Horses in Society: A Story of Animal Breeding and Marketing Culture, 1800–1920 9781442675872

Table of contents :
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Modern Purebred Breeding: A Scientific or Cultural Method?
Part One. The Breeding of Horses
2. The Light Horse
3. The Heavy Horse
4. The Farmer’s Horse
Part Two. An International Horse Market: The Remount Story
5. Finding Horses for the British Army
6. American Horses and War: A National and International Issue
7. Canada’s Equine War Effort: A Story of Conflicting Interests
Part Three. Governments and Horse Improvement
8. Understanding Heredity: The 1890 Report of the British Royal Commission on Horse Breeding
9. Producing Better Horses in the United States: Attempts to Control Fraudulent Activity and Market Share
10. The Canadian Experience in Horse Regulation: Continental and National Concerns
Part Four. Society and Horses
11. Aspects of a Pervasive Horse Culture in Society
12. Conclusion
Notes
Note on Sources
Index

Citation preview

HORSES IN SOCIETY A Story of Animal Breeding and Marketing Culture, 1800 –1920

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HORSES IN SOCIET Y A Story of Animal Breeding and Marketing, 1800–1920

Margaret E. Derry

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS Toronto Buffalo London

www.utppublishing.com © University of Toronto Press Incorporated 2006 Toronto Buffalo London Printed in Canada ISBN-13: 978-0-8020-9112-3 ISBN-10: 0-8020-9112-1

Printed on acid-free paper

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Derry, Margaret Elsinor, 1945– Horses in society : a story of animal breeding and marketing culture, 1800–1920 / Margaret E. Derry. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-8020-9112-3 ISBN-10: 0-8020-9112-1 1. Horses – Breeding – History – 19th century. 2. Horses –Breeding – History – 20th century. 3. Horse industry – History – 19th century. 4. Horse industry – History – 20th century. 5. Horses – Social aspects – History – 19th century. 6. Horses – Social aspects – History – 20th century. I. Title. SF283.D47 2006

636.190099034

C2005-907531-7

University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its publishing program of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council. University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial support for its publishing activities of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP). This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Aid to Scholarly Publications Programme, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada

In loving memory of my parents, Bill and Elsinor DeRoche

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Contents

Acknowledgments

ix

Introduction xi 1 Modern Purebred Breeding: A Scientific or Cultural Method? 3 Part One. The Breeding of Horses 2 The Light Horse

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3 The Heavy Horse

48

4 The Farmer’s Horse 79 Part Two. An International Horse Market: The Remount Story 5 Finding Horses for the British Army

101

6 American Horses and War: A National and International Issue

121

7 Canada’s Equine War Effort: A Story of Conflicting Interests 141 Part Three. Governments and Horse Improvement 8 Understanding Heredity: The 1890 Report of the British Royal Commission on Horse Breeding 159

viii Contents

9 Producing Better Horses in the United States: Attempts to Control Fraudulent Activity and Market Share 172 10 The Canadian Experience in Horse Regulation: Continental and National Concerns 186 Part Four. Society and Horses 11 Aspects of a Pervasive Horse Culture in Society 12 Conclusion 232 Notes 249 Note on Sources Index 291

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Acknowledgments

I began to collect information for this book when I was writing my doctoral thesis, almost ten years ago. I set aside the horse material I found in the farm press, waiting until I had time to delve into the subject in more depth. After producing two monographs on the breeding of cattle, dogs, and Arabian horses, I returned to the story of the working horse in the Western world and spent a good deal of the last three years on this project. The result is this book. It has been published with the help of a grant from the Humanities and Social Sciences Federation of Canada, using the funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Two anonynous readers provided support and helpful suggestions. Rosemary Shipton, a most skilful editor, brought the manuscript into better literary shape. Len Husband and Frances Mundy at the University of Toronto Press helped make this book possible. My thanks to all these people.

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Introduction

Today, horses provide recreation for many people in Western countries, and the equine population, after experiencing a period of shrinking numbers, has risen in response to such demand. Before 1920, however, horses were not simply sport animals: they were vital to agriculture, industry, urban life, and the military. In this book I describe the vanished equine world of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in Canada, the United States, and Britain, primarily, and, in the process, I hope not only to demystify its dynamics but to show that a study of horses can enrich our understanding of some larger issues too. Aspects of the international economy and war, the role of Canada and the United States in European affairs, the relationship between Canada and the United States, the interaction of contemporary attitudes to heredity and evolutionary theory with the growth of the biological sciences, and the development of modern medicine are all reflected in an appreciation of how horses were bred, what they did in society over a period of rapidly developing technology, and the structures put in place to support them. Given that horses played a crucial role in all aspects of human society until recent times, it is strange that little study of the way horse work changed over time, or even of what horses actually looked like, has been done. It is often assumed, for example, that workhorses were big and belonged either to the heavy draft breeds or to various crosses of them. Yet even at the height of popularity of the heavy horse, many animals bred for work on farms or in cities continued to be light and small. Another misconception holds that, by the late nineteenth century, the heavy horse had existed for centuries. Medieval knights, it is believed, used such horses in battle, because the armour worn by both men and horses weighed so much.1 But if we examine the medieval armour made

