Men And Horses

The horse's extraordinary qualities fire the imagination and are often surprising to those who don't have regular interaction with horses. "Their bodies are powerful, living machines that can work all day powered only by grass, while they have both the ability to comprehend subtle commands and the motivation to obey them." With such adaptive traits, horses have been used in war by samurais in Japan, by the Spanish as they invaded South America in the 1500s, by Greeks for horse-drawn chariots around 1500 B.C., by Amazon warriors, and by European knights of the Middle Ages.

But even the horses bred for jousting and war during King Henry VIII's reign in England could be overcome by the sheer weight of a knight in shining armor. Determined to enhance the size of British horses, Henry VIII decreed in the early 1500s that major landowners had to keep at least two large mares, and in 1541 he banned stallions from grazing on public lands unless they met certain height requirements.

Horses bred for speed enabled the Pony Express (created in 1860 and lasting only one-and-a-half years) to reduce the time to carry a letter across the United States from 25 days by carriage to 10 by horseback. The fastest Pony Express ride was seven days, 17 hours and carried Abraham Lincoln's inaugural address to Sacramento, California.

Amazing facts about horses The average lifespan of a miniature horse, typically defined as an animal up to 34 inches at the last hair of the main (between its shoulder blades), is from 25 to 30 years. Miniature horses are frequently kept as pets and can also be trained to lead the blind. A horse can rest and even doze while standing by locking one of its hind legs at the stifle joint (the knee). A group of ligaments and tendons called the stay apparatus holds the leg in place with minimal muscle involvement. Horses will switch from leg to leg to prevent fatigue in the locked leg. In fact, it takes a horse more energy to lie down than to stay standing. The famous mustangs of the American West, like many other "wild" populations, are actually considered feral, descended from escaped domesticated horses. The only truly wild horses, the Przewalski, live in Mongolia. These horses were declared extinct in the wild in the late 1960s. But a group was reintroduced to the wild in 1992 and has now successfully reproduced. Rhinoceroses and tapirs are the horse's closet living relatives outside the horse family. The only surviving branch of that family is the genus Equus, which includes zebras, asses, and donkeys, as well as horses. During the Han Dynasty, from 206 B.C. to 220 A.D., the Chinese mounted an expedition to Fergana, in present-day Uzbekistan, to acquire superior horses. Fergana horses were famous for sweating blood — a mystery now thought to be caused by parasites under their skin. Though cavalry charges are now a thing of the past, there are still places where a horse is more useful than a truck. In 2002 for example, during the war in Afghanistan, some U.S. Special Forces rode horses in areas where the rugged terrain and lack of fuel made auto transport impractical. In 1900, around 130,000 horses worked in Manhattan — nearly 10 times the number of yellow cabs on the streets of New York City today. A typical city horse produced up to 45 pounds of manure and 2 gallons of urine per day. An average horse's head weighs 11.84 pounds, compared with somewhere between 10 to 11 pounds for a human being. The average weight of its heart is 10 pounds, compared with 9 ounces for the heart of an adult human female and 10.5 ounces for that of a man. Any kind of mark which appears on the forehead of a horse is called a star, irrespective of whether or not it resembles one. Old Billy is the oldest recorded horse in history; he lived to be 62 years old, dying in November 1822 in Woolstone, England. Tulle, an Icelandic Horse mare, died in 1954 at age 57; she was still working at age 45. And Badger, a grey Arab-Welsh cross, was born in Wales in 1953 and died in 2004 at age 51. Falabella of Argentina is the smallest horse breed. The tallest of the breed stands about 30 inches at the shoulder. The smallest pony in history was a stallion named Little Pumpkin; he stood 14 inches and weighed only 20 pounds. The largest horse ever recorded was a Shire gelding named Samson, bred by Thomas Cleaver of Toddington Mills, England. Foaled in 1846, this horse grew to 7 feet 2.5 inches. Samson is also recorded as the heaviest horse, weighing 3,360 pounds. The fastest speed for a horse was recorded in 1945 in Mexico City when a 4-year-old racehorse — in a quarter-mile race — ran 43.2 miles per hour.

