “little team” was famous at every inn between the two
ends of the route. In that section Sherman Morgan was the champion
runner in the matches at short distances then frequent in the locality.
This horse was also known for a time as “Lord North,” but there was no
effort to disguise the facts as to his correct lineage. The change of
name indicates that in 1823 the true value of the horse as a sire was
not fully recognized. He died in 1835, some twenty of his sons being
kept entire. As in the case of Justin Morgan we have no records of the
females that sprung from Sherman Morgan. His sons averaged 14¾ hands,
the average weight being 1020 pounds. Here was distinct improvement in
the third generation, and clear evidence also of the prepotency of the
blood, together with the value in breeding of the Arab blood when
transplanted.
Sherman Morgan’s most famous son was Black Hawk, foaled in 1833, his dam
being a large black mare of unknown breeding, but fast and superior in
quality. Those who had owned the mare said that she was from New
Brunswick or Nova Scotia and of English stock. The pedigree
manufacturers—Wallace, particularly—insist that she was a Narragansett
pacer, with the evident idea of bolstering up their contention that all
fast trotters owe their capacity to trot to the pacing capacity of their
ancestors. As not two per cent of Morgans ever pace, including the
descendants of Black Hawk, this contention is preposterous, to say the
least. Black Hawk’s son, Ethan Allen, was a magnificent roadster, and
his great speed in trotting matches did harm, I think, to the
perpetuation of the Morgan type, for the Morgan breeders began making
efforts to get fast trotters rather than to preserve the type, with the
result that there was, in the course of twenty or thirty years, a
distinct falling off in the interest that was felt in these very
superior horses. Ethan Allen was foaled in 1849 at Ticonderoga, New
York, and his dam was said to be an inbred Morgan. The colt certainly
had all the Morgan characteristics, and was the fastest stallion of his
day, trotting three heats with a running mate when he was eighteen years
old in 2.15, 2.16, and 2.19. He was also the most popular public
performer of his day; and at that time trotting was more attractive to
the people in America than running. “No one has ever raised a doubt as
to Ethan Allen being the handsomest, finest-styled and most
perfectly-gaited trotter than had ever been produced,” was said by the
“American Cultivator,” in 1873. He was a bright bay, a trifle less than
15 hands, and weighed 1000 pounds. He was the sire of a great many colts
and fillies, but being kept in training the better part of his life he
never had so good a chance as some other horses to become famous as an
ancestor. Through his sons, Honest Allen and Daniel Lambert, his name
and that of his sire have been kept very much alive in the records, for
his descendants have been fleet in the track and most successful in the
show ring. His daughters and granddaughters have also done him proud,
proving the excellence of the Morgan blood as brood mares. It is only
when we get to his generation that the chroniclers take much notice of
the importance of the females in perpetuating the Morgan type and
family. Honest Allen spent the last ten years of his life at Lexington,
Kentucky, and he was mated with many of the best mares in that section,
his son, Denning Allen, out of Reta, a granddaughter of Black Hawk,
proving himself one of the best speed producing sires the country has
had, one of his colts, Lord Clinton, being marvelously fast and
courageous.
Woodbury Morgan was the largest of the stallion sons of the original
Morgan. He was 14¾ hands, and usually weighed about 1000 pounds. He was
in the stud in Vermont for twenty years, and at twenty-two was taken to
Alabama, where he died from an injury received in disembarking from the
ship that carried him. His sons and daughters in New England helped
materially to increase the fame of the type, as they were larger than
the other branches of the family, and had in a great degree the
characteristic virtues—fearlessness, elegance, speed, stamina, and
docility. Three of his sons—Gifford Morgan, Morgan Eagle, and Morgan
Cæsar—became famous sires, their sons, grandsons and great-grandsons
being reckoned among the best horses in America. One of the grandsons of
Gifford Morgan was Vermont Morgan, the sire of Golddust, a horse which
established one of the most noted and valuable families of the Morgan
strain. Golddust was foaled in Kentucky in 1855, and was at his best
during the Civil War, his opportunities being very much curtailed by the
unsettled and distressing social conditions which prevailed in the
neighborhood where he was owned. But he was a wonderful horse, and
having received through his dam another fresh infusion of Arabian blood,
his sons and his daughters were rich in that potent quality, without
which no equine family or type has ever, in the last few centuries at
least, been valuable or permanent. Golddust’s dam was by Zilcaadi, an
Arabian horse given to United States Consul Rhind by the Sultan of
Turkey. The Golddusts were speedy horses, but speed was not their chief
virtue. If Mr. Dorsey, of Kentucky, had not been handicapped by the
prevalent prejudice held by the purchasers of roadsters against any
other than Hambletonians as fast trotters, he would have been able to
perfect a better type of carriage horses than we have in this country,
and have got, also, many very fast trotters. Golddust did get fast
trotters, but his bent was certainly in another direction which was not
followed. He was 16 hands high, and weighed 1250 pounds. He was a bright
gold in color—hence his name—and the perfection of symmetry, while his
action left nothing to be desired.
The third of the sons of Justin Morgan to establish a distinct Morgan
family was Bulrush Morgan foaled in 1812, and living to the great age of
thirty-six years. The breeding of the dam of Bulrush Morgan is not
known, but she is said to have been a French mare, which I take to mean
that she was brought into Vermont from French Canada. This horse left a
great many descendants, and they were all singularly alike, generally
being deep bays and browns with dark points and a general freedom from
any marks, such as white feet or white spots in the face. They were
noted also for the absence of spavins and ring bones. They were fast,
good all-round horses—good on the road and in the field, in harness and
under the saddle. They did not particularly attract the attention of
trotting horse people until Bulrush Morgan’s great-grandson, Morrill,
began a family of many branches—the Winthrop Morrills, the Fearnaughts,
and the Dracos—all of much distinction in that field where fast mile
records are considered the highest test of merit.
Suppose that we were to concede that phenomenal speed was the one test
of merit for a driving horse and then examine the records. We should
find that the majority of the really phenomenal trotters from Ethan
Allen’s time till now had in their breeding rich infusions of Morgan
blood. As I have said before, Ethan Allen, with no other than Morgan
blood that we can account for, was the fastest stallion of his time, and
the most popular performer on the trotting tracks, even eclipsing the
famous Flora Temple in his ability to excite the enthusiasm of sportsmen
by the evenness of his work, the smoothness of his gait, his endurance
and courage, and that intelligent docility which made him seem to know
in every emergency exactly what he was called on to do. In his great
race in 1867, at the Fashion Course on Long Island, when, with a running
mate, he met the fleet Dexter, who had taken from Flora Temple her
long-maintained fastest record, we are told that forty thousand people
had assembled to witness the contest, and the betting was 2 to 1 in
favor of Dexter. In Wallace’s “Monthly” of ten years later, there was a
description of the race that I venture to reproduce:
[Illustration:
JUBILEE DE JARNETTE (MORGAN)
Owned by C. X. Larrabee
]
“When the horses appeared upon the track to warm up for the race,
Dexter, driven by the accomplished reinsman, Budd Doble, was greeted
with a shout of applause. Soon the team appeared, and behind sat the
great master of trotting tactics, Dan Mace. His face, which has often
been a mask to thousands, had no mask over it on this occasion. It spoke
only that intense earnestness that indicates the near approach of a
supreme moment. The team was hitched to a light skeleton wagon; Ethan
wore breeching, and beside him was a great, strong race-horse, fit to
run for a man’s life. His traces were long enough to fully extend
himself, but they were so much shorter than Ethan’s that he had to take
the weight. Dexter drew the inside, and on the first trial they got the
‘send-off,’ without either one having six inches advantage. When they
got the word the flight of speed was absolutely terrific, so far beyond
anything I had witnessed in a trotting horse that I felt the hair
raising on my head. The running horse was next to me, and
notwithstanding my elevation in the grand stand, Ethan was stretched out
so near the ground that I could see nothing of him but his ears. I fully
believe that for several rods at this point they were going a two-minute
gait.
“It was impossible that this terrible pace could be maintained long, and
just before reaching the first turn, Dexter’s head began to swim, and
the team passed him and took the track, reaching the first quarter pole
in 32 seconds, with Dexter three or four lengths behind. The same
lightning speed was kept up during the second quarter, reaching the
half-mile pole in 1.04, with Dexter further in the rear. Mace then took
a pull on his team and came home a winner by six or eight lengths in
2.15. When this time was put on the blackboard the response of the
multitude was like the roar of old ocean.”
The team also won the next two heats in 2.16 and 2.19, and Wallace is of
opinion that the team might have won the first heat in 2.12 had it been
necessary. This enthusiastic description of Ethan Allen’s performance
was written before Wallace “took a brief” for the Hambletonians. Then he
belittled the Morgans in every way, and when reminded of his previous
admiration of Ethan Allen, expressed a doubt of his Morgan ancestry. But
the Morgans have kept on going fast, when it has happened to be their
nature so to do, and that really is as much as can be said of any
horses. The dams of the following remarkable performers were of Morgan
breeding:—Jo Patchen, Dan Patch, Sweet Marie, Major Delmar, and Lou
Dillon, while the only trotting inheritance of Rarus, Fearnaught, and
Lord Clinton was from Morgan forebears. The Morgans can go fast enough.
There is no doubt about that. But that is not their chief value or their
highest merit. Probably not a much greater percentage of Morgans would
go phenomenally fast than of Standard Bred Trotters with no Morgan
strain, though such a proposition has not been proved; but the Morgans
are what the Standard Bred Trotters are not—the Morgans are of a
definite reproducing type, and whether they trot in 3.30, 2.30, or 2.00
minutes, they have their typical excellences to recommend them and to
give them a value, which no other horse type in America can approach,
because they are the best, most symmetrical, most elegant and most
docile harness horses in the world, with a stamina and a courage that
none but Thoroughbreds approach.
So much importance has been attached to this matter of speed with track
records, that I felt obliged to dwell on it somewhat in my discussion of
the Morgans. It is really, however, much more interesting than
important. The important thing is to get a breed of horses ninety per
cent of which can go with reasonable speed, showing a clean, square trot
and graceful high action, and when at top speed be free of clicking or
forging or interfering, performing in this manner, moreover, without
boots or hobbles and without effort, and also without tiring even when
the road is long. And in the Morgans we have such a type. That there
should ever have been any danger that they might have perished through
neglect is a curious chapter in the history of this country. It does not
properly belong in this place, but to that other chapter which relates
to the chicanery, the delusions and absolute forgeries which are so
interwoven with the history of the Standard Bred trotter that good men
believe in them though they have been pointed out again and again with
elaborate detail and circumstance.
[Illustration:
Original lithograph published by Currier & Ives.
ETHAN ALLEN AND RUNNING MATE _vs._ DEXTER
Mile heats, best three in five heats, Fashion Course, L. I., June 21,
1867. Ethan Allen and mate won in three straight heats. Time: 2.15,
2.16, 2.19.
]
The Morgans are being bred in many parts of the country, more of them
being in the Middle and far West, probably, than in Vermont and the rest
of New England. Their blood is closely blended with many of the families
of the Kentucky saddle-horses, and goes far in giving finish to that
remarkable type, which now furnishes mounts for the great army of
American park riders, while pretty nearly all the show winners in the
saddle classes come from two or three counties of the beautiful Blue
Grass State. The adaptability of the Morgan blood to other crosses is a
strong argument in favor of its Arab origin. That its prepotency has
continued so long is another argument in favor of the theory that there
was other Arab blood brought by the female lines. These speculations and
surmises we cannot prove, but as there is now a register we can know
about the latter generations, the good qualities of which will, no
doubt, show us that we were fortunate in saving this invaluable type
before it was too late and madness had done its final work of
extermination.
CHAPTER FIVE
MESSENGER AND THE EARLY TROTTERS
One of the most important events in the early horse history of this
country was the landing from England in 1788 of the Thoroughbred
stallion Messenger, a gray horse that had had some success on the turf
in the old world, but was scarcely what might be called great as a
race-horse. He was brought over here to be the sire of runners, and he
was, to an extent, as both his sons and daughters were good performers.
His greatest place in the Thoroughbred records is due to the fact that
he was the sire of Miller’s Damsel, the dam of American Eclipse, the
horse that upheld the honor of the North in the great contest when Sir
Henry represented the South. But before Messenger’s death it had been
recognized that when he was bred with the mares of the American basic
stock, the produce had a disposition and a capacity to trot faster than
was then at all usual. Naturally, therefore, he was used to further this
end as much as to sire runners, though there was nothing like a trotting
turf in those days, the contests being on the roads under saddle and for
considerable distances.
Messenger’s sire was Mambrino, by Engineer; Engineer was by Sampson, and
Sampson by Blaze; Blaze by Flying Childers (pronounced by Major Upton in
his “Newmarket and Arabia,” “the best horse to be found in the stud
book”); and Flying Childers by the Darley Arabian. This is pretty good
breeding, as any one will say who is familiar with the early English
records as kept by the Messrs. Weatherby. But even Messenger’s title to
be a Thoroughbred has been bitterly disputed by the controversialists of
recent time, this controversy having been precipitated and intensified
when, in the effort to get faster trotters, it was proposed to put in
more Thoroughbred blood. The leader of the opposition to more
Thoroughbred blood was an able and ingenious writer who has never had
his equal in manufacturing pedigrees to suit his own theories, and at
the same time please the interests of those who hired him to bolster up
the merits of the stock they were breeding to sell. He maintained that
the dam of Sampson, the grandsire of Messenger, was a pacing mare, and
hence Messenger’s capacity to transmit the trot to his progeny. He
further affirmed that the trot and the pace were the same gait; but of
this I will speak later when I get to the Standard Bred Trotters. Now,
as a matter of fact, the Godolphin progenitor of Messenger through the
female line was a Barb, and Barbs are apt to pace, though if
Thoroughbreds pace I have yet to see one.
So many fictions have grown up about Messenger that he seems more like a
hero of romance than a flea-bitten gray horse of not very fine finish,
and worth, according to the records of sales, in the neighborhood of
$4500. Indeed, the record of his landing is so obscure that I have not
been able to determine whether it was in New York or Philadelphia. But
he was in the stud for nineteen years and left many sons and daughters.
He was kept in various places—near Philadelphia, on Long Island, in
Orange County, New York, and in New Jersey. But in each neighborhood he
made an impression on the horses that came after him, an influence which
seems to have been both good and enduring.
Trotting and pacing racing in America had been popular even before
Messenger’s coming, and long before his get and their get appeared on
the road. But the matches were neighborhood affairs and attracted only
local attention. There was absolutely no effort at organization and the
construction of trotting tracks until many years later. What racing
there was was in the hands and under the control of gentlemen; how much
interest they took in these trotting and pacing matches I do not know.
But not much I fancy, for caste in America was stronger and more
separating than it is now, when, if we put the “mighty rich” in a class
by themselves there is very little at all. It was not until between 1820
and 1830 that horses were trotted on tracks, and then there was little,
if any, of this mile heat business to see really how fast a horse could
go for a short distance. What the people of that elder day seemed to be
most interested in was how far a horse could trot at a good rate of
speed. I will not tire my readers with a recital of the fictions of the
contests on the roads of Long Island and Harlem, but begin with the race
of Lady Kate under the saddle against time. Her task was to go fifteen
miles in an hour. This she did and easily. Nor does it seem much of a
task when we consider that a few years later Andrew Jackson was doing
mile after mile in much less than three minutes. This horse, by the way,
was so superior to the trotters of the time that his owner could make
few matches with him. His speed and endurance frightened the others off,
and there was little, if any, rivalry. We find it recorded, however,
that Paul Pry, in 1833, beat time in an effort to go sixteen miles to
the hour, and Hiram Woodruff, then a boy, expressed the opinion that
this horse could then have gone twenty miles in the hour. This same old
driver tells of a horse which he thought was one of the most superior he
ever knew, Top Gallant, by Messenger. This fellow, in his twenty-second
year, went four four-mile heats in time very fast for that day. A little
later appeared Dutchman, who, in a race of three-mile heats against
Rattler, went the distance in 7.45½, 7.50, 8.02 and 8.24, Dutchman won
the first and fourth heat, Rattler won the second heat, while the third
was a dead heat. Here we see the first heat was trotted at the rate of
2.35, which was surely very fast going, considering the distance, the
vehicles used and the shoeing. But such journeys are now considered too
far.
Lady Suffolk, an inbred Messenger, was spoken of for a while as the
Queen of Trotters, and she was a remarkably good one both in breeding
and in performance. She was sired by Engineer II, by Engineer, a son of
imported Messenger; her dam was by Don Quixote, son of Messenger. So it
will be seen that she was closely inbred to Messenger and had as much of
the Thoroughbred blood as any trotting horse of remarkable performance.
She was a gray, and was foaled in 1833 on Long Island. She began
trotting when she was five years old, and had a remarkably successful
career. She trotted 138 races, winning eighty-eight times and receiving
forfeit three times. When she was twelve years old, at Beacon Course,
Hoboken, she trotted the second heat of a five-heat race in 2.29½, which
was the first time 2.30 had been passed, and was, of course, the record.
In 1849 she made a saddle record of 2.26. She was bred to Black Hawk in
Vermont, but the colt was prematurely born, and she left no descendants.
Although this record was reduced in 1849 to 2.28 by Pelham, a converted
pacer, another second was knocked off in 1853 by Highland Maid, also a
converted pacer, there was nothing in the way of trotters to take the
great place of Lady Suffolk until Flora Temple, the queen of them all,
came along about 1850, and proceeded to beat all that attempted to rival
her for speed and courage.
When I was a boy, Flora Temple was considered almost as great as
Lexington. In Kentucky at that time, her wonderful performances, her
speed and her courage were considered all the more remarkable from the
fact that no one knew how she was bred, and inferred that she had no
breeding that was good. This was not a fair inference. Her appearance,
her gameness, her fighting qualities, together with her nervousness, all
indicated that she was a high-bred animal. To say what that breeding was
is another matter. So a pedigree was fixed up for her. On the plate
published by Currier and Ives when she was at the very zenith of her
fame, her pedigree was set down as follows: “Sired by one-eyed Kentucky
Hunter, by Kentucky Hunter; dam Madam Temple by a spotted Arabian
horse.” I have no doubt that this pedigree is as arrant nonsense as was
ever put in print, and was simply made up to put on the advertisements
of the races in which she was entered. I doubt, even, whether there was
any serious effort to trace her pedigree when she was a filly, for it
was not until she was five years old that she attracted the attention of
a horseman and he bought her for $175, and sold her quickly for $350.
Previous to that she had been used in a livery stable, though I recall a
tradition that she had been used in a milk cart.
Colonel Battell, who spares no pains when he goes after a pedigree,
investigated that of Flora Temple, and says it is as follows: “Foaled
May, 1845; bred by Samuel Welch, Sangerfield, New York; got by Loomis’s
Bogus, son of Lame Bogus, by Ellis’s Bogus, son of imported Tom Bogus;
dam Madam Temple, about 850 pounds, bay, foaled 1840, bred by Elijah
Peck, Waterville, New York, sold when four months old to William
Johnson, of whom she was purchased, 1843, by Samuel Welch, got by a
spotted stallion (owned by Horace Terry, who brought him from Long
Island or Dutchess County, New York) said to be by a full-blooded
Arabian stallion kept on Long Island; second dam described by John I.
Peck, son of Elijah Peck, as bay with black points, bob tail, low set
and heavy, very smart and would weigh from 1050 to 1175 pounds, foaled
about 1834, purchased by Mr. Peck of a Mr. Randall, Paris, New York.
Sold when weaning with her dam to Archie Hughes, Sangerfield, who sold
her for $13 to Nathan Tracy of Hamilton, New York, who kept her two and
one-half years, and sold to William H. Condon, Smyrna, New York, who
sold to Kelley & Richardson, livery-stable keepers, Richardson, New
York. Mr. Richardson took her with a drove of cattle to Washington
Hollow, New York, and sold her for $175 to Jno. Vielee, who took her to
New York and sold her to George E. Perrin, for $550, who sold her
September, 1850, to G. A. Vogel, for $600. A correspondent of the
_Spirit of the Times_, writing from Waterville, Oneida County, New York,
February, 1860, says: “Madam Temple, the dam of Flora, was foaled the
property of Elijah Peck, Waterville, Oneida County, New York, in the
spring of 1840: her dam was a small but fleet bay mare. Madam Temple was
sired by a spotted Arabian stallion brought from Dutchess County, and
owned by Horace Terry. Mr. Peck disposed of Madam Temple when four
months old for a mere trifle to William Johnson of the same place....
Terry’s spotted Arabian was a remarkably strong, restless, fast-trotting
horse, said to have been sired by a full-blooded Arabian stallion on
Long Island. He was a great favorite in this section, and his stock for
general use possesses probably more excellent qualities than that of any
other horse known in this vicinity. They were uniformly strong, with
rare speed and bottom. The general high reputation in which his stock
was held may be judged from the fact that George W. Crowningshield, of
Boston, owned a pacing gray mare of his get, so fast and enduring that
he sold her for $1500. That was considered very high in those days.
Madam Temple has always been regarded as a remarkable roadster. Mr.
Hughes sold her in 1846 to G. B. Cleveland, Waterville, who soon parted
with her to N. W. Moss of the same place, but now of Osage, Iowa. By him
she was kept as a horse of all work for several years, from whom she was
purchased by James M. Tower in the spring of 1854, and he subsequently
sold to H. L. Barker, of Clinton, Oneida County, New York, in January,
1855, who now owns her. Flora was her first colt. Her second a horse
colt, was foaled in the spring of 1855, and was bought by J. W. Taylor,
of East Bloomfield, for R. A. Alexander, of Woodford County, for $500.
This colt was sired by H. L. Barker’s Edwin Forrest (a Kentucky colt),
now owned by S. Downing, Lexington, Kentucky.”
So we can take our choice of pedigrees. If Flora Temple had been born a
few years later the Hambletonian advocates would surely have claimed
her. It has always been a wonder to me that they did not, after all,
assert that she was of collateral blood. When her new owner brought this
most remarkable mare to New York, he had not the most remote idea that
he held one of the wonders of the world. He believed that she was a
pretty good pony, and could strike a good clip on the road. She was only
14.2 hands high and had a mere stump of a tail. Besides, she was
nervous, and before she “found herself” had a rather choppy action. When
she had learned the trick, however, her action was smooth and
clock-like, and she glided along with almost unapproachable grace.
Moreover, when she broke she lost scarcely nothing, as she did not have
to be pulled back almost to a standstill, but caught her trotting stride
from what was very like a run.
There are other books in which the record of Flora Temple can be found
in all of its proud and brilliant details. She beat everything of her
day, beginning with the Waite Pony on the Bloomingdale road in 1850,
until Ethan Allen, Princess, George M. Patchen and all the good ones had
to take her dust. She was not used under the saddle, but always to sulky
or wagon. Hiram Woodruff, her first real trainer, says she was a great
weight puller and was not in the least bothered by a 350 pound wagon,
but went along with it as merrily as though she were in a racing sulky.
Her first defeat was in 1853 by Black Douglas, a son of Henry Clay; but
a few months later she had her revenge and beat the Clay stallion with
apparent ease. In 1856 she took the trotting record away from Highland
Maid by covering a mile in 2.24½. The record remained with her for
eleven years; she reduced it in 1859 to 2.19¾, and so she was the first
to trot better than 2.20, as Lady Suffolk was the first to go below
2.30. In 1859 the little bay stump-tail mare was at the very zenith of
her fame, though Hiram Woodruff was of opinion that the next year she
might have surpassed this. The next year the Civil War broke out and
she, not being in good form, was retired to the breeding farm of
Aristides Welch, near Philadelphia.