xii Introduction

for horses, the shape indicates that the animals could not have been similar to the heavy Percheron or Shire horses we know today. Exhibits in the Royal Palace museum of Madrid, for example, make it clear that equine metal protection in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period fit small, stout horses known as cobs.2 The large draft type of horse came into existence only within the time frame of this study, and the story of the development of the heavy horse in relation to the light horse is central to this book. Most people think that the emergence of superior technology at the beginning of the twentieth century brought about the final demise of the working animal. Though they are correct in the assumption that the tractor and the car made horses obsolete for most work purposes, once roads were improved, this point alone does little to illuminate the link between technology and the horse. The connection is ancient, and it would be wrong to infer that it dated from the advent of the internal combustion engine or even the Industrial Revolution. Early forms of technology helped to domesticate the horse: riding animals needed harnesses to control them, and primitive carts had to be manufactured, even before the invention of the wheel. It would be thousands of years after domestication before horses supplied the traction we associate most commonly them with – agricultural work. The interrelationship of technology with horses is not just old but also complex. The technology of the industrial age, for example, both created the heavy draft horse and made it redundant. The steam engine, because of its unprecedented capacity to transport people and goods, triggered an almost insatiable need for horses, particularly for the heavier types. Because trains and ships moved between general terminal locations, horses were required for anything – or anyone – to reach its final destination. Some of the most interesting photographs of transatlantic shipping in the early twentieth century show the relationship of horses to the steam engine. Gigantic vessels can be seen docked beside a sea of wagons and buggies pulled by light carriage horses; heavy draft animals haul gigantic propellers and rudders to the building site of ships. Technology in the form of the internal combustion engine ended the animal’s usefulness. Cars and trucks could reach terminal points. When roads became good enough to withstand winter weather conditions, horses were no longer needed for transportation, even seasonally. And ultimately, gasoline tractors provided for efficient agricultural traction in field work. I explain the evolution of heavy drafts by focusing on the history of the

Introduction

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Clydesdale and the Shire horse in Britain and North America, and of the Percheron in France and North America. Because heavy horses and their role in society must always be seen in contrast to that of light animals, I review the other arm of the working-horse world by looking at the development of the Thoroughbred in Britain and the Standardbred in North America. Central to this discussion is an appreciation for the role that pedigrees played in horse breeding, the degree of understanding of heredity that existed at any particular time, the way that pedigrees and knowledge of heredity played a role in the promotion of quality and improvement in horses, and the way that all these points interacted with or reflected economic factors. The historical background to modern purebred breeding allows me to link attitudes to horse breeding with contemporary aspects of science and culture. Impressions arising from such diverse fields as genetics, eugenics, economics, and environmental or evolutionary biology influenced horse breeders. Connections to culture were as strong as they were to science, and economic factors also played a major role in horse-breeding systems. Eugenics, a movement lying in some twilight zone between science and culture, not only blurred the roots of science and culture in horse-breeding methodology but also coloured what would define equine quality. Emerging ‘types’ and ‘breeds’ of working horses became part of a complicated international market. I describe that market by outlining the way one sector of it operated: how a demand for army horses, or what was known as ‘remounts,’ worked over the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Remount issues concerned British and North American governments, both for market and for defence reasons. The remount story shows how horses, already changed by the evolving technology on farms, in cities, and in lumber camps, were required to fit into another but different specialized service. The remount question, then, highlights the critical connection between technology and horses, and often does so in curious ways. During the First World War, for example, the animals could be considered useful for combat against the latest types of technology: they played a key role in the capturing of enemy aircraft.3 The war market for horses in North America also revealed that the continental economy could be as significant as a national one, and that war and peace conditions within countries shaped the way the horse trade functioned. The demand for various types of horses to serve in the armed forces led to new attempts at controlling production in Britain and North America. In the process, British and North American authorities came to

xiv Introduction

1 When enemy aircraft had engine trouble or were damaged by shelling, the British cavalry section of the Army of Egypt was used to capture the machine and its occupants. The horsed troops calculated where the descent would take place, raced to the scene, and surrounded the plane. The cavalry was then in a position to move in and take possession of the aircraft and its men as it reached the ground. Illustrated London News, 24 November 1917, front page.

