SADDLERS SUPPEME

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 892, 8 February 1930, Page 17

SADDLERS SUPPEME

. SK a city youth to \ \ | ■ —irr^— zM I I define the action j I :-i ] perhaps is canter'j times out of* ten | ii_jic=iM "n=B I he is perplexed and unable to do so. Would his country cousin be any the wiser in this age of mechanised farming? On this point it is perhaps safe to assume that the farm-bred boy has. at least, an inkling of what is meant, and could at any rate say if a horse were galloping, cantering, walking or trotting. In all probability he would not be able: to explain any action other than galloping and trotting. That is where the show ring materially assists in the education of our youth, be they from the city, the dairy farm, the sheep station, or the home or the bush pioneer. It is not only in the show ring however, that one can watch and learn what is, to the lover of the horse, a thing of pure delight—tue many actions of the saddle horse. The race-course provides excellent opportunity for this study, for on the track every known action --id occasionally an unknown gait—is presented by that most intelligent of all animals, the thoroughbred.

In North America, breeders make a ►eciality of breeding the many-gaited

saddle horse, and competitions are staged frequently for 3 to 5-gaited horses. Even world titles are at stake.

These 3 to 5-gaited animals are famous for their rhythm and perfection of style and are usually superbly mounted and handled by their enthusiastic riders. Contests such as this are practically unknown in New Zealand, although occasionally they are to be found in the show ring. Of course the breeding and education of these famous saddle horses is an expensive undertaking.

Horse racing as we know it is not quite so strong in popularity in the United States and Canada. No doubt it is this that is in a large measure responsible for the cultivation of the many-gaited thoroughbred, for the love of the horse is firmly embedded in all people descended from good old English stock. Therefore, with racing more or less confined to certain limits in North America, it is not to be wondered that this devotion to the horse seeks an outlet in

another direction. Hence the breeding of the many-gaited thoroughbred. Kentucky, the stronghold of racing in the United States, is also the State renowned for the production of the walk-trot-canter horse and the singlestepper.

The Americans are noted for their thoroughness, and this they have

brought to bear on horse-breeding. Now their gaited horses are world famous. No doubt it is this also that enables American trotters and pacers to lead the world in this branch of sport. The Dominion of New Zealand must now surely be a close second in this successful form of sport; but that is by the way. Not many of those most actively associated with horses here are acquainted with the higlily-speeiali3ed accomplishments of the saddle horse. What the Five Gaits Mean The five gaits are; 1, flatfooted walk; 2, slow-gait or stepping pace (called by horsemen the running walk fox-trot or the nodding w alk); 3, the common trot; 4, the rack (singleloot); and 5, the canter (perhaps bet--ter known as hand-gallop). The basal gait of all horses is the ilat-leoted walk. In this the animal moves forward with all feet in line, I giving a slow 1-2-3-4 beat. The front foot is followed by the diagonal hind foot and then the other two follow each in order. This gait should be done with a snappy, quick, elastic movement, so that the rider is scarcely aware of the impact of'the 1 horse's foot with the ground. The most popular of the slow gait* !is the running walk —stepping pace

and fox-trot are also correct —a modified flatfooted walk done by the animal going at a more rapid pace, and breaking the flat-footed walk Into a slow run or amble. The stepping pace is a modified pace, which corre sponds to the running walk in speed, but is a slow' variant of natural pacers, usually both feet on each side going forward at the same time or nearly so, as in the fast pace, but without the side motion resultant from the sway of the fast pace. The standard trot is executed by the horse alternately lifting the two diagonal feet at the same time, striking the ground with almost a 1-2-3-4 beat. The observer in front of the trotting horse should find the legs moving forward in horizontal lines. From the side one sees the folding and lifting of the knees and the flexing of the hocks —to best advantage. The fastest and most spectacular gait ever developed in saddle horses is the rack, or single-foot. This is a cross gait, offshoot of the trot and pace. The horse’s feet strike the ground in a regular pitter-patter, one after the other, no two coming to earth at the same instant. It is the acme of perfection and comfort to the rider and is the gait so highly prized and so delicately developed by the breeders and trainers of this particular strain of saddle horse. To see

a well-practiced aristocrat of the Kentucky saddler type coming head-on along some shaded bridle path, and to listen to the rhythm of his resounding hoofbeats is indeed an experience that will quicken the heartbeats of almost any human being, horseman or otherwise.