During the two or three last years of her public life, Flora Temple had
nothing to beat, so she was sent all over the country “hippodroming”
with Princess and George M. Patchen, variously. On the farm she dropped
a few colts. Two were by sons of Hambletonian, and one by imported
Leamington. They have not done much to perpetuate her prowess. My own
idea is that in selecting mates for her the great cardinal principle of
breeding: “like begets like,” was utterly disregarded. The blood of a
Hambletonian was probably too cold to mate with hers, though we do not
know what hers was, and Leamington’s conformation was too great a
contrast. Though she has left no descendants that do her particular
honor, she has left by her performances imperishable fame as the
greatest trotter of her day, and her day lasted for more than a dozen
years.
There was a lull in trotting during the Civil War, just as there was in
racing, but after the war the trotting tracks became even more popular
than the running courses—not the most fashionable, but the most popular.
Fashion has never forsaken the running horse, and probably never will;
but in the main, the trotting races have been patronized and managed by
men of a slightly different social status. To be sure, there are notable
exceptions, exceptions so notable, indeed, that they ought to be
sufficient to lift the ban from the trotting world; but they have never
been able to do it. And even during the ten years after the Civil War,
when trotting was immensely popular, it was considered slightly a
reproach to be interested in the sport. It was during this period that
Dexter took the trotting primacy away from Flora Temple, and the tribe
of Hambletonian came into such prominence that the legislators who
framed trotting-match rules, established a register and made laws fixing
a standard entitling a stallion or a mare to a place in these sacred
books. And so the “Standard Bred Trotter” came into being, and his has
been a long day—his advocates and admirers say a great day.
CHAPTER SIX
RYSDYK’S HAMBLETONIAN AND THE STANDARD BRED TROTTERS
After Dexter, in 1867, took away from Flora Temple the trotting record
by doing a mile in 2.17¼, his reputed sire, Rysdyk’s Hambletonian was
held in such high esteem by those trying to breed fast trotters, that
they considered any horse not by him or of his breed to be not in the
least worth while in any attempt to improve these light harness horses.
So it is quite impossible to treat of the Standard Bred Trotters without
also treating of Rysdyk’s Hambletonian. There are many who do not, and
never have, agreed with the Hambletonian admirers, and as I am one who
once believed in the fictions as to his breeding and other excellences,
I propose to be perfectly fair by giving both sides of the story of a
horse that cuts a most considerable figure in American horse annals.
Now, here is one side of the Hambletonian story, and I take the liberty
of quoting from Mr. Hamilton Busbey, a noted writer on trotting horses,
and the editor of a paper devoted to trotting horse interests. He says:
“Lewis G. Morris bred a mare by imported Sour Crout to Messenger, and
the produce in 1806 was a bay colt who developed into a horse of 16
hands, and is known to history as Mambrino. He was never trained in
harness, but was a natural trotter. Betsey Baker, the fastest mare of
her day was sired by him. Amazonia, a snappy chestnut mare of 15.3
hands, showing quality, but of untraced blood, and who could trot to
2.50 was bred to Mambrino, and whose outcome was Abdallah, whose
register number is 1. He was bred by John Tredwell, of Saulsbury Place,
Long Island, was foaled in 1823, and developed into a bay horse of 15.3.
As a four-year old, he trotted a mile in 3.10, but was not kind in
harness, and was principally used under saddle. He made seasons on Long
Island, in New Jersey, and in Orange County, and spent 1840 in the Blue
Grass Region of Kentucky. In 1830 he passed to Isaac Snediker, and after
many changes of fortune died of starvation and neglect on a Long Island
Beach, and was buried in the sand....
[Illustration: RYSDYK’S HAMBLETONIAN]
“The Charles Kent mare was a bay of 15.3 hands, foaled in 1834, with
powerful stifles, and as a four-year old trotted a mile under saddle in
2.41. She was by Bellfounder, a Norfolk trotter of 15 hands, imported
from England to Boston in 1822, by James Bort. Imported Bellfounder was
foaled in 1815, and the blood of his sire, Bellfounder, is at the
foundation of the hackney breed. One Eye, a determined mare by Bishop’s
Hambletonian (son of Messenger), out of Silvertail, a hardy brown mare
by Messenger, was the dam of the Charles Kent mare, who found a happy
nick in Abdallah.
“The fruit of this union was a bay colt, foaled May 5, 1849, at Sugar
Loaf, near Chester, Orange County, New York. This colt, when five weeks
old, was purchased from the breeder, Jonas Seely, by a plain farmer with
a lean pocket-book. The price named for mare and colt was $125, and the
farmer, William M. Rysdyk, sat on the top rail of a fence and pondered
for some time the vital question. The outlay would embarrass him if the
mare or colt should die. He finally said yes, and the mother and son
were taken to Chester. The bay colt, with star and hind ankles white,
grew into a powerful horse 15.2, and was named Hambletonian. His head
was large and expressive, his neck rather short, his shoulders and
quarters massive and his legs broad and flat. His triple line to
thoroughbred Messenger, over the substance imparting cross of
Bellfounder, gave us the greatest progenitor of harness speed the world
has seen.”
I once believed all this just as sincerely as I am sure Mr. Busbey
believes it, and, some ten years ago, I wrote this fiction about
Hambletonian:
“Messenger begat Mambrino, and Mambrino begat Abdallah, and Abdallah
begat Hambletonian. Now, the race may be said to have fairly begun, for
there is scarcely a trotting horse in America which has not in its blood
one, two, or three strains of this Hambletonian blood, for Hambletonian
was the great-sire of trotters. He was a Messenger on both sides,
great-grandson in the male line, and grandson and great-grandson in the
female line, from which also came a new English cross, for his dam was
by the imported hackney Bellfounder.[5] In him the Messenger blood was
strong, and, himself a trotter of much speed, though never trained, he
had the capacity of transmitting the trotting gait in a greater degree
than any horse in history.”
Footnote 5:
No human being in the world knows anything whatever about the breeding
of the Charles Kent mare, Hambletonian’s dam.
There are a good many misstatements in that paragraph; but when I wrote
it I was deceived by the false pedigrees which have been manufactured
and recorded in the trotting-horse registers and stud-books. The truth
is, that Hambletonian was a bull-like horse that was trained by Hiram
Woodruff, but could never develop a speed equal to a mile in three
minutes—3.18, to be exact, being the best mile he ever did. As to his
pedigree: Mambrino, the grandsire, was by Messenger; but he was
worthless and also vicious. He could neither run nor trot. He was bred
by Louis Morris, of Westchester County, New York, and sold to Major
William Jones of Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island. As he was worthless
and a serious disappointment, Major Jones virtually gave him away, and
he was used as a traveling stallion at a small fee. John Treadwell, a
Quaker farmer near Jamaica, Long Island, had two Conestoga[6] or
Pennsylvania Dutch draft-mares. Out of one of these mares, by Mambrino,
was born Abdallah. This horse was so bad-tempered that he could never be
broken to harness, but was ridden under the saddle. He had no speed
either as a runner or trotter, not being able to do a mile in four
minutes at any gait. He had a mule-like head and ears, a badly ewed
neck, and a rattail. But he was a Messenger, despite the Conestoga
crossing, and he was sold to Kentuckians for $4500. In less than six
months the Kentuckians repented of their bargain, and sold him back to
New Yorkers for $500—Messrs. Simmons & Smith, Bull’s Head dealers,
buying him as a speculation. No purchaser could the speculators find at
any price, and the stallion was virtually given away to stop expenses of
keeping. About this time Charles Kent wanted a new horse for his butcher
wagon, and traded, through Alexander Campbell, of Bull’s Head, his worn
out mare to Edmund Seeley, a farmer in Orange County, New York, for a
steer for butchering. The butcher’s mare had, originally, been sold to
him by Campbell, who had obtained her in a drove of western horses,
paying $40 for her. Her pedigree was quite unknown. This mare is known
in American horse history as the Charles Kent mare, and is said to be by
imported Bellfounder. She was in foal to Abdallah when Seeley got her,
and the colt and mare became the property of Bill Rysdyk, a hired man on
Seeley’s farm. Rysdyk looked around for a name for his colt—a name which
should indicate the Messenger blood in him. There had been in the early
years of the century a famous son of Messenger named after Alexander
Hamilton. This horse finally became known as Bishop’s Hamiltonian. In
his effort to borrow the name, Rysdyk, being weak in his orthography,
called his horse Rysdyk’s Hambletonian. And so he lives in history—false
in his pedigree as in his name. The public of that day believed this
horse to be a son of Bishop’s Hamiltonian, and for the sake of the
Messenger blood he was served to the best mares in Orange County, and
Orange County was rich in the Arab and Barb blood of the daughters and
granddaughters of that great and unbeatable trotting horse, Andrew
Jackson. No stallion ever had a better chance, and it was almost
impossible that there should not have been good horses among his get.
And there were. But the bad blood of his ancestry, sire and grandsire
being worthless degenerates, together with the utterly unmixable
Conestoga blood in his grandam, have been continually cropping out in
his progeny—for faults more readily reappear than perfections—until now,
when it must be acknowledged that the boasted horse type of which he is
said to be the founder is no type at all.
Footnote 6:
I had a friend who was with the Confederate Cavalry when Lee invaded
Pennsylvania to meet defeat at Gettysburg. He told me that the sleek,
large Conestoga horses that were abundant in the section traversed
were too tempting to be neglected, so many of the cavalry men
abandoned their lean and battle scarred mounts and replaced them with
the Conestogas. Before they reached the Potomac on their retreat
southward, these cold blooded draft horses were completely used up and
the soldiers swore at themselves for their folly in making the
exchanges. The Conestogas are good draft horses and serviceable on
farms where no quick work is required, but they are totally lacking in
speed and the courage and stamina which speed requires. A more
impossible cross than that between a Conestoga and a Thoroughbred
could hardly be imagined.
When the pedigree manipulators were manufacturing this line of descent
for Rysdyk’s Hambletonian, Alexander Campbell, of Bull’s Head, was
offered a thousand dollars to certify to the stated pedigree of the
Charles Kent mare. Campbell declined, and ordered the Hambletonian
emissaries out of his office. Here is another rather amusing evidence of
the careful way in which the pedigree of Hambletonian was bolstered up.
There was no such horse as Bishop’s Hambletonian. The horse alluded to
was Alexander Hamilton, or Bishop’s Hamiltonian. Nobody ever thought of
calling a Hamiltonian a Hambletonian until old Bill Rysdyk did it,
simply because he was not gifted in the art of spelling. But this did
not bother the record makers. They simply misspelled the name of the
elder horse. Surely old Bill Rysdyk laid a spell on the gentlemen of the
press, and he kept it to the end as his horse, shaped like a cart horse,
rather than one filled with high blood, was a great money-maker in the
stud. His earnings by the record were $184,725.
When there was a great many men interested, and most sincerely, too, in
the breeding of trotters, it was thought to be a good thing to
inaugurate a systematic method of breeding and establish a standard
which should regulate the records that were to be kept of trotters. By
general consent the suggestion of the _Turf, Field and Farm_, Mr.
Busbey’s paper, a horse that could go a mile in 2.30 was considered
worthy to get a place in the register. This would have excluded all the
trotters previous to the time of Lady Suffolk. But the matter was
discussed, and Wallace’s “American Trotting Register” was accepted as
the official record of pedigrees, thus putting the business in the hands
of the most ingenious partizan that has ever been interested in the
horse business in this country. These were the rules that were adopted:
“In order to define what constitutes a trotting-bred horse, and to
establish a _Breed_ of trotters on a more intelligent basis, the
following rules are adopted to control admission to the records of
pedigrees. When an animal meets with the requirements of admission
and is duly registered, it shall be accepted as a standard
trotting-bred animal.
“_First_—Any stallion that has, himself, a record of two minutes
and thirty seconds (2.30) or better; provided any of his get has a
record of 2.40 or better; or provided his sire or his dam, his
grandsire or his grandam, is already a standard animal.
“_Second_—Any mare or gelding that has a record of 2.30 or better.
“_Third_—Any horse that is the sire of two animals with a record
of 2.30 or better.
“_Fourth_—Any horse that is the sire of one animal with a record
of 2.30 or better; provided, he has either of the following
additional qualifications:—
“1. A record himself of 2.40 or better.
“2. Is the sire of two other animals with a record of 2.40 or
better.
“3. Has a sire or dam, grandsire or grandam, that is already a
standard animal.
“_Fifth_—Any mare that has produced an animal with a record of
2.30 or better.
“_Sixth_—The progeny of a standard horse when out of a standard
mare.
“_Seventh_—The progeny of a standard horse out of a mare by a
standard horse.
“_Eighth_—The progeny of a standard horse when out of a mare whose
dam is a standard mare.
“_Ninth_—Any mare that has a record of 2.40 or better; and whose
sire or dam, grandsire or grandam, is a standard animal.
“_Tenth_—A record to wagon of 2.35 or better shall be regarded as
equal to a 2.30 record.”
Before much had been accomplished under these rules, Wallace, who was as
militant as he was ingenious, got into a dispute with the Kentucky
breeders over methods of breeding, the value of thoroughbred blood, the
genuineness of his published pedigrees and about anything else that came
along. So the Kentuckians started the “Breeders’ Trotting Stud Book,”
the standard for it being a little modified. In a year or so, Wallace,
seeing that the war was going against him, sold out his register and
retired from the field. Then new rules were adopted, as follows:
“THE TROTTING STANDARD
“When an animal meets these requirements and is duly registered,
it shall be accepted as a standard-bred trotter:—
“1. The progeny of a registered standard trotting horse and a
registered standard trotting mare.
“2. A stallion sired by a registered standard trotting horse,
provided his dam and grandam were sired by registered standard
trotting horses, and he himself has a trotting record of 2.30 and
is the sire of three trotters with records of 2.30, from different
mares.
“3. A mare whose sire is a registered standard trotting horse, and
whose dam and grandam were sired by registered standard trotting
horses, provided she herself has a trotting record of 2.30, or is
the dam of one trotter with a record of 2.30.
“4. A mare sired by a registered standard trotting horse, provided
she is the dam of two trotters with records of 2.30.
“5. A mare sired by a registered standard trotting horse, provided
her first, second, and third dams are each sired by a registered
standard trotting horse.
“THE PACING STANDARD
“When an animal meets these requirements and is duly registered,
it shall be accepted as a standard-bred pacer:—
“1. The progeny of a registered standard pacing horse and a
registered standard pacing mare.
“2. A stallion sired by a registered standard pacing horse,
provided his dam and grandam were sired by registered standard
pacing horses, and he himself has a pacing record of 2.25, and is
the sire of three pacers with records of 2.25, from different
mares.
“3. A mare whose sire is a registered standard pacing horse, and
whose dam and grandam were sired by registered standard pacing
horses, provided she herself has a pacing record of 2.25, or is
the dam of one pacer with a record of 2.25.
“4. A mare sired by a registered standard pacing horse, provided
she is the dam of two pacers with records of 2.25.
“5. A mare sired by a registered standard pacing horse, provided
her first, second, and third dams are each sired by a registered
pacing horse.
“6. The progeny of a registered standard trotting horse out of a
registered standard pacing mare, or of a registered standard
trotting mare.”
And these are the rules that obtain to-day in keeping a register of
which the rat-tailed semi-Conestoga Abdallah is No. 1.
It will be seen by the rules certain features of the great breeding
principle: “Like begets like” are followed, and there is no doubt that
some intelligent breeders have tried most sincerely to embrace in the
mating of stallions and mares all of the principles; but, as a rule, the
speed test alone was considered instead of similarity of blood,
similarity of conformation (for nature abhors great contrasts), and also
performance. The importance given to the time tests and the public
records and the disregard of pure and similar blood has detracted, in my
opinion, most seriously from the success of the experiments and the
effort to create a type of fast trotting horses. Why, the Standard Bred
Trotter is not a type at all. They come in all sizes and shapes, they
have no fixed gait, and not more than three per cent of them can trot
fast enough to be considered even a good roadster. The visitors to the
Speedway in New York have opportunities to see the best and fastest
trotters in the world. There are certainly some fine animals shown
there, a few that are splendid. But they are of all sorts in
conformation and method of going. It cannot be a reproducing type under
such circumstances. When a hundred colts and fillies are bred we want
many more than three of that number to be able to accomplish the purpose
of their creation. At least half of the progeny of the Standard Bred
Trotters should be trotters themselves and more than half of the
remainder should be good general utility horses. That is the case with
the Morgans and the Denmarks, the two true American types, for these
types have substance and character, besides a systematic method of
breeding is pursued where lineage and conformation rather than
performance count. And even with the Standard Bred Trotters that go
fast—the three per cent of them—quite half of them are pacers rather
than trotters. Gen. Benjamin F. Tracy said in a letter to the _Turf,
Field and Farm_, February 15, 1901, that the greater proportion of fast
Standard Bred Trotters are not trotters at all, but pacers. There has
been no one to dispute this statement, which was not one merely of
opinion, but of compilation.
The trotting men, however, avoid this by saying that trotting and pacing
are the same gait, because many horses both trot and pace and because a
pacer can be converted into a trotter. This theory is beyond my
intelligence. I know that the natural gaits of a natural horse are walk,
trot, and gallop. Many that do these gaits, as in the case of the
Denmarks, can do several others besides—the rack and the running walk,
for instance. Yet no one will say that these gaits are all the same. It
is too preposterous to discuss. Besides, the pace is not a fit gait for
a gentleman’s roadster. It may be well enough for butchers, barkeepers
and gamblers, but a gentleman should have a gentleman’s horse.
It has not been a pleasure to say these things of what some call the
great light harness horse of America; but when breeders, through false
principles, go a wrong road it ought not to be considered an unkindness
to call their attention to the fact. A few years ago in a magazine
article I told the truth about Hambletonian’s breeding, and received
many indignant letters of protest. One kind gentleman up in
Massachusetts, asked me to visit him, saying he should like to have the
pleasure of kicking me across the state. I requested him to have a
survey made so that I might know how far I would have to be propelled by
the toe of his boot, as I did not care to put him to an undue amount of
trouble. He has not replied, so, I presume the survey is not yet
completed. But breeders in Kentucky, in Vermont, and in Illinois wrote
in complimentary terms, saying that they had paid dearly for their
belief in false pedigrees and false principles of breeding. I am
thoroughly persuaded that these false notions have cost the breeders of
America millions and millions of dollars, for a Standard Bred Trotter
that does not go fast is a pretty poor specimen of a horse and worth
very little, while the amounts spent in trying to develop speed which
does not exist are colossal.
But the records have unquestionably been lowered until the horse that
can trot a mile in two minutes is one of the wonders of the world. Look
at the record of progression.
Boston Blue, black gelding 1818 3.00
Bull Calf, bay gelding 1830 2.47¾
Edwin Forrest, black gelding 1838 2.36½
Dutchman, bay gelding 1839 2.32
Lady Suffolk, gray mare 1845 2.29½
Pelham (converted pacer), bay gelding 1849 2.28
Highland Maid (converted pacer), bay mare 1853 2.27
Flora Temple, bay mare 1856 2.24½
Flora Temple, bay mare 1859 2.19¾
Dexter, brown gelding 1867 2.17¼
Goldsmith Maid, bay mare 1871 2.17
Goldsmith Maid, bay mare 1874 2.14
Rarus, bay gelding 1878 2.13¼
St. Julien, bay gelding 1879 2.12¾
Maud S., chestnut mare 1880 2.10¾
Maud S., chestnut mare 1881 2.10¼
Jay-eye-See, black gelding 1884 2.10
Maud S., chestnut mare 1884 2.09¼
Maud S., chestnut mare 1885 2.08¾
Sunol, bay mare 1891 2.08¼
Nancy Hanks, brown mare 1892 2.04
Alix, bay mare 1894 2.03¾
The Abbot, bay gelding 1900 2.03¼
Cresceus, chestnut horse 1901 2.02¼
Lou Dillon, chestnut mare 1903 1.58½
[Illustration:
LOU DILLON (STANDARD-BRED TROTTER)
Owned by J. G. K. Billings. First horse to trot a mile in less than
two minutes
]
This table shows that three minutes was reduced in forty-one years to
two minutes and twenty seconds—that is in that time forty seconds were
lopped off the record. It took forty-four years to take off the next
twenty seconds. In the meantime the bicycle, ball-bearing sulky had been
invented, and the last half of this twenty seconds were cut off when
this weightless and frictionless vehicle was used. The Standard Bred
Trotter had also been created. My idea is that the Dutchman, Henry Clay,
and Lady Suffolk could either of them gone a mile in from ten to fifteen
seconds faster than they did under modern conditions of training,
driving, shoeing and harnessing and hitched to the modern vehicle. These
experiments have all been very interesting, but I believe the same
results might have been achieved at a very much less cost and
loss—indeed, with a profit.
Exceeding high prices for trotting-horses have been very injurious to
the horse-breeding industry. Whenever a trotting-horse brings twenty,
forty or a hundred thousand dollars it sets the breeders, even the small
ones wild with a desire to breed a colt that will bring such a price.
Mr. Bonner began this with his purchase of Dexter, and followed it up by
buying many others at very high figures, including Maud S. and Sunol. He
doubtless found this an excellent advertisement for himself and his
paper, but it was a bad thing for the horses of the country. The
purchase of Axtell at $105,000 and Arion at $125,000 was even more
demoralizing. No trotting-horse was ever worth that much and none
probably ever will be. However, it is an excellent thing for very rich
men to breed horses. They can afford to make experiments, and if their
experiments are successful the men of moderate means can imitate them
and succeed also. But this trotting horse breeding business is a rich
man’s divertisement just as yachting is. The men who breed for profit
should confine themselves to types which are reproducing, to types which
come true more frequently than they prove false.
I firmly believe that if these trotters are ever made a consistently
reproducing type, it will be by constant infusions of a mixture of
trotting blood—Morgan or Clay—with that of the Thoroughbred. The first
cross will probably not produce it, but if the mares of such unions be
bred back to stallions of the blood mentioned, the result ought to be
more satisfactory in the way of making a type, even though the
experiments may not result in phenomenal speed; but there is no reason
why there should not be a satisfactory percentage of phenomenal speed as
well.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE CLAY AND CLAY-ARABIAN
Henry Clay was one of the greatest horses that ever lived in this
country. He was very fast, very strong and as game as it was possible
for a horse to be. He founded a distinguished family, and from that
family Mr. Randolph Huntington, of Fleetwood Farm, Oyster Bay, Long
Island, by crossing Clay mares with Arab and Barb stallions, has created
a type of as splendid horses as ever touched the earth. And it is a
great pity that the United States Government has not long ago taken over
all of Mr. Huntington’s horses, so as to perpetuate this new and useful
type into a great national horse. On the sire’s side Henry Clay was a
closely inbred Messenger. He was by Andrew Jackson, the greatest
trotting horse of his day, and absolutely unbeaten during all his long
career. Andrew Jackson was by Young Bashaw, and his dam was by Why Not,
by imported Messenger, the grandam also being by imported Messenger.
