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Mod
kindly provided me with the following:
"Source: Bergstralh, Karen, “Stallions vs. Geldings as War and Riding Horses,” Grantville Gazette
TIDBITS of Historical stuff
The Warhorse
What type of horse made the best warhorse and why?
I fell into this research topic quite by accident, but found it extremely enlightening and decided to share.
One of my dearest friends, who works as a librarian, was helping me with a topic for a WIP (work in progress) and wisely pointed me towards some research around horses used in wartime. I never realized this, but stallions were the horse of choice for the battlefield for years…and years. In short, they were used because they were seen as possessing more fire than other equine options. The stallion was seen as stronger, more daring, and more energetic. Andalusians were the preferred stallions because of the extensive breeding (over 400 years) that made them more compliant and allowing stallions to coexist with minimal problems.
Mares were (of course) thought of as prissy. No one thought a prancing mare would be effective on the battlefield. Plus, a mare on the battlefield with stallions could create quite a stir, particularly when she came into heat. If a stallion could smell a mare, fierce battles and untold destruction were just a couple of the problems that could present themselves.
Additionally, Geldings were not seen as an option. Curiously, they were seen as fearful, timid, and with less stamina for forced marches and were only utilized when there were no other options. I had never considered this. The only exception to this was with the Dragoons. Horses were only used as transportation, and much of their fighting was hand-to-hand. In this case, the geldings were fine to use.
Nobles seemed to prefer stallions as their horse of choice, and when they enlisted, many of them brought their horses. For many, their horse was a statement of their masculinity.
The logic around the selection of the stallion as a warhorse held for hundreds of years, until the American Civil War. When the Southern army formed, many of the recruits were experienced horsemen and came with their own stallions. It was thought that the Southern army would be vastly superior on the battlefield because of the shooting and horsemanship. However, that did not hold for long. The Northern army quickly caught up with the skill and within two years, the Union army was not thought of as inexperienced horsemen. They had become equals.
The problems cited above with mares and geldings, however, became a larger issue. As many of us know, no one thought the war would go on as long as it did, and resources became strained, including the horses. The needs of the war dominated, and the supply of stallions as the battlefield horse dwindled, giving way to the abundant utilization of geldings."
Mod
Currently reading this, a stupendous amount of first-hand research.
Mod
The second sire of the Thoroughbreds. I shall look for a book on the Darley Arabian.
Mod
Well, I have not read this one but there aren't any others. Third sire of the Thoroughbreds.
The greys are all descended from the Alcock Arabian. A grey horse must have grey on both sides of the family as this is a recessive colour.
Mod
Another genuine historical sire whose influence started a distinct breed. By reading this kind of book we also get to understand the life and times of people in the period covered.
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https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2022/...
"Connolly Barracks was one of four military bases to close in 2009. The pre-treaty cavalry barracks was later purchased by Longford County Council, but remains empty today.
"It’s about reimagining new spaces. It's a fantastic site to create a large visual art project," Project Manager Shane Crossan said."
Mod
The Boer War
The Perfect Horse: the Daring U.S. Mission to Rescue the Priceless Stallions Kidnapped by the Nazis
A Horse in My Kit Bag
The North Irish Horse in the Great War
Clare wrote: "Here are some history books about horses in war, but they are not suitable for young people, as they contain a great deal of boring content about politics and troop movements, as well as many distr..."I've read The Perfect Horse twice now, I think, it's a great book
Mod
https://phys.org/news/2022-07-oldest-...
The Horse of the Americas
Misty of Chincoteague
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https://gizmodo.com/medieval-warhorse...
"Oliver Creighton, an archaeologist at the University of Exeter and co-author of the paper, said in a university release that “the warhorse is central to our understanding of medieval English society and culture as both a symbol of status closely associated with the development of aristocratic identity and as a weapon of war famed for its mobility and shock value, changing the face of battle.” But apparently that horse that changed the game had an outsize impact, given its petite size.
