Touch Stones IN TIME

By Barbara Molland Chaucer, he refers to the English Palfrey – the most common riding for royalty and arly each year the people of means in England in the 1300s and Horse Association celebrates the start of the same ambling horse that is the ancestor of Eevery Saddlebred breeder’s year with the our American Saddlebreds today. The Palfrey publication of this reference and breeder’s guide. was, during Chaucer’s time, a common part of It is a fitting time to think about our roles as the English landscape and found from one part stewards of the breed. What does it mean to be of the British Isles to the other. Chaucer wrote a steward? From the Merriam-Webster Dictio- his Canterbury Tales before the invention of nary of the English language, we are given this the printing press, so it is not hard to imagine definition of stewardship: “the conducting, that communication was slow in the 1300s; life supervising, or managing of something; espe- hadn’t changed appreciably in generations, but cially: the careful and responsible management it was going to change of something entrusted to one’s care.” rapidly in ways that peo- In virtually every way, anyone who chooses ple could scarcely imagine to breed a horse, or to breed any animal, is at that time. taking on the responsibility of stewardship of In continental Europe that animal. Those of us who have been and in the British Isles, involved with and the American Sad- the 1600s brought dlebred breed for several years concern our- improved roads, which in selves with not just the breeding of one horse, turn led to more use of but the welfare and future of many horses, the harness and cart sometimes even those that don’t belong to us. horse. At the same time, This, in turn, forms the vision and future of British colonialism the breed, a road map, so to speak, of where brought increased mar- we have been and where we are going. itime trade which encour- In today’s world, we are all too aware that aged imports of horses life changes quickly. Even among - from other areas; this ers, where the 11-month gestation period of a was accompanied by a mare sometimes seems to slow life to a snail’s growing interest in horse New York Public Library Picture Collection Public Library Picture New York pace, trends of horse ownership and use evolve racing and English royal- Paul Revere in Lexing- ever more rapidly. New disciplines form, ty’s passion for fox hunting and sport. The ton in 1775 on what is equestrian fashions emerge, and imports as saddle or riding horse as utilitarian trans- widely speculated to be well as creations of new horse breeds appear, portation decreased in use. a Narragansett Pacer, some to last and gain an enthusiastic follow- Horse breeding at this time was often sub- which was used to cre- ing, while others become that proverbial flash ject to the way that horses were kept, usually ate the Kentucky Saddle in the pan (or paddock). in extensive public common areas, unfenced, Horse. We live in a rather unique time in the with stallions running freely with mares. Pal- chronology of horses and their use. Nearly lost freys were generally small horses, rarely stand- to equestrian memory, for example, is the fact ing over 15 hands. When King Henry VIII that for most of the history of riding, for hun- declared a law demanding the castration of all dreds and hundreds of years, saddle horses or small native British stallions – two years of age, those used for riding exclusively, were standing under 14 hands and running freely in amblers, not trotters. A trotting horse was a common areas – he was sounding the death driving or harness horse, not one to be ridden. knell for the English Palfrey. In 1660, when Using England as an example, in the work of Charles II ascended the throne, he and his advi- the noted early English writer Geoffrey sor, the Duke of Newcastle, began the serious

American Saddlebred Reference Directory JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2008 1 Touch Stones IN TIME

work of eliminating the as none of our horses would ever move in that native British ambling manner without a rider; but the Americans stock and replacing it insist upon it that it is otherwise because many with imported Turks and of their colts pace as soon as born.” Barbs. To quote the writer Clearly, this English traveler had no person- John Wallace, respected al memory nor had he heard other of his coun- author of Wallace’s trymen speak of ambling horses. Within a gen- Monthly, who wrote in eration or two these horses had fundamentally 1895: “Of all the facts disappeared from the British landscape and that are known and estab- British memory. lished in the history of the At approximately the same time, political