July 11, 1895, El Paso Times, El Paso, Texas — Emancipation from skirts is one of the privileges which the advanced woman has long been contending for, and the prevailing popularity of bicycling and other outdoor exercises for women gives a sudden and considerable impetus to that long delayed reform.

Bloomers and divided skirts no longer excite wonder when seen on the highways, and the day when the horsewoman may ride astride man fashion without fear of criticism is at hand. The sidesaddle has always been a serious handicap, and Miss Woods, an enterprising Chicago woman, has invented a costume which enables her to discard it without derogation of her womanly modesty and dignity.

The lower garment of this costume may be called a divided skirt, but practically it resembles a pair of very wide trousers. The two skirts, each a third of a yard in width, are fastened in a belt at the waist, and gathered in with a row of plaits at the middle of the front and back.

These plaits give the divided garment the appearance of a single skirt, and the fullness of each skirt at the bottom completes the illusion. A panel almost as wide as the apparent width of the skirt falls on each side, from the belt almost to the foot, which adds to the effectiveness and conventional appearance of the costume when the wearer is astride a horse.

The improvement claimed for this costume over the ordinary divided skirt is that there is no clumsy fullness at the bottom. The skirt hangs straight, and is no wider than an ordinary riding habit. It displays less of the contour of the figure than the regular costume used with the sidesaddle. Miss Woods introduced the innovation as a result of her experience in Palestine.

After much discomfort and several mishaps in riding in a dilapidated sidesaddle, she one day boldly threw her leg across the horse's back and rode that way all day before any one discovered her. Then she refused to ride any other way. All the Arabian women ride astride, and she followed the custom of the country during the rest of her stay there.

With the remembrance of the comfort experienced on that trip she decided to adopt man's fashion in Chicago, and did so, with the result that her example is being followed by a large and increasing number of women in the Windy City.

Tradition says that at the Battle of the Little Big Horn, Gen. George Custer and his entire detachment were killed. But there was a survivor of that battle who became a celebrated hero. Following Gen. Custer's defeat, the military was looking for a bright spot and the myth of the "lone survivor" was born. That lone survivor was Comanche — not an Indian, but the horse belonging to Capt. Myles Keogh, an officer under Gen. Custer's command. Here's the story.

It all started on April 3, 1868, when the Army purchased a 15-hand bay gelding as part of a "choice lot of horses" in St. Louis. The 41 horses were taken to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where they received a "U.S." brand. Capt. Keogh, looking for a backup battle mount, selected the bay gelding from the lot and paid $90 for his purchase. In September of that same year, Capt. Keogh fought in a skirmish with Comanche Indians near the Bluff Creek in Kansas and rode his backup mount. The horse was shot with an arrow in the right hindquarter, but he showed no signs of the injury — it wasn't discovered until after the battle, when Capt. Keogh found the arrow shaft broken off in the horse's hip. Capt. Keogh immediately made his backup horse his primary mount and named him Comanche. Capt. Keogh rode Comanche for the remainder of his service in the Army. Together they were stationed primarily in Kentucky, where they battled the Ku Klux Klan, Northern carpetbaggers, and illicit distillers. Comanche was wounded again in 1873 in a skirmish with unruly moonshiners, but he quickly recovered and served with Capt. Keogh until Keogh's death at the Battle of the Little Big Horn in Montana.

Capt. Keogh's remains were found the day following the battle. Some believe, based on the fact that Comanche's wounds were one-sided, that Comanche may have shielded his rider while Capt. Keogh shot from the ground, and that the bullet that shattered Keogh's leg may have been the same bullet that lodged in Comanche's.

No one knows for certain how Comanche was found, but most accounts say that he was discovered by the river, badly wounded — one of the few horses not killed or taken by the Indians. Becoming a symbol of the men who had fallen, Comanche was retired and spent time at various military posts, never again to be ridden. He died at the age of 29 and was buried with full military honors (one of only two horses to receive that tribute). He was then stuffed and put on display at the University of Kansas, where he can be visited to this day.