Young Bashaw was by the imported Arabian Grand Bashaw, the dam being
Pearl by First Consul (Arab bred) out of Fancy by imported Messenger out
of a daughter of Rockingham. Henry Clay’s dam was the famous mare, Lady
Surrey. She was bred in the neighbourhood of Quebec, Ontario, and was
brought with twelve other horses into New York. With her mate, “Croppy,”
she was sold to one of the Wisner family in Goshen, New York. The class
to which Lady Surrey belonged was then called Kanucks, though some
called them “Pile Drivers,” because of their high-knee action. Records
of breeding were not kept in Quebec, but all the external evidence
points to an Oriental origin of the horses that were taken there from
France. But the strong admixture of Arab and Barb blood in Henry Clay is
evident from the recorded part of his pedigree and disregarding the
blood of his dam.
[Illustration:
CLAY-KISMET (CLAY-ARABIAN)
Bred by Randolph Huntington
]
Henry Clay was foaled in 1837, and lived until 1867. He was bred by Mr.
George M. Patchen, of New Jersey, and afterwards passed into the hands
of Gen. William Wadsworth, of Geneseo, New York. Probably, if he had
remained the property of Patchen, he would have had a better chance as a
sire, for there were times during the Wadsworth ownership, when this
horse suffered alternately from neglect and abuse. When General
Wadsworth wanted to buy the colt, he asked Mr. Patchen to put a price on
him. Mr. Patchen, not anxious to sell, finally put on a price which he
thought prohibitive. “We will give the horse all the water he can
drink,” he said to General Wadsworth, “and then weigh him, and you may
give me one dollar a pound for him.” General Wadsworth promptly
accepted, and the horse weighing 1050 pounds, that fixed the price,
which was paid immediately, and the horse was sent at once to Livingston
County, New York.
Once when General Wadsworth had a match at mile heats, best three in
five, he drove his horse ninety-eight miles the day before the race,
rather than pay forfeit, and then won the race, one heat being trotted
in 2.35. This was in 1847. Consider the clumsy shoes, the heavy sulkies,
and other impedimenta of that time, in comparison with the wire-like
plates, ball-bearing, pneumatic-tired sulkies, and cobweb-like harness
of to-day, and decide whether even the most phenomenal of our trotters
is better than that.
Another performance shows the stoutness of heart of this great horse.
General Wadsworth needed a doctor for his sister. Henry Clay was
harnessed to a two-seated wagon, did the journey from Geneseo to
Rochester, thirty-eight miles, and then back again, the whole
seventy-six miles being covered in less than five hours. A horse that
could do that was worthy to found a family. He did this through his son,
Black Douglas, his grandson, Cassius M. Clay, and his grandson, George
M. Patchen. His female descendants are conspicuous in the trotting-horse
pedigrees, the most conspicuous among them being Green Mountain Maid,
the dam of Electioneer, and conceded by the Standard Bred Trotter
element to be the greatest dam in American horse history. She was got by
Harry Clay,[7] a great grandson of the founder of the family.
Footnote 7:
It has been said that the Star mare, the dam of Dexter, was served
both by Rysdyk’s Hambletonian and Harry Clay the spring before
Dexter’s birth, and that it is more likely that Harry Clay was the
sire of Dexter because of Dexter’s resemblance to the Clays rather
than the Hambletonians, and also because of his stoutness of heart. As
Dexter was a gelding and incapable of leaving progeny this question is
more interesting than important. I have no opinion in the matter, but
as I am convinced of the general inaccuracy of the records of the day,
I am not at all prepared to believe that Dexter’s pedigree as put in
the books is accurate. About the time he became famous the
Hambletonian party was numerous and powerful and by no means
scrupulous in claiming everything in sight.
The dam of the trotting stallion George Wilkes was also said to be by
Henry Clay. The Hambletonian advocates—George Wilkes was sired by
Hambletonian—were so bitter in their opposition to the Clay blood,
that they refused to accept this and preferred that the breeding of
George Wilkes’ dam should be set down as unknown. I have read a good
deal that has been written on the subject and can only say that the
statements pro and con are equally unconvincing and only illustrate
over again the utter untrustworthiness of the early records, together
with the partizan discourtesy of the disputants.
Mr. Huntington has long believed that the Clay was the best trotting
blood in America, and when this blood was spoken of contemptuously by
Mr. Robert Bonner and called “Sawdust” Mr. Huntington’s indignation knew
no bounds. However, the blood could never become unpopular after the
record of the Green Mountain Maid in producing trotters. All of her
colts could trot—she had sixteen—and trot fast. But Mr. Huntington’s
opportunity to utilize this Clay blood came when General Grant received
a present of two stallions from the Sultan of Turkey. When General Grant
took his famous trip around the world, the Sultan entertained him at
Constantinople. Among the things that particularly interested the
General there were the Sultan’s stables. The Sultan hearing of this,
selected two of the best stallions in his collection and gave them to
the General. The stallions were Leopard, an Arab, and Linden Tree, a
Barb. Mr. Huntington at once set about getting General Grant’s consent
to use these horses for breeding. He got the consent and set about
securing what he considered proper mares. It seems a pity that General
Grant had not turned these horses entirely over to Mr. Huntington. He
was not himself a breeder, and after he reached middle life was only
interested in driving horses. So these stallions were really white
elephants on his hands. But Mr. Huntington might have made a more
extensive use of them than he did. His theory was that these horses
should be bred to virgin Clay mares. And he secured several of them. As
a breeder Mr. Huntington is one of those who hold to the theory that a
mare once pregnant to a horse is liable, if not likely, in later foals
to “throw back”, as it is somewhat technically expressed, and show in
these later foals the characteristics of the sire of the first
pregnancy. This is a matter of dispute among breeders. The theory has
been proved, so far as dogs are concerned, in my own experience. I had a
fox terrier bitch. She was accidentally served by a spaniel. When she
was next bred it was to a proper fox terrier and there was no chance of
error. The ensuing litter of puppies was a mongrel lot, showing spaniel
traces, and all of them had to be destroyed. Then, as to horses. Mr.
Bruce said that Dr. Warfield, the breeder of Lexington, had had
thoroughbred mares served by Jacks for the producing of mules, and later
had got winning colts from the same mares by Thoroughbred stallions. It
is an interesting matter with breeders and by no means settled. But Mr.
Huntington did not want to take any chances in making this new venture,
so he sought and obtained virgin mares, that the progeny might not be
tainted with other than the blood of the sires.
Mr. Huntington also holds to the theory that when breeding with
homogeneous blood that the degree of consanguinity between sire and dam
may be very much closer than is the usual practice. In other words, he
is an advocate of inbreeding so long as the experiments be not between
horses of heterogeneous and unmixable blood. Under the latter
circumstances he thoroughly agrees with the rest of the world that the
mongrelization of the product is increased. Indeed, it can be increased
in no way more surely, for the prevailing characteristics of an animal
type are increased by inbreeding and when the animals are mongrels to
begin with, that which is bad in them becomes more and more exaggerated
in the offspring. Mr. Huntington has been a breeder and a writer on
breeding for more than half a century. In a controversy he is, what may
be called, without any offense to him, I am sure, decidedly militant. It
has, therefore, been the case that not unfrequently his discussions as
to the breeding of horses have been fast and furious. If I disagreed
with him in his conclusions I should refrain from saying this—indeed, I
should not remark his personal characteristics at all. But I feel that
the misrepresentations to which he has been subjected should be spoken
of, for they have been cruel and continuous, and have done great
injustice to one of the most sincere, most honest and most capable horse
breeders who has ever lived and worked in this country. Moreover, he has
had more than a due share of misfortune in one way and another.
When he had got well along with his experiments with the Clay mares and
the Grant stallions, and proved to his own satisfaction and that, also,
of many of the friends who were observing his operations, it was
considered desirable to enlarge the plant. There were few sales, for the
obviously wise course was to keep the collection together for
observation and until the type sought after should be fixed and
reproducing. So more capital was taken in, and a man considered one of
the chief financial lawyers of New York, organized a company and became
its treasurer. In a year or so this lawyer was apprehended in some of
the most far reaching financial rascalities ever perpetrated in the
metropolis. He ruined estates in his charge, and corporations with which
he was connected. Mr. Huntington’s horse-breeding company among the
others. Here was a blow. The collection had to be dispersed just as it
had arrived at success. Though at that time Mr. Huntington was an old
man, he did not give up. He bought what of the collection he could, and
started in again. His second attempt proves that he is entirely right,
as he produces with an absolute certainty two classes of as admirable
horses as I have ever seen. The first, and the one that ought to be most
useful, is represented in the illustration in this book of Clay-Kismet,
and the other by Nimrod. Clay-Kismet is 16½ hands high, and is as
perfectly adapted for a carriage horse as any I have seen—as well
adapted even as the Golddust, of which I spoke in the Morgan chapter.
His symmetry, finish and high breeding adapt him particularly for this,
while the cleanness of his action gives a final perfection that cannot
fail to excite admiration in those who know and love horses. He is by an
Arab stallion 15 hands in stature, out of a closely inbred Clay mare,
the union resulting in a horse larger than either sire or dam. It is a
singular thing that even the purely bred Arabs, mated by Mr. Huntington
and bred on his place, increase very much in size and action. For
instance, Khaled, when I last saw him was 15.3½ hands, which is
something like a hand taller than either Naomi, his dam, or Nimr, his
sire. Here was an interesting instance of inbreeding, as Naomi was the
grandam of Nimr, the sire of Khaled. Whether this increase in size was
due to inbreeding or to transplantation to a different climate than the
desert, with different and better food, I am not prepared to say. But it
is a striking change for the better. The other horse I alluded to is
Nimrod, now, I am sorry to say, in the Philippines; he is more of a pony
or cob type—something, indeed, like the earlier generations of Morgans,
this type is most admirable in light harness, or to use in the stud in
the creation of polo ponies. This horse was sired by Abdul Hamid II, son
of General Grant’s Leopard out of Mary Sheppard, an inbred Clay mare.
These Clay-Arabians are as remarkable for their intelligence and
docility as are the Morgans. Their action is as clean and elegant and
their bottom cannot be surpassed. If this double accomplishment of a
single private owner be suffered to be wasted it will be a pity indeed,
as well as a national reproach.
[Illustration:
NIMROD (CLAY-ARABIAN)
Bred by Randolph Huntington
]
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE DENMARK, OR KENTUCKY SADDLE-HORSE
The assessed value of horses tabulated by States would make it appear
that Kentucky horse-flesh was not more precious than in other parts of
the Union. And yet Kentucky horses have a fame that is not approached by
those of any other state. This is due to the fact that in a small
section of the state, none but horses of high breeding are reared. A few
counties give to the whole state a reputation which, I am afraid, the
whole state does not deserve. But in the famous Blue Grass region the
noblest horses of several types and kinds have been bred for more than a
hundred years. It is distinctively the breeding place in America of the
English Thoroughbred, and comparatively few men who have gone into the
reproduction of these interesting and fleet animals have refrained
sooner or later from buying or renting farms in Central Kentucky to
carry on their operations. So, also, with the trotters. Indeed, it has
been maintained that in this lime stone region, where blue grass is
indigenous and where it was found in abundance in the park-like woods by
the early explorers that the very bones of horses that had grazed upon
it from infancy were harder, stouter and less sponge-like than those
from anywhere else. This much for the virtue of the lime stone nurtured
merits of the blue grass.
But the people have had much to do with the excellence of Kentucky
horses. They seem to have been by nature interested in the breed of
horses from the beginning of their settlement there. One of the first
records of the Colonial era is that of a Kentuckian who was killed by an
Indian while training a race-horse on a frontier race-course. And among
the seven first statutes enacted by the Colony when in preparation to
become a state of the Union, was one to regulate the range and improve
the breed of horses. They were horse lovers in Kentucky in the beginning
as they are to-day. And to-day there is no crime that is looked upon
with more contempt than to misrepresent the breeding of a horse. In
Kentucky a gentleman may kill another gentleman if his cause be just,
and suffer no reproach save that of himself; but if he palter with the
pedigree of a horse he trifles with his caste, and is ranked with the
sneak thieves and the pickpockets who take their victims unaware, and
achieve at once a petty and cowardly advantage. This love of the horse
and knowledge of him has gone on from generation to generation until it
has become a part, and no inconsiderable part of the heritage of every
Kentuckian who considers himself well born.
Some twenty years ago a Kentucky horse-breeder was in Boston, visiting a
gentleman with whom he had business. The Bostonian, with the
characteristic hospitality of those Dr. Holmes catalogued as of the
“Brahmin caste,” showed the Kentuckian about. He pointed out to him the
equestrian statue of Washington at the head of Commonwealth Avenue.
“There is the Washington statue,” remarked the Bostonian. “And what was
the breeding of the horse?” the Kentuckian inquired. The horse to him
was almost everything. And, later in the day, when dinner was over at
the hospitable Bostonian’s home, and the ladies and children were
retiring, the Kentuckian leaned over to his host and said, with
enthusiasm: “By Gad, Colonel, you have outbred yourself.” That was a
heartfelt tribute expressed in the natural way in which a Kentuckian
should speak. No wonder that they have fine horses when they give so
much thought to this subject of breeding.
[Illustration: A GROUP OF DENMARK MARES AT PASTURE IN KENTUCKY]
But for all this Kentucky has produced only one distinctive reproducing
type. Her trotters—if type they be—belong as much elsewhere as to
Kentucky; her runners are purely English. Her Denmarks, however, belong
to Kentucky. They have been bred there for more than sixty years, and as
a distinctive American type, they are second only in this country to the
Morgans of Vermont. It is a singular fact and not unworthy of note that
only two states have produced distinct American reproducing types,
Vermont and Kentucky, and those were the first two states admitted to
the Union after the original thirteen got ready to embrace other
sisters.
It is most curious how a type happens. The Morgans, as has been shown in
a previous chapter, came from a horse whose pedigree was not even
considered, and to this day is known only by conjecture and not at all
by established fact. He was considered a good horse in his day, but it
was not until his sons begat colts of exceptional merit that it was
thought worth while to inquire into his origin, and that of his
antecedents. With Denmark it was, in a degree, different. Denmark was a
Thoroughbred, though some who are over-critical, quarrel with the
pedigree of his dam. Let that be as it may. In 1839, when he was foaled,
begat by Imported Hedgeford out of Betsey Harrison, he was about as good
a Thoroughbred as the generality of those we had in America. Moreover,
he was a successful contestant on the turf and a good horse at four-mile
heats. These disputes as to the purity of the blood of our early horses
are rather academic than practical. In all of the early race-horses, not
purely English, there were infusions of the American basic blood; and
for that matter this was the case also in England, where the
Thoroughbred at that time was only newly evolved with the aid of
Oriental blood from the native strains. Here, however, is his pedigree
of Denmark traced back for several generations:
PEDIGREE OF DENMARK
┌── Highflyer
┌── Sir Peter
│ └── Papillon
┌── Haphazard
│ │ ┌── Eclipse
│ └── Miss Hervey
│ └── Clio
┌── Fihlo-da-puta
│ │ ┌── Pot-8-os
│ │ ┌── Waxy
│ │ │ └── Maria
│ └── Mrs. Barnet
│ │ ┌── Woodpecker
│ └── Daughter
│ └── Heikel
Imp. Hedgeford
│ ┌── King Fergus
│ ┌── Benningbrough
│ │ └── Daughter
│ ┌── Orville
│ │ │ ┌── Highflyer
│ │ └── Evelina
│ │ └── Termagant
└── Miss Craigie
│ ┌── Dungannon
│ ┌── Lurcher
│ │ └── Vertumus
└── Marchioness
│ ┌── Phenomenon
└── Miss Cogden
└── Daughter
┌── Imp. Fearnaught
┌── Symmes' Wildair
│ └── Jolly Roger Mare
┌── Director
│ │ ┌── Harris' Eclipse
│ └── Eclipse Mare
│ └── Daughter
┌── Aratus
│ │ ┌── Sir Peter Teazle
│ │ ┌── Imp. Sir Harry
│ │ │ └── Matron
│ └── Betsey Haxall
│ │ ┌── Imp. Saltram
│ └── Saltram Mare (Timoleun's dam)
│ └── Daughter
Betsey Harrison
│ ┌── Florizel
│ ┌── Imp. Diomed
│ │ └── Sister to Juno
│ ┌── Potomac
│ │ │ ┌── Pegasus
│ │ └── Fairy
│ │ └── Nancy McCullock
└── Jenny Cockracy
│ ┌── Eclipse
│ ┌── Imp. Saltram
│ │ └── Virago
└── Saltram Mare (Timoleun's dam)
│ ┌── Symmes' Wildair
└── Daughter
└── Daughter
That is pretty good breeding, even though the ancestors of Potomac might
not pass muster with those who look very closely back through the
sixteen generations. It may be that this so-called “cold-streak” in
Denmark, through his maternal great grandsire, was just what was needed
when he was mated with the Kentucky mares whose produce has given him
enduring fame.
In England the Thoroughbred is thought to be the ideal saddle-horse. I
confess that I have had the Thoroughbred fever pretty badly. But that
was a long time ago; and maybe that fever was contemporaneous with
Anglo-mania; indeed, the former may have been due to the latter.
Personal preferences, however, have properly little weight in a judicial
inquiry. My whole effort in this book has been to be entirely fair.
Personally, I care for a very few gaits in a saddle-horse. I am quite
content with the walk, the trot and the gallop. The Thoroughbred does
all of these with, to say the least, a reasonable satisfaction. But it
is unquestionably true that a well-formed, well-trained, well-bred
Denmark will go all three of these gaits with better style and more
finish than any Thoroughbred. Besides, he can readily be taught the
amble or pace, the running-walk, or fox-trot, and the rack or single
foot. That some do not care for these gaits is not in the least a
reproach upon the capacity of the horse that can do them at the bidding
of the rider. Moreover, this multiplicity of gaits does not in the least
detract from the complete finish of each and all. This fact has become
so apparent that there is a kind of hostility between New York and South
and Western horse-show standards as to what a saddle-horse shall be
like. A thoroughly gaited horse, trained in all the paces, would look
absurd in the eyes of those who like such horses if he were shorn of his
tail. It is considered by many who care only for the three gaits that a
saddle-horse must have a docked tail. A few years ago a man with a
thoroughly gaited horse could show him, long tail and all, in the
Southern and Western circuit, and then bring him to New York and
Philadelphia where he would tie up the horse’s tail and only exhibit the
walk, trot and gallop. Now, this still may be permissible; but, if not
absolutely denied, it is sternly frowned upon. So really the question
has become the highly absurd one of tail or no tail. It is about as
absurd as to deny the place to an applicant for a position where
knowledge of French was required because he also knew Italian and
Spanish. The breeders and trainers of Denmarks are too practical,
however, to shed tears over such foolishness. They breed their horses
the same as before, but they train this one for the East and that one
for the West and South. The quality tells wherever they go, and a horse
in any section that takes a blue ribbon away from a Denmark is more than
lucky, he is almost unique.
For several years past, however, at the Horse Show in New York, a
gentleman from England has come over to judge the saddle classes. In
England he is, no doubt, as good a judge of such classes as may be had,
for there the Thoroughbred is the one type, except the cob, that is
considered as filling the requirements for the saddle. Before the advent
of this gentleman, a great master in training, exhibiting and judging
saddle-horses, had acted for a good many years. He had, by his awards,
established a standard that made it almost impossible for other horses
to compete with the Denmarks. He appeared to think—I have never spoken
with him on the subject—that symmetry, good manners, good mouth, style
of action both in front and behind, sure-footedness, docility, and
intelligence were the requisites to be aimed at. Now, these are all
characteristics of the Denmark. Not all are characteristics of the
Thoroughbred. For instance, in the slow gaits a Thoroughbred,
particularly one that has ever been in training, is not sure-footed; he
travels too close to the ground. Again, he is not docile, as he becomes
very easily excited, and when his blood is up, wants to gallop at full
speed. His mouth, owing to this easily aroused excitement, more
frequently than not, gets all wrong, and he responds more to force than
to that sympathy which makes a good saddle-horse, and his rider seem to
be one. His style of action is inferior to that of the Denmark both in
front and behind and, as a general thing, he lacks the symmetry of
substance which is really the most remarkable thing about a Denmark. It
is surely a pity that there should be in our show rings this confusion
as to standards. The Thoroughbred type as a saddle-horse standard does
not obtain away from New York. In Philadelphia, in Boston, in Chicago
and all over the South and West, the Denmark is still the saddle-horse
par excellence, as he deserves to be. A friend of mine, in upholding the
New York authorities for getting an English judge for American
saddle-horses, says that the substitution was wise, because the Kentucky
horses hammer themselves all to pieces on the hard roads in the parks of
the East. If the park roads in the East are harder than the Kentucky
turnpikes, I have yet to see them. His idea seemed to be that every
Kentucky horse was sure to rack. But that is not so at all. He racks
when he is taught, and he is taught so easily that he acquires the gait
by what might be called second nature; but the Denmark can be turned out
whenever desired to go only the three gaits—walk, trot, and canter—and
he does these with a finish that the Thoroughbred cannot approach.
[Illustration:
MONTGOMERY CHIEF, JR. (CLOSELY INBRED DENMARK BY MONTGOMERY CHIEF)
Bred by Allie Jones, owned by Philippine Government
]
But these other easily acquired Kentucky gaits are not to be despised.
The running-walk is not hard upon the horse, and it is the easiest of
all on the rider. When men on business, or soldiers on a march both have
to go great distances in the saddle, the running-walk is about as great
an excellence as a horse can be endowed with. It came into being in this
country when most journeys were made on horseback. In those days, when
about to take the long road from Lexington to Washington and
Philadelphia, a man would have been considered lacking in intelligence
who expressed contempt for either the amble or the fox-trot. And when
Morgan’s men, during the Civil War, were making those wonderful
raids—now here, now there, and the next day out of sight—they were
generally mounted on these Kentucky-bred horses—not Thoroughbreds, but
Denmarks and others of the saddle-class type, the one type that
particularly belongs to Kentucky, and one of the very few types that we
can call American.
Long before Denmark came to Kentucky—fifty years and more—there had been
good saddle-horses there. There was an urgent need for them, and men of
enterprise usually get what they need. They had been brought from
Virginia by the early settlers, they had come from Canada and from
Vermont. They were excellent horses for the purposes of the time, but
they lacked the fine finish that came to them from Denmark and other
Thoroughbred crosses that were made about his time. It was not
appreciated to the full what an excellent cross Denmark made on those
old time mares until after his death, and the appearance of his sons as
sires—particularly Gaines’s Denmark. From this latter horse the best
saddle-horses that Kentucky has produced have descended and, in many
instances, they breed back to him two, three and four times. To my mind,
here is the strongest proof that the Denmark is a fixed reproducing
type. Inbreeding is fatal among mongrels of any sort; but where the type
is fixed it may be done with most excellent results and strictly, too,
according to the rule of “like begetting like.”
Here is another peculiarity of the Denmark. His excellence as a driving
horse is only exceeded by his virtues under the saddle. I am well aware
that men of fortune, who can keep as many horses in their stables as
they choose, rather scoff at the “combination horse.” All right for
them. All of us, however, are not so fortunately situated. When a man
whose means only enable him to keep a few horses—or even one horse—and
he wants both to ride and drive, the “combination horse” is the only
animal that will enable him to go how and when he chooses. The Denmarks
make splendid combination horses. They trot in harness with quite
reasonable speed and very good action, and the road is seldom too long
for them. My personal experience has not shown me that this change from
saddle to harness worked any great harm. I once had a Denmark that won
first prizes at the same show in the rings for saddle-horses, for
combination horses and for roadsters; all these winnings in two days. It
seems only reasonable that horses with the activity, the adaptability,
and the intelligence to acquire the various gaits that are within a
Denmark’s range would not necessarily be injured by driving in harness.