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appreciate how differently European countries handled their needs through horse breeding, and my story therefore involves an overview of government involvement with horses in such countries as France, Prussia (later Germany), Austria-Hungary, Russia, and Italy. Britain introduced strategies to encourage better horse breeding, most of which focused on the Thoroughbred. In the North American nations, movements in support of stallion enrolment legislation developed in the late nineteenth century, as these countries tried to adopt certain European approaches. But they did so for complicated reasons which, in turn, reflected pressure from interest groups and attitudes towards heredity. The regulation of breeding stallions through enrolment and/or inspection legislation – both designed to ‘certify’ that the animals qualified as good breeding animals – was linked to the way contemporary breeders appreciated the role of purebred breeding in genetics (or what might be called pregenetics before 1900). Similarly, the movement to control the activities of breeding stallions at least partially reflected attempts by breeders to establish ownership of intellectual property in certain horses. International markets triggered what might be described as a sophisticated industry designed to market biological commodities, which varied hugely in perceived quality. The variation itself allowed for the development of complicated trade patterns. I look at joint ownership systems for stallions – companies and syndicates, and the way they functioned in Canada and the United States. Importing dealers often used a company or syndicate structure to practise fraudulent selling activities. Crossborder issues between Canada and the United States with respect to stallion syndication exacerbated the situation. European involvement further complicated issues in North America. Complex horse-marketing structures encouraged creative ways of selling defective stock, and I explain some of the horse-trading tricks. The scams, while interesting in themselves, reveal how aspects of horse culture could be intertwined with one another. It is difficult, for example, to separate the level of knowledge arising from animal medicine from these practices. The desire to prevent and understand problems in horses, particularly in their legs, feet, and lungs, played a role in the evolution of theories about heredity. What made a horse sound in its legs and feet? Could a poorly formed horse pass this quality on to its offspring? Were purebred horses naturally good in their feet and legs? These questions, increasingly, concerned the veterinary profession. Stallion enrolment and inspection movements encouraged the growth of the veterinarian profession by creating a greater demand. What stal-

xvi Introduction

lions should be enrolled, and who would inspect them? Veterinarians would be critical to the enforcement of the regulations. Governments had always been concerned with the veterinary profession because of army dependence on horses, and I review aspects of veterinary history to show how military interest in horses drove the development of veterinary schools in Britain. Until the end of the period under study, vets continued to deal with traditional equine issues – the care of legs and feet – even though microscopy and laboratory work on the problem of immunity had come to play a role in animal medicine. Attitudes to glanders, a horse disease, serve as an example of veterinary approaches to infectious disease and also reveal how horse illness played a significant role in the rise of comparative pathology. Horse conditions encouraged the rise of a humanitarian attitude in the general public. I provide some examples of that movement and then focus on how it emerged in literature, specifically in Anna Sewell’s Black Beauty. Why has that book about a horse captured the imagination of millions of people over several generations? The story of horse culture is enlarged by a discussion of the paintings of two artists who devoted their talent to the execution of horse images over the period under study. Characteristics that were unique to this period are illustrated in the paintings: they saw the working horse as a hero. Before we begin, a few explanations are in order. First, this book looks at what happened to horses because of technology rather than at the evolution of technology in its own right. The story of technology’s development is huge, and a comprehensive review of the subject is beyond the scope of this book. Scholarly work often approaches the topic by assessing how technology evolved and then noting briefly that it eliminated the need for horse power. Horses tend to play a passive role in these studies.4 Treatises dealing with the history of the horse often look at the problem of the relationship of technology to the species from another angle: the effects of changes in technology on the welfare of certain types of horses.5 What is of particular interest to me, however, is understanding the alterations people thought were needed to make the horse fit better with the developing technology, and what practices breeders suggested as strategies to accomplish those changes. I also assess how efficiently the new selective breeding methods prepared the animals for the various roles horses were required to play in society because of the ever shifting changes in technology. Second, the story I tell must rely heavily on qualitative information. Numerical data, such as that arising from censuses, do not normally

Introduction

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address the questions I deal with in the book. Poor data have, in fact, made the subject of horse breeding difficult to study as historians have noted.6 However, lengthy discussions about issues such as the breeding for heavy and light horses, the meaning of type and breed, systems for remount structures, and the organization of horse markets do occur in government documents and in the farm press. British, American, and Canadian sources are rich in written material on these subjects. I use this type of commentary, in conjunction with secondary sources dealing with the horse world. Third, I review the horse situation in the armed forces of many countries, but I make no effort to describe the general military structure of any nation. Surprisingly little material has been written on horses in war, or on what one author described as the ‘Horse Question,’ partly because data available on the subject are often unreliable.7 I review, only roughly, how one country might compare to another in its scale of horse buying, what it paid for stock, and what types were desired. I do not give an exhaustive study of the relationship of horses to armies by looking, for example, at the rise of the quartermaster system, which purchased horses and provisioned harness and hay. I do not attempt to understand the complex structures put in place to transport horses and equine supplies to places of combat. The horse was so integrated into this society that it shaped, and was shaped by, many facets of European and North American life. It is impossible to separate horse production from marketing concerns or from the rules of biology, neither of which were well understood by the men actually breeding the animals. Purebred breeding theory interacted with traditional attitudes to horse breeding, and, in doing so, introduced splinters of science and culture emanating from the biological sciences. But both purebred breeding and horse breeding influenced developing theory within these sciences. Horse breeders thought about the meaning of heredity as much as evolutionary biologists did. The story of the working horse in this period, then, is about much more than the story of the old farm horse, or even the carriage, tramway, war, or lumber company horse. It is a story of how integral the horse was to the society of that time, and of the breeding, marketing, and medical systems that supported the animals.

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HORSES IN SOCIETY

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ONE

Modern Purebred Breeding: A Scientific or Cultural Method?

