Horse Racing

The competitive racing of horses is one of humankind's most ancient sports, having its origins among the prehistoric nomadic tribesmen of Central Asia who first domesticated the horse about 4500 BC. For thousands of years, horse racing flourished as the sport of kings and the nobility. Modern racing, however, exists primarily because it is a major venue for legalized gambling.

Horse racing is the second most widely attended U.S. spectator sport, after baseball. In 1989, 56,194,565 people attended 8,004 days of racing, wagering $9.14 billion. Horse racing is also a major professional sport in Canada, Great Britain, Ireland, Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and South America.
By far the most popular form of the sport is the racing of mounted THOROUGHBRED horses over flat courses at distances from three-quarters of a mile to two miles. Other major forms of horse racing are harness racing, steeplechase racing, and QUARTER HORSE racing.
Thoroughbred Racing
By the time humans began to keep written records, horse racing was an organized sport in all major civilizations from Central Asia to the Mediterranean. Both chariot and mounted horse racing were events in the ancient Greek Olympics by 638 BC, and the sport became a public obsession in the Roman Empire.
The origins of modern racing lie in the 12th century, when English knights returned from the Crusades with swift Arab horses. Over the next 400 years, an increasing number of Arab stallions were imported and bred to English mares to produce horses that combined speed and endurance. Matching the fastest of these animals in two-horse races for a private wager became a popular diversion of the nobility.
Horse racing began to become a professional sport during the reign (1702-14) of Queen Anne, when match racing gave way to races involving several horses on which the spectators wagered. Racecourses sprang up all over England, offering increasingly large purses to attract the best horses. These purses in turn made breeding and owning horses for racing profitable. With the rapid expansion of the sport came the need for a central governing authority. In 1750 racing's elite met at Newmarket to form the Jockey Club, which to this day exercises complete control over English racing.
The Jockey Club wrote complete rules of racing and sanctioned racecourses to conduct meetings under those rules. Standards defining the quality of races soon led to the designation of certain races as the ultimate tests of excellence. Since 1814, five races for three-year-old horses have been designated as "classics." Three races, open to male horses (colts) and female horses (fillies), make up the English Triple Crown: the 2,000 Guineas, the Epsom Derby (see DERBY, THE), and the St. Leger Stakes. Two races, open to fillies only, are the 1,000 Guineas and the Epsom Oaks.
The Jockey Club also took steps to regulate the breeding of racehorses. James Weatherby, whose family served as accountants to the members of the Jockey Club, was assigned the task of tracing the pedigree, or complete family history, of every horse racing in England. In 1791 the results of his research were published as the Introduction to the General Stud Book. From 1793 to the present, members of the Weatherby family have meticulously recorded the pedigree of every foal born to those racehorses in subsequent volumes of the General Stud Book. By the early 1800s the only horses that could be called "Thoroughbreds" and allowed to race were those descended from horses listed in the General Stud Book. Thoroughbreds are so inbred that the pedigree of every single animal can be traced back father-to-father to one of three stallions, called the "foundation sires." These stallions were the Byerley Turk, foaled c.1679; the Darley Arabian, foaled c.1700; and the Godolphin Arabian, foaled c.1724.
American Thoroughbred Racing
The British settlers brought horses and horse racing with them to the New World, with the first racetrack laid out on Long Island as early as 1665. Although the sport became a popular local pastime, the development of organized racing did not arrive until after the Civil War. (The American Stud Book was begun in 1868.) For the next several decades, with the rapid rise of an industrial economy, gambling on racehorses, and therefore horse racing itself, grew explosively; by 1890, 314 tracks were operating across the country.
The rapid growth of the sport without any central governing authority led to the domination of many tracks by criminal elements. In 1894 the nation's most prominent track and stable owners met in New York to form an American Jockey Club, modeled on the English, which soon ruled racing with an iron hand and eliminated much of the corruption.
In the early 1900s, however, racing in the United States was almost wiped out by antigambling sentiment that led almost all states to ban bookmaking. By 1908 the number of tracks had plummeted to just 25. That same year, however, the introduction of pari-mutuel betting for the Kentucky Derby signaled a turnaround for the sport. More tracks opened as many state legislatures agreed to legalize pari-mutuel betting in exchange for a share of the money wagered. At the end of World War I, prosperity and great horses like Man o' War brought spectators flocking to racetracks. The sport prospered until World War II, declined in popularity during the 1950s and 1960s, then enjoyed a resurgence in the 1970s triggered by the immense popularity of great horses such as Secretariat, Seattle Slew, and Affirmed, each winners of the American Triple Crown--the KENTUCKY DERBY, the Preakness, and the Belmont Stakes. During the late 1980s, another significant decline occurred, however.
Thoroughbred tracks exist in about half the states. Public interest in the sport focuses primarily on major Thoroughbred races such as the American Triple Crown and the Breeder's Cup races (begun in 1984), which offer purses of up to about $1,000,000. State racing commissions have sole authority to license participants and grant racing dates, while sharing the appointment of racing officials and the supervision of racing rules with the Jockey Club. The Jockey Club retains authority over the breeding of Thoroughbreds.
Breeding
Although science has been unable to come up with any breeding system that guarantees the birth of a champion, breeders over the centuries have produced an increasingly higher percentage of Thoroughbreds who are successful on the racetrack by following two basic principles. The first is that Thoroughbreds with superior racing ability are more likely to produce offspring with superior racing ability. The second is that horses with certain pedigrees are more likely to pass along their racing ability to their offspring.
Male Thoroughbreds (stallions) have the highest breeding value because they can mate with about 40 mares a year. The worth of champions, especially winners of Triple Crown races, is so high that groups of investors called breeding syndicates may be formed. Each of the approximately 40 shares of the syndicate entitles its owner to breed one mare to the stallion each year. One share, for a great horse, may cost several million dollars. A share's owner may resell that share at any time.
Farms that produce foals for sale at auction are called commercial breeders. The most successful are E. J. Taylor, Spendthrift Farms, Claiborne Farms, Gainsworthy Farm, and Bluegrass Farm, all in Kentucky. Farms that produce foals to race themselves are called home breeders, and these include such famous stables as Calumet Farms, Elmendorf Farm, and Green-tree Stable in Kentucky and Harbor View Farm in Florida.
Betting
Wagering on the outcome of horse races has been an integral part of the appeal of the sport since prehistory and today is the sole reason horse racing has survived as a major professional sport.
All betting at American tracks today is done under the pari-mutuel wagering system, which was developed by a Frenchman named Pierre Oller in the late 19th century. Under this system, a fixed percentage (14 percent-25 percent) of the total amount wagered is taken out for track operating expenses, racing purses, and state and local taxes. The remaining sum is divided by the number of individual wagers to determine the payoff, or return on each bet. The projected payoff, or "odds," are continuously calculated by the track's computers and posted on the track odds board during the betting period before each race. Odds of "2-1," for example, mean that the bettor will receive $2 profit for every $1 wagered if his or her horse wins.
At all tracks, bettors may wager on a horse to win (finish first), place (finish first or second), or show (finish first, second, or third). Other popular wagers are the daily double (picking the winners of two consecutive races), exactas (picking the first and second horses in order), quinellas (picking the first and second horses in either order), and the pick six (picking the winners of six consecutive races).
Handicapping
The difficult art of predicting the winner of a horse race is called handicapping. The process of handicapping involves evaluating the demonstrated abilities of a horse in light of the conditions under which it will be racing on a given day. To gauge these abilities, handicappers use past performances, detailed published records of preceding races. These past performances indicate the horse's speed, its ability to win, and whether the performances tend to be getting better or worse. The conditions under which the horse will be racing include the quality of the competition in the race, the distance of the race, the type of racing surface (dirt or grass), and the current state of that surface (fast, sloppy, and so on). The term handicapping also has a related but somewhat different meaning: in some races, varying amounts of extra weight are assigned to horses based on age or ability in order to equalize the field.
Harness Racing
The racing of horses in harness dates back to ancient times, but the sport virtually disappeared with the fall of the Roman Empire. The history of modern HARNESS RACING begins in America, where racing trotting horses over country roads became a popular rural pastime by the end of the 18th century. The first tracks for harness racing were constructed in the first decade of the 19th century, and by 1825 harness racing was an institution at hundreds of country fairs across the nation.
With the popularity of harness racing came the development of the STANDARDBRED, a horse bred specifically for racing under harness. The founding sire of all Standardbreds is an English Thoroughbred named Messenger, who was brought to the United States in 1788. Messenger was bred to both pure Thoroughbred and mixed breed mares, and his descendants were rebred until these matings produced a new breed with endurance, temperament, and anatomy uniquely suited to racing under harness. This new breed was called the Standardbred, after the practice of basing all harness-racing speed records on the "standard" distance of one mile.
Harness racing reached the early zenith of its popularity in the late 1800s, with the establishment of a Grand Circuit of major fairs. The sport sharply declined in popularity after 1900, as the automobile replaced the horse and the United States became more urbanized. In 1940, however, Roosevelt Raceway in New York introduced harness racing under the lights with pari-mutuel betting. This innovation sparked a rebirth of harness racing, and today its number of tracks and number of annual races exceed those of Thoroughbred racing. The sport is also popular in most European countries, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia.
Steeplechase, Hurdle, and Point-To-Point Racing
Steeplechases are races over a 2- to 4-mi (3.2- to 6.4-km) course that includes such obstacles as brush fences, stone walls, timber rails, and water jumps. The sport developed from the English and Irish pastime of fox hunting, when hunters would test the speed of their mounts during the cross-country chase. Organized steeplechase racing began about 1830, and has continued to be a popular sport in England to this day. The most famous steeplechase race in the world is England's Grand National, held every year since 1839 at Aintree. Steeplechase racing is occasionally conducted at several U.S. Thoroughbred race tracks. The most significant race is the U.S. Grand National Steeplechase held yearly at Belmont Park.
Hurdling is a form of steeplechasing that is less physically demanding of the horses. The obstacles consist solely of hurdles 1 to 2 ft (0.3 to 0.6 m) lower than the obstacles on a steeplechase course, and the races are normally less than 2 mi in length. Hurdling races are often used for training horses that will later compete in steeplechases. Horses chosen for steeplechase training are usually Thoroughbreds selected for their endurance, calm temperament, and larger-than-normal size.
Point-to-point races are held for amateurs on about 120 courses throughout the British Isles. Originally run straight across country (hence the name), these races are now conducted on oval tracks with built-in fences, often on farmland.

BREEDING THOROUGHBRED RACE HORSES

Horse breeding refers to reproduction of horses, and particularly the human-directed process of selective breeding of animals, particularly purebred horses of a given breed. While feral and wild horses breed successfully without human assistance, planned matings can be used to produce specifically desired characteristics in domesticated horses. Furthermore, modern breeding management and technologies can increase the rate of conception, a healthy pregnancy, and successful foaling.

The male parent of a horse, a stallion, is commonly known as the sire and the female parent, the mare, is called the dam. Both are genetically important, as each parent provides half of the genetic makeup of the ensuing offspring, called a foal. (Contrary to popular misuse, the word "colt" refers to a young male horse only; "filly" is a young female.) Though many amateur horse owners may simply breed a family mare to a local stallion in order to produce a companion animal, most professional breeders use selective breeding to produce individuals of a given phenotype, or horse breed. Alternatively, a horse breeder could, using individuals of differing phenotypes, create a new horse breed with specific characteristics.
Some horse breeders consider the quality of the sire to be more important than the quality of the dam. However, other breeders maintain that the mare is the most important parent. Because stallions can produce far more offspring than mares, a single stallion can have a greater overall impact on a breed. However, the mare may have a greater influence on an individual foal because its physical characteristics influence the developing foal in the womb and the foal also learns habits from its dam when young. Foals may also learn the "language of intimidation and submission" from their dam, and this imprinting may affect the foal's status and rank within the herd. Many times, a mature horse will achieve status in a herd similar to that of its dam; the offspring of dominant mares become dominant themselves.
The Thoroughbred remains one of the most important breeds used in modern horse breeding. They have been incredibly influential on many of the favorite breeds of today, including the American Quarter Horse, the Morgan (a breed that went on to influence many of the gaited breeds in America), the Standardbred, and others. Along with the Arabian, the Thoroughbred continues to be a favorite as an improver of breeds. This is most notable in the Warmblood breeds, which occasionally infuse the hotter, leaner Thoroughbred blood when needed.
While the Thoroughbred is sometimes referred to as a “purebred”, it is really a single breed itself, rather than the avatar of all horse breeds. Like all breeds, the Thoroughbred has distinct characteristics that define its beauty and worth, such as a well chiseled head on a long neck, high withers, a deep chest, a short back, good depth of hindquarters, a lean body, and long legs. Thoroughbreds are also praised for their great speed, temperament and appearance. They have large expressive eyes, long legs and very thin skin, allowing us to see the vessels and muscles. The strength of the breed is explained by the large heart and lungs.

Thoroughbreds are often crossed with horses of other breeds to add speed and refinement. Thoroughbreds are classified among the "hot-blooded" breeds, animals bred for agility and speed, generally considered spirited and bold.