New York Public Library Picture Collection Public Library Picture New York English horse, the wiping and economic conditions in England encour- out of the pacer is the aged the settlement of America. Religious dis- Gaines’ Denmark, most striking and significant … The little English sent drove a small group of English Puritan foundation stallion of pacers, that had been the favorites of kings and settlers to the shore of Massachusetts where the breed, spent years princes and nobles for so many centuries were they found a wilderness of trails and rugged with the Confederate submerged in the streams of Saracenic blood that terrain, a perfect setting for their small raiders of General flowed in upon them, and their only legitimate ambling horses to regain an equine foothold of John Hunt Morgan descendants left upon the face of the earth found utility and a way to survive. after being requisi- homes in the American colonies.” Americans being Americans, our early settlers tioned by his troops In England itself, herds of native British soon rebelled against English conventional wis- passing through Bour- ambling horses contracted so dramatically that dom in both equestrian and political matters, bon County, Kentucky. their only significant presence for a time was in and when Paul Revere rode in Boston to give This photo of Morgan southwest Scotland and in the Galway area of the alarm that the British were coming he rode, and his men was origi- Ireland. They there became known as Scottish it is said, a Narragansett Pacer – a small fleet nally published in Galloways and Irish Hobbies, ancestors familiar horse from Rhode Island whose ambling fore- 1863. to the historians of the American Saddlebred bears had been discarded by the British but breed and to all gaited American horses. An which were already being used by Americans to example of how quickly these horses disap- create the Kentucky Saddle Horse and Tennessee peared from common use in England can be Walker on the other side of the Allegheny found in the statement of an English traveler to Mountains. We find literary reference to the colonial America in 1796, in which he wrote Narragansett Pacers in the writings of James about the horses and horsemanship of Virginia: Fenimore Cooper, when in the early 1800s he “The horses in common use in Virginia are all describes their gait in The Last of The of a light description … some of them are hand- Mohicans, “Tis the merit of the animal. They some but all for the most part spoiled by the come from the shores of the Narraganset Bay, in false gaits which they are taught ... a pace and a the small province of Providence Plantation and ‘wrack.’ We should call this an unnatural gait, are celebrated for their hardihood and ease of

“Of all the facts that are known and established in the history of the English horse, the wiping out of the pacer is the most striking and significant … The little English pacers, that had been the favorites of kings and princes and nobles for so many centuries were submerged in the streams of Saracenic blood that flowed in upon them, and their only legitimate descen- dants left upon the face of the earth found homes in the American colonies.” – John Wallace, 1895, author

London, British Library, Additional MS 35166 London, British Library, of Wallace’s Monthly. The English Palfrey, ambling horse of the Middle Ages. In 1660, when Charles II ascended the throne, he and his advisor, the Duke of Newcastle, began the serious work of eliminat- ing the native British ambling stock and replacing it with imported Turks and Barbs.

2 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2008 American Saddlebred Reference Directory their movement.” The Americans took the equine genetic researcher formerly at the Uni- qualities they most valued in the ambling hors- versity of Kentucky Gluck Research Center but es, crossed those horses on the larger, finer now with Texas A&M University. Dr. Cothran being imported to America and has blood-typed most of the wild horse herds developed a more stylish but still thoroughly in the state of Nevada. I recalled that I had comfortable riding horse, the Kentucky Saddler. read that there was evi- By the time the American Revolutionary dence of American gaited War was old news and the Civil War was blood, or what Dr. threatening to destroy the Union, the renown Cothran calls American of Kentucky Saddle Horses had spread from Saddle or American Gait- one end of the new country to the other. With ed Horses, in several herds its limestone soils, the Bluegrass Region of in Nevada. Because most Kentucky had become the cradle of the best breeders and owners did horses in the nation. Even in the mid-1800s, not maintain breeding Kentucky Saddle Horses were comparatively records or pedigrees on expensive. It is said that it was due to the supe- their horses during the riority of its horses that the Southern Cavalry years of the 1800s, we dominated in the early skirmishes of the War cannot technically desig- Between the States. Even Gaines’ Denmark, nate horses from that time Collection Public Library Picture New York foundation stallion of the breed, spent years period as one breed dis- with the Confederate raiders of John Hunt tinct from another, but they were the horses Morgan after being requisitioned by his troops that provided that same mix of blood which passing through Bourbon County. produced Saddlebreds and later, Walkers. DNA Yet with all this acclaim as the epitome of a testing on herds of mustangs reveals that sever- true Saddle Horse, the Civil War was hard on al herds there carry the genetic markers indicat- the Kentucky Saddler. Many Saddle Horses ing they are descendants of that genetic pool. were lost during the Civil War battles. The vic- In the fall of 2006, my husband and I took tory of Union forces was also a victory for a road trip to Nevada to do some exploration Northern horses, Morgans and Thorough- of our own. We chose to explore the area breds. Yet, the sterling qualities of the ambling along Highway 50, stretching from east to descendants of the British Palfrey prevailed west, known as the loneliest highway in This mare was one in a and contributed, sometimes anonymously, in America. Highway 50 parallels the route of herd of five wild mus- significant ways to the settling of the Western the old Pony Express Trail. After stopping at tangs spotted by Bar- United States. Important events such as the the Cold Springs Café and Gas Station, site bara Molland in the Clan establishment of the Pony Express in 1860 of the former Cold Springs Pony Express Sta- Alpine Mountains in called for small fleet horses, standing no more tion, we spoke with a local hunting guide Nevada. Molland says than 15 hands, a common size for the amblers and outfitter about the wild horse herds in the horse displayed who were also very fast. Many were purchased that area. He directed us to three, one of some very noticeable from Kentucky and Missouri, the owners of which was in the nearby Clan Alpine Moun- similarities to the mod- this endeavor sparing no expense to carry the tains. We ern Saddlebred. mail swiftly from coast to coast, financing the explored all day. establishment of a competing route to Califor- After no luck nia and the dream of the West far more than sighting any hors- they were the delivery of mail. These ambi- es, but seeing lots tious men were willing to purchase good hors- of “stud piles,” a es for good money at a time when the Civil reliable indicator War and the development of the West were of mustang pres- looming largely on the horizon. The Pony ence, we had Express lasted for a year and a half before the come to the end telegraph made it obsolete, but the romance of of our journey, this adventure played enormously to the Amer- tired and disap- ican imagination, and this, as much as any- pointed. We were thing, led to the droves of pioneers who head- 30 miles from the ed west for land and gold and adventure. The nearest paved American Saddlebred breed, yet unnamed, road and had helped to take them there. decided to turn Last year, I was reminded of the Saddler’s back at the next early presence in the West when I began an possible widening email conversation with Dr. Gus Cothran, of the sage-cov- Barbara Molland photo