August 10, 1887, Arizona Daily Star, Tucson, Arizona Territory — It always seemed to me that there was a great deal of superstition, I may say, about the intelligence of the horse. Sauntering up to an express man at the corner of Monroe and Dearborn Streets the other day I said to him: "How much does a horse know?" "A horse, sir?" he replied. "A horse knows as much as a man — just exactly. My horse there knows everything, just like a man." This is the way everybody talks who owns a horse or who tends horses and it all seems to me to be nonsense.

I have seen horses walk around a post until they had wound up the bridle and then stand all day with their heads bound down to the post because they didn't have sense enough to walk the other way and unwind the bridle. I have seen them get a foot over the bridle, when tied to a ring in the pavement, and then go into fits because they didn't have sense enough to lift their feet over the bridle again. I have seen them prance around in a burning barn, with their tails and manes on fire, and burn to death, because they did not have sense enough to run out.

Anybody can steal a horse without any objection from the horse. A horse will stand and starve or freeze to death with nothing between him and a comfortable stall and plenty of oats except an old door that he could kick down with one foot, or that could be opened by removing a pin with his teeth. If this is a high degree of intelligence, even for a brute, then I am lacking in that article myself. Compared with the dog, the elephant, or even the parrot, the horse seems to me to be a perfect fool.

In the Old West men and horses were called upon to perform great feats. But no man and horse did more in a short period of time than John Phillips and a fleet-footed steed. It was a cold December in 1866, and Fort Phil Kearny was being harassed by Red Cloud and his band of Sioux. On the 21st of December Capt. John Fetterman, along with 80 men, left the fort to chase after a small group of Indians. But the Indians were decoys, and Fetterman's command was ambushed. Within minutes everyone was killed.

It was necessary for someone to travel to Horseshoe Station, 190 miles away, and telegraph Fort Laramie for reinforcements. That responsibility fell on John "Portugee" Phillips. Born on the Portuguese island of Pico, Phillips boarded a whaling vessel heading to California at the age of 18 to try his luck panning for gold. When he didn't strike it rich, he found work at the fort as a civilian water carrier.

On the fateful day, the young prospector volunteered for the perilous mission to save the fort. Some have thought that Phillips rode Dandy, Col. Carrington's Thoroughbred, but Dandy died of alkali poisoning on the march north to build the fort. Instead, Phillips chose the best horse of the sadly underfed lot the fort had to offer and headed out in the subzero weather wearing a buffalo coat for warmth. Hiding during the day, Phillips still ran into war parties at night, but his longer-legged mount was able to outrun the smaller Indian ponies.

Phillips made it to Horseshoe Station the morning of December 25th, but he was unable to send a telegraph to Fort Laramie because the line was down — either the result of Indian activity or the weather. Jumping back on his horse, Phillips rode the remaining 40 miles to Fort Laramie that same night.

A full-dress Christmas party was in progress when Phillips arrived. Half-frozen, he entered the hall, told his story, and collapsed on the floor. Delayed by deep snows, the rescue party was not able to head to Fort Kearny until January 6th. The beleaguered garrison was ultimately saved, but Phillips' horse made the ultimate sacrifice — he is thought to have died of exhaustion about a quarter-mile from Fort Laramie, where a statue erected in the '30s mistakenly credits Dandy with the unknown horse's heroic feat.

Of all the Old West outlaws, Butch Cassidy was among the smartest in planning his crimes. For the 1889 robbery of the San Miguel Valley Bank in Telluride, Colorado, Butch introduced a new wrinkle — he had fresh horses stationed along the escape route. His gang robbed the bank and headed out with a posse hot on their trail. Trading their tired horses for fresh ones as they passed the prearranged spots, the gang quickly outpaced the posse and its pooped mounts. The tactic worked so well that whenever possible Butch and the Wild Bunch relied on relay horses.

The James Gang also knew their horseflesh. During the Civil War, Jesse and his cohorts rode the best and fastest horses in all of Missouri. And this practice got them out of many a scrape. They continued to ride only the best and fastest after forming the James Gang, but their better horseflesh may have contributed to their downfall. Although they purposefully rode into Northfield, Minnesota, casually in small groups so as not to attract undue attention, they caused a stir — not only because they were all wearing similar dusters, but because their high-quality horses made them stand out like a sore thumb compared with the multiple-use standard horses everyone else was riding.

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