Overview
Starting with tales of the Mustang, the Dawn Horse, and horses of the Ice Age, the book traces the path to the great horse age that powered the country's westward expansion by way of Conestoga wagons, prairie schooners, and stagecoaches. Profiles of renowned American horses include Dan Patch, Seabiscuit, Man O'War, and many others.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780486799131 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Dover Publications |
| Publication date: | 09/01/2014 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 128 |
| File size: | 22 MB |
| Note: | This product may take a few minutes to download. |
| Age Range: | 8 - 18 Years |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Our American Horse
By Dorothy Childs Hogner, Nils Hogner
Dover Publications, Inc.
Copyright © 2015 Dover Publications, Inc.All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-486-79913-1
CHAPTER 1
The Mustang, Our American Pony
Out in Wyoming and the country roundabout lives the mustang, an American pony. Although he may grow to be horse size, the mustang is more often small, of pony height. Neither long legged nor fleet, he is stockily built, a compact bundle of horse endurance, hardiness and strength. Described in a few words, he is an amazingly sturdy and intelligent little horse.
The name mustang suits him. It comes from the Spanish mesteño, meaning strayed or wild or belonging to the graziers. This is the pony which developed from the mounts which strayed away from bands of Spanish explorers who came to America in the sixteenth century and from horses which escaped from early Spanish settlements. When America was discovered there were no horses living in the New World. The wild colts, bred from the Spanish horses, became the smart little cow ponies of today.
The first mustangs brought up their colts like wild animals and soon they were as wild as the buffaloes and the prong-horned antelopes among whom they lived. Later there were herds of these mustangs living among the mesas of the Southwest or ranging over the plains. Led by a stallion traditionally but infrequently "coal black," the herds added a romantic note to the old West. The mustangs also spread eastward. By the beginning of the eighteenth century there were wild herds in Virginia. Originally descended from the same stock as the mustang of the plains, they mixed with domestic Dutch and English breeds of the south. Still other Spanish stock, shipwrecked off the islands of the southern states, founded herds of "wild marsh ponies" which Negroes of today sometimes tame to cultivate their rice patches.
The wild herds rapidly increased. In South America the descendants of horses brought in by the Spaniards were known as baguales and in early times these baguales were reported in herds of incredible size, sometimes numbering over ten thousand head! Since today wild horse herds tend to be small, not over fifty in the largest, one wonders if the South American herds increased to such enormous numbers only in the imagination of the early settlers. In those days travellers herded remounts before them, unroped, unharnessed. When they encountered a herd of baguales their own remounts would desert and join the wild ones and perhaps this multiplied their numbers in the settlers' minds.
But whether the first herds were large or small, the mustangs prospered and increased in North America as well as in South America. Young stallions ran by themselves or in small groups until one was able to contest the leadership of a band of mares. Then a battle royal followed, the old stallion and the young one fighting with teeth and hoof. Often a young stallion would entice a number of mares away from a domestic herd and form a band of his own. Very soon the wild mustangs were so numerous that many people believed that they had lived here always and were natives of our plains.
Like Joseph of the Bible, the mustang has a coat of many colors. Some mustangs remind one of patchwork quilts. These are the pintos, the painted ponies which are born with coats patterned in vivid splashes of black and white or brown and white, regular circus animals. Others are sombre grey. Still others are black, roan, or the cream-tan of the palely beautiful palomino, a very light buckskin with light mane and tail. A common mustang coat is the dun or buckskin which sports a dark stripe down the backfrom mane to tail and often has faint shoulder and leg stripes as well.
This striped mustang has excited wonder and speculation. He looks as though he might have a strain of zebra blood. He appears to be a throw-back, descended from an ancient and primitive stock. However, the dark bay horses of North Africa, the Libyan horses, also exhibit this tendency to stripes, and so the mustang's zebra-like appearance comes directly from his Libyan blood through his Spanish grandparents. His coat of many colors is the result of mixed ancestry. Dun horses and white horses originally came from northern Europe and Asia.