At any rate, a man who has only a small stable can get more kinds of fun
out of a Denmark than out of any other type of horse.
This type of horse is bred in five or six counties grouped about
Lexington. There are several large breeders, but pretty nearly every
farmer has a saddle mare or two that are regularly bred. But the supply
is not up to the demand. The dealers and trainers have their eyes open
all the time for promising individuals to train for the show rings, and
supply to wealthy customers in various parts of the country. They get
first choice because they are willing, when they come across a
particularly fine specimen, to take it even as a yearling. As these
animals are usually not salable until four years old, it will be seen
that the disposal of the yearling is an attractive thing for the breeder
and risky for the dealer. But there are still a good many of them needed
for use at home, as the young Blue Grass Kentuckian must have his
saddler so that he can range the country-side at will. Most men,
unacquainted with the easy gaits of a Kentucky saddle-horse, as used in
his native counties, would think it rather strange to go courting on
horseback, and arrive at one’s destination hot and mussed up. But these
easily gaited horses do not muss one up any more than a hansom cab does.
This easiness of gait reminds me of another use for which they are
invaluable. The planters in the South, as a general thing, go about
their places on horseback, also visiting the village and their neighbors
in the same way. In that generally warm climate a Thoroughbred or
trotting horse would get the rider so warm that a change of clothes
would be necessary; but these Southern gentlemen do not find such a
need. Indeed, I have been told that one accustomed to the saddle and the
climate can attend to business and social duties, plus two or three mint
juleps, without any great inconvenience.
When I was asked last year by the Civil Government of the Philippines to
select some mares and stallions for transportation there for breeding
and the improvement of the ponies in the Islands, I bought as many
Denmark mares as the conditions of my commission permitted. As my time
was limited I had to scour several counties very thoroughly. The
gentlemen I first consulted were rather discouraging, but I got in a few
weeks as fine a lot as ever left Kentucky, and the picture that is in
this book shows a group of them at pasture just before they were started
on their long journey to the other side of the world, where they
arrived, I am glad to say, with a loss of only two per cent. It was more
difficult to find Denmark stallions. The scarcity of these is due to the
efforts of the dealers and trainers to get males for their customers. So
many of the most promising are sold as yearlings and gelded. The
greatest stallions of the day are, I should judge, Montgomery Chief,
belonging to the Ball Brothers, Highland Denmark, belonging to the Gay
Brothers, and Forest Denmark, belonging to Colonel Woodford. These are
all closely-inbred Denmarks, and are most successful as sires, their
progeny winning blue ribbons wherever shown.
These horses have found their way into Tennessee, Illinois, and
Missouri, where the stock is most highly esteemed; but they flourish
most in Kentucky. I have heard army officers say that in the hard riding
days, when the Indian was still a frontier menace, that a troop of
cavalry mounted on horses from Kentucky would find their horses in
first-class condition when other troops on horses say from Iowa,
Missouri, or Illinois would be completely worn out and unable to
continue. These horses are singularly free from blemishes. I noticed
this particularly when making the Philippine purchases just alluded to.
Here every horse had to be absolutely sound, or, as they say in
Kentucky, “without a pimple.” The small percentage of rejection for
unsoundness really surprised me. This was testimony to the careful
selection in breeding that is practised there. One other word as to this
experience. When a breeder was asked whether his offering were broken or
trained, he either looked bewildered or treated the question as a joke.
This was because all of them are perfectly broken and, as a mere matter
of course, both to saddle and harness.
The prevailing size of the Denmarks, I should say, is 15.2, the weight
1050 pounds. In color they are usually bays or chestnuts, though there
are browns, blacks and grays. I never saw a dun; but I have seen a few
roans. The usual practice is to handle them at two years old, train them
gently at three, and give them a complete education at four.
The American Saddle Horse Breeders’ Association keeps and publishes a
register affirming that the following sires are the founders of the
type:
Denmark (Thoroughbred), by Imp. Hedgeford.
John Dillard, by Indian Chief (Canadian).
Tom Hal (Imported from Canada).
Cabell’s Lexington, by Gist’s Black Hawk (Morgan).
Coleman’s Eureka (Thoroughbred and Morgan).
Van Meter’s Waxy (Thoroughbred).
Stump the Dealer (Thoroughbred).
Peter’s Halcorn.
Davy Crockett.
Pat Cleburne, by Benton’s Gray Diomed.
This wide inclusion is hospitable and probably just, for the blood of
all these horses commingling with the old stock has made the Kentucky
saddle-horses what they are, but among them all the Denmarks are
pre-eminent. That they should be a reproducing type is, no doubt, due to
the Oriental blood in the Thoroughbreds and the fresh infusions that
came with the Jefferson Barbs, Keene Richards’s Arabs and from other
more recent sources.
[Illustration:
HIGHLAND EAGLE (A CLOSELY INBRED DENMARK BY HIGHLAND DENMARK)
Owned by Thomas K. Ryan
]
CHAPTER NINE
THE GOVERNMENT AS A BREEDER
The United States as a government has never until now conducted any
horse-breeding experiments. Army officers have frequently tried to
induce the War Department to start a breeding establishment so that
remounts of a proper kind could be supplied to the cavalry. But the idea
has never appealed to Congress, and in this particular direction nothing
has been done. Dr. D. E. Salmon, the accomplished chief of the Bureau of
Animal Industry of the Agricultural Department, has inserted what may be
the “entering-wedge” for at the Colorado Agricultural Experiment Station
a few mares and stallions have been assembled, and an effort will be
made to breed a type of carriage horses, a type badly needed. Of this
experiment Dr. Salmon says:
“In the countries of the world where horse breeding has been encouraged
by government assistance the foundation has been native stock, and the
key to successful work has been selection according to a certain type.
Furthermore, with all due respect to Godolphin Arabian, the Darley
Arabian and their contemporaries, the great factor in developing the
Thoroughbred horse was the method of the English breeder, and more
credit is due to native English stock and to environment than has
generally been acknowledged. The Thoroughbred has been the great
leavening power in developing English breeds of light horses; the
trotter may bear the same relation to the horse stock of America.
“The trotter is found throughout the country wherever horses are raised,
and any improvement in this breed affects in time the entire horse
industry. The light harness classes can be supplied from this source,
and there is no more effective way to provide a supply of suitable
cavalry horses for the United States army than by showing how the native
horse may be improved.
“That the trotter has faults no one will deny, and that the speed idea
has been responsible for many of these faults and has caused many a man
to become bankrupt are equally certain. If a horse can trot 2.10 or
better it is reasonably certain that he will make money for his owner,
and it matters not how homely or unsound he may be; but if the horse has
bad looks and unsoundness, and also lacks speed, he will be unprofitable
on the track, and can not be sold at a profitable price on the market,
while, if used in the stud, his undesirable qualities are perpetuated.
On the other hand, if the horse has a moderate speed, but is sound,
handsome and stylish, with a shapely head and neck, a straight, strong
back, straight croup, muscular quarters and stifles, well-set legs,
possesses good all-round true action and has abundant endurance, he is
almost certainly a profitable investment. This is the kind of light
horse which the market wants and will pay for. If of the roadster type,
he sells well as a driver; if more on the heavy harness order, as a
carriage horse.
“The occurrence of trotting bred horses of the finest conformation is by
no means uncommon; it is so frequent, indeed, that these animals supply
not only the demand for roadsters, but the principal part of the fine
city trade in carriage horses, and are conspicuous winners at the horse
shows. The demand for such horses has been so keen that dealers have
resorted to the pernicious practice of buying mature stallions, many of
them valuable breeders, and castrating them to be sold later as carriage
horses. The famous Lord Brilliant, three times winner of the
Waldorf-Astoria gig cup at Madison Square Garden, is a notable instance
of this practice; Lonzie, a noted Chicago show horse, is another, and
the horse purchased for the department experiments (Carmon) narrowly
escaped the same fate. This practice can not be too strongly condemned.
There is reason to believe that if these stallions were used as the
nucleus of a breed the type would in time become fixed and their blood
be saved to the country. On the other hand, if steps are not taken to
mould the blood of these horses into one breed, and preserve the blood
lines which produce them, an irreparable loss to the industry will
result. The first step should be to select foundation stock strictly
according to type; the next to study the lines of breeding which produce
these horses. To a certain extent they are accidents of breeding, but
there is little doubt that certain families show a greater tendency in
this direction than others. For example, the descendants of Alexander’s
Abdallah, Harrison Chief, the Morgans and the Clay family have been more
or less notable in this respect. Further, certain sires are known to
produce handsome and marketable horses with regularity.
“In view of these facts, the department decided to undertake the
development of a breed of carriage horses on an American foundation as
an interesting and important problem for solution. If successful it will
show that we can develop our own breeding stock of horses in this
country; it will make light horse breeding less a lottery than it is at
present, and will at the same time provide breeding animals which can be
used profitably on the lighter horses of the country.
“After a thorough search the department has purchased as foundation
stock eighteen mares and one stallion. In addition, it can command the
services of additional stallions if desired. The instructions of the
purchasing board allowed considerable latitude, but it was required to
select strictly according to type. Hereditary unsoundness was regarded
as a disqualification. Pedigree was not considered, so far as
registration was concerned, but the board required evidence to be
submitted showing that the animals purchased were from parents and
ancestors of like type, thus insuring blood lines that would breed
reasonably true. Speed, while not ignored, was not made an essential.
Life, spirit, and energy, with moderate speed, were considered, and,
while conformation was not sacrificed to speed, speed with conformation
and good action was regarded as an advantage.
“The type for mares was one standing about 15.3 hands, weighing 1100 to
1150 pounds, bay, brown or chestnut in color, with stylish head and
neck, full made body, deep ribs, straight back, strong loin, straight,
full croup, muscular forearms, quarters and lower thighs; good all-round
was insisted upon. Any tendency to pace or mix gaits was regarded as
grounds for disqualification. In some cases mares of more than 15.3
hands were purchased and in others they were less than this. All,
however, conformed closely to type. Some of the mares are in foal; the
rest will be bred this spring.
“The ancestors of six mares purchased in Wyoming have been bred for five
or six generations in that state, the band having been started by means
of an importation of horses from the Central West which was largely
Morgan stock. On this stock Thoroughbred and Standard sires have been
used, and the herd has been developed more to produce a horse suitable
for carriage purposes than one which had speed characteristics. Some of
the six have been exhibited at the New York Horse Show, and the owner of
the ranch maintains a stable near New York City, where he sends his
surplus from year to year to be finished for the fine city trade.
“The search for a stallion to head the stud was the most difficult of
all. An almost unlimited number of trotting horses suitable to get good
carriage horses were recommended to the department, but on investigation
it would be found that they were deficient in some respect and could not
be considered. A horse was finally selected which was among the first
suggested—Carmon 32907, American Trotting Horse Register, 16 hands,
weighing 1200 pounds in fair condition, bay with black points and no
white markings, bred by Norman J. Coleman, of St. Louis.
“The points of Carmon’s conformation which deserve special mention are
his head and neck and hind quarters. His forehead is broad and full,
with a straight nose and face; full, expressive eyes and well-carried
ears. The neck is clean, muscular, and well arched. In the hind quarters
special attention should be directed to the straight, broad croup and
the muscular quarters and lower thighs. The horse has an abundance of
bone and substance, but ample quality at the same time. His action is
excellent.
“A study of Carmon’s pedigree shows that it is not a particularly
fashionable one from the standpoint of the man who is breeding solely
for speed. This is a pedigree from which one might expect a horse of
excellent conformation. Robert McGregor, for example, was a horse with
especially well-developed hind quarters and this characteristic is seen
in his sons and grandsons, as shown by Cresceus and Carmon. Abdallah XV
was a horse with a particularly attractive head and neck. The frequency
with which the Abdallah cross appears in Carmon’s pedigree and the
presence of Morgan, Mambrino Chief and Clay blood readily explains where
this horse gets his handsome head and neck and his full quarters and
stifles. These families have produced some of our handsomest horses.
Their blood makes up nineteen-sixty-fourths of Carmon’s pedigree.
“The small percentage of pacing blood is worthy of particular notice.
Further, the prominent trotting sires in it have produced more trotters
than pacers, and Robert McGregor, Abdallah XV, and Ethan Allen are
noteworthy for the small number of pacers sired by them or produced by
their sons and daughters. This is so small that they may be regarded
strictly as sires of trotters. Abdallah XV and Ethan Allen sired no
pacers, and of the immediate get of Robert McGregor less than ten per
cent are pacers.”[8]
Footnote 8:
U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
BUREAU OF ANIMAL INDUSTRY
LOCAL OFFICE
_John Gilmer Speed_, FORT COLLINS, COLO., _June 12, 1905_.
_New York, N. Y._
DEAR SIR:—Your favor of May 24 has been referred to me for reply. Will
say that we now have 19 brood mares and a stallion in our breeding
stud here and as you probably have learned, our object is to establish
a type of American carriage horses eventually. We will found a stud
book for this type of horses in America and we hope to so foster and
develop this type of horses in America as to make them par excellence
as a heavy harness horse. The mares that we have secured range in
weight from 1050 to upwards of 1280 pounds. They are from 15.2 to 16.1
hands in height and are without exception high headed with superb
action, of fine quality and while not noted for speed, can trot a mile
in approximately three minutes and do it in a wonderfully easy and
graceful manner, showing great style and finish. They are all bred
from the American trotter foundation, and as far as possible of Morgan
blood. We were careful to secure nothing but straight _trotting_ bred
stock, as we wish to eradicate the pacing characteristic from our
horses. As you are aware, the Government and the Colorado Agricultural
College are co-operating in this work. The Government is furnishing
part of the funds and the College has taken charge of and is directing
the work.
Trusting that this information is satisfactory, I am,
Yours very truly,
W. L. CARLYLE,
_Expert in charge_.
I need not explain to readers of this book that I do not entirely agree
with Dr. Salmon in his views of the American trotting horse. But in the
main I do agree with him in the selection of his mares. The stallion
used to be known in the horse-show rings as Lawson’s Glorious Thunder
Cloud. He never struck me as anything at all out of the common and I am
astonished at his selection. He was a good wheeler in a four-in-hand,
but that was all. In single harness he never won in any ordinary class
at any important show. He seemed to me to lack quality and to be lacking
in many of the things for which Dr. Salmon gives him praise. I trust,
however, he will prove a better sire than he was a show horse, for the
need for carriage horses is great; then it would be a great pity for
this first official experiment to turn out badly. It will be watched
with peculiar interest. But I wish Dr. Salmon had selected as his
stallion a horse that was in blood and conformation similar to
Clay-Kismet.
CHAPTER TEN
FOREIGN HORSES OF VARIOUS KINDS
For draught purposes there have been a great many foreign horses brought
here, and they have served an excellent purpose. I suspect indeed that
if we had a record of the Percherons, Clydesdales, and Shire horse that
have been brought into America for the purpose of breeding heavy horses
for trucking, that the number would exceed the Thoroughbreds that have
been imported for the improvement of that special type. We had no heavy
horses of our own, and as there was a constant demand for draught horses
it was inevitable that breeders should go for stock where that stock had
been brought to the highest perfection. To us it seemed that the French
horses, the Percherons,[9] were best adapted for our use. And though
many have been brought here, it is not likely that the generality of
Americans know the pure bred Percherons. But all of us are familiar with
Rosa Bonheur’s “Horse Fair.” The models of the horses in this stirring
and beautiful picture were Percherons, and nearly all of them stallions.
The French, and other Latins besides, have a fondness for using
stallions in ordinary work, and any day in Paris a visitor may see a
long string of Percheron stallions drawing a heavy load as placidly as
geldings would do it. There is no reason why stallions should not be
used more generally in this country. The prejudice against their use as
saddle- and harness-horses no doubt arose when the business of a greater
part of the country was transacted by travelers who needed to hitch
their horses where other horses were also tethered. But in work where a
groom or driver is always in charge of a horse the stallion may be used
with much advantage to himself and satisfaction to his owner.
Footnote 9:
Mr. Walters of Baltimore, began importing Percherons to America in
1866 and kept it up for twenty years. He translated the work of M. du
Hays on the Percheron and illustrated it with photographs of horses
and mares of his own importation. It is one of the handsomest horse
books ever published.
The basic blood of these Percherons is Arab and Barb mixed with the
blood of those heavy Norman horses that were used by the heavily-armed
knights in the time when the lance, sword, and crossbow took the place
in war now monopolized entirely by rifles, balls and powder or other
explosives. After securing the type the French have been so zealously
aware of its value that they keep agents in Arabia always looking out
for animals suitable to start a new and parallel supply of this basic
blood. These same agents are also on the lookout for horses to be used
in the breeding of army horses. Few of the Percherons that are brought
over here are used in actual work, but are kept on the breeding farms in
Ohio, Illinois, and other places for the production of “graded draught
horses,” horses not quite so heavy as the Percheron, but heavier than
any draught horses we previously had of our own breeding. The Percheron
stallions are mated with heavy American mares and with “graded” mares,
and the produce sent to the great cities where the animals fetch highly
satisfactory prices. Great care has to be exercised in making the cross
between a Percheron and an American that the contrast shall not be too
great between the members of the union. When it is too great the
consequences are disastrous, and result in a misshapen beast with
unrelated characteristics of each parent. This shows that the blood of
the union has not blended harmoniously. But the men who are in the
business of producing “graded draught horses” appear to know that
business well as the horses sold are handsome, strong, and active, and
well adapted for the work for which they were created. This is a
business pretty sure to decrease rather rapidly. These graded horses are
not the ideal farm horse, although on a large farm where there is a deal
of hauling, they serve a very useful purpose. But in plowing or in other
work over soft ground they are too heavy. The city is the place for
these horses. And year by year the heavy hauling will more and more be
done by auto-cars. The auto-car for trucking is at present probably the
most satisfactory achievement of the designers of horseless vehicles.
When it is satisfactorily demonstrated that this mode of transferring
freight, building material, and so on, is the cheapest way, then draught
horses will be less and less in demand, and the French will lose one of
their most profitable markets for her large, heavy, and symmetrical
horses. Still that may be a many years off, and if I were Dr. Hartman or
Messrs. Dunham I should not just yet sacrifice my Percherons to any save
the highest bidder.
Before the era of the draught horse from France, those from England had
a certain amount of popularity. That has long since passed away, and the
Shires and Clydesdales in the United States are not proportionally so
numerous as formerly. But they keep their popularity in Canada, where
probably the farmers, being chiefly Britons, understand them better.
That they should have been supplanted by the Percheron in the United
States is no doubt due to the fact that the Oriental blood in the French
horse makes that blood more assimilative with other strains. The French
coach horse is brought over here to an extent for experimental use, and
the Cleveland Bays formerly were brought quite frequently. Both, no
doubt, have had temporary influences on the American stock in the
localities where these horses were in the stud, but I know of no type
that has been influenced by them to any great extent.
The Orlof trotting horse of Russia is one of the most interesting horses
in Europe, and was created by Count Alexis Orlof-Tchestmensky, who began
his work during the reign of Peter III, in the last half of the
eighteenth century. As there has been an effort to make this type
popular in America, it may be interesting to record how Count Orlof went
about his work to secure a reproducing type of animals that resemble
each other as much as the puppies in a litter of fox terriers. In 1775
he imported from Arabia a stallion named Smetanka, and bred this horse
to a Danish mare. The produce was Polkan who sired in 1784 Barrs out of
a Dutch mare. Barrs is looked upon as the founder of the Orlof type.
Barrs sired Lubeznoy out of a mare that was sired by an Arab out of a
Mecklenberg mare; Barrs also sired Dobroy out of a Thoroughbred English
mare; also Lebed out of a mare by Felkerzamchek out of a Mecklenberg
mare, Felkerzamchek being by Smetanka out of a Thoroughbred English
mare. Now all the Orlofs must descend from Smetanka and Barrs through
the three stallions named. This mixture was crossed and recrossed until
it became homogeneous, and so the Russian noble had created a type.
In 1772 he had in his stud the following horses:
Arab 12 stallions and 10 mares
Persian 3 stallions and 2 mares
English 20 stallions and 32 mares
Dutch 1 stallions and 8 mares
Mecklenberg 1 stallions and 5 mares
Danish 1 stallions and 3 mares
Miscellaneous 9 stallions and 17 mares
He developed his type before his death in 1810, and his widow kept up
the same method of breeding until 1845, when she sold the horses to the
Russian government. These horses have been of vast service in Russia,
where even in the eighteenth century the steppes were filled with wild,
scrubby but hardy little horses to such an extent that even the poorest
peasant could own one or two. The Orlofs have done much to improve these
steppe ponies and it is upon them that the Russian cavalry largely
depends for remounts.
The fastest of these trotters can go a 2.20 clip, but I have heard that
a rate like this can be maintained only a short while. They are not so
symmetrical as our Morgans or Clay-Arabians, but they have immensely
more substance than the Standard Bred Trotters. I do not see how they
can find any very useful place in this country. We could from our own
stock quickly develop a better looking coach horse, and I believe we
will do it, but never until we keep in mind that type is nine-tenths of
any horse breeding battle that is ever won.
The English Hackneys at one period promised to be popular in this
country. This popularity was stimulated by fashion, and the English
breeders did not fail to take advantage of the fad that possessed some
Americans of wealth. The Hackney comes from the Dutch horses by way of
the Norfolk trotter. He is a horse of substance and easily acquires a
high step with much knee action. In the show ring he is exhibited after
the English fashion and makes a very lively picture. But his step is not
light. He pounds the ground as though he wished the earth to tremble,
and the Chinese feel his tread on the other side of the world. He has no
very fitting place here, no more than the Orlof, either in his purity or
as a cross with our own horses. We can easily do without him, and
accomplish the creation of heavy harness and coach horse without the
assistance of this English type. Originally in England the Hackney was a
knock-a-bout horse, good under the saddle and in harness; but he has
been bred up to large size and very heavy weight. Some of the American
breeders of hackney ten or fifteen years ago when they went to England
for stock to breed from paid such prices that the English laughed with
delight, for they never dreamed of such a market at home. The fad is
fastly dying out, and it is likely that in a few years there will not be
opportunity even in the show rings for their exhibition. As they are
deficient in courage and staying qualities, this will not be a bad
result of lack of popularity.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE BREEDING OF MULES
On the first day of January, 1905, we had in the United States 2,888,710
mules with a taxable value of $251,840,378. This shows how extensive an
industry mule-breeding is, and also what an important place the mule
occupies in the economy of the country. The mule is an ideal farm
animal. They would find it hard to get along without him on the
plantations in the South. The negro is the poorest horseman in the
world. As a groom he is careless and neglectful. A horse must be
attended to or he will get ill and die. The mule seems, if not to thrive
on neglect, at least not seriously to deteriorate. On many of the
Southern plantations mules never know either currycomb or brush during
all their long lives. And they live to a great age. I have never seen
any statement based on carefully ascertained statistics at to the
comparative length life of the horse and mule, but I am persuaded, from
my own observation that on an average a mule lives twenty-five per cent
longer. And there is pretty nearly as much work in an old mule as in a
young one. They can also be put to hard work sooner than a horse. So the
working life of a mule is lengthened at both ends. Moreover, they can
subsist on what would be starvation for a horse.
