The Horse's Amazing History

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 208, 3 September 1938, Page 2 (Supplement)

The Horse's Amazing History

IN Central Aria there are still wild horses- They are about 4ft high,, have big clumsy heads and small staring eyes. Ton find them hunting for pasturs in groups of 10 or 15, each group with a stallion at. its head acting as leader. They look clumsy littls things, jet they ars probably ancestors of all the hacks and hunters, the chargers and draughts, the mountain packhorses, and other "equine quadrupeds'* serving man's needs.

By-

John Hampden

Titers have been horses In the werM •a long as there have been men. But it took men a long time to think of harnessing and riding the horses instead of eating them and wearing their skins. The medieval Church stopped men eating horseflesh about 1300. It was pagan, eaid Mother Church. As, horses are not mentioned in Egypt until 1600 years before Christ and until 1000 year* after they were first ridden by the Chinese, they are believed to haTe originated in Central Asia, wandered into China and India, and epread by tray of Persia to Egypt. There were native hones once in America, about the size of sheep. In some unaccountable way they became exterminated in prehistoric times. The mustangs that now gallop over the South American pampas are not related to those vanished horses. They are all descended from four horses and three mares which the Spaniards left behind them after their first Tain effort to found a colony on the River Plate in 1535. At the time America was discovered by Columboe there was not a single horse between. Alaska and Cape Horn. The Greeks and the Romans certainly knew how to um show horses. They drew chariot# in triumphal procession*, they pranced through cities bearing conquerors in laurel wreaths. They raced round the great circus in Rome pulling chariots and shying at fiery red stones set up to make things more*difficult for the charioieens. Nobody in Greece or Rome, or any of the ancient civilisations. discovered the right way to make horses practically useful. They never thought of shoeing ""NL^em, Armies chiefly composed of cavalry, like the Persian Army, had to waste months waiting for their horses' hooves to grow agals on a campaign.

The Romans never learned In all their 1000 jears of hictory the way to mm a daught horaa with a collar. ¥he#e horses were always tied direct to the •haft* eo that the harneas pressed against the windpipe, and teama never could pull their weight. If that simple discovery had been made the Romans might have moved their siege artillery an,l supply column# awiftly to the various danger point* on the imperial frontier*) might have kept their empire going till now. Even in England, where honntw were better understood than in most countries, and where we have had horsv race* for 1000 years, the sight of a horee pulling a plough we* a raritv a* lately as the 1700'*. They preferred oxen. Agriculture was the last thing for which horee* were used. The Bible •peaka of them only in war. Stirrup* were unknown in Greece and Rome. Some time or other in the six century AJ>. a gouty barbarian warrior found he could not *pring into the caddie without some kind of step. So bis groom used to fling an irot ring at the end of a strap over the hone's bade for him to climb up by. While the rider clambered as to kii horse the groom feeld the etrap at the other end; *o that the ring «Uyai In it* place. When the horse started, strap

and ring were taken away. The day that & horse moved off before time, carrying the strap and the ring along with it. and the rider discovered how convenient thi* wa*, the atirrup was discovered. The Spanish adventurers who act out to conquer America in 1518 took 1? horse* with them, and it ha* been said that 'practically every horse now in America descends from those IT. Without their horse* they could never have eubducd the continent. The native* had never seen a home and imagined that it and its rider were one terrific monster, and that the discharge of a musket was the noise it naturally made. "No Axtec army eould withstand tlio*e 17 fabulou* creeturee; no aeroplane or gun in modern warfare ever spread the terror that they did. Horses made military history in Europe a* well as in JLaterica. The medieval war-horse (the best were rated in Flander*) wae a heavy, lumbering cart-horse, strong enough to carry horse armour and a mailed rider. He attack*-: **h a knight on hie back at about three mile* an hour. When the Tartars rode west from Mongolia on their swift, light hocee*. taeymade rings round these Europe*® MMgnte, and *oan overran all the lands Oe German DOaWtTm

At last the people on the eastern frontier of Christendom learned the use of light horsemen from their enemies. That ia how cavalry came to be divided into heavy cavalry for shock tactics and light cavalry for speed. The heavy cavalry (dragoons) derives from the Feudal Levy, the light cavalry (lancers-and hussars) from the Tartar squadrons. Lancer full dress is based on Polish national costume, the hussar uniform i«» Hungarian. Those were the peoples who first came in contact with ths Tartars, and their successors, the Turks. To-day, heavy cavalry is being replaced by tanks, light cavalary by aeroplanes. About the same time as Europe's last wild horses were being rounded up in East Prussia and the Vosges. Mountains, France, and while Queen Elisabeth was intensifying the old Anglo-Saxon law agaiivt exporting horses by forbidding any of her subject* to sell one to a Scotsman, the invention of coaches changed the entire scheme of horse breeding. All horses hitherto had been bred for endurance and strength. From now on they fell into two breeds—carriage horses for staying power, hunters and racehorses for speed. James I. began to import mares from the- East. At the beginning of the ISth century there arrived three femotte horses, the Darley Arabian, the Byerly Turk and the Godolphin Barb. Every racehorse in Britain descends from one of these, and most of them descend from all three. The Godolphin Barb was the treat grandsire of Eclipse. e Modern racing really begins with Eclipse, born during an'eclipse in 1754. He never ran till "he was five, never lost a race, and got to know the course so well that he used to slow down after passing the winning post. He was probabiy'the fastest runner of his time. But nobody knows which horse has actually been the fastest runner of all time, for th«*e is no race run where horses are entered without regard to i age or weight, though it is nsaallv est;- i mated that a thoroughbred, with a" rider, can cover i mile in 1.36 going fall gallop. Now the horse, after being the on!v tn ** n * travel and transport for 5000 years, is being completely displaced, v. tns us 1 t n*&s 2 steam engine at Alexandria 130 Tear* befort Christ, but slaves were so cheac that steam power w«s not an economic proposition?), bicycles in 1851, motor cars in 18S5 and aeroplanes is 1865 made horses less aad les meeess&rr iai f modern life. . Oddly enough, as the honse dies est tor nee, he has been coming back for exercise and pleasure. The number of people riding in and near American ! ioSi* raee 500 per cent. betwesms i . and 1 assd the same process §s : seeing manifested is England and on ths i Continent. All of which might be safely aMcsmed to sufir that the Tail of Kimg Xeddy i has not yet been told- Which mo Asnik. ! also means that the Ears wSi. c&sht into ! her rsais. * j