As the mustangs multiplied many were captured by the early ranchers and the plains' Indians. Before Europeans brought horses to America the Indians had no means of moving about except on their own feet. Dogs carried their burdens—tents and other equipment loaded on to tepee poles. The first Indians who saw a man on horseback were terrified. They thought that man and mount were one animal, a two-headed monster, a double-headed centaur. They found that when they sent an arrow into one head, the man's, part of the animal fell to the ground but the rest ran away. They concluded that the animal was two headed and two lived.
When the plains' Indians caught some stray mounts and rode them bareback, they discovered that they rode as if born to horses. Soon the tribal life of the nomadic groups became so interwoven with the life of the horse that it was difficult to believe that they had been horsemen for only a few years.
The mustangs were first used as cow ponies on the enormous Spanish ranches of the Southwest. They were the mounts of the Spanish grandees and they were the horses on which the ranch-hands herded cows to supply meat and leather to the haciendas. The herds increased because there were no western markets in the early days. So with Spanish trappings, American ranching had its beginnings and the American descendants of Spanish horses were tamed and once again served man.
When the cattle kings of the west rose to power and when Americans other than those of Mexican heritage came to ride the range the Spanish influence was seen in everything the horse or rider wore. The American cowboy set a western saddle on his mustang's back, a saddle of Spanish origin. The western saddle is patterned after the Moorish, the type which came to America with the conquistadores when they brought the ancestors of the cow pony to these shores.
Invariably the saddle is fitted with wooden stirrups, deeply hooded with leather. The body is reinforced with hard wood and metal, and built with a horn strong enough to hold the rope that snubs a running steer. A western saddle is made for heavy duty but also decorated as if it were designed for riding to a dance. Elaborately tooled with figures incised in the leather, it is further ornamented with brass nails and rattlesnake skins, if the cow-puncher is poor; and with costly jewels, silver and gold, if the puncher is rich. The cowboy often refers to the small eastern saddle as a postage stamp.
The western bridle is likewise a thing of beauty, heavily embossed, ornamented with metal conchas and with leather or horsehair tassels. In the old days on very special occasions the wealthiest of ranchers guided their horses with bridles made entirely of woven silver wire.
The western bit is also of Spanish origin, usually of the spade type. Various attachments make it a cruel instrument if used with force against a horse's mouth.
The other implement for punishing an "ornery" western horse is the quirt, a word derived from the Mexican-Spanish cuarta. The quirt has a short stock of woven leather with two lashes and is usually filled with lead at the top end. This leaded part is used only for striking a vicious horse which rears and threatens to fall backwards on his master.
No outfit is complete without a lariat, the Americanization of the Spanish la reata, the rope. This rope with which the mustang helps his master lasso steers is from forty to seventy feet long, and made of hemp or rawhide. In the early days it was made of hides of buffaloes. When not in use the lariat is coiled and looped over the saddle horn, fastened just below with straps or buckled to the base of the horn.
The American cowboy, when he mounts his Spanish-saddled mustang, wears a Spanish hat so wide of brim that it serves equally well for parasol or umbrella. Tied down, it makes ear-muffs against snow or cold, scooped up it is a drinking-cup, and for all purposes it is often called a sombrero which is from a Spanish word meaning shade.
Another distinctive part of the cowboy's outfit then and now are his chaparajos, commonly known as chaps. The word, of Mexican origin, describes the leather trousers, open at the back, which protect a cowboy's legs against weather and from being cut when riding through the brush. Even the words which describe the life of the mustang and his rider are often Spanish-Mexican in derivation. Such is stampede, the wild headlong rush of cattle which occurs after the steers roll their tails. This word is derived from estampida, the Spanish for stampede.
So, dressed in chaps, spurs, sombrero, and always a vest, not a jacket, and with high-heeled boots which keep the foot from pressing too far through the stirrup and also serve to anchor the rider when he ropes on the ground, the cowboy mounts his mustang and rides the range.
When the ranchers first found it profitable to send their cattle to market in the east, there were no railroads near the great ranches in the Southwest. Here, too, although the climate was favorable for calving, there was not enough fodder to fatten the animals for beef. So every year the cattle were herded northward hundreds of miles to better pasture where they were fattened and then shipped to the stockyards in Omaha, Kansas City and Chicago. It was the little cow pony which did a major part of the work rounding up these cattle and herding them north over the old Chisholm Trail. This trail was also known as the Texas Trail and it had several other names, besides. The cattle were sent north in herds of a few hundred or herds of ten thousand to the good range in Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado and other northern states as far north as British Columbia.