The team noted that many different horses could be considered warhorses; there were destriers, often used in tournaments, but also rouncies and trotters, which covered long distances in military campaigns. Once the bones are in an archaeological context, it can be difficult to tell warhorses from ordinary horses.
“There has been much debate amongst archaeologists and historians about this issue for years,” Alan Outram, an archaeologist at the University of Exeter, wrote in an email to Gizmodo. “Whilst the texts refer to the ‘Great Horse,’ they don’t actually say what that means, and that has been understood largely in relation to modern equivalents that are 17/18 hands high. The minimum for a police horse here is 16.2 hands.”
...
Horses are measured by how many hands high they are at their withers—where the neck meets the shoulders. The 13th century is when horses 16 hands high first begin to appear in the archaeological record. But it wasn’t for another century or so that horses became draft sizes (draft horses are famously the big creatures used to haul carriages and other heavy loads.)
In media, the researchers note, shire horses, a type of draft horse, often play the role of warhorses. But shires stand at 18 hands high at their withers, making them much larger than actual warhorses were. The researchers found that horses of even 15 hands high would have been very rare, even when the royal stud network was at its zenith."
The Bayeux Tapestry is shown, and we see that the men of the day, who were not as tall as men today, dangled their feet around the knees and cannon bones of their mounts. Some men are shown wearing spurs. They probably needed long spurs to reach up to the horses' sides.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/1...
Mod
I'm told by M.J. Evans that her book about horses in WW2, featuring the U.S. Coast Guard's mounted beach patrol, has won an award; she says it received the Gold Medal from the Global Book awards! Well done, I had not even heard of the mounted patrol, and it shows horses were relevant in many ways. Thanks for the information!
Mod
Sergeant Reckless is the topic of this blog, and a podcast. Great cover. There are other books telling this tale.
Sgt. Reckless: America's War Horse
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http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article121...
APA citation
HORSE FANCY AND HORSE SENSE. (1904, April 8). The Sydney Stock and Station Journal (NSW : 1896 - 1924), p. 11. Retrieved December 15, 2022, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article121...
I have helped to digitise this article.
Mod
Did you know that in Britain and Ireland, there is a code for creating public statues of famous people on horseback.
If the horse is shown in motion with two front feet off the ground, the rider died in battle.
If the horse is shown with one front foot off the ground, the rider was injured in battle and later died of their injuries.
If the horse has all four feet on the ground, the rider died "in bed" or "of old age".
There are only a couple of statues which are exceptions. However, this code is not strictly adhered to in other countries.
Here is the Wikipedia page for the statue of George IV in Trafalgar Square.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equestr...
Mod
https://phys.org/news/2023-03-untold-...
"The continent of North America is where horses first emerged. Millions of years of evolutionary changes transformed the horse before it became the natural companion of many Indigenous Peoples and the flagship symbol of the Southwest. An international team uniting 87 scientists across 66 institutions around the world now begins to refine the history of the American horse. This work, which embeds cross-disciplinary and cross-cultural research between Western and traditional Indigenous science, is published today in the journal Science.
...
"Further work involving new archaeological excavations at sites dating to or even predating the 16th century, and additional sequencing, will help shed new light on other chapters of the human-horse story in the Americas. Pawnee archaeologist and study co-author Carlton Shield Chief Gover says, "The archaeological science presented in our research further illustrates the necessity for meaningful and genuine collaborative partnerships with Indigenous communities."
The genome analyses did not just address the development of horsemanship within First Nations during the first stages of the American colonization. These analyses demonstrated that the once dominant ancestry found in the horse genome became increasingly diluted through time, gaining ancestry native from British bloodlines. Therefore, the changing landscape of colonial America was recorded in the horse genome: first mainly from Spanish sources, then primarily from British settlers."
More information: William Timothy Treal Taylor et al, Early dispersal of domestic horses into the Great Plains and northern Rockies, Science (2023). DOI: 10.1126/science.adc9691. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.a...