Registration

Unlike most registered breeds today, a horse cannot be registered as a Thoroughbred (with the Jockey Club registry) unless it is conceived by "live cover;" that is, by the witnessed natural mating of a mare and a stallion. Artificial insemination, though legal and commonly utilized in other horse breeds, cannot be used with Thoroughbreds. Originally this was because blood typing and DNA testing had not yet developed to a degree adequate to verify parentage. Today the reasons may be more economic: a stallion has a limited number of mares who can be serviced by live cover. Thus, the practice prevents an oversupply of Thoroughbreds to some extent. (Though modern management still allows a stallion to live cover more mares in a season than once was thought possible.) By allowing a stallion to only cover a couple hundred mares a year rather than the couple thousand possible with artificial insemination, it also preserves the high prices paid for horses of the finest or most popular lineages.

HORSE RACING : ORIGINS, INFLUENCERS AND MODERN DAY

Horse racing is more than the popular once-a-year Kentucky Derby. Horse racing has a rich history that extends back into even before the colonization of the United States. From its origins to today, horse racing has certainly had a large impact on the world of betting and it continues to hold a big influence today.

The origins of modern horse racing lie in the 12th century, when English knights returned from the Crusades with swift Arab horses. Over the next 400 years, an increasing number of Arab stallions were imported and bred to English mares to produce racing horses that combined speed and endurance. Matching the fastest of these animals in two-horse races for a private wager became a popular diversion of the nobility.

Horse racing began to become a professional sport during the reign (1702-14) of Queen Anne, when match racing gave way to horse races involving several horses on which the spectators wagered. Horse racing racecourses sprang up all over England, offering increasingly large purses to attract the best race horses. These purses in turn made horse breeding and owning horses for racing profitable. With the rapid expansion of the sport came the need for a central governing authority. In 1750, racing's elite met at Newmarket to form the Jockey Club, which to this day exercises complete control over English racing.
The Jockey Club wrote complete rules of racing and sanctioned racecourses to conduct meetings under those rules. Standards defining the quality of horse racing soon led to the designation of certain races as the ultimate tests of excellence. Since 1814, five horse races for three-year-old horses have been designated as "classics." Three races, open to male horses (colts) and female horses (fillies), make up the English Triple Crown: the 2,000 Guineas, the Epsom Derby and the St. Leger Stakes. Two horse races, open to fillies only, are the 1,000 Guineas and the Epsom Oaks.
The Jockey Club also took steps to regulate race horse breeding. James Weatherby, whose family served as accountants to the members of the Jockey Club, was assigned the task of tracing the pedigree, or complete family history, of every horse racing in England. In 1791 the results of his research were published as the Introduction to the General Stud Book. From 1793 to the present, members of the Weatherby family have meticulously recorded the pedigree of every foal born to those racehorses in subsequent volumes of the General Stud Book. By the early 1800s the only race horses that could be called "Thoroughbreds" and allowed to race were those descended from horses listed in the General Stud Book. Thoroughbreds are so inbred that the pedigree of every single animal can be traced back father-to-father to one of three stallions, called the "foundation sires."
The text that follows will walk you through the inner workings of today’s modern horse racing industry, including its main governing body (The Jockey Club), the pedigree bible of horses (General Stud Book, American Stud Book and others), the founding “fathers” of Thoroughbred racing (foundation sires) and wrap up with a discussion about horse racing today in America.

History & Evolution of Horse Racing

Horse racing is a very complex sport.

Even the most authoritative figures of horse racing are learning something new every day. There are so many aspects to horse racing, and each aspect represents a lifestyle for thousands of people. We added this section to give our horse race game players an opportunity to become familiar with a very broad stroke of the entire horse racing industry. A lot of the information contained here will not necessarily make you a better player in our free virtual horse racing game, but will give you a general knowledge of this amazing sport. When we look at horse racing, we look at it as almost an artistic evolution.

The race horses of today are so spectacular due to the many generations of breeding perfection. Some of the racetracks, the history and culture behind them, are absolutely amazing. When playing our 3D simulation horse racing game, think of some of that culture and history. It will make our horse race game that much more enjoyable. Imagine being the trainer or jockey of one of the original superstars from which today’s great horses have evolved. When you think about it that way and you look back upon horse racing’s history, and at the same time get involved with our computer horse racing game, you will really find yourself playing with true emotion and passion.
There are many free horse race games out there. Some of these computer horse racing games offer different levels of functions and features than others. It was our idea from the start, when building our virtual horse racing game, to do it in such a manner that we could help form the bond between virtual and reality, bringing out the emotions and passion from our game players while interacting with our horse racing game. It’s our intention to get our players so involved in our free horse game and so active in our horse racing community, that it will take the level of competition among our game players far beyond that of not only the typical computer horse racing games or simulation games, but beyond that of all fantasy sports games, as well. This is why we believe an introduction to this amazing evolution of the wonderful world of horse racing is required. Enjoy the information – and then enjoy our horse racing game!

Different Breeds for Different Uses

Certain breeds are better suited for certain uses than others. For example, you wouldn't enter a Shetland Pony in the Kentucky Derby with much hope of winning. Horse lovers typically favor a particular breed or two, usually due to the breed's physical appearance or the kind of horse-related activity or sport the person wants to undertake.
When deciding what breed to buy, consider what you want to do with the horse. If you're interested in dressage, consider one of several warmblood sport horse breeds that excel in this discipline, such as the Hanoverian or the Holsteiner. If you're interested in Western riding events, such as roping, cutting, or barrel racing, then an American Quarter Horse is probably more your speed. If you're looking for a mount for a child, size matters, so investigate the various pony breeds.
Some Popular Light Horse Breeds
Breeds used mostly for riding under saddle are known as light horses, as opposed to heavy workhorses, which are called draft horses. The next few sections highlight the more common light horse breeds.

What is a hand?
In tack room terms, a hand is the unit used to measure horse height. One hand equals four inches. Fractions of a hand are expressed in inches. Thus, a horse that is sixty-two inches tall is said to stand at 15.2 hands (fifteen hands, two inches). Horse height is measured from the ground to the highest point of the horse's withers.

Thoroughbred
Nonhorse people are most familiar with this breed because of its predominance on the racetrack. Thoroughbred ancestry, as well as that of many other breeds, can be traced back to the Arabian horse. The Thoroughbred's tall, lean conformation, good lung capacity, and competitive spirit make it a perfect racing candidate. In fact, this breed is capable of a single stride of over twenty feet and speeds of up to forty miles per hour. Thoroughbreds start their race training young, typically working mounted in their yearling year and then on to professional racing as two-year-olds. Unfortunately, this is also why many of them break down at so early an age, because their bones haven't finished growing.

The overall build and structure of the horse is known as its conformation. Few horses, if any, have perfect conformation. What is considered good conformation depends a great deal on what you plan to do with the horse.

By the time they are five years old, many Thoroughbreds are retired from racing — an age when most saddle horses are just starting their riding careers in earnest. The best of the best retired Thoroughbreds are used for breeding, and the rest are often sold at reasonable prices to equestrians looking for dressage, three-day event, or jumping prospects. A significant number are destroyed at a young age or sold to slaughter due to racetrack injuries that make them unfit for any other purpose.
Purchasing a retired racehorse requires considerable knowledge and horse savvy. Lameness is a pervasive issue, although it may not necessarily inhibit the animal's suitability as a pleasure mount. Retired racehorses must be retrained to ride safely, as about the only thing they've been taught to do is to break clean from the starting gate and run fast to the finish line.
American Quarter Horse
The American Quarter Horse, native to the United States, is thought of as the “cowboy's horse,” used for western rodeo-type events, roping, reining, and barrel racing. However, Quarter Horses also race. In fact, the colonists bred them for short-distance racing. The breed's propensity as sprinters — the “quarter” in their name allegedly comes from their quarter-mile racing prowess — is tested at tracks around the country.

Many celebrities have “secret” horse lives. Actor Patrick Swayze and his wife ride and raise Arabian horses on their farm outside Los Angeles. Ballplayer Nolan Ryan, golfer Hal Sutton, newscaster Tom Brokaw, actor William Shatner, former second lady Marilyn Quayle, and actresses Andie MacDowell and Bo Derek, among many others, also ride.

Arabian
Because of its stunning beauty, the Arabian is perhaps one of the most photographed of all breeds. The breed originated in the desert regions of Arabia, and its well-deserved reputation for endurance makes it the horse of choice for the long-distance riding circuit.
President Ulysses S. Grant was responsible for bringing the Arabian horse to the United States. In 1873, he was given two stallions as a gift by the Sultan Abdul Hamid II of Turkey while on a trip to the Middle East. Grant gave one of the stallions to Randolph Huntington, who imported two mares and two stallions from England in 1888, thereby creating the first Arabian breeding program in the United States.
Some Arabians have one fewer vertebrae in their lumbar spine than other horses. A shorter back, however, does not impair their ability to carry a rider. They are known to be late developers and are said to not be fully grown until they are around seven or eight years old.
Morgan
As the tale goes, a Vermont gentleman named Justin Morgan brought us this compact breed of horse. His foundation stallion, originally named Figure, proved himself to be extraordinarily strong, fast, and versatile. He later shared his owner's name, known simply as “the Morgan.” When he was used at stud, he passed on his physical characteristics to all of his offspring. The demand for his stud service and the resulting offspring were so great that the army ultimately bought him.
Morgan horses have pronounced gaits characteristic of a “carriage” breed. They serve well in harness and are often taught to pull a wagon or cart. Because of their flashy gaits, they are most often ridden and shown as park horses in saddle seat equitation classes. They are very sturdy horses, usually small and with a tendency to have hardy feet, which is always a plus.

The story of Figure and the Morgan horse is told in a famous children's book, Justin Morgan Had a Horse, written by Marguerite Henry. The book details the adventures of Figure and the boy Morgan asks to help train him.

Standardbred
The Standardbred horse is another racing breed, although it is driven in harness instead of ridden by a jockey. Standardbreds race at the trot or pace instead of a gallop. The “pace” is a unique gait in which the front and back leg on the same side move in unison rather than the typical trot movement of alternating pairs — right front, left rear or left front, right rear. Standardbreds have an average height of fifteen hands, which usually makes them shorter than their flat-racing counterpart, the Thoroughbred.

Arabian Horse

Body Type of the Arabian Horse:

Arabian horses have compact bodies that suggest strength and speed. Their backs are short, and ideally they have well sloping shoulders, and powerful hindquarters. Arabian horses have elegant arched necks, fine silky manes and tails and a refined head. The Arabian horse's physical presence suggests refinement, power, agility, and elegance.

Average Size of the Arabian Horse:

Arabians are small in stature compared to many riding horses. Most Arabian horses are between 14 hands and 15.2 hands (56 inches to 62 inches at the top of the shoulder). They are fine to medium boned and weigh from 800lbs to 1000lbs. Some Arabian horses of Polish bloodlines exceed 15.3 (63 inches) hands high.

Uses of the Arabian Horse:

Arabians excel in almost every horse sport. They are the horses of choice for long distance trail competitions. They make elegant dressage horses, provide thrills comparable to any Thoroughbred on the racetrack, and are impressive in the show ring in pleasure classes, over jumps or providing spectacle in native Arabian costume classes. Arabian horses can be affectionate companions and many older Arabians make wonderful family and beginner horses whether ridden or driven in harness.

Color and Markings of the Arabian Horse:

Arabians come in almost every solid color, gray and roan. Arabians can have all manner of white facial markings, and white socks or stockings on their legs.

History and Origins of the Arabian Horse:

While the very beginnings of the Arabian horse are hidden in the desert sands most experts agree Arabians originated in the vicinity of the Arabian Peninsula. The Bedouin tribes trace their common history with Arab horses back to 3000BC and keep meticulous ancestral records or ‘pedigrees’. The Bedus used the horses for beasts-of-burden and war mounts. The Arab’s hardiness is a result of the harsh desert climate and terrain they evolved in.

Unique Characteristics of the Arabian Horse:

• A delicately dished face with wide intelligent eyes and arching neck are hallmarks of the purebred Arabian.
• Arabians have a high tail carriage and floating ‘gaits’ (forward movement).
• Arabians are quick learners, alert, and sensitive.
• Arabians are the ancestors of many modern day horses from the tall Trakehner to the diminutive Fallabella.
• Arabian horses have one less vertebrae than other breeds of horses.
• Meticulous care is taken to keep the bloodlines of Arabian horses 100% pure.

Arabian Horse Champions and Celebrities:

• Marengo: Favored mount of Napoleon Bonaparte.
• Skowronek: One the outstanding sires from the Crabbet Arabian Stud Farm in Britain who has passed down his blood to generations of North American Arabs.
• Cass Ole: The star of the 1979 movie The Black Stallion starring Mickey Rooney and based on the novel written by Walter Farley.

What's Special About Arabian Horses?:

Horse enthusiasts around the world have much to thank the Arabian breed for. Arabs have contributed their elegance, spirit, and intelligence to almost every light horse breed that exists. They have carried kings and pashas into war and taught many youngsters about the joys and responsibilities of horse ownership. Their gaits are ground covering and smooth to ride despite their relatively small size. Arabians are very long-lived and hardy. An older Arabian makes the perfect first time horse or backyard family horse. Many Purebred Arabian names begin with ‘Bint’ or “Ibn”. These prefixes are rough translations for the Bedouin words for ‘daughter of’ or ‘son of’.

White Horses and Genetics

White horses undoubtedly have a special place in ancient history. The pure white horse has been associated with magic and kings and heroes and even the good guy in cowboy serials of the 1950s. Mythical versions of white horses are found in the flying horse Pegasus from Greek mythology and unicorns from the Babylonian epic of Gilgamesh. An early reference to white horses is found in the writings of Herodotus, who reported that white horses were held as sacred animals in the Achaemenid court of Xerxes the Great (ruled 486-465 BC).