If mules were bred at all in America in the Colonial era it was to a
very limited extent. But after the Revolution they were bred a little,
and George Washington was the man who encouraged this new industry. In
1786, before his election to the Presidency, Washington accepted from
the King of Spain the present of a large Spanish Jack. He called the
jack Royal Gift, and thus advertised his services in a Philadelphia
paper:
“Royal Gift—A Jack Ass of the first race in the Kingdom of Spain
will cover mares and jennies (she asses) at Mount Vernon the
ensuing spring. The first for ten, the latter for fifteen pounds
the season. Royal Gift is four years old, is between 14½ and 15
hands high, and will grow, it is said, until he is twenty or
twenty-five years of age. He is very bony and stout made, of a
dark colour with light belly and legs. The advantages, which are
many, to be derived from the propagation of asses from this animal
(the first of the kind that was ever in North America), and the
usefulness of mules bred from a Jack of his size, either for the
road or team, are well known to those who are acquainted with this
mongrel race. For the information of those who are not, it may be
enough to add, that their great strength, longevity, hardiness,
and cheap support, give them a preference of horses that is
scarcely to be imagined. As the Jack is young, and the General has
many mares of his own to put to him, a limited number only will be
received from others, and these entered in the order they are
offered. Letters directed to the subscriber, by Post or otherwise,
under cover to the General, will be entered on the day they are
received, till the number is completed, of which the writers shall
be informed to prevent trouble or expense to them.
“JOHN FAIRFAX, Overseer.
“February 23, 1786.”
Washington believed in mules and in the inventory of live stock in his
will made in 1799, mention is made of two covering jacks, three young
ones, ten she asses, forty-two working mules, and fifteen younger ones.
It was a much later period, however, before mules were extensively bred
in the United States. With the exception of Royal Gift, it is likely
that the jacks brought from Europe were rather inferior. But in 1832,
Henry Clay imported two pure-blood Catalan asses, a jack and a jenny.
They were landed in Maryland, and there the jenny had a foal. This foal
was called Warrior. This jack was fifteen hands high, and he became a
great ass progenitor in Kentucky. The jennies there at that time were
not well bred, but mongrels, mostly a light shade of blue, with gray,
buff and grizzly hair, nearly as stiff as hog bristles, generally with a
colored stripe across the shoulders and down the back, ewe-necked, flat
in the rib, low carriage, and heavy headed, entirely destitute of any
good quality except hardihood and ability to get a living where any
other animal, save a goat, would have starved to death. With such
jennies began the first effort to improve the race in Kentucky, and they
flocked to Warrior in droves. He seemed to cross advantageously with
them, just as the Cashmere goat crosses on the common hairy goat. His
progeny seemed rapidly to lose the leading traits of their dams, and to
inherit in a remarkable degree the color and outward characteristics of
their sire. Four years later Dr. Davis imported in South Carolina
another Catalan jack. He was 16 hands high and of great weight. This
jack, Mammoth, was mated to the young Warrior jennies then just
maturing, thus making the second cross of pure blood, and upon these two
crosses rest to-day the breeding of the race of jacks known throughout
the United States as the Kentucky Jack. These Kentucky jacks are still
popular, and last year the British Government bought a number of them to
take to India.
Mr. J. L. Jones, of Columbia, Tennessee, is a recognized authority on
mule breeding, and I prefer to give my readers his counsel in a matter
with which he is better acquainted than I am.
He says:
“There are two kinds or classes of the mule, viz., one the produce of
the male ass or jack and the mare; and the other, the offspring of the
stallion and female ass. The cross between the jack and the mare is
properly called the mule, while the other, the produce of the stallion
and female ass, is designated a hinny. The mule is the more valuable
animal of the two, having more size, finish, bone, and, in fact, all the
requisites which make that animal so much prized as a useful
burden-bearing animal. The hinny is small in size, and is wanting in the
qualities requisite to a great draught animal. This hybrid is supposed
not to breed, as no instance is known to us in which a stallion mule has
been prolific, although he seems to be physically perfect, and shows
great fondness for the female, and serves readily. There are instances
on record where the female has produced a foal, but these are rare.
“The mule partakes of the several characteristics of both its parents,
having the head, ear, foot, and bone of the jack, while in height and
body it follows the mare. It has the voice of neither, but is between
the two, and more nearly resembles the jack. It possesses the patience,
endurance, and sure-footedness of the jack, and the vigor, strength, and
courage of the horse. It is easily kept, very hardy, and no path is too
precipitous or mountain trail too difficult for one of them with its
burden. The mule enjoys comparative immunity from disease, and lives to
a comparatively great age. The writer knows of a mule in Middle
Tennessee that, when young, was a beautiful dapple gray, but is now
thirty years old, and is as white as snow. This mule is so faithful and
true, and has broken so many young things to work by his side, that he
bears the name of ‘Counsellor.’ The last time he was seen by the writer
he was in a team attached to a reaper, drawing at a rate sufficient to
cut fifteen acres of grain per day.
“Kentucky mules are showy, up-headed, fine-haired animals, their extra
qualities being attributable to the strong, Thoroughbred blood in the
greater part of their dams. The same may be said of Tennessee, where it
is thought the climactic influences produce a little better, smoother,
and finer hair, coupled with early maturity, which qualities are much
prized by an expert buyer.
“The mules in Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, and some of the so-called
Northwestern states, have large bone, foot, body, and substance, and
possess great strength, but they are wanting in that high style, finish,
and fine hair that characterize the produce of some of the states
further south, and are longer in maturing. Mule-breeding in these states
is one of the most important branches of industry, and is supposed to
date back prior to 1787.
“There is no kind of labor to which a horse can be put for which a mule
may not be made to answer, while there are many for which mules are more
peculiarly adapted than horses; and among the rest, that of mining,
where the mule is used, and many of them need no drivers. They can
endure more hardships than the horse, can live on less, and do more work
on the same feed than any other beast of burden we use in America.
“A cotton-planter in the South would feel unwilling to raise his crop
with horses for motive power. The horse and the labor of the cotton belt
could not harmonize, while the negro is at home with the mule.
“A mule may be worked until completely fagged, when a good feed and a
night’s rest will enable it to go; but it is not so with a horse.
“The mule being better adapted for carrying burdens, for the plough, the
wagon, building of railroads, and, in fact, all classes of heavy labor,
let us see how it compares with the noble animal, the horse, in cost of
maintenance.
“From repeated experiments that have come under my observation in the
past twenty-five years, I have found that three mules, 15 hands high,
that were constantly worked, consumed about as much forage as two
ordinary-sized horses worked in the same way, and while the mules were
fat the horses were only in good working order. Although a mule will
live and work on very low fare, he also responds as quickly as any
animal to good feed and kind treatment. True, it is charged that the
mule is vicious, stubborn, and slow, but an experience in handling many
mules on the farm has failed to sustain the charge, save in few
instances, and in these the propensities were brought about by bad
handling. They are truer pullers than the horse, and move more quickly
under the load. Their hearing and vision are better than the horse. The
writer has used them in all the different branches of farming, from the
plough to the carriage and buggy, and thinks they are less liable to
become frightened and start suddenly; and if they do start, they usually
stop before damage is done, while the horse seldom stops until
completely freed. The mule is more steady while at work than the horse,
and is not so liable to become exhausted, and often becomes so well
instructed as to need neither driver nor lines.
“In the town in which the writer lives, a cotton merchant, who is also
in the grocery trade, owned a large sorrel mule, 16 hands high, that he
worked to a dray to haul goods and cotton to the depot, half a mile from
his business house. This mule often went the route alone, and was never
known to strike anything, and what was more remarkable, would back up at
the proper place with the load, there being one place to unload
groceries and another for cotton.
“They are also good for light harness, many of them being very useful
buggy animals, traveling a day’s journey equal to some horses. The
writer obtained one from a firm of jack breeders in his vicinity, that
was bred by them, as an experiment, being out of a Thoroughbred mare by
a royally bred jack. She is 16 hands high, as courageous as most any
horse. In traveling a distance of thirty-two miles, this mule, with two
men and the baggage, made it, as the saying goes, ‘under a pull,’ in
four hours, and when arrived at the journey’s end seemed willing to go
on.
“We do not wish to be understood as underrating the horse, for it is a
noble animal, well suited for man’s wants, but for burden-bearing and
drudgery is more than equaled by the patient, faithful, hardy mule.
“There are two kinds of jacks—the mule-breeding and the ass-breeding
jack, the latter being used chiefly in breeding jacks for stock
purposes. It is only with the mule-breeding jack that we will deal.
“A good mule-jack ought to be not less than 15 hands high, and have all
of the weight, head, ear, foot, bone, and length that can be obtained,
coupled with a broad chest, wide hips, and with all the style attainable
with these qualities. Smaller jacks are often fine breeders, and produce
some of our best mules, and when bred to the heavier, larger class of
mares show good results, but as ‘like produces like,’ the larger jacks
are preferable.
“Black, with light points, is the favorite color for a jack, but many of
our gray, blue, and even white jacks have produced good mules. In fact,
some of the nicest, smoothest, red-sorrel mules have been the product of
these off-colored jacks; but the black jacks get the largest proportion
of good-colored colts from all colored mares.
“The breed of the jack is also to be looked into. There are now so many
varieties of jacks in the United States, all of which have merits, that
it will be well to examine and see what jack has shown the best results.
We have the Catalonian, the Andalusian, the Maltese, the Majorca, the
Italian, and the Poitou—all of which are imported—and the native jack.
Of all the imported, the Catalonian is the finest type of animal, being
a good black, with white points, of fine style and action, and from 14½
to 15 hands high, rarely 16 hands, with a clean bone. The Andalusian is
about the same type of jack as the Catalonian having, perhaps, a little
more weight and bone, but are all off-colors. The Maltese is smaller
than the Catalonian, rarely being over 14½ hands high, but is nice and
smooth. The Majorca is the largest of the imported jacks, the heaviest
in weight, bone, head, and ear, and frequently grows to 16 hands. These
are raised in the rich island of Majorca, in the Mediterranean Sea.
While they excel in weight and size, they lack in style, finish and
action. The Italian is the smallest of all the imported jacks, being
usually from 13 to 14 hands high, but having good foot, bone, and
weight, and some of them make good breeders. The Poitou is the latest
importation of the jack, and is little known in the United States. He is
imported from France, and is reported to be the sire of some of the
finest mules in his native land. These jacks have long hair about the
neck, ears, and legs, and are, in some respects, to the jack race what
the Clydesdale is to other horses. He is heavy set, has good foot and
bone, fine head and ear, and of good size, being about 15 hands high.
“The native jack, as a class, is heavier in body, having a larger bone
and foot than the imported, and shows in his entire make-up the result
of the limestone soil and the grasses common in this country. He is of
all colors, having descended from all the breeds of imported jacks. But
the breeders of this country, seeing the fancy of their customers for
the black jack with light points, have discarded all other colors in
selecting their jacks, and the consequence is that a large proportion of
the jacks in the stud now, for mares, are of this color.
“The native jack, being acclimated, seems to give better satisfaction to
breeders of mules than any other kind. From observation and experience
it is believed that our native jacks, with good imported crosses behind
them, will sire the mules best suited to the wants of those who use them
in this country, and will supply the market with what is desired by the
dealers. The colts by this class of jacks are stronger in make-up,
having better body, with more length, larger head and ear, more foot and
bone, combined with style equal to the colts of the imported jacks.
“While many fine mules are sired by imported jacks, this is not to be
understood as meaning that imported jacks do not get good foals, yet,
taken as a class, we think that the mule by the native jack is superior
to any other class. This conclusion is borne out by an experience and
observation of some years, and by many of the best breeders and dealers
in the United States.
“As the mule partakes very largely in its body and shape of its mother,
it is necessary that care should be taken in selecting the dam. Many
suppose that when a mare becomes diseased and unfit for breeding to the
horse, then she is fit to breed to mules. This is a sad mistake, for a
good, growing, sound colt must have good, sound sire and dam.
“The jack may be ever so good, yet the result will be a disappointment
unless the mare is good, sound, and properly built for breeding. First,
she should be sound and of good color; black, bay, brown, or chestnut is
preferred. Her good color is needed to help to give the foals proper
color, and this is a matter of no small importance.
“This should not be understood as ignoring the other colors, for some of
the best mules ever seen were the produce of gray or light-colored
mares, as many dealers and breeders will attest. The mare should be well
bred; that is, she would give better results by having some good
crosses. By all means let her have a cross of Thoroughbred, say
one-quarter, supplemented with strong crosses of some of the larger
breeds, and the balance of the breeding may be made up of the better
class of the native stock. The mare should have good length, large,
well-rounded barrel, good head, long neck, good, broad, flat bone, broad
chest, wide between the hips, and good style.
“Having selected the sire and the dam, the next thing is to produce the
colt. The sire, if well kept and in good condition, is ready for
business, but not so with the mare. The dam is to be in season; that is,
in heat. Before being bred, to prevent accidents, the mare should be
hobbled or pitted. Having taken this precaution, the jack may be brought
out, and both will be ready for service. Care should be taken not to
over-serve the jack, as he should not be allowed to serve over two mares
a day.
“The mare, after being served, may be put to light work, or put upon
some quiet pasture by herself for several days until she passes out of
season, when she may be turned out with other stock to run until the
eighteenth day, when she should be taken up to be teased by a horse, to
ascertain if she be in season, and if so, she should be bred again. Some
breeders think the ninth, some the twelfth, and some the fifteenth day
after service is the proper day to tease, but observation has taught me
that the best results come from the eighteenth-day plan. After she
becomes impregnated she should have good treatment; light work will not
hurt her, but care should be taken not to over-exert. She should have
good, nutritious grass if she runs out and is not worked, but if worked
she should be well fed on good feed. The foal will be due in about 333
days. As the time approaches for foaling, the mare should be put in a
quiet place, away from other stock, until the foal is dropped. She will
not need any extra attention, as a rule, but should be looked after to
see that everything goes right.
“After the foal comes, it will not hurt the mare or colt for the dam to
do light work, provided she is well fed on good, nutritious food. Should
she not be worked and is on good grass, and fed lightly on grain, the
colt will grow finely, if the mare gives plenty of milk; if she does not
the foal should be taught to eat such feed as is most suitable.
“The colt should be well cared for at all times, and particularly while
following its mother, for the owner may want to sell at weaning time,
which is four months old, and its inches then will fix the price. Good
mules, at weaning time, usually bring from $75 to $90, and sometimes as
high as $100.
“Feeders, dealers, and buyers prefer the mare mule to the horse, and
they sell more readily. The females mature earlier, are plumper and
rounder of body, and fatten more readily than the male.
“In weaning the colt, much is accomplished by proper treatment
preparatory to this trying event in the mule’s life. It should be taught
to eat while following its mother, so that when weaned it will at once
know how to subsist on that which is fed to it. The best way to wean is
to take several colts and place them in a close barn, with plenty of
good, soft feed, such as bran and oats mixed, plenty of sound, sweet
hay, and, in season, cutgrass, remembering at all times that nothing can
make up for want of pure water in the stable. Many may be weaned
together properly. After they have remained in the stable for several
days they may be turned on good, rich pasture. Do not forget to feed, as
this is a trying time. The change from a milk to a dry diet is severe on
the colt. They may all be huddled in a barn together, as they seldom
hurt each other. Good, rich clover pastures are fine for mules at this
age, but if they are to be extra fine, feed them a little grain all the
while.
“There is little variety in the feed until the mules are two years old,
at which time they are very easily broken. If halter-broken as they grow
up, all there is to do in breaking one is to put on a harness, and place
the young animal beside a broken mule, and go to work. When it is
thoroughly used to the harness, the mule is already broken. Light work
in the spring, when the mule is two years old, will do no hurt, but, in
the opinion of many breeders and dealers, make it better, provided it is
carefully handled and fed.
“How to fatten the mule is one of the most important parts of
mule-raising, for when the mule is offered to a buyer, he will at once
ask: ‘Is he fat?’ and fat goes far in effecting a sale. A rough, poor
mule could hardly be sold, while if it is fat, the buyer will take it
because it is fat.
“The mule should be placed in the barn with plenty of room, and not much
light, about the 1st of November, before it is two years old, and fed
about twelve ears of (Indian) corn per day, and all the nice, well-cured
clover hay it will eat, and there kept until about the 1st of April.
Then, in the climate of Middle Tennessee, the clover is good, and the
mule may be turned out on it, and the corn increased to about twenty
ears or more per day. They will eat more grain, without fear of
‘firing;’ that is, heating so as to cause scratches, as the green clover
removes all danger from this source. During the time they run on the
clover they eat less hay, but this should always be kept by them. About
the 1st of May the clover blooms, and is large enough to cut, in the
latitude of Tennessee. The mules should be placed, then, in the barn,
with a nice smooth lot attached, and plenty of pure water. A manger
should be built in the lot, four feet wide by four feet high, and long
enough to accommodate the number of mules it is desired to feed. This
should be covered over by a shed high enough for the mule to stand
under, to prevent the clover from wilting. The clover should be cut
while the dew is on, as this preserves the aroma, and they like it
better. While this is going on in the lot, the troughs and racks in the
barns should be supplied with all the shelled corn (maize) the mules
will eat. ‘Why shell it?’ some one will ask. Because they eat more of
it, and relish it. A valuable addition at all times consists of either
short-cut sheaf oats, or shelled oats, and bran, if not too expensive.
“From this time the mule should be pressed with all the richest of feed,
if it is desired to make it what is termed in mule parlance, ‘hog fat.’
Ground barley, shelled oats, bran, and shelled corn, should be given,
not forgetting to salt regularly all the while, nor omitting the hay and
green corn blades. While all those are essential, oats and bran,
although at some places expensive, are regarded as the _ne plus ultra_
for fattening a mule, and giving a fine suit of hair. Be sure to keep
the barn well bedded, for if the hair becomes soiled from rolling it
lowers the value, as the mule is much estimated for its fine coat.
“The grain makes the flesh, and the green stuff keeps the system of the
mule cool, and balances the excess of carbonaceous elements in the grain
fed.
“The manner of feeding, if properly carried out, with the proper
foundation to start with, will make mules, two years old past, weigh
from 1150 pounds to 1350 pounds by the 1st of September, at which time
the market opens.
“A feeder of eighteen years’ experience claims that oats and bran will
put on more fine flesh in a given time, coupled with a smoother,
glossier coat of hair, than any other known feed. The experienced feeder
follows this method from weaning till two years old.”
In war the mule is invaluable both as a pack animal and for army trains.
He can stand the hard usage of army life much better than horses. In our
great Civil War they were used very extensively. In his book General
Grant told of a certain army chaplain who always took an active part in
the battles. On one occasion the roads were blocked up with mule-drawn
trains, and it was most desirable for them to get out of the way. The
chaplain lent a hand to the teamsters. Now mule-drivers use language
more forceful and picturesque than pure or elegant. Well, the parson
“cussed and swore,” with the rest of them, and helped straighten out the
tangle. That evening the General thanked the chaplain, but said: “How do
you reconcile the language you used with your conscience?” “Oh,”
answered the chaplain, “do mules understand any other language?”
CHAPTER TWELVE
HOW TO BUY A HORSE
It is far from my purpose to give any advice on the purchasing of horses
to professionals or to amateurs who know the subject thoroughly. The
professional knows his business so well, or is apt to think that he
does, that my advice would be almost an impertinence, while the amateur
who thinks he knows is incapable of learning. It is, by the way, a most
astonishing thing how few men there are who are willing to confess
ignorance as to horses. A little experience makes them wondrous wise. I
once heard of a reader for a great publishing house who “turned down” a
treatise on the horse because “the writer did not know the subject
sufficiently well.” This reader, I learned on inquiry, had studied the
subject thoroughly, for one summer a friend lent him a polo pony which
was under his constant observation for nearly three months. This conceit
that we have in our knowledge of horses whets our appetite for gambling
on horse-races, and makes the opportunity of the bookmakers to undo us
much greater and surer. It also induces us to make unwise purchases and
then conclude that horses are delusions and snares while dealers are
rogues of deepest dye. Only a few days before this page was written, I
heard of a college professor who bought a pair of horses at a fancy
price and without an examination from a veterinary, only to find after
reaching his country place that one of the horses was blind. So, while I
am sure that advice is needed, I am not at all certain that it is in
demand.
We all recall the doggerel rule:
“One white leg, inspect him;
Two white legs, reject him;
Three white legs, sell him to your foes;
Four white legs, feed him to the crows!”
That is advice to which no attention should be paid at all, unless the
markings be such that a person looking for a horse positively dislikes.
And that is about the only rule I advise a person not to consider in
buying a horse. Everything else should be looked over carefully, for
pretty nearly everything about a horse has more or less importance,
usually more than less.
The first thing a prospective purchaser should determine is why he wants
a horse, and what he wants to do with him. Then he should decide whether
he means to buy the horse on his own judgment or on that of some one
else. If he means to be his own judge he should go alone; if he means to
have a friend select his horse he should let the friend go alone. But he
should never take his friend along with him to give advice and assist in
driving a bargain. This kind of thing is annoying to a dealer, and
tempts him to match his experienced and hard-worked wit with that of the
seldom-used judgment of the buyer. That the dealer will win in such a
contest goes without saying. I have taken for granted that the buyer
will go to a dealer for any advice of any kind is wasted upon one who
would buy a horse from a friend, unless he coveted his friend’s horse
and wanted that particular animal from personal knowledge of him.
Horse dealers are frequently spoken of as unconscionable rogues. And
there is no doubt that many of them do lack the virtue of probity and
straight speaking. But a reputable dealer in horses with an established
business can be as fair as any other business man, and I have known many
such. Such an horse dealer has a reputation to maintain that is as
valuable to him as that of a banker is to him. If you will place
confidence in him he is not apt to betray it, for he values his customer
and knows that there will probably be other sales to make.
But the dealers who advertise in the newspapers that they will sell from
_private stables_ horses worth $500 or $1000 for $100 or $200 are the
pirates of the trade. They give one excuse or another why such immense
bargains are offered, and they make many sales. They are really
“confidence-men,” and why the police authorities should permit them to
continue in their thieving operations is one of the mysterious
manifestations of city life that I could never understand. It was from
one of these rogues that the college professor I just mentioned bought
his prize pair. Never on any account look for or even at any of these
advertised bargains in a _private stable_. A good horse has a market
value and a dealer knows it thoroughly. When he offers to sell below
that value, you may depend upon it that he is trying to cheat you by
imposing upon your ignorance. Having determined what kind of a horse you
want, and what kind of work you purpose doing with a horse, go to a
dealer and tell him all about it just as you would to your lawyer or
doctor. He will show you horses and quote prices. If the prices are
higher than you care to pay tell him that also, and he will show you
others. He usually begins with the higher-priced horses, unless he
“sizes you up” as lean of pocket-book. But in a large establishment the
price you have fixed in your own mind is likely to be arrived at very
quickly. Then you must determine whether the horse shown to you is of
the quality you desire. But be not deceived by the hope that you can get
a very superior and well-trained horse for very much less than he is
worth. This can often be done with green horses. By green horses, I do
not mean unbroken horses, but horses that have not been educated and
developed. A skilful horseman, either rider or driver, will nearly
always prefer a green horse because of the pleasure in training him, and
also of the chance of securing a prize at a minimum of cost. But an
inexperienced horseman will probably never make anything out of a green
horse, so he had best not consider such. Having found a horse that seems
to meet requirements, the horse should be tried and the reputable dealer
will give the buyer every opportunity for such a trial. When the trial
is satisfactory, the buyer should have him examined by a veterinary, and
if sound the transaction should be closed. Warranties are not of much
good. They cannot be enforced except through suits at law; and a lawsuit
even when won would usually cost more than the loss on an unsatisfactory
horse, if the horse were sent to the auction block immediately. Then try
again. To buy one bad horse is no reason whatever for discouragement.