Journal information: Science
Mod
This is one of a series about a brave girl who trains as a chariot driver in Ancient Roman times and gets to race in the Circus Maximus.
Mod
"When we think of horse-drawn vehicles, we tend to think of the iconic covered wagons used by the pioneers, or the fancy carriages fine ladies rode around in during Regency times.
But as I was doing research for my upcoming title in the Double Trouble series, I found an article that showcases many other kinds of horse-drawn vehicles, along with fascinating photos of life in the West.
It got me wondering what my ancestors might have driven or how they got around. What would you have chosen to drive if you lived back then? (Assuming that you could choose anything you wanted)."
Text from the nationalcowboymuseum.org.
"The Western United States is a vast and sometimes inhospitable region. The transportation of people and goods in the West during the late 19th century and early 20th century is the subject of this virtual exhibit.
Exhibition photographs, which are drawn from the Donald C. & Elizabeth M. Dickinson Research Center collections, include images of horses, mules, wagons, carriages, railroad cars, and even bicycles.
Horses and donkeys are shown as individual transportation, pack animals, and as the motive power for a variety of wagons and carriages. Wagon images in the exhibit include a one-horse farm wagon, a chuck wagon, a Conestoga wagon, a hay wagon, and several freight wagons.
More specialized vehicles include a peddler’s wagon, a fire wagon, and a sheep wagon, which is an early kind of house trailer.Vehicles for transporting people include a horse-drawn city bus, stage and touring coaches, and several types of personal carriages.
Also included are two images related to railroads in Oklahoma Territory and a photograph of an early bicycle race in Stillwater, Oklahoma Territory. Finally, the exhibit includes one photograph of a vehicle with an internal combustion engine, the lunch truck on the set of a mid-1920s Tom Mix movie.
Photographic formats represented in the exhibit include postcards, photographic postcards, stereographs, cabinet card photographs, and mounted albumen and gelatin silver prints in a variety of sizes."
https://nationalcowboymuseum.org/expl...
An impressive variety of photos is shown - from a young Comanche man with his mount, to a party of ladies mounted on donkeys for a steep trail ride. Have a look.
Thanks, Kaitlynn!
Mod
Lamplight to Sunlight: Revisiting the lives of pit ponies from new perspectives Anna Rashbrook
"Since the final pit pony took its last shift underground, we have learnt so much about horses that we now stand in awe of the miners and pit ponies who worked together in the darkest, grimy depths of the mines in Britain.
Lamplight to Sunlight dives deep into the gloom of the past to celebrate and tell stories of the horses’ lives below and above ground through this new knowledge of horse psychology and behaviour.
These fresh perspectives shine a light onto those shadowy times with humour, compassion, and an understanding of the debt we owe to those who toiled in the deep."
Mod
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...
Remembering old Rhoady: The finest little mule to ever pull a plow through the loamy lands of America's wiregrass country
by E. W Carswell
Mod
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/the-br...
"“His escapes were quite wonderful. Again and again he survived when death seemed certain and indeed, befell all his neighbours. It was not all hazard; sometimes it was due to his intelligence. I have seen him, even when a shell has burst within a few feet, stand still without a tremor – just turn his head and, unconcerned, look at the smoke of the burst.” - General Jack Seely
Foaled on the Isle of Wight in 1908, Warrior went to war on the Western Front with Winston Churchill’s great friend, General Jack Seely, in 1914. There he survived all imaginable disasters, was active in many famous battles including those at the Somme and Ypres. He was subjected to machine gun attacks by air and survived falling shells at the Battle of the Somme. He was buried under debris and got stuck in the mud at Passchendaele, and was twice trapped under the burning beams of his stables. He was an inspiration to the soldiers as they faced their greatest fears in the battle against bayonets, bullets, gas and tanks. Warrior was a true survivor and his story epitomises the vital roles played by millions of animals.