White Horses are Gray Horses?

Lipizzaner Stallion at the Spanish Riding School of Vienna
Photo Credit: Brian Scott

White horses don't start out that way. They are born with dark hair that fades to white as the horse matures; the hair of such horses turns pure white between about 6-8 years old. White horses are often called gray horses because the coloration is an aging process. Normal skin coloration of horses is black, and the white hair gives the horse a gray visual appearance. Many gray horses have skin discolorations; some are speckled and some have red blotches called "blood marks."

Gray horses occur in various percentages among several horse populations of the world, including Arabian horses, Shetland ponies, Icelandic ponies, and of course the famous dancing Lipizzaner horses, among others. According to a new study led by Leif Andersson of Uppsala University and reported in Nature Genetics on July 20, 2008, the gray/white coloration is caused by a specific genetic mutation recognized in all gray/white horses, and never seen in any non-gray horse. This means that all the grays descended from a single ancestor horse, probably an Arabian horse and at least 1,000 years ago--at any rate, before Iceland's ponies were developed as a separate horse population.

Icelandic Ponies
Photo Credit: David Blaikie

That the selection for white hair was intentional seems likely, given the deep historic cross-cultural mythology associated with white horses. Research by Andersson and colleagues bolsters this argument, providing data that shows that the pigmentation variations within the horses is associated with melanomas--skin cancers. Between 70 and 80% of gray horses older than 15 years have melanomas, shortening their lives by several years. The existence of white horses in many different populations, despite their propensity to develop skin cancer and die young, is certain evidence of human interference.

Horse Genetics

Horses skeletons at Botai Culture sites have gracile metacarpals. The horses' metacarpals-the shins or cannon bones-are used as key indicators of domesticity. For whatever reason (and I won't speculate here), shins on domestic horses are thinner-more gracile-than those of wild horses. Outram et al. describe the shinbones from Botai as being closer in size and shape to those of Bronze age (fully domesticated) horses compared to wild horses.
Fatty lipids of horse milk were found inside of pots. Although today it seems a bit weird to westerners, horses were kept for both their meat and milk in the past-and still are in the Kazakh region as you can see from the photograph above. Evidence of horse milk was found at Botai in the form of fatty lipid residues on the insides of ceramic vessels.
Bit wear is in evidence on horse teeth. Finally, researchers noted bitting wear on horses' teeth-a vertical strip of wear on the outside of horses' premolars, where the metal bit damages the enamel when it sits between the cheek and tooth.

Horse History

Horse History and the Domestication of the Horse

The modern domesticated horse (Equus caballus) is today spread throughout the world and among the most diverse creatures on the planet. In North America, the horse was part of the megafaunal extinctions at the end of the Pleistocene, but not, for some reason, in Europe. Two wild subspecies survived until recently, the Tarpan (Equus ferus ferus, died out ca 1919) and Przewalski's Horse (Equus ferus przewalskii, of which there are a few left).
Horse history, especially the timing of the domestication of the horse, is still being debated, partly because the evidence for domestication itself is debatable. But interestingly, genetics seems to suggest a single event of domestication. Unlike other animals, criteria such as changes in body morphology (horses are extremely diverse) or the location of a particular horse outside of its "normal range" (horses are very widespread) are not useful in helping resolve the question.

Horse History and the Evidence for Horse Domestication

The earliest possible hints for domestication would be the presence of what appear to be a set of postmolds with lots of animal dung within the area defined by the posts, representing a horse pen. That evidence has been found at Krasni Yar in Kazakhstan, beginning about 5000 BC. The horses may have been kept for food and milk, rather than riding or load-bearing.

Accepted archaeological evidence of horseback riding includes bit wear on horse teeth-that has been found in the steppes east of the Ural mountains at Botai and Kozhai 1 in modern Kazakhstan, around 3500-3000 BC. The bit wear was only found on a few of the teeth in the archaeological assemblages, which might suggest that a few horses were ridden to hunt and collect wild horses for food and milk consumption. Finally, the earliest direct evidence of the use of horses as beasts of burden-in the form of drawings of horse-drawn chariots-is at about 2000 BC, in Mesopotamia.

Timeline of the Development of the Horse

1857

• Traveler, General Lee’s favorite mount, was foaled near Blue Sulphur Springs in Greenbriar Co., West Virginia. Records indicate he is mostly Thoroughbred.
• Twenty-nine Australian Walers are shipped to Calcutta, India, and more follow.
• Arab, Thoroughbred and Welsh cob stallions are used on the wild Coffin Bay ponies to increase the size of the offspring.

1858

• In May, Col. John Ford’s Texas Rangers attack a Comanche village in Oklahoma on Little Robe Creek. In October, more rangers under Capt. Earl Van Dorn attack a Comanche village at Rush Springs and kill 83. The next year Van Dorn goes all the way into Kansas to attack a Comanche village. (Comanches and Texans hated each other.)
• Palouse Indians are instrumental in the defeat of Col. E. J. Steptoe at Pine Creek, Washington.
• Col. George Wright slaughters 900 horses belonging to Palouse horseman Wolf Necklace, in an act of retaliation. (The area where the horses were killed is now called Horse Slaughter Creek, Post Falls, Idaho.) The Palouse are related to the Nez Perce and are active warriors in the Northwest. At the time of his death in 1914, Wolf Necklace had 2,000 horses at his disposal and was an active horse-trader.

1859

• Not a good year for canal horses on the Erie Canal: a number of horses fall into the canal at Schenectady, New York.

1860

• Cynthia Parker is recaptured by the Texas Rangers, who were organized to fight the Comanche in the 1840s. Many early Ranger horses are Indian ponies.
• From April 3 through October, 1861, the Pony Express uses 400 mustangs and Morgans (mostly mustangs) to carry the mail from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Sacramento, California (over 1,800 miles). The riders each ride 75–100 miles, although the horses normally go only 10 to 15 miles. The Pony Express is sold to Wells Fargo.
• Patrick Newell, an Irishman living in Argentina, sets about trying to save the small Spanish Colonials that he found in Pampas Indian herds (similar to Horse of Americas Grand Canyons).
• Ferdinand de Lesseps uses French horses, drafts and Camargues, to build the Suez Canal in Egypt (1857–1869). His own personal horse is an Arabian, a gift from Prince Mohammed Said.

1861–1865

• The American Civil War takes place: 1.5 million horses are killed.
• The King Ranch supplies mustangs to the Confederacy. Some of the horses are “improved” stock. This makes King a wanted man.
• General Robert E. Lee acquires Traveler.
• Col. Thomas Jackson purchases a small red horse he names Little Sorrell.
• McMeens Traveler is the sire of at least 50 horses in General Forest’s cavalry. His sire was a Thoroughbred, but he was gaited.

1862

• Comanche, Delaware and Shawnee from Kansas attack the Wichita Indian Agency in Oklahoma and massacre 300 Tonkawa.
• John Fairchild gives Captain Jack of the Modocs 300 dollars’ worth of horses and other provisions for the right to run cattle on their land in California.
• A blue roan colt is foaled in Petersburg, Tennessee, eventually to become recognized as Tom Hal F-20 of the Tennessee Walking Horse breed.

1863

• On December 22, 250 Native Americans (tribe unknown but thought to be Comanche) attacked Cooke and Montague counties, Texas, in a bloody raid for horses. Within 48 hours, the Texas Rangers with Chickasaw scouts go after them, but the weather makes it impossible to catch them.
• General Joshua Chamberlain is mounted on a Morgan named Charlemagne at the Battle for the Little Round Top, Gettysburg.
• The Battle of Brandywine Station is the largest mounted battle during the Civil War. An estimated 18,000 horses are involved.

1864

• At a battle at Adobe Walls, the Comanche and Cheyenne join forces to try to stop the killing of the buffalo. Bat Masterson is one of the participants.
• American settlers want Modocs moved off their land—war follows.
• General Phil Sheridan rides to Winchester, Virginia, on his Morgan, Rienzi, to drive General Jubal A. Early out of town.
• General Sherman marches to the sea, taking 10,000 horses and mules out of Georgia alone.
• General U. S. Grant, recovering from an illness in St. Louis, receives the gift of a horse from an S. S. Grant. The horse is a tall bay son of Lexington named Cincinnati; he becomes the general’s favorite horse.

1865

• Charles W. Carter photographs Snake Indians on their Spanish ponies at Salt Lake City.
• Gladiateur wins the English Triple Crown.
• The quagga (Equus (hippatrigris) quagga) becomes extinct.

1866

• Othniel Charles Marsh identifies remains of Equus parvulus (now protohippus) at the bottom of a well at Antelope Springs, Nebraska.
• Lord Byron wins the English Triple Crown.

1867

• A major conference is held at Medicine Lodge Creek between Native Peoples and the U.S. government. The Medicine Lodge Treaty gives away their ancestral homeland: Comancheria.
• Col. de Trobriand of the U.S. Cavalry writes, “The Indian pony without stopping can cover a distance of from 60 to 80 miles between sunrise and sunset, while our horses are tired out at the end of 30 or 40 miles.”
• The remains of Equus stenonis is first discovered in Italy.
• Forced out by American squatters, Benitz sells the last of the Torres Rancho and moves to Argentina.

1868

• Because of a cholera epidemic in Oklahoma, many Comanche return to the plains, and raids resume.
• The first cattle drive out of Texas, of Jesse Chisholm’s herd, takes place, beginning the era of the cattle drives, during which mustangs, longhorns, and cowboys create the great American myth.
• The American Studbook is opened to record the pedigrees of American Thoroughbreds.

1869

• The largest-ever group of Shawnee are incorporated into the Cherokee Nation.
• Polo goes from India to England. Officers of the 10^th Hussars play the first game at Aldershot.
• General U. S. Grant becomes president of the United States. Cincinnati, Jeff Davis and Egypt, his old warhorses, are stabled at the White House.
• The Malta Polo Club is organized.

1870

• Because of war and disease, the Comanche now number no more than 7,000. Fort Dodge, Kansas, is attacked and the horse herd stolen. Quanah Parker steals 70 horses from Rock Station.
• A massacre at Marias River, Montana, on the camp of Heavy Runner, results in the death of 200 people, and 140 women and children are taken hostage. A number of Indian ponies are slain.
• An epidemic in South Africa wipes out most of the horses.

1871

• A Kiowa raid at Jacksboro, Texas, almost kills William T. Sherman.
• The Royal Stud of Fredericksborg (Denmark) is closed and eventually demolished.

1872

• Twenty Texans are killed in Comanche and Kiowa raids. Civilians steal 1,900 Indian ponies from Fort Sills, Oklahoma.
• In September, Colonel Ronald McKenzie and his Buffalo Soldiers capture a Comanche village and hold the residents hostage at Fort Concho.
• Buffalo Bill begins his Wild West Show.
• The Great Boston Fire rages out of control, destroying 776 buildings and killing 14 people, including 11 firemen, because equine distemper has stricken the Fire Department horses, making it impossible to move the firefighting equipment.
• Wilfred Blunt inherits Crabbet House from his older brother, who has died of tuberculosis.
• The Pompadour Stud, once owned by the Marquise de Pompadour, mistress of Louis XV, is opened. It is the birthplace of the French Anglo-Arab.
• The Ireland Polo Club is organized in Dublin; the Monmouth Polo Club is organized in England.

1873

• A cowboy on the Smoky River near Hays City, Kansas, is saved from death when his mustang cowpony instinctively hides under the ledge of a riverbank during a stampede. If the horse had gone into the river, the cattle coming after it over the bank would have crushed the horse and rider.
• George W. Call acquires land around old Fort Ross and establishes the Call Ranch (15,000 acres). His wife, Mercedes Leiva, is from Chile.
• Colonel McKenzie and his Buffalo Soldiers slaughter 2,000 captured Comanche horses at Tule Canyon, Texas. McKenzie would later give his Tonkawa scouts 100 of the best Comanche horses remaining, selling the remaining survivors for $22,000.
• Kiowa (and possibly Comanche) conduct a raid into Mexico for horses.
• Judith Anne Dorothea Blunt is born. Lady Anne and Wilfrid Blunt travel to Yugoslavia and Turkey where they acquire their first Arabian, Turkeycock. It is the first Arab at Crabbet Stud.
• On March 23, the Dominion Parliament (Canada) establishes the Mounted Police Force of the North West Territories. On August 30, the North West Mounted Police (the Mounties) comes into being.

1874–1875

• The Red River War takes place. Buffalo are almost all gone.
• Othniel Charles Marsh describes Eohippus for the first time in American Naturalist.
• The newly organized Mounties begin the march west to stop American whiskey traders and to uphold the law. A company of 300 set off on a 745-mile ride that ends at the Rocky Mountains.
• A dark liver chestnut Thoroughbred filly is foaled at the Kisber Stud in Hungary. She is named Kincsem, meaning “my treasure.”