It took five months to ride from the Rio Grande to the Canadian border. When the roundup started the cowboy pulled a red bandana handkerchief over his nose. From sunrise to late afternoon the mustang carried his master through the blinding clouds of dust raised by the hoofs of hundreds of cattle. Then at night, when the cattle were grazing or lying down, the cow pony circled the herd with his master, listening to the lowing and bellowing of the steers and to the singing of his cowboy. Cowboys croon to their cattle to keep them quiet and to prevent them from stampeding. The cow pony, no doubt, enjoyed the hymns as well as the profane songs that his cowboy sang as he watched for a steer to "roll his tail."
As they went north the cowboy and his mustang often came to wide rivers swollen with flood water. The herd had to swim. The horse helped his rider cut out a docile steer and start it across. Then the other cattle would follow.
But sometimes the steers would start milling in midstream, swimming in a senseless circle. Then the pony and his rider had the risky task of breaking up this movement, setting the cattle swimming toward shore again.
The rider sometimes crossed the swollen rivers with his feet held high, not getting even his stirrups wet, while his mustaiig swam the stream. More frequently the rider was wet to the waist or, unhorsed by an accident in midstream, he was pulled to the opposite shore, holding fast to his mustang's tail.
In 1871 the mustangs helped herd six hundred thousand cattle north over the old Chisholm Trail. But the days of the long ride were ended forever by the blast of the railroad locomotive. Today, herds are frequently moved from one range to another because of drought and they are driven locally to railroad stations. The railroads sent out branch lines which soon came to the southern range, making it unnecessary to drive the cattle to the northern feeding grounds on the hoof.
But the mustang continues to work hard on the home range. Each cowboy usually has several horses which no one else rides. Most horses are not expert at all things. One may be for riding to town; another might be a good roping pony. This horse will be used in round-up time. He will help cut out horses and cattle to be branded. When his master lassos a steer he will sit back on his haunches and hold fast. Other horses are used for pack animals.
A cow pony that can "turn on a dime" and stop quickly is invaluable for ranch work. Most western ponies are trained to stand without being hitched to a post. By merely dropping the reins over the horse's head, the cowboy "ties" his mount.
In the early days when wild horses were tamed the schooling was often brutal. The mustang was sometimes quirted and beaten into submission by a professional bronco buster.
But on a majority of ranches the method of breaking a cow pony is not cruel. The range horse will first be lassoed. Then a hackamore, a breaking halter without a bit, is put on his head. Perhaps that will be all for the first lesson. Later a saddle will be cinched loosely to the animal to accustom him to the feel of leather. Sometimes the horse has to be thrown to accomplish this and once thrown he is usually easily corraled. Fearful of a rope ever after, he can be kept at home by a lasso staked around him at the height of his back.
When first ridden, most mustangs will crow-hop. If handled correctly, this is as high as they will go. Some buck a few times. Once in a while there will be an outlaw which may break into action on any occasion. Termed bronco, a Spanish name meaning rough or wild, the outlaw is defiant, untamable and is usually sold to a wild west show where he dusts the air with his heels for the enjoyment of spectators. Such animals can buck with imagination. They rise up and twist and shake in mid-air and often land facing a different direction than the one they faced when they went up.
At wild west shows broncos try many tricks. Sometimes, instead of bucking, one may lie down, to the embarrassment of the cowboy in the rodeo. Other broncos bolt and run away as fast and as far as they can.
Occasionally a bronco is a killer at heart. The outlaw will, without provocation, attack another horse on the range, or attack a man on foot, or a man on horseback, with the intent to kill. When ridden, he may suddenly go into a buck, then fall in a pin-wheel and do a back somersault flat onto his back. The rider rarely survives. However, these man-killers are very uncommon.
Although the real outlaw is rare, the mustang brought in from a wild herd on the plains is such a fierce, stubborn animal that he appears to have been wild forever. And this is what many of the early settlers thought when they first saw a bronco on the plains.