The canter consists of a very slow gallop. It is one of the most pleasing of all saddle gaits. The rack is the most spectacular, while the walk and trot by far the most useful. All three-gaited horses are trained to go at a flat-footed walk, plain trot and canter only; and there is no difference in their performance of these

gaits from that of the flve-gaited horses. Then why all this difference and classification in gaits? Here is the explanation. Saddle Horses * Lons History History would lose much of its charm if the deeds of the horseman of all ages were eliminated. Looking back over the centuries, we find that King Sargon I. (3800 8.C.) rode In his chariots more than two thousand years before there is an exhibition of the horse in the Egyptian sculptures, or any proof of the animal’s

existence in Syria; whence the dwellers of the Nile received their steeds through Bedouin Conquerors. The horses of the ancient Babylonians came from Persia, and the original source of all these is now conceded to have been in Central Asia, from which last-named area the animals also passed into Europe, thence into Greece, Rome and over the Alps to the frozen Fiords of Norway. None of these horses, however, are credited with being other than straigbt-gaited (that is having three gaits, walk —trot —run). The British horse is as old as history, and was found to oe in use in

Britain when the Romans first made conquest in the islands there. Along the southern shores of the Mediterranean, across the sanded deserts of the broad Sahara, into the rocky wastes of bleak Morocco, rode; hordes of turbanned horsemen.- From the straits of Spanish Gibraltar and the sun-drenched slopes of Andalusia to the tide-covered tundras of the Baltic Sea, the story of the saddle horse goes hand in hand with the march of human progress. And it is from the history of these later climes that we first find traces,of the pacing sidewheelers that flourished and popularised the riding game during the alternate periods of war and peace time

which came with the slow-changing years. Through the Nejdee mounts of Arabia and the Berber steeds of the Barbary coast have sprung, by a mingling of these ancient bloods with other strains, all of the potent reproducing horse-types of signal value in the civilised world, including the Percheron of France, the Orloff of Russia, the Warhorse of Austria, the Thoroughbred of England and the Denmark of Kentucky. And it is from among these far-famed breeds that we read of the ambling chargers whose names resound in song and story.

Bucephalus, the charger of Alex-; ander the Great; Marengo, the famous white horse cf Napoleon; Copenhagen, the favourite mount of the Duke of Wellington; and others equally renow'ned in world history, were all amblers or racking walkers. Tales of the pacing clan are also to be found in the novels of Sir Walter Scott, Blackstone and Fennimore Cooper. The walk-trot, and canter are gaits natural to all breeds of horses. What are known as saddle gaits, while not easy to explain, were known in England long before the settlement of other continents. When the Romans built the first

paved highways across the moors and fens of England, they found the inhabitants of the countryside riding curious-gaited ambling steeds of surpassing ease under saddle. Caesar thought them so valuable that he carried many to Rome; and the British horses were for a considerable period afterward much sought after in various parts of the Roman empire. Later, these same little English horres became so prized upon the Continent that in order to preserve the monopoly of the breed a law was passed in A.D. 930, prohibiting the exportation of the animals from the British Isles.

In 1609, English ships landing at Jamestown, in Virginia, brought six mares and a stallion over. And during 1629, more horses were taken into the plantations of Massachusetts Bay, by one Francis Higginson, formerly of Leicestershire, England, from which county the animals were imported.

New York first received its horses in 1625. They came from Holland, of the Flanders breed. Then Maryland and South Carolina imported blooded stock in increasing numbers.