One of the Tattersalls said that to have one good horse in a lifetime is
as much as a man should expect.
The splendid specimens that we see in the show rings inspire us with the
desire to have one or several of these, and as each show is followed by
a sale there is our easy opportunity. But I am persuaded that to one not
himself a horse-show exhibitor nothing is more unwise than to buy a
horse-show winner. These horses are most highly keyed up and trained by
most skilful hands. In the hands of one less skilful they rapidly
deteriorate and in the ordinary park and road work they lose a major
part of that style which originally inspired the purchase. This skill in
handling has made itself so manifest that even in the horse shows the
managers have been obliged to exclude the dealers from many of the
classes. There are professional horse-show exhibitors notwithstanding
this exclusion of the dealers, and their horses are probably more unsafe
to buy than those of the dealers themselves. No, the horse-show horse is
for the horse-show exhibitor.
Another discouraging thing about one’s first horses is the illnesses
which they contract. As frequently as not this is due to the
inexperience of the new owner, or to the change of home and climate.
Dealers buying horses frequently have the animals inoculated against
cold and fever—shipper’s fever, it is called. This should always be done
as the result has been found to be most excellent. “You can get no use
out of a Kentucky horse for the first year,” I have heard New Yorkers
say. That may have been their experience; but when treated with the
proper serum before shipment they do not suffer to any extent with colds
and influenza. There is one disease, however, that I do not know how to
provide against—nostalgia. The generality of horses are not very
affectionate, for they are not very intelligent, being trained more by
fear than anything else and going on in their work through custom. But
they do love their homes, and that they should suffer from home-sickness
until the satisfaction with the new environment wipes out the longing is
inevitable. The homing instinct of a horse is very strong and also
interesting. Take a horse ten or even twenty miles in a direction never
traveled before, and then turn him towards home over a new route, and he
knows it instantly and shows that he knows it by a quickened gait and a
renewal of spirit. So these things should be taken into consideration
with a new horse, and due allowance made for them.
A man who has an establishment and keeps many horses has one very
difficult problem. It is customary for the coachman to get commissions,
whether the coachman has been consulted in the purchase or not. The
dealers understand this, and add to the price of the horse what will
have to be paid to the coachman. I have had dealers ask me plainly
whether I kept a coachman to settle with. And once when I sold a horse
to a distinguished professional man in New York, he sent a check for $50
more than the agreed price, asking that that sum be given to the
coachman as he did not want the horse lamed or put out of condition.
This is a stable tradition that we have borrowed from England, and is a
tyranny that should be suppressed not only by law but by custom. I sold
a horse recently to a gentleman at a price not at all above his value.
His negro coachman called at my house for his commission. I sent him
away in short order and at once wrote his master a note telling of the
visit and its object, and requesting him to pay his own servants.
If a man have leisure for travel, the breeding farm is a good place to
purchase a horse. At most of these farms the horses are green, but at
some they are thoroughly trained before being offered for sale. But none
of these horses are accustomed to the fearsome sights and sounds of the
city. So I should advise none but skilful horsemen to go to the farms to
make purchases.
But the wisest course that an amateur can pursue is to take a loss
quickly. Just as soon as you find that you do not want a horse, sell
him. If there be a purchaser ready at hand, well and good; if not there
is sure to be an auction block not far away.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THE STABLE AND ITS MANAGEMENT
Badly-constructed, badly-kept, and badly-managed stables are the
contributing causes to most of the illnesses that horses suffer from. As
nine stables out of ten in America are bad in all these three regards, I
am confirmed in the belief that horses are very hardy animals instead of
the delicate creatures that we sometimes think they are. That so many of
them should be equal to hard and continuous work considering the
conditions that surround them when they are at home is really quite
remarkable. Even on breeding farms, where it is the business of the
proprietors to rear fine animals for sale, the stables more frequently
than not are wretched barns not fit even for the lodgement of mules.
This is the case in Kentucky, even in the Blue Grass region. In many of
the stables there I have seen tons of manure, that were most valuable
for fertilization, left in the stables for no other reason that I could
fathom than that it seemed to be no one’s business to take it away. “Why
don’t you spread it on the pastures, or use it on the ploughed fields?”
I asked one gentleman. “Oh, the ground does not need it,” he replied. I
did not like to go any further for fear of seeming intrusive. Then again
I did not believe that a man who thought tilled ground even in the
limestone enriched land of the Blue Grass section would not be better
for stable manure would bother particularly about the advantages of
keeping stables clean.
Stables should be light not dark. There is a notion as old as the hills
that a stable should be a dark and somber place. There are those who
still hold stoutly to this view. Why a stable should be dark and the
living room of a human being light, I cannot conceive. Light and air are
the great purifying agents. Germs of various kinds multiply mightily in
the dark, while many are killed by the light. The only reason that is
given for a dark stable is that constant light in a horse’s eyes is
likely to injure his organs of sight. I grant that cheerfully. Still
there is no reason why there should not be light without the light
shining directly into the eyes of the horses. It is as easy as possible
to place the windows above the heads of the horses, and even to shield
them with shutters that open upwards, shutters such as are so generally
used on seaside cottages.
Ventilation is most important. This should always be provided for,
however, so that in securing it there will not also be draughts either
on the body or the legs of a horse. To accomplish this is not difficult
even in the stables of the dry-goods-box pattern. The one supreme
affection of a horse is for his home, and it is as little as an owner
can do to make that home comfortable. Cleanliness is an imperative
necessity. Without it the other things go for naught. There is no good
reason why a stable should not be as clean as any other part of a
gentleman’s establishment. And yet this is so seldom the case that a man
who has visited a stable often brings with him to his house odors that
are unmistakable and entirely objectionable to the sensitive olfactories
of the more delicate members of his household. This cleanliness can only
be secured by unremitting good housekeeping. The stable should not only
be cleaned very thoroughly once a week, but it should be kept clean the
other six days in the week. Any owner, no matter whether he be a good
horseman or not, can see to this. He may not know the nice points in
harnessing a horse or even the points of a horse, but his eyes and his
nose can tell him whether his stable is clean. The droppings should be
removed as soon as they are discovered, and they should not be piled up
in the stable or against one of the walls of the stable on the outside,
but removed to a distance, if in the country and treated for
fertilizers; in a city stable they should be removed daily. This latter
can be done without any expense to the owner, as there are manure
collectors only too glad to cart it away.
Drainage is also most important, but it should always be surface
drainage. Pipes beneath the floor are always getting clogged up, and
hence becoming foul. Besides plumbing everywhere is expensive and
bothersome. There should be as little as possible of it in a stable. Of
course running water is most desirable if not necessary. But it should
be restricted to two hydrants, one for carriage washing and one for
drinking water. The surface drainage can be got rid of by having the
floor of the stable a little bit elevated above the surrounding ground.
Where the stable can be located so that there is declining ground on one
side other than the exit, there is natural drainage which is a great
advantage. The stalls also should have a very slight incline, so that
they will keep dry naturally. This stall inclination, however, should be
very slight, as it is desirable that a horse should have all his feet
pretty nearly on the same level.
Box-stalls or not? This is a disputed matter. Some owners have only
box-stalls in their stables; some none at all. In my opinion both ideas
are wrong. Cutting up a stable into a series of boxes does not
facilitate drainage, ventilation, light, or cleanliness. Then again it
is doubtful whether a horse in a loose box-stall does not often acquire
habits of independence that are sometimes uncomfortable and dangerous.
In a stall a horse is tied, he is also more easily observed and
therefore always under control. Box-stalls, however, are excellent for a
horse that comes in very tired, or for one that is sick. So I should
advise that in every stable there be one or two box-stalls, but that as
a general thing the horses be kept in ordinary stalls. These stalls
should be 9 feet long and 5 feet wide. A wider stall makes it easier for
a horse to get cast. The ceiling of a stable should not be less than 12
feet.[10]
Footnote 10:
A carpenter in my neighborhood once asked me to select a horse for him
from a drove that was on sale in the village. I picked out a large
fine fellow, and the carpenter bought him. The next day I saw him with
another horse. “Why, where is the roan?” I asked. “Oh, I had to take
him back, he was too big for the stable!” “Why the dickens did you not
make the stable bigger?” was my comment to the carpenter.
Every stable should be kept cool in summer and warm in winter. But
artificial heat should never be used, as it is in some of the sumptuous
stables of the over-rich in the large cities. A horse does his work in
the open, and there is no sense in pampering him. In very cold weather
the stable should be kept as warm as is possible without stoves or
steam-pipes, and the horse made comfortable with good blankets and
plenty of straw for his bedding. In the summer when the thermometers are
trying to climb to a hundred in the shade, then the shutters should be
regulated so as to keep out the direct rays on the sunny side, and other
windows and doors be left open.
Harness room and coach room depend almost entirely on the size of the
establishment that is kept. Both, however, should be light—then both can
be seen without difficulty by the owner when he makes inspections. These
inspections, by the way, should not be made at stated times, but at any
time. An owner who expects his horses to be kept in good condition and
turned out with proper harness to proper traps must take an interest in
his stable and be on good terms with his servants. There is no
suggestion of familiarity in this, but only the good understanding and
the good feeling that always exists between that master and man, when
the one gives and other gets good service.
A well-groomed horse is so fine a thing that we have latterly applied
the term to fine men and beautiful women. The grooming of a horse is an
art, which is not practised on more than one or two per cent of the
horses at work in the United States. The others are _cleaned_ in a
happy-go-lucky fashion, which makes them neither clean nor beautiful.
This is not as it should be; a horse that is compelled to give service
to a man is entitled to good attention. An ungroomed or improperly
groomed horse has an offensive odor. This does not conduce to the
pleasure of a person using such a horse nor to the well being of the
horse himself. In grooming a horse the brush and cloth alone are needed.
A currycomb—once universally used—should never be put on a horse. It
serves a good purpose, however, in cleaning the brush. And that is its
only service. Where an owner knows or suspects that the currycomb is
used directly on the horse it is better to banish it entirely. When a
horse has been put away covered with sweat and the sweat allowed to dry,
it is very much easier to remove this salty deposit with a currycomb
than with a brush. But a horse should never be put away without being
thoroughly groomed except when he comes in so tired that the grooming
would further fatigue him. This is sometimes the case. When it is so the
horse should have quite loosely-wrapped bandages put on his legs, he
should be well blanketed, given a swallow of water and turned into a
box-stall knee deep in straw. Then when this horse is rested enough to
be groomed, the mud on his legs will have become caked and will come off
by using the hand and a wisp of straw, the polishing being finished with
the brush and cloth. The dried sweat should be removed in the same way.
When a muddy horse comes into the stable it is a great temptation to
play the hose on his legs, and so wash the mud off. This should never be
done. The only places where water should be applied to a horse are the
feet and the other hairless portions. These should be washed with a
sponge. The washing of a horse’s feet before he is put away is most
important. “No foot, no horse” is the old English rule. And it is as
true as gospel. The feet should always be kept clean in the stable, and
at night they should be packed with sponge or felt. The foot of a horse
is an important part of him, and every owner should see that they are
well looked after. And in accomplishing this he will not find it an easy
job, for a horse has to have his shoes changed every three or four
weeks, and if the feet be not ruined by the farrier or the fads of his
groom or coachman then he is lucky. Every man that has anything to do
with horses sooner or later develops notions as to horseshoeing, the
blacksmith usually knowing much less than any one else but confident
that he knows it all. He should know it all, as to shoe horses is his
business. As a matter of fact, however, his practice, if he be permitted
to have his own sweet will, is to lame horses and ruin their feet. There
are a few good horse-shoers, however, and if an owner find one in his
neighborhood he is lucky. I shall not attempt, however, to write a
treatise on horseshoeing. There are books in abundance on the subject,
and any man who wishes to become an accomplished amateur on the subject
can find plenty to study and also an abundance of instruction. But there
are a few principles that dominate all else. The shoe should be neither
too large nor too small. A large shoe stretches the hoof too much, a
small shoe pinches the hoof and makes corns. Then do not permit the
blacksmith to pare the sole and frog of the foot or rasp or burn the
hoof to make it fit the shoe he has selected. The shoe should be made to
fit the hoof, and as few nails used as is consistent with security. As
the hoof is growing all the time, just as a man’s finger-nails grow, the
shoes need often to be changed so that they will not be too small and so
contract the hoof. The ideal horse is the barefoot horse, but this is
not possible when a horse is used on pavements or hard roads. Then the
shoe should not be too heavy. Heavy shoes merely make a horse’s work
very much harder.
The feeding and watering of a horse are most important. The horse can
carry only a little food, as his stomach is small compared with his size
and his need of nourishment. But he can drink a good deal of water. He
should have both food and water equal to his needs. He should always be
fed three times a day, and he would not be the worse if he were treated
as the Germans treat themselves, with four meals a day. Moreover, a
horse’s food should be varied a little. Oats and hay three times a day
for three hundred and sixty-five days in the year may suffice, but it
seems to me very like a cruelty when it is so easy to vary the food with
barley, beans, pease, corn, turnips, and many other things easy to
obtain and not at all expensive. A little nibble of fresh grass
occasionally is also a grateful change, but not much of this should be
given when a horse is doing steady work. The allowance of oats in the
United States army is ten quarts a day. This with plenty of hay is a
good allowance and will keep a horse in good condition, but a hearty
eater can make way with twelve quarts a day and be all the better for
it. The hay should not be fed from a rack over the manger, but from the
ground. When carrots are fed they should be sliced; whole they might
choke a horse. When corn is fed it should be given on the cob. In this
way the horse improves his teeth and helps his gums, while he is obliged
to feed slowly.
A horse should be watered before eating, and the last thing at night
before the stable is closed. And when the horse comes in tired he should
be given a mouthful of water, even before he is permitted to drink his
fill. I have seen stables where there was running water in a trough in
each stall. I do not recommend this, nor yet a common drinking-place for
all the horses in a stable. A bucket filled from a hydrant and held up
to the horse is the best way. A horse needs salt. The best way to give
it to him is to put a crystal of rock salt in his trough and let it
remain there. He will then take it when he pleases, and not too much at
a time.
One man cannot properly look after an unlimited number of horses. If the
stableman does no driving he can look after four together with the
vehicles and harness. If he has to go out with the carriages he cannot
manage more than three. Without a proper, sober, and sensible stableman,
a gentleman can never have any satisfaction out of his horses. They are
hard to get, but there are such. If a man be an accomplished horseman he
can train his own servants, and be pretty sure of _nearly_ always being
well served. If he know nothing himself he will have to use his own
intelligence and learn. In case he will not do this he had better not
keep horses. Saddles should be dried in the sun when it is possible.
Stirrups and bits should be cleaned at once as it is much easier to
prevent rust than remove it. The same rule should apply to all harness
and to carriages. The best results will never be obtained unless the
grooms be given ample time to harness or saddle a horse. Sometimes, of
course, in cases of emergency this has to be done “on the jump,” but
generally speaking the groom should be given time to do his work with
calm carefulness.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
RIDING AND DRIVING
All of us have heard of natural riders. It must be that when any one
with knowledge of the art of riding speaks in this way that he means to
say that the individuals alluded to had a great natural capacity to
acquire the art of riding, for riding is an art and does not come to any
one except through practice, instruction, and imitation. Some persons
can acquire a foreign tongue with what seems an easy facility—while
others of equal mentality—have the greatest difficulty and never succeed
in any eminent degree. Those to whom the acquirement of foreign tongues
is easy have a gift for languages, just as some others have a gift for
mathematics or for rhyming or for drawing. And so it is in Equitation.
To some riding comes easily, to others it is difficult, while some
others seem absolutely incapable of acquiring a good seat, good hands,
and that knowledge of horse nature which complete the equipment of every
expert in the art. I confess that I do not know much about riding
schools, nor indeed that I have seen much of them. When I was a boy in
Kentucky there were no riding schools there, and I am not at all sure
that there have ever been. And yet so competent a judge and careful an
observer as Mr. Edward L. Anderson has expressed the opinion that the
Kentuckians are the best riders in America.
If this be so, and I agree with him, it must be that the Kentuckians in
educating their horses also educated themselves. This seems reasonable
enough, for the Kentucky saddle-horse is the best trained of any saddle
animals in America, though the circus tricks of what are called the
“high-school horse” are unknown. It used to be common there at the
county fairs to have rings for men, and for boys under fifteen, in which
they competed with one another as to skill in horsemanship. The
competitors put their horses through all the paces and were required by
the judges to change horses, so as to see what each rider could do on a
strange horse. These rings were most interesting, and the largest crowds
of visitors were usually attracted by these features. I never saw any
“circus tricks” but once. Then a German, who had served in the Civil
War, entered in the contest making his horse do the common high-school
feats, including that of going to his knees and lying down. This German
carried off the blue ribbon to the amazement of many, including myself.
The fact proved, however, that the Kentuckians, who happened to be
judges that day, were not inhospitable to foreign ideas, and recognized
that the best rider was the one who had the greatest control over his
horse and could get the most out of him. Now I believe that they were
right, though at the time I protested against such a judgment with all
my might. Since then in the army riding schools many of these arts are
properly included in the course of instruction. No good knowledge is
amiss in a horse, and the best rider is he who can make his horse do the
most kinds of things, even though some of them seem rather absurd and
useless. It goes rather against the grain for me to say this for I, like
most gentlemen riders in America, was brought up with the English notion
that to ride straight and fast and be in at the finish was both the
beginning and the end of horsemanship, while I looked upon anything else
as not only superfluous but rather unmanly. In this country at that
time, and to a very great extent now, we looked upon all the Continental
people of Europe as most unsportsmanlike and mere dandy frivolers in
horsemanship. This is the case in England to-day, universally the case.
There the hunting field and the polo grounds are the only places where
horsemanship is put to the test. In those fields the riding of
Englishmen and Irishmen is superb. No other people can compete with
them. That is natural enough, however, as they do more in the way of
hunting and polo than any others and pay more attention to the breeding
of horses suitable to these kinds of work. But the prejudice against the
Continentals in horsemanship is as insular as many other opinions that
are cherished there. It is also entirely undeserved. Among the French,
the Germans, the Austrians and Italians are splendid riders, men who can
go anywhere an Englishman can, and also perform feats an Englishman
never dreamed of.
I recall very well when Buffalo Bill first took his “Broncho Busters” to
England that the press and the people, particularly the horsemen,
insisted that these vicious wild horses, that had been spoiled in the
breaking, were merely trick horses, trained to their antics and taught
to buck and plunge and turn somersaults. At length came the request that
some English riders be permitted to try the bronchos. The request was
hospitably entertained, and one afternoon several men appeared. They
insisted, however, that they be permitted to use English saddles and
bridles. This request was acceded to and the experiments were tried. I
never saw a more pitiful exhibition of helplessness. They tumbled off as
though they were inexperienced babies, and some were more or less hurt.
Indeed the experiments resulted in so many accidents that they were
given up as too dangerous. The English saddle and the English seat are
well adapted to the hunting field, but not at all suitable for the kind
of riding cow-punchers have to do and the kind of horses that they have
to use. This is proved by the fact that when an Englishman goes into
ranch life in this country, and many of them have done it, they soon
adopt the Mexican saddle and the cowboy seat. The many exhibitions given
by Cody in Europe have made the people over there believe that the Rough
Rider is the typical American horseman. It is unquestionably an American
style that is well adapted to the work and the purpose which created it.
And yet there are no schools at which a man can learn rough riding
except the ranches. There I am sure there is no systematic instruction;
but the beginner observes and imitates the experts, and by practice
acquires the art which enables him to “bust” a broncho. Some learn
quickly, some slowly, and some never at all.
This is as it is in other kinds of riding whether in the park, over the
hurdles or in the hunting field. Instruction, imitation, and practice
are what make a rider—the man who rides the most being apt to be the
best. Even, however, when a man rides a great deal, unless he use
intelligence he will never become either expert or graceful. I have
known men who rode for many years without acquiring either grace or
skill in the saddle. This was either from inaptitude or from a careless
disregard of the principles of the art. I have known other men who had
strong seats, which enabled them to acquit themselves well in the
hunting field, but who never were graceful or seemed entirely at ease.
They simply lacked the grace that usually is part and parcel of good
horsemanship. It is generally supposed that at West Point Military
Academy there is maintained the best riding school in the country. This
is probably true. But I have seen comparatively few American army
officers who looked “smart” in the saddle. Their idea is, no doubt, to
be businesslike rather than finished. In this I believe they are quite
wrong for “slouchiness” is out of harmony with the military seat just as
it is in the park or the show ring. It finds its only appropriate place
among the rough riders of the plain.
“I saw young Harry, with his beaver on,
His cuisses on his thighs, gallantly arm’d,—
Rise from the ground like feather’d Mercury,
And vaulted with such ease into his seat,
As if an angel dropp’d down from the clouds,
To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus;
And witch the world with noble horsemanship.”
The Indian should probably be considered the real American type[11] of
rider. There were no horses here when the whites came, but the Indians
rather quickly caught and subjugated some of the wild horses that were
descended from the castaways of the Spanish explorers. They undoubtedly
taught themselves to ride in the first place, though many of them had
seen mounted white men. It is impossible to think that in the many
generations that they have been using horses, that they have not
improved in their horsemanship. At any rate they have a style of their
own, and as bareback riders they cut a great dash. But they are not good
horsemen. They are cruel to their horses, and are far from getting the
best results out of their mounts. The whites, as was proved year after
year in the frontier warfare, can outride them even when the whites
carry more weight and more impedimenta.
Footnote 11:
I hope it will never occur to a visitor to this country to think that
what is called the mounted traffic squad of the New York police
represent any American type of riders. With them it is
go-as-you-please and kind Heaven help us from falling off. Only a few
moments before making this note I saw a group of these police going
through the Fourth avenue. Some were ambling, some single-footing,
some in a hand gallop and some trotting. One noble horse, fit for a
general’s charger, was going two or three gaits at once and the rider
keeping his seat with the help of the reins.
The best horseman usually gets his instruction and acquires most of his
skill in his early youth. But there is no use in putting a boy on a
horse until he has intelligence enough to learn what he is told to do
and strength sufficient to keep his seat and manage his horse. The pony
for very young children is merely a plaything. No child ever learned
much from a pony or by means of a pony. The horse is what a man rides,
and it is upon a horse that a child should be taught. A large horse
would not be suitable for a boy of ten or eleven, the earliest age that
a boy can learn much that is valuable of the art. But the small horse,
something like a polo pony for instance, may be and should be very much
of a horse—all horse, indeed. Where there is a good riding school—that
is the place to send a lad for his first instruction. There are some
grooms, however, who make excellent instructors, even though as a
general thing grooms look like the dickens in the saddle. They know
horses, however, and know how to ride them, even though they do not
acquire the finish and excellence that is to be expected of gentlemen.