He came back four years later. Eight million other horses and mules did not. Returning with Jack Seely to his native Isle of Wight in 1918, he lived on until the grand old age of 33, even winning a point to point four years to the day that he had led the charge at Moreuil Wood. His obituary in the Evening Standard in 1941 read ‘Horse the Germans Could Not Kill’.
100 Years Later...
In September 2014, 100 years after Warrior went to war on the Western Front, he was awarded the PDSA Dickin medal, recognised at the animals Victoria Cross and honouring all the animals that served in the Great War.
#EveryHorseRemembered"
Animals In War Service is held on 10th November to honour animals which served in wartime.
Another historical post from The Brooke shows a mule being raised or lowered from a transport ship.
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/the-br...
Mod
"Death Valley, which is now a premiere National Park, lives up to its superlatives. In the U.S., it’s the hottest (Furnace Creek July 10, 1913, 56.7°C or 134.1°F), driest (average rainfall < 2 inches or 5 cm), and lowest (Badwater Basin, 282 ft or 86 m below sea level).
When borax was first seriously mined in Death Valley during the late 1800s, a 20-mule team wagon set-up was used to port 10 tons of borax ore out of Death Valley per wagon load. Each team consisted of two huge wooden wagons—one carrying ore and the other holding 1200 gallons of water—18 mules, two horses, and two men—the driver or skinner, and a swamper, who handled the second wagon’s break and camp chores.
Teams left every fourth day to wend their way out of inhospitable territory along winding roads that necessitated incredible skill. Because how does someone drive wagons and mules that stretch for over 180 feet (55 m) long up a switchback mountain road? By golly, those drivers deserved every penny of the $100 a month they were paid.
The 20-mule train only freighted borax six years. By 1893, railways had been built and the ore was shipped by train. But the 20-mule team became an icon in borax advertising when they made their first appearance at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair. The Pacific Coast Borax Co. used the mule team to popularize the mysterious and iconic images and lore of Death Valley and parleyed that into a campaign to sell borax.
But why borax? What is it? And why was it a household name starting in the early 20th century? Borax is found in fertilizers, fuel additives, soap, antiseptics, and cosmetics. My grandmother even kept a box of 20-Mule Team borax laundry detergent by her washing machine. But companies really pushed it as an essential hygiene product, which is one reason its use exploded.
Borax hit during a time when the culture embraced cleanliness and germ eradication in the Western World. The Great War had just devastated the population of Europe, but when deaths were totaled, more troops had died of sepsis and disease due to poor sanitation than on the actual battlefield. The company’s goal was to “put a box of borax in every home” by pushing the theme that sanitation saves lives. And today, borax is STILL in most homes(!)
The radio program Death Valley Days was just a continuation of the borax advertising campaign, but the P.C. Borax Co. didn’t want anyone sitting at a desk in New York making up stories. They needed someone special, and boy, did they find her. One of the few employees of the McCann Erikson advertising agency who qualified had experience writing for radio and was also a wife and mother of two young children: Ruth Woodman. And she was PRETTY AMAZING.
Born in 1894, a graduate of Vassar, Woodman worked in journalism writing for magazines and traveled in the early 1920s to write articles about Turkey, China, Egypt, and India. She started writing for radio in 1928 and worked on scripts for Dupont’s Cavalcade of America, and Ripley’s Believe It Or Not. She was the perfect choice of the Death Valley assignment with her foreign travel and her radio writing chops because the P.C. Borax Co. insisted on true stories based on real-life pioneers, miners, early travelers, and settlers of the Death Valley region. And to get them, Woodson, who lived with her family in Rye, New York, traveled to Death Valley and its surrounds every summer for nineteen years.
According to her own accounts and notes, she visited rough bars and dusty saloons, packed into areas on horseback to find ghost towns and campsites, gambled with prospectors and miners, sat down with grizzled gas station attendants and bartenders to gather their lived experiences, recollections, stories, and legends. She met locals, including Death Valley Scotty of Scotty’s Castle, and did meticulous research wherever she went. Then she went back to New York and turned her raw notes into thirty-minute scripts seeped in authenticity that captivated audiences for decades. All her letters, papers, and notes for the radio and T.V. show—Oh, did you know she wrote for television, too? Over 700 scripts for both—are archived at the University of Oregon Libraries. Unfortunately, they are not available online. You have to travel to Oregon to get access.