1876

• General Sheridan begins a policy of selling Indian ponies to buy cattle.
• Custer dies at Little Bighorn. Comanche, a Morgan-mustang cross, is the most famous survivor of this battle. A gray horse bought by a Canadian from the Dakota also survives
• General Meeker is killed on the White River Ute Reservation. All the horses and mules of the 5^th Cavalry are killed by the Ute, and Ute Jack is blamed.
• Charles Goodnight starts the Goodnight Ranch in Palo Duro, Texas. He used mustangs on his cattle drives, and he later crossed mustangs with Morgans.
• The English Cart Horse Society is formed.
• James Gordon Bennett, an American publisher, introduces polo into the U.S. The first U.S. polo ponies come from Texas. The first polo game is played indoors at Dickel’s Riding Academy.
• On May 13, Jerome Park Raceway (now the home of the New York Giants baseball team) is the site of the first outdoor polo match.
• The last wild Tarpan dies at Askania Nova, Russia.
• Kincsem, a two-year-old, runs ten times in at least three different countries and is not beaten. This is the beginning of an undefeated 54-race career. She travels with a cat and a stable boy named Frankie, who takes her name as his last name. Quite possibly the greatest racehorse of all time, she becomes the darling of royalty and common man alike.

1877

• Crazy Horse is captured and killed.
• The Nez Perce begin their desperate run to the safety of Canada and come just 1,350 miles short of the border before they are captured. Many of their horses are stolen.
• The first Trakehner studbook is opened.
• Anne Sewell publishes Black Beauty.
• Lady Ann and Wilfrid Blunt travel to Aleppo to purchase Arabian horses. They buy Dajana, an important brood mare.
• Randolph Huntington, noted New York horse breeder, starts to collect Clays in an attempt to save and breed them.
• The Meadowbrook Polo Club is opened in the U.S.
• Polo is introduced into Argentina by the British.
• Nine Ardennes stallions are in Russia, being crossed with Brabancon mares to create the Russian Heavy Draft.
• The Suffolk Punch Horse Society is formed, and the first secretary is Herman Biddell. It takes 20 years to compile the Suffolk Punch studbook.

1878

• The American Clydesdale Society is formed.
• Henry H. Campbell opens the Matador Ranch on 800,000 acres in Texas; he uses Morgan and Steeldust stallions on mustang mares. He opens ranches in South Dakota (700 head), Montana, Canada and Brazil.
• The carcass of a white horse is thawed from the ice on the Yana River, but the remains are not saved; indications are that it was an E. lenensis.
• The Blunts purchase the Queen of Sheba from a Gomussa sheik.
• Aristides wins the first Kentucky Derby.

1879

• Patrick Newell passes the care of the small Argentinean Spanish Colonial to his son-in-law Juan Falabella, who decides he wants to breed miniature horses.
• The SMS Ranch, operated by Swen Magnus Swenson in Texas, is using Spanish Mustang mares with an Arabian stallion to breed cowponies.
• Goodnight sells half interest in his ranch to an Englishman named John A. Adair; the ranch is renamed the JA Ranch.
• President Grant returns from Turkey with two stallions, Leopard and Linden Tree.
• Nicholas Mikhailovich Przewalski, a colonel in the czar’s army, sees wild horses in an area called Tachin Schah, in the mountains of the Yellow Horse. The local Kirghiz horsemen call them Takis.
• Col. Thomas St. Quintin of the 10^th Hussars introduces polo into Australia.

Linden Tree

1880

• Ute Jack is killed at Fort Washakie, Wyoming.
• French painter Edouard Manet creates a poster showing the U.S. Army battling the Snake Indians at Owyhee River.
• The estancieros (big ranchers) in Argentina hold enormous power. The same phenomenon is beginning to occur in the western states, leading to armed conflict.
• Beginning in this year and ending in 1920, 5,000 Percheron stallions and 2,500 mares are imported to the United States.

1881

• General O. Howard publishes his book In Pursuit of the Nez Perces. Indian horses on the cover include a bay and an overo pinto. (This book can still be purchased from Mountain Meadow Press.)
• Russian explorer Colonel Przewalski writes about the wild horses he has seen in Central Asia. The breed or species is named after him.
• The Battle of Diablo Canyon, the last battle between the Texas Rangers and the Indians, takes place.
• Amurath, a Shagya Arabian stallion, is imported by King Wilhelm of Germany.

1882

• Col. Ben Wallace buys six or eight railroad cars full of circus equipment. The Wallace Circus is considered one of the best circuses of the nineteenth century. Pinto horses appear frequently on his posters.

1883

• Helen Zimmerman translates the Persian epic The Shah Nameh by Ferdowsi Abu’l Qassem. According to legend, Rustam’s favorite horse, Rakush, is the ancestor of all spotted horses. The stallion is described as a red roan with darker red spots (a “red corn”, in Spanish Mustang terminology.
• The British Hackney Horse Society is formed.
• The French attempt to build the Panama Canal. Jules Isidore Dingler, an engineer, imports the finest French horses to Panama for his family’s personal use. When yellow fever wipes out his entire family, he is driven to madness and takes the beautiful horses to a quarry and shoots them.

1884–1885

• The worst winter in North America’s recorded history strikes in the heart of longhorn and mustang country, from Canada to Texas. One blizzard lasts two days and is estimated to have killed off 25 percent of the range cattle. No one knows how many wild mustangs died. (In Montana a mustang ring was found in which wild horses formed a ring with their hooves out, to fight off wolves.)
• The Cleveland Bay studbook is opened; these horses are descended from Chapman horses, known in the Middle Ages.

1885

• This was the last year of the great cattle drives out of Texas.
• Norwegians start to breed selectively their native dun ponies.

1886

• Geronimo is captured; he dies at Fort Sills in 1909.
• Robert J. Kleburg marries Alice King, the youngest King daughter, and sets about improving the livestock. One of the first things he does is capture all the wild horses and donkeys and ship them elsewhere.
• Richard Sellman of San Angelo, Texas, is using Morgan stallions on mustang mares.
• The British and Americans start competing against each other in polo for the Westchester Cup.
• A Standardbred colt named Black Allen #7623 is foaled, from a Standardbred sire and Morgan dam. Because of his awkward gait, he is unsuccessful as a racehorse but sires well-known racehorses.
• Ormonde is an English Triple Crown winner.

1887

• The American Association of Belgian Horse Breeders is formed in Wabash, Indiana.
• The Yorkshire Coach Horse studbook is opened to record the lineage of this handsome trotter of Cleveland Bay and Thoroughbred breeding.
• Kincsem dies of colic after foaling, and her trainer dies 39 days later. Kincsem’s descendants are still racing.

1888

• The American Shetland Club is founded in the eastern U.S.
• Randolph Huntington imports the Arabian mare Naomi from England into Long Island.
• The first commercial rodeo is held in Arizona.

1889

• Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show performs in Paris.
• The Boer War in South Africa begins. The British import 494,000 horses from America and India, of which 326,000 are killed. 160,000 Australian Walers are shipped to South Africa at the beginning of the war, of which 37,245 lose their lives.

1890

• At Wounded Knee, South Dakota, 200 men, women and children are shot down by the Seventh Cavalry in the bitter cold. Dakota horses are also killed.
• Linden Tree and Leopard, President Grant’s Arabian stallions, are sent to the ranch of General George Colby in Beatrice, Nebraska, where they are used on Indian ponies to create some good ranch horses. Solids, paints and appaloosas appear in the herd.
• Famous circus man and animal collector Carl Hagenbeck leads an expedition to Russia to capture Przewalski horses. He returns to Germany with 17 colts and 15 fillies.
• Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show appears in Germany, and Hagenbeck creates his own Wild West show.
• The American Hackney Horse Society is formed.
• Frank Hopkins, a half-Dakota long-distance rider, enters the 3,000-mile Ocean of Fire race on his mustang stallion Hidalgo and wins.
• Russia imports American Standardbreds to cross with Russian Orlovs.
• The Stradbroke, one of Australia’s premier races, begins.

1891

• The American Saddlebred Association is founded.
• Randolph Huntington leases the English Arabian stallion Kismet for $20,000, but it dies from pneumonia a few hours after being unloaded. He then buys the mare Nazli, whose sire Maiden was a racehorse and battle charger in India.
• The last surviving Confederate cavalry horse, Stonewall Jackson (f. 1857), dies in Louis Co., West Virginia.
• Common wins the English Triple Crown.
• A fire at Knabstrup Stud kills at least two dozen horses.

1892

• Prussians and Austro-Hungarians race from Berlin to Vienna, the winner riding 350 miles in 72 hours. His horse dies, as do 25 of the remaining 199. This type of brutal riding is fairly common at this time.
• 1,000 to 1,500 ponies are living in the Longmynd Hills, and ten times that many live wild in the Brecon Beacons, Denbeigh Beacons, Eppynt and Carmarthen (Wales and the English border country).

1893

• Using small Thoroughbreds, Welshes, Shetlands, and Criollos, Falabella, son-in-law of Newell, creates the tiny horse that bears his name.
• The Chilean Horse Registry is officially inaugurated, making it the oldest stock breed registry and the third oldest of all such registries.
• At the Chicago World’s Fair (World’s Columbian Exposition), Bedouins exhibit 11 pure desert-bred Arabian horses. A fire set by a loan shark kills seven, and the Bedouins are cheated out of the remainder. A mare named Nejdme becomes the first registered Arabian in the U.S, and the stallion Obeyran is the second. Homer Davenport, an early Arabian breeder, acquires most of the survivors.
• The Yeguada Miller is established near Cordoba, Spain, to breed army horses. Arabians horses are included in the program.
• Rex McDonald, a black American Saddlebred stallion, is the champion of the St. Louis horse show and becomes one of the most popular horses of the era.
• Two Clydesdale stallions set a record for weight pulling at 128 tons.
• Isinglass wins the English Triple Crown.

1894

• The Morgan Horse Registry is founded in Vermont, with an open studbook. Only one parent has to be a Morgan to qualify for registry.
• Because of the 1893 depression, Randolph Huntington sells his horses.

1895

• Peter McCue, legendary ancestor of King Ranch Quarter Horses, is foaled.
• 8,000 Spanish Mustangs and other “surplus” horses are exported to the Netherlands. Some are bred to Dutch horses.
• The Canadian Horse Breeders Association is formed. There are claims that many of the French Canadian horses had gone wild and joined up with mustang herds; they play an important part in the development of many American breeds.
• The Crabbet stallion Shahwan, beautiful and very white, is brought to the U.S.

1897

• The first Cheyenne Frontier Days Rodeo is held.
• Star Pointer becomes the first Standardbred pacer to achieve a two-minute mile.
• Thomas Meleady of Ireland complains about the use of Clydesdales on Irish Draught horses and native ponies, claiming that the Clydesdale gives the Irish Draught big legs and no stamina, and that the practice also had destroyed three pony breeds.
• Galtee More takes the English Triple Crown.

1898

• The United States acquires Puerto Rico, the land of the Paso Fino.
• A brown colt named Plaudit wins the Kentucky Derby. Through his son King Plaudit (f. 1916), he becomes the foundation sire for a line of Quarter Horses, appaloosas, paints, and palominos noted for their speed.
• The Polo and Riding Pony Society of England is formed and sets up local committees to provide registrations and descriptions for each section of the studbook.
• The last Norwegian Lofot pony, a breed of longhaired pony, is shot and stuffed for a museum.
• The Pleven (Bulgarian Saddlehorse) is developed from Arabian mares and Russian stallions.

1899

• Flying Fox is the English Triple Crown winner.

1900

• The Olympic Games is held in Paris and includes equestrian competitions for the first time.
  • Grand Prix jumping is won by Aime Haegeman of Belgium.
  • The equestrian high jump is won by Dominique M. Garderes of France.
  • The equestrian long jump is won by C. Van Langhendonck of Belgium.
  • Polo is an Olympic sport.
• Diamond Jubilee wins the English Triple Crown.

1901

• Mustangs from Benton Co., Washington (Horse Heaven Hills), are shipped to South Africa for the British to use in the Boer War. (Canadian Horses were also shipped to South Africa.)
• The Welsh Pony and Cob Society is formed, and Lord Tredegar is its first president.

1902

• Carl Hagenbeck brings additional Przewalski horses back to Europe. He traveled in 1901 at the request of the Duke of Bedford, chairman of the London Zoological Society.
• A Knabstrupper stallion named Mikkel, a descendant of another, better-known stallion by this name, becomes famous for producing a line of spotted horses called the St. Petersburg horse. These horses are renowned as circus horses in Europe. (Legend has it that these horses are all descended from a crippled Czechoslovakian circus horse.)
• M. W. Savage purchases a brown pacing colt from Manley E. Sturgis for $60,000. The brown colt is Dan Patch, one of the greatest American racehorses.

Painting of Dan Patch

1902–1905

• Edward S. Curtis tours the West photographing native peoples. Horses of every color appear in the photos.
• Mike Ruby of Colorado becomes interested in the Colby horses and starts selectively breeding them and keeping detailed records.
• The registry for the Dole–Gudbrandsdals is established. Stallions are tested and must be prizewinners in order to be approved for breeding. No pintos or spotted stallions are ever approved. Those colors become extinct by the 1970s.

1903

• The Noriker Pinzgauer studbook is opened for the spotted strain of Noriker horse.
• Carl Hagenbeck’s circus visits the St. Louis World’s Fair.
• The Belgian government sends an exhibit of draft horses to the World’s Fair.
• African-American cowboy Bill Pickett invents the rodeo sport of bulldogging at the Cheyenne Frontier Days Rodeo.
• Rock Sand, whose name appears in many American pedigrees, wins the English Triple Crown.
• James R. Brantley purchases a Standardbred named Black Allen, renames him Allan and uses him as a stud for his new breed of gaited horses. He breeds him to his best mare, Gertrude, an American Saddlebred–Morgan–Canadian Pacer cross, and their foal is named Roan Allen.

