Racing: Cavalry Horse v. Indian Pony

"The Spanish horses were also, by the purest of accidents, brilliantly suited to the arid and semiarid plains and mesas of Mexico and the American West. The Iberian mustang was a far different creature from its larger grain-fed cousin from farther north in Europe. It was a desert horse, one whose remote ancestors had thrived on the level, dry steppes of central Asia. Down the ages, the breed had migrated to North Africa by way of the Middle East, mixing blood with other desert hybrids along the way. The Moorish invasions brought it to Spain. By that time it had become, more or less, the horse that found its way to America: light, small, and sturdy, barely fourteen hands high, with a concave Arabian face and tapering muzzle. This horse didn't look like much, but it was smart, fast, trainable, bred to live off the grasses of the hot Spanish plains and to go long distances between watering holes. Possessed of great endurance, the animal could forage for food even in winter."

(Empire of the Summer Moon, p. 29)
 
"The wilder Indians who possess domestic animals, may fairly be divided into "animal-breeding" and "animal-stealing tribes. In the first-class, the Navahoes stand pre-eminent, owning and breeding immense herds of horses, *****, sheep and goats. They have dogs, but no cattle, cats, or fowls.

"The Plains tribes possess and breed only horses and dogs, the mules in their possession being invariably stolen, or purchased from other tribes.

"Though the Apaches habitually own and occasionally breed horses, they belong to the "animal-stealing" class. They live in a country so totally devoid of all the ordinary necessaries of life, that during winter almost every horse, colt and mule is killed for food. In spring the stock is replenished at the expense of their neighbors."

(Our Wild Indians: Thirty-three Years' Personal Experience, Lt. Col. Dodge, p. 585.)

(System produced the *****. Don't know why.)
 
"After endurance, the best quality of the pony is sureness of foot. He will climb a steep rocky hill with the activity and assurance of the mule; he will plunge down an almost precipitous declivity with the ease and indifference of the buffalo. In swamps and quicksands he is only excelled by the elk, and he will go at speed through sand-hills, or ground undermined by gophers, where an American horse would labor to get along faster than a walk, and fall in the first fifty yards of a gallop."

(Ibid. 592,593)
 
Ouch. It's the kind of book you'd have to read flinching. ' Horse stealing Indians '. ( please excuse typos in this post. It's thundering here and there's a 50 pound chicken-dog on my lap )

Diane, I've always suspected horse racing must have been like the NFL, NBA and baseball, soccer, hockey combined by way of enthusiastic followers. So it was that huge? Funny how things change. What was big noise only 150 years is a ton more specified today. Sure horse racing is still big but unless we're in the middle of The Triple Crown and a horse looks like taking it that year we really don't take note of it as a whole. It is ridiculous not to have done more on it- only one thread on the veritable North v South battle between Fashion ( got the name wrong earlier ) and Peytona. When Currier and Ives did prints about a horse race you know it was a societal focus. I'll look into it further- it'll be tough. It's always tough trying to squish that much important information into one thread.

EJ, was that race day, a series of four mile heats?? Four miles. That's crazy. Our mile- give or take is considered just brutal and the longer races a test of endurance. We've bred them focused on that- large enough to make those strides count, lean enough to be incredibly athletic and crazy enough to rocket anywhere. Had a student just buy an off the track gelding.... we could not convince her no, it's not the way to go for your first horse. Result was predictable. He's packing on pounds in a field at the moment and looking a little smug.

This size thing fascinates me, how relatively small they were. It's considered absurd in 2019 to put a normal sized person on something less than 15H but it sounds like that was pretty much it when our ancestors needed transportation. How big/small were they typically?
 
Grant went down a slippery slope at Belmont and the men thought they were going to be needing a new general - nope! Darn good horse with a darn good rider

Was that the time he slithered down a muddy slope and had to jump aboard a steamer? Read an eye witness account by an officer on the ship. He said Grant never changed expression, like it was nothing. Most hair raising, impressive thing he ever saw. I've had to ride one onto a trailer. Jumping onto a ship? No thanks. Story always sounds like a tall tale except it wasn't.
 
"No tribe other than the Comanches ever learned to breed horses - an intensely demanding, knowledge-based skill that helped create enormous wealth for the tribe. Almost all riding horses were geldings. It was not uncommon for a Comanche warrior to have one hundred or two hundred mounts, or for a chief to have fifteen hundred. (A Sioux chief might have forty horses, by comparison.)"

(Empire, op.cit. p.32.)
 
"A Comanche would lasso a wild horse, then tighten the noose, choking the horse and driving it to the ground. When it seemed as if the horse was nearly dead, the choking lariat was slacked. The horse finally rose, trembling and in a full lather. Its captor gently stroked its nose, ears, and forehead, then put his mouth over the horse's nostrils and blew air into its nose. The Indian would then throw a thong around the now-gentled horse's lower jaw, mount up, and ride away."

(Empire, ibid. p. 33.)
 
Was that the time he slithered down a muddy slope and had to jump aboard a steamer? Read an eye witness account by an officer on the ship. He said Grant never changed expression, like it was nothing. Most hair raising, impressive thing he ever saw. I've had to ride one onto a trailer. Jumping onto a ship? No thanks. Story always sounds like a tall tale except it wasn't.

Yes, that's the one. Same sort of thing happened to Washington on his way to give Rall what-for. Snow storm, freezing conditions, couldn't see where he was going and, as it turned out, neither could his war horse. It went slipping and sliding down a frozen creek bank but Washington yanked hard on its mane to keep its head up - just muscle, there! Worked - both stayed out of a death trap in the chilly water.
 
Yes, that's the one. Same sort of thing happened to Washington on his way to give Rall what-for. Snow storm, freezing conditions, couldn't see where he was going and, as it turned out, neither could his war horse. It went slipping and sliding down a frozen creek bank but Washington yanked hard on its mane to keep its head up - just muscle, there! Worked - both stayed out of a death trap in the chilly water.
Keeping your horses head up when they stumble can be the difference between an awkward set of steps and an involuntary dismount.
 
A great story, that's turned into a great thread.
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