Woodman retired in 1959 and is remembered as one of the pioneering women writers in radio and television. She died in 1970, and for all of you biographers out there looking for your next book about a woman breaking barriers, please, pretty please, write one on Ruth Woodman. Oh, the stories she could tell and already has."
Mod
"Archaeological analysis of a near unique animal cemetery discovered in London nearly 30 years ago has revealed the international scale of horse trading by the elites of late medieval and Tudor England.
Using advanced archaeological science techniques, including studying chemical composition, researchers have been able to identify the likely origins of several physically elite horses and the routes they took to reach British shores during the formative years of their life.
These animals—akin to modern supercars—were sourced from a variety of locations across Europe specifically for their height and strength and imported for use in jousting tournaments and as status symbols of 14th- to 16th-century life. They include three of the tallest animals known from late medieval England, standing up to 1.6 meters or 15.3 hands high, which while quite small by modern standards would have been very impressive for their day."
More information: Alexander Pryor, Isotopic biographies reveal horse rearing and trading networks in medieval London, Science Advances (2024). https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/s...
Journal information: Science Advances
Provided by University of Exeter
Mod
"I wondered about the history of sleigh bells. Originally known as horse bells, the popularity of Christmas sleighs saw them become known as sleigh bells in more recent years.
However, their history dates back thousands of years and they served a useful purpose. Much like modern cyclists use bicycle bells to warn pedestrians, horses wore bells to alert other road users to their presence. They were also a handy way to let the locals know that the merchant had arrived so they would come out and buy his wares.
In the US, the town of East Hampton, Connecticut, rose to prominence for its prolific production of quality bells. You can read more about this interesting little snippet of history below.
Ornaments, including bells of all kinds, have been used to adorn horses worldwide from at least 800 BCE through today. Horse bells attracted good luck; protected against disease, injury and evil; flaunted the owner's wealth and status; and enhanced the horse's natural beauty.
Horse bells have always had a practical purpose as well as a decorative one. They warned pedestrians and other drivers to the approach of oncoming vehicles and alerted potential customers that street vendors and delivery wagons were in the neighborhood."
https://classicbells.com/Info/History...
The link Kaitlynn provides is to a commercial site, a page of history of horse bells. They mention that some people choose to have old bells restored, and they can sell new bells too.
Mod
https://www.rte.ie/brainstorm/2024/09...
Goodbye Old Friend: A Sad Farewell to the Working Horse by Simon Butler
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https://www.rte.ie/news/newslens/2025...
One of the retellings of Alexander:
Fire from Heaven by Mary Renault
Mod
The Mongol Ascension by Andrew Varga
Mod
When found as part of archaeological dig sites, these bones have not always been treated with the same respect as human bones. But a movement is under way to restore respect for animal bones in museum work.
Some photos are included.
https://phys.org/news/2025-03-dont-ar...
"Ward is a member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe in South Dakota and a member of the Mnicoujou and Hunkpapa bands of the Lakota Nation. Lakota traditions, like those of many other Native American groups in the West, place animals at the center of their spirituality and view them as relatives.
"You care for horses. You not only feed and water them, but you connect with them on a personal, spiritual level," Ward said. "Even when they pass on, you still respect and honor them as non-human relatives. You don't throw them in plastic bags or boxes."
Today, he's leading a team of archaeologists and Indigenous scholars urging museums around the country to take a more respectful approach to caring for animal remains. It's an example of what the researchers call "cultural humility," an approach to engaging with different cultures that emphasizes self reflection, lifelong learning and recognizing power imbalances. The team says that museums must partner with Native American groups to rethink how they catalogue, store and display remains.
...
