Equine Discrimination

Interesting note though: TBs were considered THE horse for improvement of remounts; odd how they are now considered spindly-legged and fragile now (which honestly I think is a reputation they don't deserve...their still considered a sport horse go to).

Another thing to consider is that the TB's that exist today are much different than what was deemed a TB in the 1860's... The national breed registries and blood line pedigree forte established to ensure purity of a given breed didn't exist as we know it today back then. This all came about much later. The TB's later also had significant cross breeding into their blood lines (mostly Arab horse blood) to produce a different spirited, spunky, sleeker, faster horse with higher levels of endurance... which in turn altered the appearance and confirmation of what is called a TB....

Many other horse blood lines of other breeds were also altered in similar fashion.... infusing usually either Arab or Draft blood into them to create a slightly different breed of horse yet might still bear the same breed namesake.... then the breed registries came along locking in what had been recreated and established.... Many of the horse breed and blood lines known in the 1860's no longer exist as they were.... most horse breeds existent today didn't exist as they are back then.... Many of the breeds we are most familiar with today... many of them didn't exist in this country (US) at that time.... even if the same breed name is used...

The horse and its evolution/breeding have changed quite a bit.... even within a given equine breed line you may have different blood lines with differences..... but still bear the same breed title. As an example... take the "Morgan" horse breed, a breed that was very popular in the 1860's for both cavalry and artillery horses.... Today on one end you have the "Lippitt" Morgans... that have a significant infusion of Arab horse blood... hence you have a smaller thinner spunky tea cup footed show horse... Another end you have the "Brunk" Morgans... which have some draft blood infused... They tend to be calmer, larger, big boned, big footed, hefty, bulldoggish solid work horse without as much flash... These are also the descendants of the old Cavalry Remount breeding programs and probably the closest one can get to what originally existed during the war.... Put them side by side and most hardly even look like the same breed...

When reading about breeds and horses that existed during the Civil War... I always caution folks that it might be a misnomer equally comparing one today that may bear the same breed title... as what it may have been in the war era... Take an original 1859 McClellan saddle... and see how many horses it fits today..... many would be surprised to see how few it actually does.... Most of the modern day McClellan reproduction saddles have been altered in design incorporating what is known as a Quarter-Horse Tree... larger, flatter and wider.... hence it better fits the wider backed larger barrel body horses that are more common today... from the typically smaller narrower elliptical bodied horses that were most common then...
 
Another thing to consider is that the TB's that exist today are much different than what was deemed a TB in the 1860's... The national breed registries and blood line pedigree forte established to ensure purity of a given breed didn't exist as we know it today back then. This all came about much later. The TB's later also had significant cross breeding into their blood lines (mostly Arab horse blood) to produce a different spirited, spunky, sleeker, faster horse with higher levels of endurance... which in turn altered the appearance and confirmation of what is called a TB....

Many other horse blood lines of other breeds were also altered in similar fashion.... infusing usually either Arab or Draft blood into them to create a slightly different breed of horse yet might still bear the same breed namesake.... then the breed registries came along locking in what had been recreated and established.... Many of the horse breed and blood lines known in the 1860's no longer exist as they were.... most horse breeds existent today didn't exist as they are back then.... Many of the breeds we are most familiar with today... many of them didn't exist in this country (US) at that time.... even if the same breed name is used...

The horse and its evolution/breeding have changed quite a bit.... even within a given equine breed line you may have different blood lines with differences..... but still bear the same breed title. As an example... take the "Morgan" horse breed, a breed that was very popular in the 1860's for both cavalry and artillery horses.... Today on one end you have the "Lippitt" Morgans... that have a significant infusion of Arab horse blood... hence you have a smaller thinner spunky tea cup footed show horse... Another end you have the "Brunk" Morgans... which have some draft blood infused... They tend to be calmer, larger, big boned, big footed, hefty, bulldoggish solid work horse without as much flash... These are also the descendants of the old Cavalry Remount breeding programs and probably the closest one can get to what originally existed during the war.... Put them side by side and most hardly even look like the same breed...