1904

• The first societies for the Icelandic horse are formed. This has been a pure breed since the 900s.
• The Italian Cavalry adopts the forward seat of Frederico Caprilli, an Italian cavalry officer and instructor at the Pinerolo Cavalry School near Turin.

1905

• An act of Congress establishes the U.S. Morgan Horse Farm at Weybridge, Vermont.
• Capt. Akiyama Yoshifuru, trained in Japan and France, leads a cavalry charge against the Cossacks at the Battle of Mukden in Manchuria, forcing the Cossacks to retreat. (Teddy Roosevelt negotiates the peace treaty between Russia and Japan.)
• The Lamut Wild Horse, Equus spp., of Northeastern Siberia, becomes extinct.

1906

• Dan Patch sets a pacing record at the Minnesota State Fair of 1:55, a record that lasts over 50 years.
• Because of his growing instability, Wilfrid and Lady Ann Blunt separate. She leaves the keeping of Crabbet to their daughter Judith. Wilfred, in a rage, starts to sell all the horses. Burka, a pregnant mare and favorite of Lady Ann, is shot.
• A census records that there are 1,765,186 horses in Australia.

1907

• Ben E. Wallace purchases the Carl Hagenbeck circus and exhibits it until 1913. Circus posters show that pintos were popular.
• The Wurttemberger Studbook is opened.
• In June a six-year-old Arabian stallion named Haleb, owned by Homer Davenport, beats 19 Morgans for the Justin Morgan Cup in Vermont. (Two years later he is dead.)
• Muson, Davenport’s Listening Mare is ridden by Buffalo Bill at Madison Square Garden; the crowd loves it.
• A desert-bred gray stallion named Ibrahim is imported from Constantinople and shipped to the Michalow State Stud in Poland, then goes to the Antoniny Stud.

1908

• The Arabian Horse Club of America is formed. President Grant’s Leopard is recognized as # 233 while his Linden Tree is registered as # 234.
• A Hawaiian cowboy named Ikua Purdy, foreman of the Ulupalakua Ranch, Maui, is named the roping champion at Cheyenne Frontier Days, with a time of 1:06.
• Old King, foundation sire of the American Crème and White Horse, is foaled in Illinois. Prof. William P. Newell owns him.

1909

• Skowrenek, one of the greatest Arabian stallions of all time, is foaled at the Antoniny Stud, owned by Count Joseph Potocki. His sire is Ibrahim.
• The U.S. Polo Team, riding Argentinean polo ponies, beats the British in the Westchester Cup for the first time.
• Dan Patch injures a leg and retires from racing.
• Two Breton studbooks are opened, one for the lighter Postier and one for the larger draft type. In 1912 it is consolidated into one studbook.

1911

• The Tetrarch, a Thoroughbred stallion with yellow spots, is foaled. His great daughter Mumtaz Mahal was also similarly spotted.
• The London Hackney Show has 626 entries, the largest number ever.
• Irish Draught Horse registration begins. Horses must be clean-legged and meet certain physical requirements.
• On January 4, Englishman Robert F. Scott anchors his ship Terra Nova to the ice in the Antarctic and unloads 19 Siberian ponies. He is hoping to beat Admundson of Norway to the South Pole. By the end of the year all the ponies are dead, most of them shot, but two eaten by Orcas after falling through the ice.

1912

• General Pershing pursues Pancho Villa, but cannot catch him. Mexican horses have more stamina than the American remounts.
• Homer Davenport dies.
• Dressage first appears at the Stockholm Olympics. Except for Jean Cariou of France in Grand Prix jumping, the Swedes win everything and begin an unmatched history of winning Olympic equestrian events.
• The Devon Packhorse becomes extinct.

1913

• The Federal Ministry of Agriculture sets up a breeding program at Cap Rouge, Quebec, for the preservation of the Canadian Horse.
• Col. Ben Wallace sells the Hagenbeck–Wallace Circus to some local businessmen after a flood almost wipes him out. The next year it goes on the road and stays gone ten years, suffering some terrible hardships. (A train accident on June 22, 1918, in Gary, Indiana, results in a fire that kills between 56 and 61 men and women.)
• The Friesian Horse Society (Het Friesche Paard) is formed in the Netherlands to save the breed from extinction. Only three purebred stallions exist.
• The British Jockey Club enacts the 1913 Jersey Act to ban all descendants of the great Lexington from British Jockey Club Registration. The first and most famous horse affected is Man O’War . (Secretariat and Ruffian would also have been affected.)

1914

• The U.S. supplies horses for World War I. In four years nearly a million horses are shipped to Europe, many of them from western states. Altogether, 985,000 horses die, and only 200 return home.
• Baron Manfred von Richthofen enlists in the Prussian cavalry, 1^st Regiment of the Uhlans Kaiser Alexander II, famous for its Trakehner horses. After his outfit is strafed by an airplane, he switches units, learns to fly, and becomes The Red Baron.
• The Royal Scots Grays, the 5^th Cavalry Brigade, famous for their charge at Waterloo, enter World War I. The horses are dyed chestnut so that the enemy would not recognize them.
• The Russians capture the Janow Podlaski Stud and take the entire Arabian herd.

1915

• Old Sorrel, grandson of Peter McCue and foundation sire for the King Ranch Quarterhorse, is foaled.
• William S. Hart makes a silent movie called Pinto Ben, starring his small tobiano horse, Fritz.
• European horses belonging to either Baron von Wolff or a German named Schutzetruppe escape into the deserts of Namibia. Life is hard, but they survive.
• Sir Ashton (Greatheart), a Hackney, wins the New York National High Jump.
• Exterminator is foaled. Between the years of 1917 and 1924, he races 100 times, winning half and placing in 83 percent. His career record of 33 stakes wins has never been broken.
• Pommern takes the English Triple Crown.

1916

• On July 4 Dan Patch and his owner, Marion Savage, both become ill. Savage has surgery and is recovering when he learns his horse has died on July 11. Savage dies the next day; it is claimed he died from grief for his horse.
• Gwyne Hero, a spotted Welsh Cob is foaled and goes on to sire registered foals.
• Lucy Coleman Carnegie, owner of Dungeness Mansion and most of Carnegie Island, dies. Her 50 horses, many of them polo ponies, are turned loose.

1917

• The Sociedad Rural de Argentina is formed to save the Argentinean Criollo from extinction. 200 horses that most closely resembled the correct Criollo type are found among the Pampas Indians and inducted as the first registered members of the breed. In Brazil a wild Spanish Colonial called the Raca Crioula, similar to the Spanish Mustang, is found. Its larger relative is called the Cria Crioulo and it belongs to the same family as the Criollos.
• Hundreds of thousands of horses die in the Russian Revolution.
• General Sir Edmund Allenby is waging his Palestine Campaign (1917–1918) in October. In September of 1918, Allenby fights the Battle of Megiddo on the Plain of Sharon, breaking the Turkish lines and leading to the fall of Aleppo.
• Sir Pratap Singh and an Indian cavalry on Marwari horses lead General Allenby to the conquest of Haifa.
• Gay Crusade takes the English Triple Crown.

1918

• Champion racehorse Man O’War is foaled.
• Thousands of Australian Walers are shipped to Egypt in the British war against Turkey. They are left behind at the end of the war because of Australian quarantine laws. Those graded C and D are shot, their hides, hair, and shoes sold for whatever they could get. Many were shot while eating so they wouldn’t panic. (Some men took their horses for a final walk among the dunes and returned on foot without them. The men really grieved over leaving their horses to the fates that awaited them.)
• The Fell Pony Society is formed. Originally a pony of many colors including pinto, the Fell eventually becomes predominantly black.
• An Australian census counts 2,527,149 horses.
• General Blackjack Pershing rides his own horse, Kidron, through the Victory Arch in New York City at the end of WWI.
• Gainsborough wins the English Triple Crown.
• Friesian studbook stops registering brown mares. They had been needed earlier to save the breed.
• Count Josef Potocki dies defending his stud Antoniny from the Russians. Ibrahim, the sire of Skowronek, and Yaskoulka, his dam, are killed by the Russians.

6^th Australian Light Horse Regiment in Palestine

1919

• The United States Cavalry conducts endurance tests to assess the quality of their Arabian and Thoroughbred remounts.
• Sir Barton is the first winner of the American Triple Crown of horse racing, the Kentucky Derby, Preakness, and Belmont Stakes.
• The Janow Podlaski Stud is reopened and concentrates on breeding the best Arabians possible. Those not deemed perfect are disposed of.

1920

• On September 16, anarchists send a horse-drawn wagon full of dynamite to the steps of the Morgan Bank on Wall Street in Manhattan, killing 38 people and wounding 300. Nothing of the horse is found but his shoes, which are traced back to the blacksmith who shoed him.
• The first U.S. Cavalry Mounted Service Cup Race averages 60 miles a day for five days, each horse carrying 245 pounds of rider and gear.
• Judith, Lady Wentworth, becomes sole owner of Crabbet Stud and purchases Skowronek, a great Polish stallion. His dam’s purity has been questioned by some Arabian breeders.
• The first Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe is run in France; Comrade wins.
• Chicken feed processing plans are paying five dollars for horses.
• The North West Mounted Police changes its name to Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
• Dr. Ruy d’Andrade locates wild horses in Portugal that he names the Sorraia.
• On October 12, in a match race between Man O’War and the first American triple crown winner, Sir Barton, Man O’War wins by seven lengths.
• The Great McKinney and Sam Williams, Standardbreds, are foaled. Their importation into France improves the French Trotter.
• In the Olympics at Antwerp:
  • Figure riding is won by Bouckaert of Belgium.
  • Team figure riding is won by Belgium.
  • Grand Prix dressage is won by Janne Lundblad of Sweden.
  • Grand Prix jumping is won by Tommaso Lequio of Italy.
  • Jumping team is won by Sweden.
  • Three-day event is won by Helmer Morner of Sweden.
  • Three-day team is won by Sweden.

1921

• The last fire horse is retired in San Francisco.
• Mumtaz Mahal is recognized as the fastest filly ever to set foot on English turf. This daughter of the Tetarch is an ancestress of the immortal Secretariat through her son Nasrullah, who was the sire of Bold Ruler, Secretariat’s sire.
• The British racehorse Humorist wins the English Derby, a third win for his jockey, Steve Donoghue. A few weeks later the horse dies from a hemorrhage brought about by a tuberculin condition that made one lung completely useless.
• The Tersk and Stavropol studs in Russia begin careful breeding programs to replace the Strelet’s Arabian, which is on the verge of extinction.
• The Dartmoor Pony society in Great Britain is formed.

1922

• Dr. Emilio Solanet creates the Argentine Criollo registry. Tobianos are not allowed to be listed, although they were once in the lineage of the Argentine horse. He fears that they would introduce too much white into the breed, although two tobiano mares presented for inspection were considered the finest representatives of the horse he was trying to save.
• R. C. Andrews, a famous archeologist working in the Gobi Desert, clocks a racing kulan, a type of wild ass, at 40 mph on the take-off and over 30 mph over an extended time, making it even faster than the fastest Thoroughbred.

1923

• A small black mustang named Midnight is the top bucking horse in the U.S. and Canada.
• The Calgary Stampede, founded by an American, becomes one of the top rodeos in North America.

1924

• Calumet Farms is started by William Monroe Wright, founder of the Calumet Baking Powder Company, as a Standardbred horse farm. Many champion American Saddlebreds are also kept here.
• Pet food producers get into the horse-killing market, processing 500 head a day.
• In the Paris Olympics:
  • Grand Prix dressage is won by Ernst Linder of Sweden.
  • Grand Prix jumping is won by Alphonse Gemuseus of Switzerland.
  • Team jumping is won by Sweden.
  • Three-day event is won by Adolph v.d. Voort v. Zijp of the Netherlands.
  • Team three-day is won by the Netherlands.

1925

• Robert E. Brislawn sets about saving what is left of the true Spanish Colonial horse.
• Aime Tschiffely of Switzerland starts his 10,000-mile ride from Buenos Aires to Washington, D.C., on a pair of Argentine Criollos named Mancha and Gato, horses that came from Patagonian Indian stock.
• W. K. Kellogg purchases 377 acres in Pamona, California, for his Arabian horse ranch.
• The last two Strelet Arabian stallions and a few surviving mares are transferred to Tersk. No effort is made to save this breed because it is determined that they are too inbred. The stallions are silver gray.
• A Hackney stallion named Barra Lad, ridden by Louis Welsh, jumps 8’, 1 ½”. He dies the next day of a ruptured vessel.

1926

• On October 4, in Timaru, New Zealand, a chestnut colt named Phar Lap is foaled. His name means “Wink in the Skies” (“Lightning” in Thai). His American owner, David J. Davis, does not think much of him and has him gelded. He is then leased to his trainer, Harry Telford.
• Emperor Hirohito comes to power on December 25 and wants a pure white Arabian to ride. Unable to find one, his agents purchase a California cowpony named Silver Tip. Although a registered American White Horse, he is not descended from the foundation stock in Nebraska.
• The silent movie Ben Hur, directed by Fred Niblo, costs the lives of over 100 horses and one stunt man. It was said that if the horse was lame, it was shot.
• Rudolph Valentino rides the Kellogg stallion Jadaan in his movie Son of the Sheik. Asked for by name, Jadaan is in five more movies and becomes a popular sire in spite of flaws. He is descended from Wadudda.
• Kellogg builds his Arabian horse stables and imports the handsome gray stallion Raseyn, son of Skowronek.