"Ancient peoples hunted and butchered the animals following the end of the last Ice Age roughly 11,000 years ago. Archaeologists originally stored nearly 200 bison skulls in plaster or burlap casts. But decades later, many of those casts were fragmenting, threatening the remains inside.
Over several months, the team transferred the skulls to stable and open casts and arranged them safely on shelves in a new storage space. In February 2024, a delegation of Lakota elders traveled to the CU Boulder campus to meet with researchers and to see the bison collection. Chief Harold Left Heron spoke and sang a blessing in the Lakota language as he stood next to the remains.
"One of their suggestions was to keep these animals together as a herd in the museum, as they might have been in life," Taylor said.
Going forward, he said, the museum will continue seeking out opportunities to build community perspectives into the care of ancient animal remains."
More information: Chance Ward et al, Toward Legal, Ethical, and Culturally Informed Care of Animal Remains in American Museum Collections, Advances in Archaeological Practice (2025).
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journa...
Provided by University of Colorado at Boulder
Mod
"Cathy's first book releases April 1 (see more about it below). It's a wonderful look at the history of thoroughbred horse racing and breeding in Montana. She spent several years researching the various stories about the horses, the owners, and the jockeys -- she even traveled to Kentucky and researched at the Keenland Museum in Lexington. Her perseverance to research and write this incredible book is inspiring, and I'm so happy she will soon hold the book in her hands!
History and Horses: Cathy Moser's Thoroughbred Book
When Montana Outraced the East: The Reign of Western Thoroughbreds, 1886 - 1900, is the historical account of Montana's thoroughbred horses, owners, trainers, and jockeys. My friend Cathy Moser (Catharine Melin-Moser) loves Montana history and she loves horses, and she proposed this book idea to editors at University of Oklahoma Press during a writer's conference. They accepted her proposal, and, after spending several years researching and writing, Cathy's debut book releases April 1.
If you enjoy history and horses like Cathy, you will enjoy this book! It features several historical photos of the horses as well as some of the owners, such as Montana's copper king, Marcus Daley, and trainers and jockeys. Cathy's research took her several Montana towns, many of them very small, such as Twin Bridges, where owners resided and kept their thoroughbreds, as well as to Lexington, Kentucky, home of the Kentucky Derby.
Find Cathy's book at the University of Oklahoma Press website:
https://www.oupress.com/9780806195315...
You can also find it on Amazon here:
https://www.amazon.com/When-Montana-O...
When Montana Outraced the East: The Reign of Western Thoroughbreds, 1886–1900 by Catharine Melin-Moser.
Mod
"Two families linked by a heroic Scottish horse that served in some of the bloodiest battles of World War One have met for the first time.
When the conflict started in 1914, Vic was a farm horse owned by the McGregor family near Montrose.
She was specially chosen to serve with Cpt Alexander Wallace in France – and was the only horse from the area to return from the war.
Vic was later briefly reunited with Cpt Wallace, who arranged for her to return to Angus and live out the rest of her life at the McGregors' farm.
More than 100 years later, the soldier's descendants have travelled from the US to meet the McGregors and hand over Cpt Wallace's war diaries to the Montrose Air Station Museum."
Horse Lovers Central
Books mentioned in this topic
First to Damascus: The Story of the Australian Light Horse and Lawrence of Arabia (other topics)War Horse (other topics)
Light horse to Damascus (other topics)
The North Irish Horse in the Great War (other topics)
When Montana Outraced the East: The Reign of Western Thoroughbreds, 1886–1900 (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
Gayle Irwin (other topics)Catharine Melin-Moser (other topics)
Andrew Varga (other topics)
Mary Renault (other topics)
Simon Butler (other topics)
More...
For instance, during the Battle of Waterloo, Napoleon rode a bay horse called Marengo (named after a land battle he won) and Wellington (who was Irish) rode a grey Irish bred horse called Copenhagen (after a sea battle won by Nelson).
While The Mule
tells us about the general use of mules in history, including land development and war.
Let's collect stories here.