Expanding industrialization and more sophisticated technology resulted in a growing demand for horses over the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and created an ever widening geographic trade in them. Given the demand, greater variation in types appeared in the equine population, and theories abounded on how best to create them. All breeding ideology in Europe and North America with respect to horses must, however, be looked at in relation to the way modern purebred breeding methodology developed and how it interacted with traditional horse-breeding theory. An understanding of purebred breeding, then, is critical to my story about the horse. In this chapter I explain the modern purebred system – its beginnings, the relationship of concepts embedded in the method to evolving scientific knowledge, and the way cultural patterns played a role in purebred breeding. The system was complex and developed from a collage of factors relating to both science and culture, all of which could be irrevocably intertwined with each other. The roots of modern purebred breeding are ancient and arose even before the advent of recorded human history. Purebred breeding is, quite simply, a modern form of animal breeding, an occupation that dates back to the time of domestication at least 14,000 years ago. The modern method perpetuates certain patterns that began at that time. One such pattern is the ongoing restriction of genetic potential – a basic characteristic of domestication itself. First, humans limited genetic input to a species by cutting animals they wanted away from the larger gene pool of their wild counterparts. Next, humans practised artificial selection, further winnowing out possible genetic variation.1 These practises resulted in domestic animals, which have less acute hearing and sight

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Horses in Society

and smaller brains, retain juvenile characteristics into adulthood (an effect known as neoteny), reach maturity earlier, and have greater fertility than their wild counterparts.2 Continued artificial selection of domestic animals led, over the years, to variation within the domesticated sectors of any particular species. Different types of dogs, cattle, and horses existed by four thousand years ago,3 but it was not until the Early Modern period in Europe that the groundwork was laid for the huge variety of types within domestic animal species we see today. The purebred breeding method, with its greater emphasis on genetic restriction, allowed for that phenomenon. Two separate and significant approaches to animal breeding that emerged in Britain in the eighteenth century profoundly changed approaches in the Western world to the production of all domestic animals, and, from the union of the two, purebred breeding was born. The first evolved out of the philosophy of race constancy that led to the creation and subsequent breeding of the Thoroughbred horse in Britain. That, in turn, led naturally to the keeping of equine genealogy records. The European horse breeder J. Justinus explained in 1815 how the connection of pedigree breeding to race constancy worked: good horses resulted from maintaining an ancient lineage and from preserving purity. Selection should be done on the basis of genealogy, because that proved purity and maintained vigour and strength.4 Inbreeding did not appear to be connected to these notions of purity and genealogy. While the eighteenth-century writer William Marshall believed that inbreeding methods helped to develop the evolving Thoroughbred (he even argued that the practice originated at Newmarket, the centre of the racing Thoroughbred), it seems clear that he was mistaken. The most famous breeder of farm animals over the eighteenth century claimed that horse breeders had always been reluctant to use the method, and he criticized them for not doing so.5 Modern research on early Thoroughbred horsebreeding records confirms that inbreeding did not play a significant role in the making of the breed.6 Studies show that eighteenth-century horse breeders believed that animals should be selected on the basis of pedigrees, because these private records could guarantee the absence of inbreeding.7 By the late eighteenth century an organized and public system of recording had been established for the racing Thoroughbred horse, but this stud book was not intended to help people make breeding decisions. No one thought of these pedigrees replacing the private records of individual breeders and subsequently being used as selective devices

Modern Purebred Breeding

5

2 Whistlejacket was foaled in 1749, and, at the age of ten years, won a famous race with a distance of 4 miles. George Stubbs, the best known horse painter of all time, captured his great beauty in this painting, executed in 1762 for the second Marquess of Rockingham. Whistlejacket, George Stubbs, oil on canvas, 1762, National Gallery, London.

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for breeding. This new recording arose out of the need to regulate the racing industry. In 1791 James Weatherby compiled identification information for racing horses and published them in what was called the General Stud Book (GSB). If Weatherby had any genealogical records, he included them. The GSB was designed to stop falsified data (such as the age of the horse) being used for entry in races.8 The attachment of a public registry for the recording of pedigrees seemed to encourage the distaste for inbreeding in horses which had become so evident by the end of the eighteenth century.9 Three features in the GSB, unrelated to the issue of inbreeding, proved to be crucial for the future of all animal breeding. First, having a ‘pedigree’ in the GSB made a horse more valuable; the ability to pin down the animal’s identity provided a form of guarantee to the buyer. Second, the separation of horses by type from all others, through this identification or a guarantee process by the GSB, initiated a system that eventually protected intellectual property in living things. Third, the GSB maintained records in a public registry, something quite different from private record keeping by breeders. There would be huge ramifications from these simple facts. At the same time that horse breeders were creating the Thoroughbred, some British farmers attempted more systematically to make farm stock better meet market demands.10 This move to deliberately alter domestic animals (as opposed to wildlife, normally viewed as something to be contained, observed, or eliminated) had gathered momentum by the late eighteenth century.11 The roots of a new concern with farm animal breeding lay in scientific and technological changes in British agriculture. Farming shifted in that country because of a rising demand for food. The number of people in England and Wales grew from 6 million in 1750 to 18 million in 1850 (and 33 million by 1900). This dramatic increase obviously meant additional mouths to feed, and, when accompanied by both urbanization and industrialization, the situation proved even more critical. These patterns drew greater numbers of rural people away from food production, making it imperative that farming methods become more efficient.12 At the same time, the per capita demand for meat in particular rose dramatically.13 This agricultural problem triggered a focus on farm animal–breeding practices between the late eighteenth and the late nineteenth centuries. Farmers tried to improve the quality of cattle, sheep, and horses (Thoroughbreds and other types), whether for their meat, wool, and milk or their speed and traction capability. Robert Bakewell of Dishley, an English tenant farmer, has generally been given credit for the most