When reading about breeds and horses that existed during the Civil War... I always caution folks that it might be a misnomer equally comparing one today that may bear the same breed title... as what it may have been in the war era... Take an original 1859 McClellan saddle... and see how many horses it fits today..... many would be surprised to see how few it actually does.... Most of the modern day McClellan reproduction saddles have been altered in design incorporating what is known as a Quarter-Horse Tree... larger, flatter and wider.... hence it better fits the wider backed larger barrel body horses that are more common today... from the typically smaller narrower elliptical bodied horses that were most common then...

Yay. Was looking for this post, thank you. Would like to add, have frequently wondered how much chaos would have ensued using our present thoroughbreds. God love them. Here's where a zillion owners will become enraged, enter stories on one which could be depended on to allow small children to run under their legs shrieking, popping balloon animals. Maybe, have yet to meet one, that's all- the pre-shattered nervous system seems to have been bred into them. :smile: Been around a lot of Irish Tbreds, otherwise with them, seemed an entirely different makeup.

Wish we'd leave breeds alone. Arabs can't breath, those noses have become so small all to fit someone's idea of pretty, not enough circulation with those teeny hooves, same thing. Morgans going the same route, it's crazy.
 
I would agree to some extent that the horses of today are much different than the horses of then. With some quibbles.

The TB studbook closed in 1791, so while the gene pool was a lot wider, it was already a horse that had not been crossbred for quite some time by the 1860s (although there were some conjectures about the parentage of some American horses, this was probably more political than actual fact -- the horses were likely not outcrossed on anything). This of course can't be said for native breeds -- but that's been the case with any outside of TBs and Arabs -- there was no studbook to adhere to, although there were nascent breeds being developed who were being purposely "pure bred" along certain bloodlines (the Morgan, 1909, the Saddlebred, 1891, and the Standardbred, 1879).

What has changed is the way we look at them, more than anything else. We don't look at horses with the same eyes as our forefathers did (and we've been helped along with this by the miracles of modern vetrinary science and the advent of the industrial age), so we don't select for quite the same things because horses aren't used in the same ways and have recourse to modern medicine that wasn't there before. This has been both good and bad. Horses certainly have a better life in many ways than they used to, a look at those attrition rates tell us that, but they also have had to adapt to other stresses (like being made to race hard and fast at younger ages, ages that their immature bodies are not really suited for, or being the victims of show ring fads and specializations that compromise their soundness, as you mentioned JPK, and genetic viability).

We also have a very different mindset when approaching them that hasn't really helped them out either (while at the same time making life much easier for them). What in the past would have been considered an issue to work through (training) and just a fact of life with horses, is now the cause of great consternation and soul wrenching in some cases on the part of many owners. We have become perhaps a bit too careful at times with how we interact with them (a look at how many injuries from horses and mules during the war could give us a clue). This is perhaps not wrong, just different, and if taken to extremes (just like the extremes of use put to them back then) can cause a not so nice life for our four footed friends.

I think that if we took our modern horses and put them into that environment that eventually they would do what they have always done: adapt. Of course the attrition rate would have been high (but the attrition rate back then was pretty high too!), but living organisms are amazingly adaptable creatures; eventually things would level out. They really aren't that much different than their forebears (just like we aren't).
 
..and as an aside from my ominous wall of text there...the first horses my kids got to ride, when they were barely past the toddler stage, were...my old TB eventer and my Arab dressage horse; the kids' legs barely cleared the saddle flaps, but both horses were seasoned horses who knew their job, and I trusted them more than the rest (my family used to breed buy and sell horses, so we had a few around at all times); my kids grew up riding almost exclusively TBs or TB halfbreeds (and that one Arab, who is now pushing 30, and has taught all of them) -- those horses can truly spoil you on anything else! :wink:
 
Not only discrimination, but segregation!
According to B. W. Crowninshield's A History of the First Regiment of Massachusetts Cavalry Volunteers, (p. 47): when the regiment was first formed, “horses were distributed to the companies according to color. Bays were given to companies A, B, C, and D, the 1st battalion; sorrels and roans to companies E, F, G, and H, the 2d battalion; blacks to companies I, K, L, and M, the 3d battalion; while the grays were given to the band.” Would've looked nice on parade, but in real life this particular plan didn't last long. Pickers couldn't be choosers of remounts.
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