In the very curious work “America Dissected,’’ by Rev. Jas. McSparran, D.D., which was published as an ap-

pendix to the history of the Church j of Narragansett (1721-59) there appears the following: “As the whole of this province, two hundred miles up and to the sea, is all a champaign and without stones, they have plenty of a small sort of horses, the best saddlers in the world, like the 1 ) tt#e Scotch Galloways. And 1 have often upon these pacing horses ridden 60 to 70 miles in a day —and likewise here In New England, where the roads are stony and uneven —” Farther on he speaks more pointedly of the same breed: “The produce of this colony (Rhode Island) is principally butter and cheese, fat cattle, wool, and fine horses w’hich are exported to all parts of English America. They are remarkable for fleetness and swift pacing, and I have seen some of them pace a mile in a little more than two minutes and less than three. "These horses,” he adds, "are called the ‘Narragansett Pacers.’ ” Thus we find the records of pacing saddle horses cropping out in the early history of the English colonies. Dominion followers of the sport of trotting will be considerably interested in the fact that 200 years ago pacers that could cover a mile in a little over two minutes were almost common in the biggest and newest of Britain’s colonies. It can be taken for

granted that in those days the timing was not done on watered and rolled turf courses such as are in evidence today. Apparently pacers have not made the improvement that one has been led to believe. Either that, or, more likely still, the breed has weakened.

These old time pacers were esteemed, not only for their speed, but for the amble which made the gait most excellent for long journeys. Indeed there are those who maintain stoutly that the virtues of the American trotter as well as the Kentucky saddlers of today descended through these speedy and one-time popular Narragansett pacers.

From the time that superior horses began to be imported into America, and that was in the colonial era. there have always been a few Arabs and Barbs taken over of various degrees

of excellence. All of the English thoroughbreds were rich In the blood—imported Messenger among them. They came also into Canada with the French. And the Spanish conquistadors who crossed the Mississippi and also those who went to California from Mexico brought many saddle horses, some of which were known to be of the pacing gait. Then Teysul, king of Nejd (Arabia) i made a present of 40 stallions and

mares to the Sultan of Turkey and from this source came Zilcaade, the grand sire of the Morgan horse Goldust. About this time the Arab stalhou Leopold was given to General Grant (1879) and the Barb sire, Linden Tree, was also presented to him by the then Sultan Abdul Azeez. British ProducA Home Again Most men unacquainted with the easy gaits of a Kentucky saddle horse, as used in his native counties, would think it rather strange (or a man to go courting on horseback and arrive at his destination “hot and mussed up.” But these easy-gaited saddlers do not distress a rider any more than a hansom cab or modem automobile. In that genei'ally warm climate a thoroughbred or trottlug horse would get the rider so warm that; a change of clothes would be promptly necessary, but with one of the Denmark single-footers a horsemau finds no such need. Indeed anyone accustomed to the climate and saddle can readily a:tend to business and social duties without the least inconvenience. The prevailing size of the Denmarks is around 15.2, and their average weight 1,050 pounds. In colour they are usually bays or chestnuts, though there are browns, blacks rand greys. ! and at rare intervals a roan. The

American Saddle Horse Breeders’ Association keeps and putdishes a register affirming that the following sires are the founders of the type: Denmark (thoroughbred), by imported Hedgeford; John Dillard, by Indian Chief (Canadian); Tom Hal, imported from Canada; Cabell’s Lexington, by Gist's Black Hawk (Morgan); Coleman's Eureka, thoroughbred and Morgan; Van Meters Waxy, thoroughbred; Stump Dealer, thoroughbred; Peter’s Halcorn, Hackney outcross; Davy Crockett, breeding uncertain; and Pat Cliburne, by Burton’s Grey Diamond. * This wide inclusion is hospitable and probably just, for the blood of all | these horses co-mingling with the ! older pacing stock has made the Kentucky saddlers what they are today. Among them all the Denmarks are pre-eminent. That they should be a reproducing type is no doubt due to the oriental blood in the thoroughbreds and the fresh infusions that came with the Barbs and Arabs and from other and more recent sources, more than a little of which is traceable to the valuable strains of high quality Hackney and pacing blood that was taken to Kentucky from Ontario, Canada, and represents a genuius 1 British strain.