But as critics of the riding of others they are often unexcelled. Have
some kind of a master, unless he be an ignoramus, for a lad in the
beginning, and by no means let him go at the game by the light of
nature. Uninstructed he is sure to acquire habits that it will be harder
for him to overcome than it would have been for him to be correct from
the beginning. And he should be given a reason for everything he is told
to do. That it is necessary to be reasonable in riding makes me
sometimes think that it would be just as well not to put a boy on a
horse until he was fifteen or sixteen. The objection to this delay is
that a lad will be kept out of four or five years of fun in the very
playtime of his life.
A beginner should use only a snaffle-bit with one rein. The awkwardness
of a beginner and his disposition to help keep his seat with the aid of
the reins is frequently a severe hardship on a horse and pretty sure to
ruin a horse’s mouth. Besides both snaffle and curb are in the beginning
confusing, and too much of a handful for a tyro in a novel position. Of
course a correct seat in the saddle is impossible at first, but an
effort at it should be made from the start. When the beginner is placed
in the saddle he should sit up straight and let his legs hang down
straight. Then the stirrups should be adjusted so that when the ball of
the foot is upon the iron, the leg still being straight, the heel will
be about three inches below the stirrup. Then the rider should be
required to so bend his knees that his toe and heel will be on a level
without moving back into the saddle so that his buttocks will be against
the cantle. This bending of the knees will bring them in a position so
that they can clutch the horse and secure his seat. Great emphasis
should be laid upon the fact that the toes should not be turned out. The
feet should be parallel with the horse. When they are so the knees come
in contact with the saddle and the seat is secured. When a rider turns
out his toes he must depend upon the calf of the leg to form his clutch.
This not only is awkward, but it prevents the thighs from doing their
part of the work.
Being thus mounted the beginner should only walk his horse at first.
Indeed I should not recommend anything faster than a walk in the first
lesson. The object of that first lesson is to familiarize a novice to a
novel position, and enable him to know something of the sensation of
being astride a horse. If he go faster at first he is sure to bump
around and tug on the reins, the latter being about the greatest sin
against horsemanship. After this he can go in a very slow trot, and
still later in a hand gallop. Having acquired the capacity to keep his
seat in these gaits with his feet parallel to the horse and his knees
well in and without tugging on the reins to keep his balance, he has
reached the point when he may be instructed to ride with both reins,
snaffle, and curb. There are some riders who never use other than the
snaffle, indeed it was quite a fad in the neighborhood of New York a few
years ago. But I do not believe that the very best results can be
obtained without the curb. The curb enables a rider to keep his horse
better in hand, and a horse not in hand under the saddle is apt to do
several disagreeable things—sprawl or be slouchy in his gaits, for
instance, or worse than all tumble down.
To hold the snaffle and curb reins in the left hand properly so that
either one or both may be used at pleasure is most important. The reins
of the curb bit should be divided by the little finger, the reins of the
snaffle by the long finger, the loose ends of both pairs being carried
through the hand and held by the thumb against the forefinger. The right
hand should be kept on the loose ends of the reins behind the left, and
when reins are needed to be shortened the right hand should pull them or
either of them through the bridle hand; but when the right hand is
needed in assistance of the bridle hand, the right should be placed in
front of the left. The knuckles of the bridle rein should be kept up.
This all seems simple enough, and it is so simple when learned that an
experienced rider never gives it a thought; but new riders some times
find it hard to learn, indeed some never learn it.
The beginner should not use a spur. Most people think a spur is an
instrument of punishment. It should seldom be so used. It is merely a
tool to assist the rider in conveying his wishes to the horse. But to an
obstinate, pig-headed horse it is a reminder that the rider has
something in reserve. The horse, by the way, is not the intellectual
animal that some think, and “horse sense” ought not to be much of a
compliment to a man. Seven horses out of ten will become bullies, and
get the upper hand if they be suffered so to do. There is one sense,
however, that even a bullying horse always preserves—he knows the touch
of the master hand and stops his “monkey shines” in very short order.
But there are other horses—crazy horses and fool horses. The crazy horse
can be subdued by the Rarey or other similar method, but for the fool
horse there is no hope. He learns nothing, remembers nothing—the glue
factory for him is the only proper place.
And how late in life can a man take up horseback riding? That is hard to
say. There are men and men—some at forty are to all intents and purposes
sixty, while others at sixty appear not over forty. So long as a man
retains a reasonable amount of suppleness and agility he is not too old
to take up horseback riding and get great pleasure and benefit out of
it, while if he began as a youth and has kept it up there is no reason
why he should give it up so long as he can sit a horse and the exercise
is not too exhausting. Remember what Lord Palmerston said: “The best
thing for the inside of a man is the outside of a horse.” And it is so;
there is no exercise that so aids digestion, none which more completely
takes the cobwebs out of the brain. A man who takes up horseback riding
in middle life need not expect to become as accomplished say as his son
who began at twelve; but if he will give his mind to it he will be apt
to do very well and will surely get from it both pleasure and profit. I
know a lady who did not take up horseback riding until she was a mother.
I have seen her in the hunting field since she became a grandmother
sailing along as gaily as a bird, and even taking a tumble with the
serene amiability of a youth in small clothes. But she has found the
fabled spring.
That every rider will sooner or later have a fall is inevitable.
Therefore when the first one comes there should be no discouragement,
even to a man of middle age. Many falls are prevented when a horse
stumbles by gathering the horse, and assisting him to regain his
footing. But often, in jumping particularly, the fall cannot be
prevented. When the rider feels it coming the best way is to take the
feet from the stirrups, tuck in the chin, and fall as much like a ball
as possible, holding the reins, however, until the feet are surely clear
of the stirrups. I was recently knocked off my horse on a steep hillside
path by coming in contact with the limb of a tree. I rolled down the
hillside for fifty feet, but suffered no inconvenience though I weigh
175 pounds and carry an undue amount of that weight at the middle. Had I
landed on my head, the consequences would probably have been serious.
Every rider should learn how to make a horse change his lead in the
gallop, that is, change the leading foot from right to left and back
again. Horses naturally go with the right foot in front or the left foot
in front, as the case may be, just as children are more dextrous with
the right hand or the left. When the change is desired, the horse should
be well in hand, and when from right to left is required the right heel
should be applied when the leading foot is on the ground, and the hind
legs are leaving it; immediately thereafter as the right fore foot is
rising the left rein should make a slight play and the change in lead
will be effected without a false step or disturbance in pace. Every
rider should practise making figure eights, each circle being from
twenty to thirty feet in diameter, and asking his horse to change the
lead when going from one circle to the other. In some show rings the
judges require that the riders do this, and those who accomplish it
easily and gracefully help their score very considerably.
The American jockeys have developed a new method of race riding, a kind
of acrobatic horsemanship, which when the English first saw it they
called the “monkey-on-the-stick” style. The jockeys use very short
stirrups and seem to throw the weight even forward of the withers so as
to relieve the hind legs, where the propelling power is, from as much
weight as possible. It seems effective and has been almost universally
adopted by all save steeplechase riders, who still use a stirrup long
enough for both knees and legs to embrace the horse—or as Mr. Anderson
says, they still ride like men.
A good rider is apt to be also a tolerable driver. The contrary of this,
however, is not in the least the case. There are many good drivers who
were never mounted in their lives. Probably also there are many more
good drivers in this country than good riders. It is with us a more
universal method of employing the horse. Notwithstanding this, good
driving is by no means universal. Indeed I doubt whether it is common.
It seems the easiest thing in the world to sit in a wagon and pull on
the right rein or the left and go wheresoever one chooses. Because it
seems so easy all kinds and conditions of people essay to drive no
matter how little experience they may have. I have sometimes been nearly
scared out of my wits in driving with a man or woman whose every act
displayed ignorance of even first principles. Probably no more grievous
insult could be paid to a man than to betray lack of confidence in his
capacity to drive, and latterly when I have been asked to go with a man,
even to the golf links two miles away, when I knew he did not know how
to handle the reins or manage a horse I have blandly declined. Death
comes to all of us, but there seems to be lack of wisdom in seeking it
in such an ignoble fashion.
The men who train trotting horses in America are the most wonderful
drivers the world has ever seen. They seem to get more speed out of a
horse at less expense than any others. I have often thought that the
lowering of trotting records in America had been assisted in a great
degree by the increasing skill of American drivers. How many seconds
this skill may be responsible for I have no idea—maybe one second, maybe
five or ten. But their patience in developing the horse and their skill
in driving is responsible for a good deal. I have often watched the
trotters on the Speedway in New York, and many a time I have seen
contests which I was sure would have been reversed had the drivers been
changed. No doubt some men have an aptness for driving, just as others
have an aptness for riding; but driving is also an art which can be
acquired only by instruction, imitation, and practice together with a
knowledge of and consideration for horses. There are so many things that
a man must know to make him a good driver that it would take a book by
itself in which to set down the rules. I shall not make such an essay,
but content myself with a few fundamental principles.
The first that I shall mention may seem trifling but is really of much
importance. It matters not so much what kind of coat a driver may wear,
but he must have a hat that fits so well that it will not be blown off
even in a gale. Many awkward happenings have resulted from a driver’s
efforts to secure his hat at a moment when all his attention was needed
by his horse or horses. He should also have proper gloves. They should
be loose enough to enable him free use of his fingers, and indeed of all
of his hands, but not so loose that they will slip off while he is
driving. A size larger than his dress gloves would, I should say, be
about the right thing. They should also be heavy enough to prevent the
reins from hurting his hands. Dogskin is probably the best material.
Then he should, even in a runabout, be, at least, above his horse. This
is regulated by a driver’s cushion with a slant, the back being about
three inches above the front. His feet should not be sprawled out
against the dashboard, nor yet tucked awkwardly underneath him. Indeed
with a driver’s cushion either attitude would be uncomfortable if not
impossible. What he should seek for is a position in which he is at ease
in all his movements for a driver has to drive all the time, at every
moment from the starting out until he sets foot on the ground and turns
over his horse to the groom. It is carelessness in driving that causes
nearly all the accidents, for it is the unexpected that is always
happening.
One should always drive with the left hand, using the right to hold the
whip and give assistance to the left when it is required to shorten the
rein. A good mouth is just as excellent in a driving horse as in a
saddle-horse. The mouth should be like velvet, and at all times
responsive to the telegraphic signal from the hands of the driver. To
drive with a slack rein makes a horse slouchy even when a check is used.
To pull on a horse hardens his mouth and lessens the control of the
driver. Nothing is more unpleasant than a pulling horse. It is as
fatiguing in harness as in the saddle. And a puller is the easiest thing
to accomplish. When it has been accomplished the driver does as much
work as the horse. To smack a horse with the reins instead of using the
whip may be well enough for old Dobbin on the farm, but it is a silly
habit which hurts the horse, without being effective for the purpose
intended, while it proves the driver to have no knowledge of the
business. Jerking on the reins, or rather giving a pull and then letting
them loose to make a horse quicken his gait is unworthy even of a
peddler or a city huckster.
Keep your eye on your horse. That is the most important thing in
driving. The driver is in command, and it is the horse’s part to obey.
This may seem an unnecessary thing when jogging along on a long clear
road. But we should not jog along. A brisk pace is the proper pace to
drive at, and if the road be very long a rest can be taken and no time
be lost, while if the journey be only seven or eight miles the brisk
pace reduces the time, and the horse is sooner in the stable and at
rest. Poking along at a jog will in time ruin any horse. It will spoil
his style, detract from his speed, and take away his spirit. When a
horse is taken along briskly, it is absolutely necessary to keep him
always well in hand—not a pulling on the bit, but a feeling of the bit
so that the horse will know every instant of the time that he is being
driven by one who is master.
A driver should keep in communion with his horse. A horse has a keen
sense of hearing and a good memory for a voice. The master should have
his horse well acquainted with his voice. But he should not do too much
talking or chirruping when other horses are about. That is a discourtesy
to other drivers whose horses may be fretted and made restless when it
is meant that they should stand still. The disregard of this is not only
annoying but has been the cause of many accidents at crowded railway
stations, where many traps are waiting for the home-comers.
As to the method of holding the reins Mr. Price Collier, a most
accomplished horseman and charming writer on driving says: “The reins
should be held with the near rein between the thumb and first finger,
the off-rein between the third and fourth fingers. Hold your hand so
that your knuckles, turned towards your horse, and the buttons on your
waistcoat, will make two parallel lines up and down with the hand three
or four inches from the body. The reins should be clasped, or held by
the two lower, or fourth and fifth fingers; the second finger should
point straight across and upward enough to keep the near rein over the
knuckle of that finger and the thumb pointing in the same direction, but
not so much upward. The reins are held not by squeezing them on their
flat surfaces, but by pressure on their _edges_. The edges, in a word,
being held between the two last fingers and the root of the thumb. This
arrangement makes a flexible joint of the wrist, for the reins and for
the bit to play upon. This suppleness of wrist, just enough and not too
much, is what is called ‘hands.’ It means that your wrist gives just
enough play to the horse’s mouth to enable him to feel your influence,
without being either confused or hampered by it. As this is the key to
perfection in all driving, everybody claims to possess it; only the
elect few have it.”
In leaving the stable or starting out from any other place, you should
go quietly. Nothing is more vulgar than to rush off with the idea of
“cutting a dash.” It does not give the horse a fair show, and driver and
horse are not yet in good adjustment. And in stopping also it is vulgar
to rush to the stopping place and throw the horse on his haunches by a
quick pull. Neither of these things is done by good drivers, but is the
practice of either the ignorant or vulgar who wish to attract attention
to themselves at places where there are likely to be spectators.
I have often heard it said that two horses were easier to drive than
one. I always marked down the person who made such a remark as not being
thoroughly in earnest, or not knowing the subject he was discussing. I
do not know how much harder it is to drive two horses than one. That is
I cannot express the difference mathematically. But there is a good
deal. Any reasonably strong man can prevent one horse from getting away
with him. Few can prevent a thoroughly frightened team if they once get
off. The thing is not to let them get off. Not to permit this requires
that he shall control two animals, for when one of a pair gets
frightened he quickly communicates his fear to his mate. When the panic
is serious then serious trouble is likely to ensue. With a runaway horse
or a runaway pair the circumstances of the moment must control. If the
road is clear and the driver can keep the horse straight all may go
well; but horses nearly always choose to get frightened when the
conditions are nearly the opposite of this. Then the circumstances of
the moment must guide the driver. If he keeps his head cool and can
prevent collisions, he will probably come out safely. But the best of
them have been run away with. This comes sooner or later to every man
who uses horses constantly. Eternal vigilance will prevent most all of
the accidents that might happen; but human nature is fallible and horses
are very uncertain. Carelessness in the driver, however, is responsible
for ninety and nine of every hundred driving accidents that happen. The
flying automobile, in recent years, has been responsible for a great
many. I must say, however, that I never met but once with anything but
the greatest consideration from automobilists that I have encountered
when driving. The discourteous one proved to be a dentist, and the
mission of dentists in the world is, I believe, to give people pain.
Every driver should know when his horses are properly harnessed and
hitched to the vehicle. And he should never fail to look over the whole
“turn out” in every detail to see that all is secure and each part in
proper adjustment to every other part. The horse show authorities have
formulated rules as to what is proper for one vehicle and another. The
experts are veritable martinets and attach as much importance to a strap
here and a buckle there as the unlucky King of Prussia, who did battle
with Napoleon, attached to one row or two rows of buttons on a soldier’s
coat. Intelligence, however, can find its way without much regard to
these fine points. But it is never safe to trust to grooms and stablemen
even though they may really know more about it than the driver himself.
The driver is the master, and he should make the inspection even though
it be only a formal one—he should assume a virtue though he has it not.
Inspections of the work of stablemen do not go amiss unless the unlucky
master should take to finding mares’ nests. Two or three such
discoveries will hurt discipline amazingly.
There is now a good deal of four-in-hand driving in America. It is only
now pleasure driving, and quite different from that of the coaching days
of our grandfathers’ time. This is an art which a man may be able to
pick up himself. But the safest and quickest course is to take
instruction from a professional or from a friend, if so amiable a friend
can be found. It is, of course, more difficult to drive four than two
horses. But this can be learned by any cool-headed man who has the good
fortune to be a horseman to start out with. Not having that gift he
would do well to let it alone. Some of the most accomplished
four-in-hand drivers about New York are women, which shows that it is
not main strength that is effective, but skill and practice. Practice
and intelligence combined will overcome most all of the difficulties. By
practice I do not mean an hour a day for a couple of weeks, but six
hours a day for two or three years; and by intelligence I mean the
instructed knowledge which enables a driver to know the reason for each
thing that is done.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
TRAINING VS. BREAKING
As has been frequently remarked before in this volume, the horse is not
a very intelligent animal. Nor has he any of that natural affection and
fidelity that is so remarkable in the dog. This being the case—and it is
so no matter what the sentimentalists who know nothing about the subject
may say—the training of a young horse is a thing requiring much patient
intelligence on the part of the person who undertakes the job. But this
patience is rewarded if the young horse have qualities that are worthy
of development. I fancy that seven horses out of ten in the United
States are broken before their training begins. This means, in my
opinion, that a large percentage of a horse’s value is deliberately
thrown away in the very beginning of his career of usefulness. A horse
_broken_ is a horse half _spoiled_. The “Broncho Buster” is the typical
horse breaker. Those who have not been on the frontier have seen the
Broncho Buster’s methods in the Wild West circuses. A young horse or a
wild horse is saddled and bridled. A Rough Rider mounts and stays on the
back of the young thing until the animal is conquered and subdued
through fear and fatigue. This brutal method of treating young horses
used to be universal in America. That so much of it should still be done
is not complimentary to the intelligence and kindliness of American
horse owners. It is about on a par with the treatment that weak-minded
persons received a century or so ago. They were beaten and maltreated
and kept in order by cruelty and harshness—ruled, indeed, by the fear of
those who should have treated them with the most patient kindness. When
the spirit is taken out of a horse by his early handling, we can never
hope to develop his small intelligence very far, or to guide his
instincts in the right direction. While a horse’s intelligence is of a
low order, he has a fine memory. His fear being aroused in the
beginning, he remains afraid, and is controlled by his fear alone—his
fear of being hurt. This always seemed to me a cowardly way of acting,
for the horse is one of the most timid of all animals. To beat a horse
is about as noble as to beat a child.
The breeders of good horses are pretty generally giving up the rough
methods of breaking. Their horses are too valuable to be trifled with in
this way. There are some horses that are naturally vicious. With them
the gentle method will not accomplish the desired result. They have to
be conquered in another way. When this is the case, I much prefer the
Rarey method. Rarey so fashioned a harness that he could cast a horse
the moment that a horse disobeyed. After a horse has been thrown a few
times he usually comes to the conclusion that obedience is the safer
plan. There is nothing cruel in the Rarey method and with bad horses it
is much to be preferred to the brutal breaking style. The horse is not
hurt, he is merely surprised at the result of his own waywardness.
The Arabs handle their horses from the time they are foaled, so that
they are from the beginning accustomed to men, women and children and
all the other things common to a human habitation. That is the way all
young horses should be treated. To be sure this involves a good deal of
work and many think that it does not pay, so they turn their colts out
and let them get two or three years old before anything is done with
them. This is as wise as to let a boy run wild and uninstructed until a
year or so before he is bidden to go forth and earn his own living. When
a colt is accustomed to persons and not afraid of being touched or led,
only patience and intelligence is required to complete his education
without any fight or contest whatever.
Before the colt is a year old it should be accustomed to the cavesson
while running in a paddock, and when a year old it should be practised
on the lunge, a rein of fifteen feet long attached to the nose-piece of
the cavesson. This is a head-collar with a metal nose-band, upon the
front and each side of which are rings. To the front ring the leather
lunge is fastened and from the side rings straps will be buckled to a
surcingle or girth at such lengths as will prevent the colt from
extending the face much beyond the perpendicular. The colt should then
be led about, stopping and starting, time and time again until it has
some comprehension of the word of command. The feet should be lifted so
that the colt realizes that the trainer has no intention to do him harm.
After good terms have been established the colt should be practised on
the lunge, the trainer standing in the center of a circle, and letting
the colt walk first and then trot slowly around the circumference of the
circle—first to the right, then to the left. These short lessons should
be given every day. Soon a colt enjoys the exercise, evidently thinking
it play. If it be a driving horse that is being trained, harness should
soon be added so that the colt will not be afraid of it, and also a
light bridle with a snaffle-bit or, better still, a leather bit. If it
be a saddle-horse that is being trained, the lunging and bitting should
continue until the colt is passed two years old before he is saddled or
mounted.
Suppose we take the saddle-horse first. Two-year-old colts are often
trained by light weight riders. At three their serious education is
continued, and at four they are given their accomplishments. The colt,
after being practised on the lunge, should be taught somewhat the
meaning and the purpose of the bit before he is mounted. Patience and
gentleness to the end that fear may be banished will enable a trainer to
get a colt into such an acquiescent condition that when the rider
finally gets into the saddle the colt accepts the innovation with
nothing exceeding a mild surprise. The saddle should be used in the
lunge exercise several times before a man mounts. Some recommend that a
weight, such as a bag of meal, be tied into the saddle towards the end
of the lunge exercises so that the colt will get used to weight on the
back. This is not a bad idea. Before the rider mounts the first time,
the stirrups should be pulled down and pressure be put upon them so that
the colt may feel the weight of the saddle. When the foot of the rider
is first put into the stirrup he should raise himself very gently, the
left hand being in the mane of the colt. After bearing all his weight a
few seconds in the stirrup he should return to the ground without taking
his seat in the saddle. This he should repeat several times, the number
of times depending upon how the colt acts. At any rate, this
half-mounting should be continued until the colt is no longer disturbed
by it. Then the rider may take his seat in the saddle. This should be
done as quietly as possible. He should sit in the saddle a few minutes
and then dismount. The mounting and dismounting should continue until
the colt is accustomed to it. This will not be long if everything be
done easily, slowly and gently. An awkward man has no business in trying
to train a saddle-horse. A flop into the saddle would, naturally,
frighten a colt and defeat the purpose in view. When the colt has become
used to a rider in the saddle the rider should close his legs against
the sides of the colt, draw a slight tension on the reins, and induce
the colt to go forward in a walk. There should be nothing but the walk
in the first few lessons. In them, however, the colt should be taught
the meaning of the bit so that he could be guided in whatever direction
the rider wishes. In nine times out of ten a colt that has been treated
as I have described will be quiet and do what is asked of him without
any excitement. If the colt does get excited then the whole work will
have to be done over and over, with more patience and more gentleness,
until the colt acquiesces. It is most important that all these first
steps be taken quite slowly, otherwise the colt will get hot and
excited, and then may come a fight which is the thing most to be
avoided. I can see a rough rider turning up a scornful nose at these
admonitions. Very well! Be scornful as much as you choose, I am not
writing about the training of a broncho, but of a horse fit for a
gentleman to ride.
After the mounted colt goes quietly in the walk, then he should be
trotted gently, and if the rider is a light weight, cantered, too. But
as a two-year-old work should be very light—play, indeed. At three years
old the colt may be confirmed in his gaits, but not worked a great deal
harder than at two. At four years old the colt is ready for the
finishing touches and the beginning of his life work. But he is not
nearly up to the hard work of which he should be capable between six and
sixteen.