1927

• Miss Ada Cole founds the International League for the Protection of Horses to ensure that horses destined for the slaughter houses of Europe are not abused an organization still in operation.
• The Syrian Wild Ass or Onager (Equus or Asinus hemionus hemippus) becomes extinct. The last specimen is shot while coming down for water at the Al Ghams oasis.

1928

• The first polo match between Argentina and the United States is played. The U.S. does well, but Argentina wins.
• Brooklyn Supreme is foaled in Iowa, a purebred Belgian stallion; he is the largest horse ever to live, at 19.2 hands and 3,200 pounds.
• Camargue Regional Park is established in France to protect its wild horses and cattle.
• Pet food slaughterhouses kill 40,000 horses a year.
• In the Amsterdam Olympics:
  • Carl von Langen of Germany wins Grand Prix dressage.
  • Franticek Ventura of Czechoslovakia wins Grand Prix jumping.
  • Grand Prix team jumping is won by Spain.

1929

• Argentine horses (Thoroughbreds and polo ponies) are shipped to California.
• The great Australian racehorse Phar Lap wins his first race.
• The studbook for the Przewalski horse is opened.
• The Grand National at Aintree, Liverpool, England, has the most horses ever entered for the race (66).

1930

• John L. Ayers starts his Cracker horse herd to save the Spanish Colonial in Florida.
• Gallant Fox is the second winner of the American Triple Crown.
• On July 30, Hero becomes the first white horse to play Silver, the horse belonging to the hero of The Lone Ranger, a radio, movie and television program.
• Mirage 790, a handsome Arabian stallion foaled in Iraq, is sold by Lady Wentworth to Roger Selby because Weatherby’s Arabian studbook is now closed to desert-bred horses.
• Lady Dorothy Brooke, wife of Sir Geoffrey Brooke, opens the Brooke Hospital for Animals in Cairo. It is founded in response to the number of Australian and British horses, 20,000 in total, sold to the Egyptians at the end of WWI to end their lives in misery.
• Calumet Delco, foaled the previous year, is exported to France where he becomes a stand-in for the infertile French trotter Gael.
• The Black Kladruber herd is sold to meat packers. An attempt will be made almost 50 years later to revive this line with Friesian horses.
• Dr. d’Andrade brings seven mares and four stallions in from the wild. All modern Sorraias descend from them.

1931

• Calumet Farms in Kentucky switches from breeding Standardbreds to Thoroughbreds.

1932

• The Arabian stallion Raffles, son of the legendary Skowronek, is brought to the U.S. from England.
• On April 5 at Menlo, California, Phar Lap becomes ill and dies. At first it is believed that an organized crime group killed him, but later writers think that it was an ulcer. Tom Woodcock, the stable boy who cared for him from day one, throws himself on the horse’s body and cries.
• Golden Cloud, a registered palomino, is foaled. He would become famous as Roy Rogers’ Trigger on television and in movies.
• The Alter Real breed, saved from extinction by Dr. Ruy d’Andrade, has its stud handed over to the Portuguese Ministry of Agriculture. The breed is not large in numbers but is thriving. Bays and pintos are common at this time.
• In the Los Angeles Olympics:
  • Grand Prix jumping is won by Takeichi Nishi of Japan.
  • Team jumping is won by France.
  • The three-day event is won by Ch. P. deMortanges of the Netherlands.
  • The three-day team is won by the U.S.
  • In addition, Americans win the bronze team medal. Col. Hiram Tuttle wins the individual bronze medal in dressage with a score of 300.50 on his horse Olympic.

1933

• Famous cowboy humorist Will Rogers plays in the first East–West polo match. His side wins.
• On May 22, at the Tierpark Hellabrun (the Munich Zoo), Heinz and Lutz Heck announce the birth of the first bred-back Tarpan. Przewalski horses were crossed with primitive mares and then bred back to recreate the Tarpan horse.
• Mansfield Comanche, an important foundation appaloosa stallion, is foaled on the Alamosa Ranch near Vega, Texas. His sire is an army remount stallion (Thoroughbred) named Dr. Howard; his dam is a ranch mare named Juanita.
• Stonewall Allen TWHBEA #360159 (destined to become one of the Champions in Gene Autry television shows and movies) is foaled.
• Image by Mirage 790 out of Rifala (Skowronek–Rissa) is foaled, and is destined to become an important Arabian sire.

1934

• Raseyn is ridden by Marlene Dietrich in The Scarlet Empress. He earlier appeared in Beau Ideal.
• The Brazilian Campolina studbook is closed. A handsome gaited breed predominantly of Iberian breeding, it also contains the blood of Anglo-Normans, a Holsteiner, an American Saddlebred, Mangalarga Machadors, and a horse that was one-fourth Clydesdale.

1935

• The Tennessee Walking Horse Registry is founded. Allan is F-1. Roan Allen is registered as Roan Allen F-38.
• The Colorado Rangerbred Association is formed by Mike Ruby. Originally it was limited to 50 breeders. Pintos are excluded regardless of pedigree.
• The first civilian endurance ride is held in Vermont.
• Italy invades Ethiopia, and the entire Ethiopian cavalry responds, riding Dongola horses, a part-Arab breed that is now recognized for its courage and quality. They so successfully resist the Italians that Hitler sends troops to help his allies.
• Omaha, son of Gallant Fox, becomes the third American Triple Crown winner.
• Gene Autry and Champion I (bought from Tom Mix, who had used the Tennessee Walker as a stunt double for his horse Tony II) begin their career in the movies together. He is a chestnut with a blaze and four white feet.
• Mirage 790 wins the National Arabian Show at Nashville, Tennessee.
• Horsemen on 15 Akhal-Tekes and Iomuds ride from Ashkhabad to Moscow, 2,580 miles, including 600 miles of desert, in 84 days, to save the breed from Stalin’s order to do away with their stud.
• Russian Kabardins, also being tested by Stalin through 1936, follow a route around the Caucasian Ridge and cover 1,860 miles in 37 days.
• Bahram becomes the last English Triple Crown winner for many years.
• 9,025 ponies of a unique breed are found living in Newfoundland.

1936

• Jenny Camp, a U.S. army remount horse, wins the individual silver medal at the Berlin Olympics. (She had done the same at the 1932 Olympics.) Only 15 out 45 horses were able to make it over the fourth fence, a tricky water jump. She was Col. Earl F. Thompson’s cavalry horse.
• A Hackney horse named Tosca wins the gold medal for the German team. The German riders sweep the Olympics.
• Takehners are the horses to beat at this Olympics.
• A Lipizzan places third in dressage, ridden by Col. Podhajsky, the director of the Vienna Riding Academy.
• The last Olympic polo game is played.
• The U.S. Remount Service names Frank Hopkins one of the greatest long-distance riders in U.S. history, stating that he entered and won over 400 races.
• The Professional Rodeo Cowboys’ Association is formed.
• Mrs. Joan Dunning of White Post, Virginia, imports pure Dartmoor ponies to her Farnley Farm and becomes a leading advocate for the breed.
• The Yorkshire Coach Horse studbook is closed. This type of handsome trotter is now extinct.

1937

• Dr. Francis Haines writes an article for Western Horseman entitled “The Appaloosa or Palouse,” exciting interest in preserving the spotted horse.
• Count von Lehndorf notes that all warm-blooded stallions in Prussia can be traced back to 74 foundation sires, including 62 English Thoroughbreds, seven Arabians, and two half-breeds.
• Cal and Ruth Thompson form the American Albino Horse Club to preserve the progeny of Old King.
• War Admiral, son of Man O’War, becomes the fourth American Triple Crown winner.
• Golden Cloud appears in his first movie, The Adventures of Robin Hood.
• The studbook for the French Trotter is closed. (There is a section for French Trotter–American Standardbred crosses.)

1938

• A match race between Seabiscuit and War Admiral, the grandson and son of Man O’War, is held. Seabiscuit wins.
• Battleship, another son of Man O’War, wins the English Grand National at Aintree as an 11-year-old carrying 160 pounds.
• Witez II, legendary Arabian stallion, is foaled in Poland; he is descended from the desert mare Sahara.
• The Standardbred trotter Greyhound sets a world record at 1:55¼ at Lexington, Kentucky.
• Roy Rogers purchases Golden Cloud for $2,500. He will eventually have a $5,000 saddle made for the horse.
• Anacacho Revel, a champion three-gaited American Saddlebred, appears in the movie Gone with the Wind. He carries Ashley Wilkes off to war.

The great trotter Greyhound

1939

• The Appaloosa Horse Club is founded by Claude Thompson. The color is associated with the Nez Perce Indians, but old photos show that the Nez Perce kept loud overos and every other color of Spanish horse as well.
• Hitler invades Poland. The Suwalki Cavalry is ordered on September 9 to relieve the pressure on Warsaw. Armed with swords and lances, and backed by heavy machine gun squadrons, the cavalry launches a successful attack. Germans are taken prisoner with a loss of 30 to 40 horses. Unfortunately, the Poles are unable to continue their success.
• Russia captures the Janow Podlaski Stud. The valuable Arabian stallion, Ofir, is sent to Tersk. His son, Witez II, is hidden for a time. One of his daughters, a newborn filly named Mammona, survives the 1,000-mile trek to Tersk and then another 2,000-mile march into Asia to escape the Germans. Thoroughbreds and Polish warmbloods die along the way, but she survives to become an ancestress of the great Polish–Russian stallion Muscat.
• The Pomeranian Cavalry Brigade loses 2,000 out of 3,000 horses to German dive-bombers.
• Russia has 30 cavalry divisions along with 800,000 draft horses.
• Almost two million horses are serving in the Russian armed forces.
• Twenty wild mustangs are released on Chincoteague Island.
• During the filming of the movie Jesse James, a horse falls off a slip ramp and breaks its back. Eight more horses are killed by trip wires. The American Humane Association starts monitoring movie making.

1940

• American Quarter Horse Association founded in Fort Worth, Texas. A horse called Wimpy is registered as AQHA#1, the world’s first registered Quarterhorse.

Rusty’s Midnight Ryder,
American Quarterhorse owned by J.K. Harper

1941

• On May 8, Sandy’s Sun Sally, foundation dam of all spotted Tennessee Walkers, is foaled. Her granddam was of unknown blood—not a Tennessee Walking Horse, but gaited.
• The Uruguayan Criollo Breeder’s Society is formed.
• The Palomino Horse Breeders of America is incorporated.
• Walter Farley writes The Black Stallion,about a boy and a wild Arabian stallion.
• Whirlaway, an erratic colt, becomes the fifth American Triple Crown winner.
• Allen’s Golden Zephyr TWHBEA 431975 (Trigger Jr.) is foaled.
• The 44^th Mongolian Cavalry Division attacks the German 106^th Infantry Division at Musino. Armed with sabers, the Mongolian horsemen are slaughtered. In only a few minutes, 2,000 men and 2,000 horses are killed.
• The Grand National is suspended for the duration of the war.
• The Tersky Stud is evacuated to Kazakhstan, traveling 900 km.

1942

• The Morgan registry becomes a closed studbook.
• The Battle of Stalingrad begins in August. Thousands of steppe ponies are used for transporting troops and supplies. The Russians used up to 200,000 cavalrymen during the war with five times as many mounts.

1943

• Buckshot SMR # 1 is foaled in Wyoming on the Brislawn Ranch.
• The Irish National Stud is founded at Tully, once the site of the English National Stud, which was eventually settled at Newmarket, England.
• The Nazis gather horses from all the captured studs of Europe and send them to Hostau, Czechoslovakia. This includes all the Lippizans in Austria, Italy and Yugoslavia.
• The incredible Count Fleet becomes the sixth American Triple Crown winner.
• Merry Go Boy, sired by the underappreciated Merry Boy, is foaled, second of the immortal Tennessee Walking Horse stallion. (Merry Boy and his dam Merry Legs were sabinos.)
• My Friend Flicka is filmed, using six horses; the main horse is an Arabian mare. For the movie Thunderhead, starring Roddy McDowell, nine white horses are used.

1944

• Starting in October, Prussians flee from the Russians with 800 horses, many of them pulling wagons, and spend two and a half months on the road trying to get to Allied lines. Along the route Russian planes strafe horses and humans, including those making a desperate run across the frozen Baltic Sea. Starvation and cold kill all but 100 horses. These along with a few others who either escaped or had been kept by individuals become the foundation stock of the modern Trakehner.

1945

• General Patton orders the rescue of the Lippizan Stud at Hostau, Czechoslovakia, with the Second Cavalry under Col. Charles H. Reed controlling the operation. Director Podhajsky had appealed to the general personally to save the horses from the Russians. First Lieut. William D. Quinlivan and two platoons go to Hostau and ride into Bavaria with the Lippizan mares and herds of Polish Arabians and Thoroughbreds. Witez II is among them and is shipped to the United States as a spoil of war.
• Midnight Sun becomes the first stallion to win the Tennessee Walking Horse championship; he repeats it the next year.
• Fewer than 50 Exmoor ponies are left. Many were shot by military trainees, stolen or slaughtered for food.
• Beginning in 1945 and ending in 1948, 92,000 English ponies and horses are slaughtered.

Alois Podhajsky

General Patton

1946

• King Ranch–bred Assault, a horse with physical problems, works through them and becomes the seventh Triple Crown winner.
• Roy Rogers released the movie My Pal Trigger.
• The Irish National Stud is founded.