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7

important early work in this field. He had specific attributes in mind, which he wanted to perpetuate in his breeding programs: to increase the beefiness of the Longhorn cow, the meatiness of the Leicester sheep, and the strength of the Shire horse. In the end, the Longhorn proved not to be a lasting breed, and the evolution of the Shire owes little directly to his actual breeding operations. Bakewell was more successful, however, with his sheep, and, in effect, he created the modern Leicester sheep. Dishley stock was well known for its fattening qualities as early as the 1760s. The significance of Bakewell’s work did not lie in the development of breeds but in his methodology and general approach to animal breeding itself. Recent scholarly research suggests that particularly innovative features lay behind Bakewell’s thinking, even though it is known that other contemporary breeders followed practices similar to his.14 He, unlike them, understood that the variation he wished to bring about resulted from the impact of natural laws governing heredity, and his system for breeding was founded on that premise. Animals could be altered because of the presence of natural laws, Bakewell assumed, and he did not have to know what those laws actually were in order to work with them.15 The Bakewellian method was based on three premises: careful choice of both males and females in breeding programs on the basis of desired type, inbreeding to those individuals, and selection (especially from the resulting male progeny) for future breeding on the basis of excellence shown in offspring from these individuals. With each generation of inbreeding, Bakewell would send out various stallions, rams, and bulls to neighbouring herds. He assessed the resulting progeny from these sires and used only those sires whose offspring met his standards of desired type. In the process he proved that careful choice for type, and inbreeding to it, could make desirable characteristics perpetuate themselves truly. He selected, though, on the basis of the progeny test, not on that of pedigree. As the years passed, this area became a critical one for debate: judging heredity and its impact by the progeny test (in essence, Bakewellianism) or by the genealogy evident in a pedigree (in essence, Thoroughbred horse breeding). Animals bred by Bakewell also had an enhanced monetary value, and he managed to link financial implications to his breeding system.16 He developed a standardized method of breeding to reach certain ends (ultimately to create new ‘breeds’), demonstrated the results of his work by lending out his stock, and publicized his achievements, partially with the aid of the agricultural writer Arthur Young. He also made inbreed-

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ing, considered anathema before his time, an acceptable practice. In 1790 William Marshall outlined what the famous breeder had tried to do through inbreeding. For Bakewell, ‘beauty of form ranked highly, particularly at the onset of improvement. Although beauty may seem a noneconomic criterion, it was of considerable importance in attracting customers. The ideal of beauty was linked with utility’ – utility of form. This in turn meant the inheritance of fattening ability and a good quality in the flesh.17 British farmers began to apply Bakewellian methods to the breeding of agricultural animals, and many first concentrated on cattle. Early Hereford cattle producers, for example, practised Bakewell’s system of intense inbreeding. Benjamin Tomkins the younger, a significant contributor to the development of that breed, initiated an inbreeding program after 1790 and continued to rely on the method until he died in 1815.18 One of the earliest and, for the story of modern purebred breeding, most important attempts to apply Bakewell’s principles was undertaken by the Colling brothers, whose work in the 1790s led to the creation of the beef Shorthorn. Over the nineteenth century, horse breeding outside that of the Thoroughbred cannot be fully appreciated without some knowledge of how Shorthorn cattle developed, because purebred breeding actually evolved within this breed. True to Bakewell’s teaching, the Collings did not acquire foundation animals on the basis of genealogical background. Individual worth counted more to them. In 1784 Charles Colling bought a cow named Duchess from a tenant farmer and, in his opinion, she remained the best cow he had ever seen. He hoped to perpetuate her through inbreeding, not improve on her. Meanwhile, Robert Colling found a good bull, named Hubback, grazing by the roadside and purchased him from a local bricklayer, even though the bull’s ancestry was unknown. Colling then inbred intensely to him.19 The Collings even used cattle outside existing Shorthorn varieties in breeding programs designed to create a new, uniform Shorthorn. The brothers introduced Galloway blood, for example. Colling Shorthorns became recognized as good beefing stock and soon replaced Bakewell’s Longhorns both in popularity and in monetary value. The excellent qualities of Shorthorns quickly became well known internationally. By 1817 Shorthorns had been exported to Kentucky and Virginia in the United States. The rising fortunes of Shorthorns attracted the attention of men outside agriculture and made them aware that selective breeding practices could profoundly alter animals. Practical observations of this nature