Trainers of colts for driving hitch them up when they are yearlings, and
drive them a little to a low cart built with long shafts and running out
behind. Before being hitched up, however, he is harnessed and driven
around with a pair of long reins, being guided by the driver to one way
and another, and being stopped and started at the word of command. When
the colt is harnessed to the cart a strong kicking strap should be used.
A few lessons a week driven in such a cart will work wonders so that
when the colt is two years old there will be no difficulty in driving
him in an ordinary road cart. In driving a colt the same precautions
should be used as in training a colt for the saddle—it should not be
frightened or treated roughly.
It is probably more important to accustom a young driving horse than a
riding horse to the sights and sounds that are likely to be encountered
on the road. Here, too, patience and gentle firmness are amply rewarded.
Whenever I see a driver thrashing a young horse to compel him to go by
an automobile or a trolley car or some other strange and fearsome thing,
I have a desire to get the whip and apply it to the driver. Such
treatment of a horse is not only cruel, but it is utterly foolish. The
horse is frightened at what he sees. He is afraid that in some way it
will hurt him. And why should he not be? These devil wagons are
frightful enough in appearance to scare a less timid animal than a
horse. There is only one course to pursue. Teach the horse that the
automobile or other frightful machine will not hurt him. Do this, not
with the whip, not with shouts and execrations, but by leading the horse
up to the offending machine until he realizes that it is not some
monster of destruction. Patience and sense will prevent almost any horse
from acquiring bad and dangerous habits of shying and bolting. Curing a
horse of established habits is quite another and a different thing. It
is like reforming the dissolute or regenerating the depraved. The horse,
however, is not blameworthy. These bad habits are always the result of
foolishness on the part of some man. The sensible course is not to
permit a horse to acquire bad habits. This is a thousand times easier
than curing them. Patient firmness and gentle insistence will prevent
bad habits in all save those that are fools. A fool horse is too
worthless to bother about.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CONFORMATION AND ACTION
In the horse shows an exhibitor, except in the Thoroughbred classes, is
not required to furnish the pedigrees of his horses. The judges,
therefore, decide entirely on conformation and action. These two things
are what make or unmake the excellence of the individual animal. A
well-formed horse is apt to have good action. Sometimes this is not so,
just as sometimes a woman may have beauty of form and feature and lack
animation, vivacity, and that infinite variety and sympathy which
recently we have accustomed ourselves to call temperament. Good
conformation in a horse, however, is the advantage which conduces to
good action. When action and conformation supplement, adjust, and
confirm each the other, we have what may be called an approach to the
ideal horse. I have never seen the ideal horse; but pretty close to it.
I have owned a few that were very satisfactory, but never one that was
entirely so. Still I have hope. I suspect that when one realizes his
ideal in anything, life loses some of its zest. The pursuit, the
seeking, the longing for the unattained—these are the things that make
life so interesting, so absorbing. If I had the horse I have long had in
my mind I should be glad, no doubt. But I might be sorry, too. There is
one saving fact, however. We change our ideals as we get more experience
and further knowledge. I have changed my opinions often about horses,
since I first became interested in them. While writing the last chapter
of this book I confess that I have changed some of my opinions during
the two or three months that I have been engaged in the composition. I
have learned some things that I did not know before; I have parted with
some prejudices which I ought never to have entertained. So it was
inevitable that I should modify my views. If, therefore, I should ever
obtain my ideal in horse-flesh I might awaken a few weeks later to find
that I really wanted something just a little different. I seek the
ideal, therefore, without fear of achieving it and meanwhile I have lots
of fun with horses that are not more than half what they ought to be.
The oldest writer on horses was Xenophon. He says: “The neck should not
be thrown out from the chest like a boar’s, but like a cock’s, should
rise straight up to the poll, and be slim at the bend, while the head,
though bony, should have but a small jaw. The neck would then protect
the rider, and the eye see what lies before the feet.”
Xenophon is the oldest writer on the subject. Mr. Price Collier is the
latest and in many regards the best, because he not only knows how to
write, but knows what he is writing about. Here is what he says about
the proportions of a well-formed horse:
“One cannot go to buy a horse with a tape-measure, but certain
proportions are well enough to keep in mind. The length of the head of a
well-proportioned horse is almost equal to the distance; (1) from the
top of the withers to the point of the shoulder; (2) from the lowest
point of the back to the abdomen; (3) from the point of the stifle to
the point of the hock; (4) from the point of the hock to the lower level
of the hoof; (5) from the shoulder blades to the point of the haunch.
Two and a half times the length of the head gives: (1) the height of the
withers and the height of the croup above the ground, and (2) very
nearly the length from the point of the shoulder to the extreme of the
buttock.”
The tape-measure test is all very well, but if a man does not have an
eye for a horse he will never be able to select a good one by
mathematics. And an eye for a horse is a singular endowment. I have
known men of proved intellectuality quite incapable of learning about
horses. Also I have known men who, in the ordinary affairs of life were
very fools but who knew good horses by a kind of instinct. The man with
an eye for a horse takes the whole animal in at a glance; his minute
examination, in nine cases out of ten only confirms his instant
judgment. When I am buying a horse I do not need to hesitate very long.
I have inspected and bought as many as twenty in a day, giving not more
than fifteen or twenty minutes to each horse. Yet these purchases in the
main have been satisfactory. No one of them, however, was my ideal.
In a general way, all horses should have certain points. Therefore
general rules apply in all the types, from the Pony to the Percheron.
Every horse should have (1) a bony head and small ears; (2) medium-sized
eyes, neither protruding nor sunken, and without an excess of white in
the pupil; (3) the forehead should be broad; (4) the face should be
straight and neither concave nor convex; (5) the neck should be small
and lean, its length regulated by the size of the head and the weight of
the shoulders, the head being so joined to the neck that the neck seems
to control the head instead of the reverse; (6) the shoulders should be
oblique or sloping; (7) the back should be short; (8) the ribs should be
well rounded, definitely separated and full of length; (9) the legs
should be flat and lean, with knees wide from side to side and flat in
front, the upper bone of the leg being long and muscular in proportion
to the lower or the common bone; (10) the feet should be moderately
large; (11) the pasterns should be long rather than short, but, better
still, neither long nor short; (12) the hair should be short and fine.
I might have added another point, making thirteen in all, but for luck I
stop at the dozen, feeling sure that if any of my readers gets a horse
with the good points noted he will have a treasure beyond the lot of
most men and maybe far beyond his deserts.
A well-formed horse ought to have good action. This does not always
follow. But good conformation without good action is a kind of
disappointing fraud. The best action is that which is natural to the
horse. We expect this in families and in types. But training can modify
the action of a horse, indeed, change it entirely as when a pacer is
converted into a trotter. With pacers, however, I am not concerned as I
presume that this book is written for gentlemen.
There can be no good action which is not straight. In the walk, the trot
and the gallop a horse must move his feet and legs in parallel lines.
The horse that does that naturally can be taught the other things that
may not come to him by nature—high stepping, for instance. When a horse
moves always without paddling or any other lateral motion, he is a very
fit subject for cultivation. He can be taught to go daintily and
gracefully as our grandmothers walked through the _minuet de la couer_.
Throwing the feet far out in front or lunging, as it is called, is a
very ugly trick and can be remedied in the shoeing, I am told. I believe
this to be true, but I have never tried it. A horse with this
inclination always seemed to me badly bred—Hambletonian, for
instance—and I have not recently bothered with such. Paddling also can
often be corrected by shoeing. General rules cannot be laid down as to
these things. Each horse has his individuality. He must be so studied.
When an owner brings general knowledge and acute intelligence to this
study he can determine in a little while what is best to be done in each
case. In the great majority of cases the best plan is to sell the horse
that seems unpromising, but as no horse is ever entirely satisfactory
some of them must be retained and educated by training, a training
dominated by gentleness, courage, firmness and patience—but most of all
patience.
THE END
INDEX
ABDUL AZEEZ, SULTAN OF TURKEY, 31
ABD-EL-KADER, 18, 23
ABDALLAH, 116, 128
ABRAHAM, 18, 19
ABDALLAH, XV, 175
ABDUL HAMID II, 146
ACTION AND CONFORMATION, 272
AGRICULTURAL DEPARTMENT, 111
ALASKER TURK, 25
ALEXANDER, ROBERT A., 54, 55
ALIX, 132
ALEXANDER’S ABDALLAH, 171
AMAZONIA, 116
AMERICAN STUD BOOK, 41
ANDREW JACKSON, 86, 104, 136
ANCIENT SCULPTURES, 6, 7
ANDERSON, EDWARD L., 6, 235, 250
ANDALUSIAN (JACK), 198
ARMENIA, 6, 20
ARAB AND BARB, vi, vii, 14, 15
ARISTIDES, 70
ARION, 134
ASIA, 6
AUTOMOBILES AND ELECTRIC TRAMWAYS, iv
AXTELL, 134
BARBARY, 13, 14
BARRS, 183, 184
BASSETT, HARRY, 66, 67
BATTELL, COL. JOSEPH, 80, 85, 107
BERBER BARBS, 13
BELLFOUNDER, (IMPORTED), 117, 119
BELLE MEAD FARM, 70
BEND OR, 70
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, 10
BELMONT, AUGUST, 55
BEACON COURSE (HOBOKEN), 105
BETSEY HARRISON, 152, 153
BEN BRUSH, 74
BLACK HAWK, 88, 90, 106
BLUE GRASS, 148, 221
BLUNT, WILFRID, 33
BLACK DOUGLAS, 112, 139
BONHEUR, ROSA, 179
BOSTON BLUE, 131
BOSTON, 56
BONNER, ROBERT, 133
BONNIE SCOTLAND, 69
BOX-STALLS, 224
BOGUS (LOOMIS’S) SON OF LAME BOGUS BY ELLIS’S BOGUS, SON OF IMP. TOM
BOGUS, 107
BOURBON BELLE, 71
BRITISH HORSE, 8
BREEDING ON FARMS, iv
BRONCHO BUSTERS, 238, 263
BRAMBLE, 69
BRUTUS MORGAN, 85
BREAKING AND TRAINING, 262
BRUCE, MR., 142
BREEDING TO A TYPE, v
BUFFALO BILL, 238
BULRUSH MORGAN, 86, 92, 93
BULLE ROCK, 40
BULL CALF, 131
BUYING A HORSE, 210
BYERLY TURK, 25, 40, 80
CARMON, 170, 174, 175
CANADA, 9
CASSIUS M. CLAY, 139
CAVESSON, 265
CALASH, 10
CATALAN, JACK, 190, 198
CARLYLE, W. L., 176
CABELL’S LEXINGTON, 166
CHANGING THE LEAD, 249
CHARLES KENT MARE, 117, 119, 121
CIVIL WAR, viii, 208, 236
CIRCUS TRICKS, 236
CLAY-KISMET, 145, 177
CLAY-ARABIAN, v, 13
CLEVELAND BAY, 8, 182
CLYDESDALE, v, 178, 182
CLAY, HENRY, 190
CONTINUITY IN BREEDING, vii
CORTEZ, 8
COLUMBUS, 8
CONEY ISLAND JOCKEY CLUB, 70
COLONIAL ERA IN NEW ENGLAND, 10
COLLIER, MR. PRICE, 256, 274
COMMISSIONS TO COACHMEN AND GROOMS, 218
CONFORMATION AND ACTION, 272
CONTINENTAL RIDERS, 237
CONESTOGA, 120
COLEMAN’S EUREKA, 166
CRUSADERS, 24
CRESCEUS, 132, 175
CUTTING A DASH, 258
CUB MARE, 41
DARLEY ARABIAN, 16, 25, 27, 36, 40, 80, 101, 168
DANIEL LAMBERT, 90
DAVY CROCKETT, 166
DAUMAS, GENERAL, 18, 22
DEXTER, 94, 132, 139, 140
DEALERS, 216, 217
DE LANCEY, COL., 41, 80
DENMARK, v, 13, 27, 69, 129, 130, 152, 153, 156, 157, 158, 159, 160,
161, 163, 166
DE LESSEPS, COUNT FERDINAND, 21, 22
DIOMED, 12, 42, 43, 44
DOMINO, 72, 73
DOBBINS, 73
DOBLE, BUDD, 94
DORSEY, L. L., 92
DOMESTICATION OF HORSE, 5
DRACO, 93
DRIVING, 251
DUKE OF MAGENTA, 70
DUKE OF MONTROSE, 70
DUTCHMAN, 104, 105, 132, 133
ECLIPSE (AMERICAN), 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 100
ECLIPSE, 29
EDWIN FORREST, 132
EGYPT, 6
ELDERLY RIDERS, 247
ELECTIONEER, 139
EMPEROR OF NORFOLK, 71
ENGLISH RIDERS, 237, 238, 239
EOCENE HORSE, 3
EOLUS, 70
EQUITATION, 234
ETHAN ALLAN, 89, 93, 94, 95, 111, 175
EVOLUTION OF HORSE, 4
FALKLAND ISLAND HORSES, 5
FALLS AND TUMBLES, 248
FARM HORSES, iv
FAIRFAX, JOHN, 189
FASHION, 56
FAIR RACHEL, 41
FALSETTO, 70
FIRENZI, 71
FEARNAUGHT, 93
FEEDING AND WATERING, 231, 232
FELLOWCRAFT, 64
FIRST INSTRUCTION IN RIDING, 242
FOREST DENMARK, 164
FOUR-IN-HAND, 261
FOXALL, 70
FLYING CHILDERS, 27, 28, 43
FLORA TEMPLE, 94, 106, 110, 111, 114, 115, 132
FLEMISH HORSES, 8
FLANDERS, 9
GEORGE WILKES, 140
GEORGE M. PATCHEN, 111, 112, 139
GORDON HORSE (MORGAN), 85
GOLDSMITH MAID, 132
GODOLPHIN BARB, 16, 25, 29, 36, 80, 102, 168
GOVERNMENTAL BREEDING FARMS, vii, 167
GIFFORD MORGAN, 91
GOLDDUST, 32, 91, 92
GLIDELIA, 69
GLORIOUS THUNDER CLOUD (LAWSON’S), 177
GRAY EAGLE, 51, 52
GRAND BASHAW, 136
GRENADA, 70
GRINSTEAD, 70
GROOMING, 226
GREEN MOUNTAIN MAID, 139
GRANT, GENERAL, 32, 141, 209
HAMILTONIAN (BISHOP’S), 122, 123
HAGGIN, JAMES B., 55, 72
HAMILTON BUSBEY, 116, 118, 124
HAMBURG, 71, 73
HANOVER, 71
HARRISON CHIEF, 171
HARRY CLAY, 139, 140
HARNESS ROOMS, 226
HATS AND GLOVES, 253
HACKNEY, v, 185, 186
HAMBLETONIAN, 77, 79, 92, 96, 112, 113, 114, 115, 118, 120, 123, 139
HEDGEFORD (IMP.), 152, 153
HENRY CLAY, 86, 112, 133, 136, 137, 171, 175
HINDOO, 71
HIGHLAND DENMARK, 164
HIMYAR, 70
HIGHLAND MAID, 106, 132
HORSEBACK RIDING IN NORTH, viii
HORSEBACK RIDING IN SOUTH, ix
HOLDING THE REINS (RIDING), 246
HOLDING THE REINS (DRIVING), 254, 256
HONEST ALLEN, 90
HOLMES, DR. O. W., 150
HUNTINGTON, RANDOLPH, 13, 30, 32, 86, 136, 140, 141, 143, 144, 145
HYRACOTHERIUM, 3
IDEAL HORSES, 272, 273, 274
INDIAN RIDERS, 241
ISHMAEL, 18
ITALIAN (JACK), 198
JAPANESE CAVALRY, ix
JEFFERSON, PRESIDENT, 31
JOHN DILLARD, 166
JONES, MR. J. L., 191
JOCKEY-SEAT, 250
JOGGING, 255
KATE, 4
KEENE, JAMES R., 55, 65, 70, 72
KHALED, 146
KENTUCKY, 44, 52, 148, 149, 150, 151, 158, 159, 160, 162, 163, 235, 236
KENTUCKY’S EARLY STALLIONS, 53, 54
KENTUCKY HUNTER AND ONE-EYED KENTUCKY HUNTER, 107
KINGFISHER, 70
LATH, 41
LADY SURREY, 86, 137
LADY SUFFOLK (HER BREEDING AND PERFORMANCE), 105, 106, 124, 132, 133
LEOPARD, 32, 141, 146
LECOMPTE, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63
LEXINGTON, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 142
LEEDE’S ARABIAN, 25
LINDEN TREE, 141
LIKE BEGETS LIKE, vi, 39, 128
LINSLEY, D. C., 79, 82, 85
LONGFELLOW, 67
LORILLARD, P., 65
LORD CLINTON, 90
LOU DILLON, 132
LORD BRILLIANT, 170
LUCRETIA BORGIA, 51
LUKE BLACKBURN, 69
MASSACHUSETTS, 9
MACE, DAN, 95
MAMBRINO, 101, 116, 118, 119
MAMBRINO CHIEF, 175
MAGHREB, 23
MADAM TEMPLE, 107, 109, 110
MARY SHEPPARD, 146
MARKHAM’S ARABIAN, 25, 28
MAJORCA (JACK), 198
MALTESE (JACK), 198
MAMMOTH (JACK), 191
MAUD S., 132
MESSENGER, 12, 31, 42, 44, 77, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 120, 136
MEXICO, 9
MILLER’S DAMSEL, 44, 100
MISS WOODFORD, 71
MONGRELS, vi
MORGAN, v, 13, 27, 31, 69, 75, 76, 79, 129, 146, 151, 171, 173, 175,
185
MOORISH INVASION OF SPAIN, 23
MORRIS, LEWIS G., 116, 119
MORRILL, 93
MORGAN, JUSTIN, 41, 79, 82, 85, 87, 88, 92
MORGAN EAGLE, 91
MONARCHIST, 70
MOUNTING A COLT, 267
MONTGOMERY CHIEF, 164
MULE COLTS (TREATMENT AND FEEDING), 204, 205
MULES (FATTENING FOR MARKET), 206
MUSTANGS, 31
MULES, VALUE OF, 187
NANCY HANKS, 132
NARRAGANSETT PACER, 10
NEOHIPPARION, 4
NEJD, 13, 14
NEJDEE, ARABS, 13
NIMROD, 146
NORFOLK TROTTER, 185
NOSTALGIA (HOME-SICKNESS), 217
NO FOOT NO HORSE, 228
NORMANS, 8
ORLOF, v, 13, 16, 183, 184, 186
OSBORN, PROFESSOR, 9
PAT CLEBURNE, 166
PAUL PRY, 104
PATCHEN, MR. GEO. M., 137
PATRICK GIL, 58, 59
PARTHENON FRIEZE, 7
PELHAM, 106, 132
PEARL BY FIRST CONSUL, 137
PETER’S HALCORN, 166
PERCHERON, v, 178, 179, 180, 181, 182
PHAETON, 65
PHILIPPINES, 146, 163
PLUMBING IN STABLES, 223
POLKAN, 183
POLICE RIDERS (N. Y. TRAFFIC SQUAD), 241
POSITION OF FEET IN RIDING, 244
POITOU (JACK), 198
POTOMAC, 153, 154
PRINCESS, 111, 112
PRIORESS, 65
PURDY, 47, 48, 50
QUINCY, JOSIAH, 45
RARUS, 132
RANDOLPH, JOHN, 47, 48, 49
RANDOLPH HORSE, 85
RATTLER, 105
REVOLUTIONARY WAR, 11, 42
REVENGE, 85, 86
RICHARD OWEN, 3
RICHARDS, A. KEENE, 32, 33, 166
ROMANS, 8
ROYAL GIFT, 188
ROBERT MCGREGOR, 175, 176
ROCKINGHAM, 137
ROXANA, 29
ROUGH RIDERS, 239
RUSSIAN CAVALRY, ix
RUNNING AWAY, 258, 259
RYSDYK, WM. M., 117, 121, 123
SANTO DOMINGO, 8
SAMPSON, 101
SALVATOR, 71, 72
SALES, FROM PRIVATE STABLES, 213, 214
SALMON, DR. D. E., 167, 176, 177
SENSATION, 70
SPRINGBOK, 70
SPENDTHRIFT, 70
SHEBA, QUEEN OF, 19
SHERMAN MORGAN, 85, 87
SHOW RING HORSES, 216
SHOEING, 229, 230
SILAS DEANE, 10
SIR ARCHY, 43, 44, 57
SIR HENRY, 43, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 100
SMETANKA, 183, 184
SOLOMON, 18, 19
SOUTH CAROLINA JOCKEY CLUB, 41
SPANISH HORSES, 8
SPEEDWAY (N. Y.), 128
SPURS, 246
SPIRIT OF THE TIMES, 109
STOCKTON, COMMODORE, 56
STUMP THE DEALER, 166
STANDARD BRED TROTTER, v, 114, 115, 124, 126, 139
STABLE CONSTRUCTION, 220
STABLE DRAINAGE, 220
STABLE VENTILATION, 220
STUD BOOK, ENGLISH, 25
ST. JULIEN, 132
SUNOL, 132
TADOUSAC, 9
TEN BROECK, RICHARD, 57, 58, 63, 64, 65
TEN BROECK, 65, 67
TENNY, 72
TEYSUL, KING OF NEJD, 31
THORA, 71
THE BARD, 71
THE ABBOT, 132
THOROUGHBRED, v, 13, 27, 40
TOM OCHILTREE, 70
TOM HAL, 166
TOP GALLANT, 104
TROUBADOUR, 71
TRAINING AND BREAKING, 262
TROTTING HORSE DRIVERS, 252
TRACY, GEN. BENJ. F., 129
TREATMENT OF A TIRED HORSE, 227
TREDWELL, JOHN, 116, 120
TURF, FIELD AND FARM, 124, 129
UNCAS, 70
UPTON, MAJOR ROGER D., 30
VALUE OF HORSES AND MULES IN U. S., 111
VAN METER’S WAXY, 166
VERMONT MORGAN, 91
VIRGIL
VIRGINIA, 9, 40
WARFIELD, DR.
WAGNER, 51, 52
WALLACE, WM. H., 20, 94, 95, 124, 126
WARRANTIES, 215
WALTERS, MR., OF BALTIMORE, 178
WASHINGTON, GEORGE, 188, 189
WARRIOR (JACK), 190
WASHING AND USE OF WATER, 228
WADSWORTH, GEN. WM., 138, 139
WELLS, GENERAL, 58
WEATHERBY, MESSRS., 25, 101
WEST POINT RIDERS, 240
WEASEL MORGAN OR FENTON HORSE, 85
WILDAIR, 41
WINTHROP MORRILL, 93
WOODBURN, 54
WOODRUFF, HIRAM, 104, 111, 119
WOODBURY MORGAN, 85, 90
XENOPHON, 274
YOUNG BASHAW, 136, 137
YOUNG TRAVELER, OR HAWKINS HORSE, 85
ZILCAADI, 31
THE McCLURE PRESS, NEW YORK
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
1. Added CONTENTS.
2. Changed ‘sooner of later’ to ‘sooner or later’ on p. 148.
3. Silently corrected typographical errors.
4. Retained anachronistic and non-standard spellings as printed.
5. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
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