There is no wilder looking creature than the mustang which has known no bit or bridle during his lifetime. He has a proud, indomitable spirit and a will to go on being wild after he has been captured.
The northwestern states in America are said to harbor larger, stronger "wild" horses than the southwest. It is believed that perhaps some Percheron blood is in the veins of the northern horses giving them the forms of cart horses. Most mustangs are under fifteen hands and some are small ponies. A hand equals four inches, and a horse is measured at the withers.
The wild mustangs are difficult to catch. They usually refuse to be lured into corrals by domestic stock. Sometimes relays of cowboys pursue them. They start by chasing a herd away from their favorite water hole. Soon the wild horses will turn and head back to the water hole where they will find another cowboy with a fresh mount waiting to chase them away again. Finally they become exhausted and may be lassoed. Many attempts have been made to round up the wild stock. The undertaking is expensive and difficult. Even airplanes have been used to help chase herds out of their home range.
If captured young, the wild mustangs often make good cow ponies for ranches. Some have been trained for polo ponies. Others have been shot and used for trap bait and dog feed. Some have been shipped south to serve as mares to foal mules.
Not all are caught. A few remain wild even today in the remote reaches of the west. Wary, untamable, wise in the ways of man, they live like truly wild animals. Of course the herds are not numerous. However, during the last depression a horse was worth so little that many range colts were left unbranded and some of these no doubt have gone wild and become mustangs. These live as the first horses did, the ones which escaped from Spanish expeditions over four hundred years ago. They again show how successfully domestic animals may go wild, if they are given a taste of freedom.
But no American horse can be said to be truly wild, in the sense that a lion or tiger is wild. Even the toughest mustang is descended from horses which once responded to the touch of man's hand upon a pair of reins and the pressure of man's foot in the stirrup.
Incidentally, in the whole world today there is only one horse which may be called really wild, only one which is descended from an animal which was never tamed by man. This is Prejvalsky's horse. Several of them may be seen today tamely grazing behind a fence in the Bronx zoo in New York City. But the home of Prejvalsky's horse is far away, in the desert and steppe country of Central Asia, a land not unlike the home of our mustang. He is no American. His tongue twisting name is Russian. The name Prejvalsky is that of a traveller who received a present of a skin of one of the wild horses from camel hunters. Since then many of these animals have been captured.
The small bodied, large headed wild Asiatic horse resembles an ass almost as much as a horse and was once thought to be half horse and half ass. His mane is short and stands up, bristling. His tail has long hairs on the lower third only and he has no forelock. Usually mouse colored or tan, his coat is long and thick in winter. This wild horse looks much like the one pictured on the walls of caves by men of the Stone Age. Roaming in small herds, not more than fifty in each herd, Prejvalsky's is the only truly wild horse known in recent times except of course the wild asses and the zebras.
But, although the mustang is of immediate foreign ancestry and not truly wild, although he has become an American, if one searches far enough back into prehistoric times, one finds not only the ancestors of the mustangs but those of all horses ever born, standing on the New World's shores. America was the birthplace of all horses, the cradle of horsedom, the land where the true horse developed and the land where the Dawn Horse lived, millions of years ago.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Our American Horse by Dorothy Childs Hogner, Nils Hogner. Copyright © 2015 Dover Publications, Inc.. Excerpted by permission of Dover Publications, Inc..
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Table of Contents
Discover the history of horses in America with this engaging survey of equine development from prehistoric to modern times. Recounted in simple language and illustrated with accurate drawings, the book chronicles the horse's New World origins and extinction as well as the animal's return with the conquistadors and its subsequent roles―as farm and carriage horses, thoroughbreds, ponies, mules, and trained horses in the army, circus, and elsewhere.
Starting with tales of the Mustang, the Dawn Horse, and horses of the Ice Age, the book traces the path to the great horse age that powered the country's westward expansion by way of Conestoga wagons, prairie schooners, and stagecoaches. Profiles of renowned American horses include Dan Patch, Seabiscuit, Man O'War, and many others.
Dover (2014) republication of the edition originally published by Thomas Nelson and Sons, Edinburgh, 1944.
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