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came in conflict with theories of heredity that supported the breeding of Thoroughbred horses. Scientists might argue for the dogma of constancy in species and the lack of any variation in basic characteristics, but the results of breeders using Bakewell’s method provided stunning evidence that indicated otherwise. The conflict proved to be important to the advancement of many sectors of science over the nineteenth century. The idea that species could change had to be theoretically accepted before any real development of the life sciences could take place, and, before Bakewell’s time, that acceptance had not happened. True, a few people had addressed the inconsistency presented by traditional dogma and evidence arising from experiments in animal breeding. Pierre L.M. de Maupertuis, for example, believed from his breeding work that the modifications which artificial selection produced in domestic animals implied that plasticity governed life in general. He had grasped the idea behind the theory of evolution more than one hundred years before Darwin. In 1745 he wrote: ‘Nature contains the basis of all these variations: but chance or art brings them out. It is thus that those whose industry is applied to satisfying the taste of the curious are, so to say, the creators of new species. We see appearing races of dogs, pigeons, canaries, which did not at all exist in Nature before. These were to begin with only fortuitous individuals; art and the repeated generations have made species of them.’20 The dramatic changes in animals that resulted from selective breeding practices relying on inbreeding were not widely appreciated until after Bakewell’s method had been applied in a broad way to farm stock. Bakewell’s work also ‘scientized’ what society had more generally seen as the ‘art’ of animal breeding and, over the early nineteenth century, focused the minds of some important individuals on what the concept of ‘scientific animal breeding’ could teach. While the theory of constancy of race clung with persistence to the beliefs of some intellectuals until well into the nineteenth century, it seems clear that Bakewellianism and the changes it brought to farm stock affected the thinking of one of the greatest scientists of the modern world, Charles Darwin. In fact, Darwin openly stated that the contemporary methods of artificial selection used on domestic animals helped him reach his theory concerning natural selection.21 He even referred to Bakewell’s work in his Origin of Species.22 Some scholars believe that he made these comments in hindsight because they could find no proof from his early notebooks, written between 1837 and 1839, that Darwin had read about animal breeding. One study, however, argues convincingly that Bakewell’s theories were impor-

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Horses in Society

tant to Darwin’s developing theory of evolution. Apparently Darwin owned, marked, and referred to John Sebright’s pamphlet The Art of Improving Breeds of Domestic Animals, written in 1809, and John Wilkinson’s Remarks on the Improvement of Cattle, written in 1820. Both of these early works dealt very specifically with the nature and power of artificial selection under Bakewell’s principles.23 Bakewellian artificial selection could make animals vary hugely over generations, and that fact, for Darwin, begged answers to such questions as What is a species? How do living things inherit characteristics? and How does life evolve? Bakewell’s method had a profound effect on breeding practices and on attitudes towards scientific questions, not just in Britain but across Europe as well. In the 1830s Merino sheep breeders in the Hapsburg Empire took pure Bakewellianism in Europe to its most empirically advanced level. The breeders had absorbed Bakewellianism through several avenues. In the late 1790s C.C. André, a teacher and writer of science and economics, introduced Bakewell’s theories and his basic empirical approach to Moravia. In 1819 Count Festetics, a Hungarian, wrote Genetic Laws of Nature, in which he argued that heredity, as evidenced in the changing characteristics of farm animals, resulted from scientific laws. He deduced four points, and thereby added new empirical dimensions to the thinking behind Bakewellianism: that animals inherit characteristics, not acquire them; that traits found in past generations could reappear in much later ones; that animals could produce offspring with different attributes; and that inbreeding must be accompanied by careful selection. Festetics, then, recognized the existence of recessive traits and of inherent variation, even in types bred through inbreeding to reproduce truly.24 The work of André and Festetics influenced Merino sheep breeders in Moravia. The question of heredity itself, or what we today label as genetics, commanded their attention. Over 1836–7, Prelate C.F. Napp, and a university professor named J.K. Nestler, members of the Sheep Breeders’ Society (an organization formed in Brno in 1814) discussed in considerable detail the problem of heredity. The men were concerned with the principles behind the transfer of traits. As Napp put it: ‘We are not dealing with the theory of the process of breeding, but the question should be: what is inherited and how?’25 The interest these men took in the nature of heredity, however, did not endure beyond this golden period. By the 1830s, fundamental changes were under way within Bakewellianism itself, providing, perhaps, one explanation why the interest languished. Bakewellianism had been altered by a fusion with Thoroughbred

Modern Purebred Breeding 11

horse breeding culture, primarily through the avenue of public record keeping. When farm animals bred under Bakewell’s method acquired a public record book, an entirely new method – the purebred method – was born. Fundamental differences existed between the philosophies of Bakewell and the Thoroughbred horse breeders, particularly the allegiance to pedigree keeping. Meticulous selection on an ongoing basis had been central to Bakewell’s thinking, but pedigrees did not dictate how selection should work. Bakewell kept track of his breeding activities by maintaining records, but he did not use them as breeding tools. Thoroughbred breeders used private pedigrees (purity breeding by genealogy) as selective devices, and that approach ultimately altered what public pedigree keeping meant to all animal breeders. Inbreeding became attached to the idea of maintaining purity, as evidenced in pedigrees, and, in turn, purity came to define the meaning of quality. Genealogy, as found in public pedigrees, not the progeny test, became the means of selection for breeding. The real link between public pedigree keeping and Bakewellianism occurred in Shorthorn breeding, leading to the origin of purebred breeding. It was primarily the work of one man, Thomas Bates. In 1800 Bates began buying Shorthorns from the Collings, and he acquired stock on the basis of genealogy.26 Bates’s decision to choose foundation animals because of genealogical background, not individual worth, represented a departure from the Bakewellian principles that the Collings had used, though it might have been only part of an evolving promotional plan that Bates had in mind. He began to practise inbreeding with his new animals, but apparently for different reasons from Bakewell or the Collings. Bates claimed it was the inbreeding itself that was important to him because it preserved what he defined as purity. Inbreeding had not been connected to notions of purity by either Bakewell or the Collings. Bates maintained a constant level of inbreeding throughout his breeding career, a fact that suggests he monitored his inbreeding carefully.27 In 1822 George Coates established a public herd book for Shorthorns. The breed achieved greater popularity as a result of this form of recording, and public pedigrees also allowed for the early geographic expansion of Shorthorn territory. Bates actively supported George Coates’s new public registry system, and some scholars suggest that Coates began his work largely at the instigation of Bates.28 Publicly recorded pedigrees under Bates would become just as important as inbreeding. He contended as well that pedigrees demonstrated different degrees of purity, and even described some of the renowned stock of Charles Colling as