1947

• The Pinto Horse Association is formed in California.
• The last wild Przewalski horse is captured.
• The Liski Stud is opened in Poland for the Polish line of Trakehner horses.
• Roy Rogers proposes to Dale Evans from Trigger’s back while on tour in Chicago.
• Merry Go Boy is crowned the Tennessee Walking Horse world champion; repeats it the next year.
• Marguerite Henry writes Misty of Chincoteague.
• The first American harness champion is crowned: Victory Song.

1948

• The Budonny, developed by Marshal S. M. Budonny, hero of the Soviet Revolution, to be a superior cavalry horse, is recognized in Russia as a new breed.
• The great Citation, horse racing’s first millionaire, is the eighth Triple Crown winner.
• Wing Commander, a five-year-old American Saddlebred from the Dodge Stables, wins every show in which he is entered and becomes the five-gaited champion of the year. He does this for six years in a row, proving what a phenomenal horse he is.
• Welsh ponies are imported into South Africa by Mrs. Rosalie Lasbrey.
• The U.S. Army dissolves its horse cavalry after the Olympics.
• In the London Olympics:
  • Grand Prix dressage is won by Hans Moser of Switzerland.
  • Grand Prix jumping is won by Humberto Marileo Cortes of Mexico
  • Team jumping is won by Mexico.
  • The three-day event is won by Bernard Chevallier of France.
  • The three-day team event is won by the U.S.

1949

• Clayton Moore, star of the Lone Ranger television series, personally picks a white gelding (Silver #1) out of the ranch stock at Hugh Hooker’s ranch in the San Fernando Valley. The original name of the horse is White Cloud. Ranch hands claimed he had Tennessee Walker blood. Bill Ward, Clayton Moore’s stand-in, owned the horse.
• George W. Trendle, owner and producer of the Lone Ranger television show, purchases Silver II, whose real name is changed to Hi-Yo Silver.
• Huasco, ridden by Capt. Alberto Larraguibel Morales of Chile, sets a high jump record of 8’1 ¼” on February 5 at Vina del Mar, Santiago, Chile.
• The Great Dan Patch, a movie about the famous pacing horse, is released.
• The Pride of Kentucky (The Story of Seabiscuit), a less that factual account, is released.

1950

• Velma Johnson begins a crusade to save wild horses from slaughter for dog food.
• The Neapolitan horse becomes extinct.
• The 5^th Marines in Korea purchase a small chestnut mare to carry ammunition for them. They name her Reckless, and she becomes one of the heroes of the Korean War. It is said that she became so proficient at her job that she would carry ammunition to her marines without anyone to lead her.
• The U.S. Equestrian Team is formed.
• The beautiful Tersk, very similar in appearance to the Arabian, is recognized as a breed. Although the horse is not always gray, it is a common color in the breed.
• Henry Lombard, a South African farmer, saves eleven mountain zebras from extinction on his farm. All surviving mountain zebras are descended from the seven mares he saved.

A mountain zebra

1951

• The Matador Ranch is sold for 19 million dollars.
• The Breton studbook is closed.
• The Associascao Brasileira de Criadores de Cavalo Campolino is formed to preserve and promote Brazil’s unique gaited horse.
• The Helsinki Olympics is the first to allow female equestrians in dressage. In the equestrian events:
  • Grand Prix dressage is won by Henri Saint Cyr of Sweden.
  • Team jumping is won by Sweden.
  • Grand Prix jumping is won by Pierre Jonqueres d’Oriola of France.
  • Team jumping is won by Great Britain.
  • Three-day individual event is won by Hans v. Blixen-Finecke of Sweden.
  • Three-day team medal goes to the remarkable Swedes.

1953

• The Russian cavalry is disbanded.

1954

• San Domingo, probably the most famous Spanish Mustang, is foaled at the San Domingo Pueblo, New Mexico.
• Quarterhorses are introduced into Australia.
• Disney Studios releases The Gypsy Colt, a movie about Puerto Rican Paso Finos.

1955

• Chief Pushmataha, a purebred Choctaw horse, is foaled in the Kiamichi Mountains of Oklahoma. He becomes SMR#47.
• Wendell T. Robie begins the 100-mile Western States Trail Ride, more commonly known as the Tevis Cup.
• Naborr*, from the Tersk Stud in Russia, is sold to the Michalow Stud in Poland, home of his ancestors.
• In the U.S., 19,670,381 pounds of horsemeat is canned.

1956

• The Pony of Americas, a registry for American ponies, is founded in Mason, Iowa.
• The Pinto Horse Association of America becomes incorporated as an official registry for pinto horses.
• The American Connemara Pony Society is formed.
• The television series My Friend Flick begins. Wahama, an Arabian mare, stars; her stunt double is a Quarterhorse gelding named Goldie.
• At the Melbourne Olympics:
  • Grand Prix dressage is won by Henri Saint Cyr.
  • Team dressage is won by Sweden.
  • Grand Prix jumping is won by Hans Gunter Winkler of Germany on Halla, his champion Hanoverian mare.
  • Team jumping is won by West Germany.
  • The three-day event is won by Petrus Kastennmann of Sweden.
  • The three-day team event is won by Great Britain.

1957

• The Spanish Mustang Registry is created. Strict physical and color guidelines are followed.
• The last two packhorse and mule units are mustered out of the United States Army. Some of the animals go to the National Park Service.
• Reckless, the ammunition-carrying horse, is promoted to staff sergeant in the Marine Corps, and now outranks her caretaker, who is now not allowed to lead her in parades; a senior NCO has that honor.

1958

• Harry de Leyer and a gray gelding, Snowman, rescued from a slaughterhouse truck, make a television appearance and then return to Madison Square Garden to win the National Horse Show’s $2,500 Stakes. For three years he won the heart of the world with his courage and jumping ability.
• The Australian filly Wiggles becomes the first two-year-old to win the Stradbroke.
• Hugh Wiley wins the King George Cup on his horse Master William.

1959

• On September 8, President Eisenhower signs the Wild Horse Annie Act, which bans hunting wild horses with trucks and planes.
• The movie Ben Hur uses Lippizan horses in the famous chariot horse race.
• Hugh Wiley wins the King George Cup on his palomino jumper Nautical, once a cowpony named Injun Joe.

1960

• Adios Butler, a Standardbred stallion, sets the pacing record at 1:54:3.
• At the Rome Olympics:
  • Raimondo d’Inzeo of Italy wins an individual gold medal in jumping, on Posillipo, one of his two champion Salerno horses. The breed is based on the old Neapolitan, Andalusian and some Thoroughbred lines. Its main stud is at Persano, south of Naples.
  • Team jumping is won by West Germany
  • Grand Prix dressage is won by Sergey Filatou of the USSR on the black Akhal-Teke stallion Absent.
  • The three-day individual event is won by Lawrence Morgan of Australia on Salad Days.
  • The three-day team even is won by Australia.
• Australia begins a policy of killing off its wild brumbies. Hundreds of thousands of animals are killed.
• Disney Studios wins an Oscar for The Horse with the Flying Tail, the story of Nautical.
• Prime Minister Diefenbacher of Canada passes a law to protect the Sable Island ponies.

Adios Butler, permission granted by the people who loved him

1961

• The Nevada Wild Horse Range is established within the boundaries of Nellis Air Force Base.

1962

• The American Association of Owners and Breeders of Peruvian Paso Horses is founded.

1963

• Mary Mairs is the first woman to win the Pan American Games gold medal in show jumping, on her chestnut mare Tomboy, the grand champion at the 1962 Washington International. She beat 12 male competitors.
• The Polish Arabian stallions Bask* and Naborr* are imported into the United States. The ocean voyage causes most to lose weight, but Naborr* arrives in excellent condition. He is the prize of Mrs. Ann McCormick of Scottsdale, Arizona.

1964

• Bask* is named U.S. National Champion Stallion at the Nationals in Dallas, Texas, and he sets the Arabian show world on fire with his brilliance and style.
• Bret Hanover rules the harness tracks of North America for the next three years.
• At the Tokyo Olympics:
  • Grand Prix dressage is won by Henri Chammartin of Switzerland.
  • Grand Prix jumping is won by Pierre Jonqueresh d’Oriola of France on Lutteur.
  • Grand Prix team jumping is won by West Germany.
  • The three-day individual event is won by Mario Checcoli of Italy on Surbean.
  • The three-day team event is won by Italy.

1965

• The American Paint Horse Association is founded for those Quarterhorses that have too much white.
• Mrs. Louise L. Firouz finds some handsome small horses working on the streets of Amol, Iran, and buys enough to establish a breeding nucleus of Caspian ponies.
• Witez II passes away after a life of incredible adventure.

1966

• Marguerite Henry publishes Mustang, Wild Spirit of the West.
• The Portuguese name their variety of Iberian horse the Lusitano, after the old Latin name for Portugal.
• The American Humane Association is denied legal access to movie sets, and the abuse of horses and other animals resumes.

1967

• Guidelines for the Paso Fino Breeders Association are established.
• Santiago Lopez, Master of the Horse of the Royal Jordanian Stud, founded by King Abdullah after World War I, rides and leads valuable Arabian horses out of a war zone back to their stud in Amman. The stud is founded on seven mares and seven stallions, one an import from Spain.
• Nevele Pride dominates the harness racing world for the next three years.

1968

• On September 11, Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall, announces the creation of the Wild Horse Refuge in the Pryor Mountains.
• My My, a brilliant American Saddlebred mare, ties Wing Commander’s record of six consecutive world grand championships at Louisville, Kentucky. Less than two months later she is dead of a liver virus.
• At the Mexico City Olympics:
  • Grand Prix jumping is won by William Steinkraus of the U.S.A., on Mister Softee.
  • Grand Prix team jumping is won by Canada.
  • Grand Prix dressage is won by Ivan Kizimov of Russia.
  • Grand Prix dressage team is won by West Germany.
  • The three-day individual event is won by Jean-Jacques Guryon of France on Pitou.
  • The three-day team event is won by Great Britain.

1969

• The Chinese open a second-century tomb and find a bronze statue that becomes famous as the “flying horse.”
• Cass Ole, the future star of The Black Stallion movie, is foaled on March 6 in Goliad, Texas.
• Mrs. Anne McCormick passes away at age 90, and her will dictates that all of her prize Arabians, including Naborr, shall be sold at auction. Tom Chauncey purchases the 19-year-old Naborr for the then unheard-of sum of $150,000.
• Nathan and Ellie Foote set out from Estancia, Patagonia, with four Criollo horses, on their way to Alaska. Two of the horses die accidentally at the Texas border, but Gilbert Jones replaces the two lost horses with Spanish Mustangs from his Oklahoma ranch.

1970

• Nijinsky II wins the English Triple Crown, the first since Bahram in 1935.
• Eriskay Islanders join forces to save the last of the Hebrides Island ponies.

Old type Hebrides pony
Library of Congress

1971

• The National Spotted Saddle Horse Association is founded. Spanish Mustangs and Tennessee Walkers make up the foundation of the breed. Tobianos, overos, sabinos, and toveros are accepted.
• President Nixon signs the Wild Free Roaming Horse and Burro Act to protect wild horses from harassment on federal lands, placing them under the Secretary of the Interior.
• A major fossil bed of Miocene Age horses is found on Melvin Colson’s farm in Nebraska. The remains are among the best found.
• Crabbet Stud closes its doors because of the construction of British motorway M23.
• Albatross dominates harness racing.
• The Australian Stock Horse Society is founded to promote the heritage of the Waler. Horses do not have to be Walers in order to be registered.

1972

• A gray mare named Shenanigans foals a black filly by Reviewer, half-brother to Secretariat, at Claiborne Farms. The filly, named Ruffian, becomes one of the greatest fillies of all time.
• Disney Studios releases the movie Justin Morgan Had a Horse, about the foundation sire of the Morgan breed.
• At the Olympics in Munich:        
  • Grand Prix dressage is won by Liselot Lisenhoff of West Germany.
  • Team dressage is won by the USSR.
  • Grand Prix jumping is won by Graziano Mancinelli of Italy on Ambassador.
  • Team jumping is won by West Germany.
  • The three-day individual event is won by Richard Meade of Great Britain on Laurieston.
  • The three-day team event is won by Great Britain.

The great Ruffian

1973

• Secretariat of Calumet Farms wins the Triple Crown. He is recognized as one of the greatest racehorses of all time.
• Nathan and Ellie Foote see their future home in British Columbia, Canada.
• The Royal Andalusian Riding School at Jerez de la Frontera, Spain, is opened.
• The United States Dressage Federation is founded.

1974

• The oldest stirrup ever found is discovered in a Xianbei  (Särbi) tomb in China. It has been dated to the fourth century.
• A Friesian stallion, Rmke 1966 FPS 234, is acquired by the Kladruber Stud to resurrect the black Kladruber breed.
• The first Friesian is imported into the United States by Thomas Hannon of Canton, Ohio.

1975

• Herd books are established for the Merens and Landais ponies of France.
• The phenomenal filly Ruffian (10 wins in 10 races), runs in a match race against the Kentucky Derby winner, Foolish Pleasure. A misstep shatters the filly’s ankle. Although vets try to save her, she is humanely destroyed and buried under the New York Racing Association flagpole at Belmont.
• On April 25, Something, ridden by André Ferreira of South Africa, jumps 27’6 3/4” over water at Johannesburg, South Africa, setting a world record.
• Thousands of Newfoundland ponies are shipped to slaughterhouses in Quebec, for shipment to Belgium and France.