American Saddlebred Reference Directory JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2008 3 Touch Stones IN TIME areas across the country for use as breeding stallions to produce horses for the United States Cavalry, and additionally to improve the horse herds of pioneer ranching families. There were more stallions used than Saddle Horses, but Edna May’s Choice, Lindbergh Peavine, Richmond’s Choice, and Sandford’s Dare, among others, were found on Remount lists dating from the early 1900s. In Kentucky itself, the establishment in 1925 of the Kentucky Frontier Nursing Service formed in Hyden, Leslie County, Kentucky, by Mary Breckinridge, daughter of a prosperous Kentucky family, attracted women from Ameri- ca and Great Britain, who, armed with a nurs- ing education in midwifery and a strong sense of adventure, traveled to Kentucky to serve the women and families of the Kentucky mountains who were in dire need of medical care. Often through stormy weather, flooding streams and in the middle of a dark night, these midwives – mounted on American Saddlebred horses – braved daunting circumstances to reach the ered track we were driving, when we came up Women of the Ken- people waiting anxiously for their arrival in over a rise, and there in the darkening light, sil- tucky Frontier Nursing remote mountain cabins. All this occurred as houetted against the mountain, was a small Service rode American recently as the 1930s. In the book, Babies In herd of wild horses. Saddlebreds to reach Her Saddlebags, Joyce Hopp writes of Betty They stood, alert and surprised at our remote mountain cab- Lester, one of the first women to sign on as a approaching vehicle. A band of five, typical of ins. These midwives nurse midwife. Betty describes the horses they a mustang herd, included a young stud, three often braved daunting were given for their duties: “Most of them mares of various ages and a lead mare, the boss circumstances such as come from down in the Bluegrass, especially of the group. It was this lead mare that took stormy weather and chosen for our needs. They have to have a good my breath away. In her color, her neck length, flooding streams in the gait, or they will break all the bottles.” To this her conformation and movement, she strongly middle of a dark night. day, according to local mountain baby lore, resembled a Saddlebred. Using the zoom lens Kentucky and Tennessee babies arrived by way on my camera, I took as many shots as I could of horseback, in saddlebags, not by stork. before they fled up the canyon. In subsequent Another example of the utilitarian use of trips and in visits to the large wild horse han- American Saddlebreds was the selection by the dling center known as Palomino Valley, we United States Forest Service in 1936 of a regis- have seen and photographed others, but with tered Saddlebred stallion named Grand Menard some notable exceptions, few have impressed to stand at the head of a breeding program to us as much as this mare in her similarity to the produce horses for use in fighting wildfires in modern Saddlebred. Without the confirmation the mountains of western Montana. This was of blood typing, this story is anecdotal, and yet before the use of smoke jumpers and airplanes there were and are other documented examples to control fire. To quote Lynn Weatherman in of Saddlebreds being used in the West, escaping the 1986 American Saddlebred magazine, “A or being released when no longer needed; and Saddlebred stallion, Grand Menard 11765, was certainly Dr. Cothran’s work tells us that horses bought by the Forest Service at a sale in Grand carrying Saddle Horse blood – tough, wiry, and Island, Nebraska. This horse was bred by U.L. intelligent enough to avoid capture – are now Bounds, Paris, Missouri. He was sired by living wild and free in remote parts of the West. Menard Lee, by Menard King, a grandson of Other notable uses of the Kentucky and Emerald Chief who was a winner at the St. Missouri Saddle Horses were found in the Louis World’s Fair of 1904 and reserve champi- Remount Stallions stationed in widely dispersed on to Montgomery Chief. His dam was a