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‘mongrel’ – a concept that would have been totally foreign to that breeder.29 Bates’s attitude to pedigrees resulted from his absorption of aspects of the Thoroughbred horse-breeding philosophy and his use of that culture to promote his Shorthorn breeding. He, as well as everyone at the time, recognized that the background of foundation animals, admired for their perceived quality and used to fix a breed close to their type, was simply not known from a genealogical point of view.30 Colling’s bull Hubback serves as an example of this phenomenon. Briefly put, when Bates linked pedigree breeding to inbreeding, even if only as part of his promotional plans, he ended up creating a new breeding method that connected aspects of Bakewellianism in cattle breeding to the breeding theories applied to Thoroughbreds, and both to the use of public recording. The work of Bates, then, ultimately affected everyone’s perception about what it meant to define any animal as either improved or ‘purebred.’ Bates gave modern purebred breeding its present form: inbreeding by pedigree (preserved and certified in a public registry) in order to preserve purity, which in turn meant quality – or vigour with no degeneration. Public registries worked meaningfully with inbreeding practices that no longer reflected the selective process espoused by Bakewell. Pedigrees recorded in such registries explained to everyone the level of inbreeding, which in turn could be defined as purity to breed type in individual animals. Breeders could also control or manipulate the inbreeding technique by maintaining certain levels of inbreeding and could thereby enhance purity. The less the use of an outcross breeding technique, the greater the line’s ability to breed truly, and the level of the ability to breed truly came to be seen as a better indication of the degree of purity within a breed. When publicly recorded pedigrees could be related simultaneously to purity and inbreeding, the philosophy behind the ‘purebred’ method had taken its mature shape. Animals were believed to be ‘pure’ to breed type, therefore ‘purebred’, when they carried public pedigrees that certified them to be so. The ‘purity’ of such animals within breed type, however, differed and varied in relation to the quality of their pedigrees. Ideas about breed, the meaning of purity within breed, and the role of pedigrees in breeding became entangled with each other in a complicated way through this process. The linkage of pedigree keeping to Bakewell’s methodology also led to a return in the allegiance of animal-breeding philosophy to the idea of race constancy. Scholars have commented on this retrograde attitude

Modern Purebred Breeding 13

to animal breeding and argue that, by 1848, race constancy, which was supported by the pedigree concept, again held sway across Northern Europe.31 That fundamental change might help explain why animal breeding remained somewhat impervious to applicable knowledge that began to emerge over the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in sciences such as natural history, biology, and, ultimately, genetics (along with other complicated factors such as eugenics, a pseudoscientific movement designed to improve the human race). The subtle shifts in Bakewellianism that developed could confuse the very scientists who had been influenced by it in its original form. Darwin, for example, apparently failed to recognize that changes in animal breeding practices had taken place after public recording was linked to Bakewellianism. In his Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication, written in 1868, he commented on purebred breeding: ‘Why have pedigrees been scrupulously kept and published of the Shorthorn cattle, and more recently of the Hereford breed? Is it an illusion that these recently improved animals safely transmit their excellent qualities even when crossed with other breeds? Have the Shorthorns, without good reason, been purchased at immense prices and exported to almost every quarter of the globe?’ Monetary value, Darwin suggested, guaranteed genetic quality. ‘Hard cash down,’ he said, ‘over and over again, is an excellent test of inherited superiority.’32 In these confused words, Darwin expressed the new approach to animal breeding prevalent after the union of public recording and inbreeding had taken place. Monetary issues reflect the cultural evaluation of the power of pedigree and do not explain how heredity works. Darwin seemed to have had a better grasp of the idea of genetics from reading material on animal breeding written much earlier. In his Origin of Species, he had written that ‘the laws governing inheritance are quite unknown.’33 There is some evidence that animal breeders themselves came to recognize that the modern purebred system represented a critical move away from Bakewellianism by denuding it of its empirical qualities. While breeders referred to purebred breeding as a ‘science,’ some practical breeders began to argue that it was difficult to define exactly what was ‘scientific’ about the method, or about any animal breeding method known at the time. As early as 1876 an American Shorthorn breeder stated that science had, in fact, done little to help in the breeding of better stock.34 In 1896 a Canadian farm journal reported on the ‘Science of Farming’ and noted: ‘In spite of the great advances that have been made by breeders of late years in the science of breeding,