1976

• Khemosabi becomes the only Arabian to win both a halter and a performance national championship at the same show in the same year. (At 30 he is inducted into the Arabian Trust Hall of Fame, the only living horse to be so honored.)
• The Irish Draught Society is formed to protect and promote the Irish horse.
• During the filming of the movie Heaven’s Gate, explosives are placed under the saddle of a horse and ignited. The animal is injured and euthanized.
• At the Olympics at Montreal:
  • Grand Prix dressage is won by Christine Stuckelberger of Switzerland.
  • Team dressage is won by West Germany.
  • Grand Prix jumping is won by Alwin Schockemohle of West Germany on Warwick Rex.
  • Team jumping is won by France.
  • The three-day individual event is won by Edmund Coffin, U.S.A., on Bally Cor.
  • The three-day team event is won by the U.S.A.

1977

• Seattle Slew, a $17,500 purchase, becomes a Triple Crown winner.
• The legendary Red Rum wins his third Aintree Grand National. (He won in 1973 and 1974, and he placed second in 1975 and 1976.)

1978

• Gilbert Jones incorporates the Southwest Spanish Mustang Registry. This registry was created to accept the pure Spanish Colonials that the SMR wouldn’t take, essentially the Choctaw tobianos.
• The Kentucky Horse Park opens in Lexington, Kentucky, as a tribute to the horse.
• Affirmed win the American Triple Crown winner.

1979

• The Newfoundland Pony Society is formed in Canada.

1980

• Thomas L. Gaddie, using seven horses, rides from Dallas to Alaska and back, setting the endurance record for a rider.
• The American Humane Association is allowed to monitor Hollywood movies again, according to a contract with the Screen Actors Guild.
• At the Moscow Olympics (which the U.S.A. boycotts):
  • Grand Prix dressage is won by Elizabeth Theuerer of Austria.
  • Dressage team is won by the U.S.S.R.
  • Grand Prix jumping is won by Jan Kowalczyk of Poland on Artemore.
  • Team jumping is won by the U.S.S.R.
  • The three-day individual event is won by Federico Roman of Italy on Rossinan.
  • The three-day team event is won by the U.S.S.R.

1981

• On August 29, the first Shahzada Horse Endurance Ride, 250 miles, reputed to be the longest competitive ride in the world, is held over five consecutive days in St. Albans, New South Wales, Australia. It is named for a gray Arabian endurance stallion of the 1920s.
• Kingston Town becomes the first Australian Thoroughbred to win over a million dollars.

1982

• The Azteca Horse, bred by Don Antonio Ariza, is recognized as a breed by the Mexican Department of Agriculture. The breed is essentially a harmonious cross between the Andalusian, Quarterhorse and Native Mexican.

1983

• The Chincoteague Pony registry opens to wild and tame stock.
• A deadly virus hits the Lippizan brood band at Piber: forty mares and eight percent of the foal crop are lost.
• The movie Ladyhawke brings the Friesian to the forefront. The stallion Othello is ridden by Rutger Hauer, who is, like the Friesian, from the Netherlands.
• The Irish Republican Army steals the great English/Irish racehorse Shergar in February from the stud at County Kildare and kills him within the week.
• Ian Miller begins jumping a Belgian horse named Big Ben. The horse becomes the first North American show jumper to win more than 1.5 million dollars.
• Phil and Margot Case form the Akha-Teke Association of America.

1984

• The first Breeder’s Cup is run in the United States. It is a series of races open to the best horses in the world.
• At the Olympics in Los Angeles:
  • Grand Prix dressage is won by Reiner Kilimski of Germany.
  • Dressage team is won by Germany.
  • Grand Prix jumping is won by Joe Fargis of the U.S.A. on Touch of Class.
  • Grand Prix team jumping is won by the U.S.A.
  • The three-day individual event is won by Mark Todd of New Zealand on Charisma.
  • The three-day team event is won by the U.S.A.

1986

• Lady’s Secret, a gray daughter of Secretariat, is named Horse of the Year. She is also named Champion Older Mare and Handicap Horse of the Year. (She dies in 2003 at the age of 21, hours after delivering a foal.)
• The Rocky Mountain Horse Association is formed; Old Tobe is recognized as a foundation sire.
• The Waler Horse Society of Australia is formed to save Australia’s few remaining Walers, the national horse of Australia.
• The Losino horse, a once-valuable Spanish breed and the ancestor of the Spanish Mustang isdown to 30 animals. Most were lost to the European meat market.

1987

• Big Ben helps win Canada a gold medal in the Pan American Games. He also wins back-to-back World Cups.

1988

• At the Seoul, South Korea, Olympics:
  • Grand Prix dressage is won by Nicole Uphoff of Germany.
  • Team dressage is won by Germany.
  • Grand Prix jumping is won by Pierre Durand of France on Jappeloup.
  • Team jumping is won by Germany.
  • The three-day individual event is won by Mark Todd of New Zealand on Charisma.
  • The three-day team event is won by Germany.

1989

• Secretariat dies at Claiborne Farms, Kentucky. An autopsy reveals that he has a 22-pound heart, the largest known, which launches a search for the large heart gene that he inherited from his dam Somethingroyal. (Normal Thoroughbred hearts weigh nine pounds).

1990

• A filly named Go For Wand breaks her leg in the Breeder’s Cup Distaff while going head-to-head with the great mare Bayakoa. She still wins the Eclipse Award as champion three-year-old filly.
• The Grant family of Great Britain travels over 17,200 miles in a horse-drawn caravan. Their trip ends in 1998.
• Northern Dancer, the most successful Thoroughbred stud of all time, dies in Maryland.

1992

• Henryk de Kwiat Kowski purchases Calumet Farms at auction.
• On June 16, 16 Takis are returned to Mongolia. (In 1994 and 1996, two more groups of 16 are released).
• At the Barcelona Olympics:
  • Grand Prix dressage is won by Nicole Uphoff of Germany.
  • Grand Prix team dressage is won by Germany.
  • Grand Prix jumping is won by Ludger Beerbaum of Germany on Genius.
  • Grand Prix team jumping is won by the Netherlands.
  • The three-day individual event is won by Matthew Ryan of Australia on Kibah Tic-Toc.
  • The three-day team event is won by Australia.

1993

• President Clinton appoints Bruce Babbitt Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior, overseeing wild horses in America.
• Michel Peissel discovers a small Tibetan horse called the Nangchen living at an altitude of 15,700 feet. Examinations show that the hearts and lungs of these small horses are larger than normal.
• Miners at the Last Chance Creek near Dawson Creek uncover the remains of a 26,280-year-old Yukon Horse. Mane and tail are blondish in color; the pelt is white with brown lower legs.

1994

• Doc’s Keepin’ Time, a registered Quarterhorse trained by Rex Peterson, stars in the movie Black Beauty and appears in other movies.
• The American Standardbred Adoption Program, Inc., is formed to save retired racehorses.
• Twenty Kerry Bog ponies are all that survive in Ireland. The stallion Flashy Fox is blood-typed and found to be unique. The Kerry Bog Pony Society is formed, and the pony is listed as an Irish Heritage Pony.
• The studbook for the Galician pony of Spain is opened; many of these wind up in the slaughterhouse.

1995

• Answering the need to control the population of wild ponies of Assateague Island, the contraceptive PZP is used for the first time.
• Michel Peissel discovers another rare isolated breed of pony, named the Riwoche, in the Tibetan highlands. Predominantly dun, it stands four feet at the shoulder with stripes down its back and on its legs.
• Ninety mares are all that remain of the Kladruber broodmare band.
• At the Olympics in Atlanta:
  • Individual dressage is won by Isabel Werth of Germany on Gigolo.
  • Team dressage is won by Germany.
  • Grand Prix jumping is won by Ulrich Kirchhoff of Germany on Jus de Pommes, a Selles Francais stallion.
  • Team jumping is another German gold.
  • The individual three-day gold is won by Blyth Tait of New Zealand on Reddy Teddy.
  • The three-day team event is won by Australia.

1996

• On September 28, Jockey Frankie Dettori of Italy rides all seven winners at Royal Ascot. They are dubbed the Magnificent Seven, and their names are: Wall Street, Diffident, Mark of Esteem, Decorated Hero, Fatefully, Lochangel, and Fujiyama Crest.

1997

• The U.S. Bureau of Land Management, in Del Rio, Texas, is indicted for “adopting” out thousands of horses that were destined to be slaughtered, and this involves corruption linked to the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. The overseer of the B.L.M., Bruce Babbitt, knew before 1994 that over 5,000 horses were missing and believed to be victims of the slaughterhouse. B.L.M. officials resign over his refusal to save the horses or stop the practice. Texas is at the forefront of this scandal.
• Thoroughbred champion Cigar wins over eight million dollars racing.
• The remains of Little Sorrell are cremated and buried beneath General Thomas Jackson’s statue.
• A once common breed is reduced to 144 Newfoundland ponies. The Canadian government declares them a part of the National Heritage.

1998

• The U.S. government passes laws to protect the Shackleford Banks ponies in North Carolina.

1999

• Wandering Star, a leopard Criollo, is imported into Sweden from Argentina and competes in show jumping.
• Efforts to save the Losino from extinction have resulted in a herd of 200 animals, now a beautiful black-bay color.

2000

• Contraceptive PZP is being used on the Shackleford Banks horses.
• Frankie Dettori purchases Fujiyama Crest, one of his Magnificent Seven.
• At the Sydney Olympics:
  • Individual dressage is won by Anky van Grunven of the Netherlands on Bonfire.
  • Team dressage is won by Germany.
  • Individual jumping is won by Jeroen Dubbeldam of the Netherlands on Sjiem.
  • Team jumping is won by Germany.
  • The three-day individual event is won by David O’Connor of the U.S.A. on Custom Made.
  • The three-day team event is won by Australia.
  • Bermuda’s Gold fractures a cannon bone at the Olympics and is euthanized.

2001

• On October 10, 20 wild mares and 20 wild stallions were released on the Cheyenne River Dakota Reservation. Originating in Storey County, Nevada, they are regarded as some of the purest Spanish Colonials still in the wild.
• A Chincoteague pony foal sells at auction for $10,500.
• The ruler of Dubai donates 80 valuable Arabian horses to be sold at auction, the money to be used for the earthquake survivors of Gujarat, India.
• A mysterious illness attributed to tent caterpillar infestation breaks out in Kentucky, devastating the Thoroughbred and Standardbred foal crops.
• Genetic testing shows a relationship between all Spanish donkey breeds but no close relationship with the Moroccan donkey.

2002

• Adoption of BLM horses by foreign countries is delayed, citing difficulty tracking their well-being.
• D. P. Lawther of Jasper County, South Carolina, is trying to save a breed of small native pony called the Marsh Tacky. His herd stands at 50 but is rising.
• On April 17, the Canadian Parliament declares the Canadian Horse Canada’s official horse breed.
• Manfred Schultz ends a four-year ride around the world with a pair of primitive-type European horses (believed to be either Koniks or Huculs).
• The movie Spirit, Stallion of the Cimmaron, receives an Oscar nomination for animation.

2003

• The International Arabian Horse Association and Arabian Horse Registry of America merge to form the Arabian Horse Association.
• The International Academy of Equestrian Arts at Versailles is founded in January by Bartabas. The stable contains 20 blue-eyed cremello Lusitanos.
• Seabiscuit, a more factual movie account of the great racehorse than the 1949 Pride of Kentucky, is released to rave reviews and receives Oscar nominations.
• On May 28, Prometea becomes the first cloned horse, in Italy.

2004

• The Kentucky Mountain Saddle Horse Association closes its mare registration book. All the mares listed will be recognized as foundation mares.
• A rare overo is found among the Corolla Island Banker ponies.
• Hidalgo, a movie about Frank Hopkins and his stallion of that name, is released by Disney Studios to good reviews over the protests of some Arabian enthusiasts. Hidalgo was written by John Fusco, who also wrote the screenplay for Spirit, Stallion of the Cimarron, another movie celebrating the Spanish Mustang.
• Hollywood Dun It becomes the leading sire for American Quarterhorse Association reining horses.
• France, Belgium, Italy, and Japan are the major consumers of horsemeat outside of Central Asia. Live horses and donkeys are shipped to Italy under brutal conditions to that the meat will be “fresh.” French Canadian suppliers are feeding horses a special diet to appeal to Japanese palates. In Texas, two slaughterhouses succeed in getting legislation enacted to deny the selling of the products that will help the horses but hurt their “meat for human consumption.” The products are MSM, Glucosamine, and Chondritin.
• Coffin Bay ponies are moved to their new home, Brumbies Run. Mares and foals are doing well.
• On December 13 is declared National Day of the Horse in the United States.
• At the Olympics in Athens:
  • The German dressage team wins the gold.
  • Individual gold dressage is won by Anky Van Grunsven of the Netherlands on Salinero, a Hannoverian.
  • France wins the team gold medal in the three-day event.
  • Leslie Law of Great Britain wins the individual three-day event on Shear L’eau.
  • Germany wins team jumping.
  • Cian O’Connor wins the gold for individual jumping, on Waterford Crystal, a Holsteiner.

Rowdy Yates, a champion Spanish Mustang
Owned by Vickie Ives of Marshall, Texas

2005

• Legislation is passed that condemns American (B.L.M.) wild horses to the slaughterhouse if they are not adopted within a certain time period.