4 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2008 American Saddlebred Reference Directory daughter of Grand McDonald, one of the most sensational showing sons of Rex McDonald. Grand McDonald beat both Edna May and Golden Glow in the show ring and was the winner of numerous titles.” Lynn goes on to quote Western Horseman maga- zine, in the September/October 1944 issue: “This horse, out of Menard Lee and Gypsy Rose, enjoyed some reputation among horse breeders, and the purchase focused consider- able attention on the work being done in improving saddle horse stock in western Mon- tana … slowly but surely the grade of saddle horses produced in the locality is improving as a result of the infusion of new and better blood … The American Saddler has proved a good traveler on mountain trails, tractable and easily handled and the studs seem able to transmit the desirable characteristics of the

breed to even cold-blooded mares.” Service Courtesy Ninemile Ranger Station, U.S. Forest Grand Menard made quite a name for him- trail across this country braiding itself inti- In 1936, the U.S. Forest self in western Montana. There is now a mately into our most anguishing political Service chose registered campground and picnic area named for the old moments as it also paralleled the develop- Saddlebred stallion horse at the Nine Mile Station, near Lolo, ment and western expansion of the American Grand Menard to head Montana. Two months ago, when I inter- people. We must be ever vigilant to protect its its breeding program to viewed Bob Hoverson, head of the packing reputation, its soundness, its correct and produce horses for use and outfitting portion of the Nine Mile Station strong conformation, genetic health, intelli- in fighting wildfires in and a forest ranger for more than 35 years, he gent and kind disposition … and I will add, the mountains of west- told me that he still has Grand Menard’s stall lest we forget, its inherent ambling ability. We ern Montana, another name plate displayed in a corner of his office, members of the American Saddlebred Horse utilitarian use of the something just as important to him as the tro- Association, who every year fill out our stal- American Saddlebred. phies and ribbons are to me in mine. lion reports and foal registrations, are in fact Although it can be said with great pride the stewards of this breed. It is up to us to that the American Saddlebred has been used as honor the best qualities of the American Sad- a show horse since the mid-1800s, it and its dlebred and to have the wisdom to look into ambling ancestors have been used for many the future and provide a place for this horse more years as horses of utility. Circumstance in the generations to come, no matter what drove its development and its continued use to the discipline. If we don’t, we may find our- give us today a sterling example of a well con- selves like the English traveler of the 1700s, no formed horse, a strong horse, a horse with longer recognizing or valuing what was once stamina, great legs and feet, straight backs, so much a part of our landscape. The Ameri- and an intelligent, kind, and trainable mind. can Saddlebred is a horse to celebrate. Let’s The show ring use has given us beauty, ele- not lose sight of that at a time when, unlike gance and refinement, not to mention a way the Englishman, we have both the communica- for breeders and trainers to make a decent liv- tion technology and the awareness of history ing in creating them. to allow us to make intelligent choices. Let us, With all these attributes, we have a treasure as we often say, rack on! as worth keeping. The trail of history, these touch Sources used in the writing of this article stones over time that remind us from whence include: Famous Saddle Horses by Susanne the breed came and the value of its contribu- (Emily Ellen Scharf), 1936; The Last of the tion to the American past, show us that it Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper, 1826; would be a mistake to forget the honest utility The Pony Express by William Lightfoot Viss- of our horses, the way that hard use over and cher, 1946; The Horse of America by John H. through the generations of the partnership of Wallace, 1897; War Horse, Mounting the Cav- Saddlebred horses and the American people alry with American’s Finest Horses by Liv- has provided us this finely chiseled gift of the ingston and Roberts, 2003; Babies In Her Sad- equine world for safe keeping. The American dlebags by Joyce W. Hopp, 1986; Saddlebreds Saddlebred horse is to this country the equine In Big Sky Country by Lynn Weatherman, The counterpart of a national treasure, its winding American Saddlebred magazine,

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