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there are still many things either but little understood by them or totally beyond their comprehension.’35 Meanwhile, back in the Hapsburg Empire at Brno, it appeared that the original Bakewellianism of the Merino sheep breeders had laid the groundwork for breakthroughs in the knowledge of genetics. Prelate Napp, who had attended the meetings of the Sheep Breeders’ Society in the 1830s in Brno and who formulated the basic question about the nature of heredity, now ran the monastery where Gregor Mendel did his experiments on peas. Napp actively supported Mendel’s research. In 1865 the monk put forward the earliest-known laws of genetics.36 They were, first, the law of segregation, which states that, when the gametes, or reproductive cells, form, the gene pairs separate. Each unit of the gene pair is either recessive or dominant. The second, the law of independent assortment, states that genes act independently. This law has been modified. We now know that genes can act in a linked fashion. But, in general, the importance of Mendel’s argument still stands. Genes do not, under normal conditions, react to the environment and are immutable. Mendel’s work was lost and forgotten until 1900, and scholars argue that his innovative empirical approach (laboratory work with statistical analysis) put him ahead of his time, making it difficult for nineteenth-century biologists to see sense in his ideas.37 It is possible, however, that the changed animal-breeding environment of the 1860s, now influenced by purebred-breeding theory and not Bakewellianism, played a role. Mendel’s innovative contentions would have seemed strange when viewed in conjunction with animal-breeding practices dominated by the purebred method. By the time Mendel’s laws were rediscovered, the evolving sciences of evolutionism, embryology, and biology had changed the intellectual landscape of the day and also helped to marginalize purebred animal breeding as a science. Even so, somewhat strangely, it was often the purebred animal breeders who most loudly hailed the laws’ reappearance as a salvation. In the United States, agricultural organizations, not medical institutions or biology departments of universities, began the initial exploration into the implications of Mendelism.38 In 1903, for example, members of the American Association of Agricultural Colleges and Experimental Stations founded the American Breeders’ Association with the intent of using Mendelism to promote greater productivity in plant and animal agriculture and also to provide for research in genetics. Purebred animal breeders from both the United States and Canada made up much of the early membership of the association. Not long

Modern Purebred Breeding 15

after the association came into existence, however, it was obvious that, although the new science of genetics could influence plant production, genetics provided no useful tool for animal breeding. In 1912 the organization stated that the purebred system remained the only way to improve animals. ‘A science of animal breeding scarcely yet exists, not because thoughtful men have failed to give attention to the subject but rather because of its inherent difficulties. We breed animals as did our fathers and grandfathers because their time-honored methods succeed and we know of no methods of changing these methods. Indeed we can not expect to improve them in a rational way until we learn why certain methods succeed and why others fail.’39 In 1925 a farm expert wrote: ‘Up to the present time, the new knowledge of genetics has contributed little’ to advancements in animal breeding.40 The failure of genetics to help animal breeders weakened their interest in developments within that branch of science. One way to illustrate why breeders found little practical information from early genetic research is to look at the actual animal-breeding, or evolutionary, work of geneticists in the years after the rediscovery of Mendel’s laws. The way genetics, Darwinism, and animal breeding interacted with and influenced each other also becomes evident. In the early twentieth century, important North American geneticists such as W.E. Castle and Sewell Wright used animal-breeding experiments to pursue knowledge in evolutionary biology. Both were interested in the effects of inbreeding on the Mendelian makeup of animals. While they ran experiments geared to explain patterns in inbreeding, they also concerned themselves with the inbreeding that already existed in purebred farm animals.41 In 1911 Castle, for example, argued that it was the inbreeding in purebred stock that made them so useful for the improvement of the general flocks and herds.42 Following in Darwin’s footsteps, these scientists believed that patterns evident in domestic animal breeding could explain evolution. Wright, a student of Castle, carried on his interest in inbreeding and its relationship to improved farm animal production. He looked at the effects that assortive mating based on phenotype (choosing an animal because of its looks, with no regard for its genetic background), as opposed to inbreeding after careful selection for desired type, had on the level of uniformity (or homozygosis) found in subsequent generations of farm animals. Between 1910 and 1922 Wright wrote extensively on the subject for the Bureau of Animal Industry (part of the United States Department of Agriculture) and the American livestock journal

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the Breeder’s Gazette, hoping to provide farmers with advice on animal breeding.43 In the early 1920s he undertook another project with respect to purebred breeding. By assessing the genealogy found in Shorthorn pedigrees dating back to the 1780s from a Mendelian and quantitative point of view, he hoped to reconstruct how the Shorthorn breed had evolved and to learn more about the practices that early breeders followed. Although he addressed the work of Bakewell and the Collings, Wright focused more particularly on Bates’s cattle and his Duchesses. Wright found that Bates managed to preserve an inbreeding coefficient of 40 per cent and, at the same time, to introduce new blood. Bates did so by bringing in only those animals that would not lower his degree of inbreeding (animals closely related to the cattle he was working with). He wanted enough gene variation within the herd to ensure vigour, but he was not prepared, evidently, to reduce his level of inbreeding to achieve it.44 He had found a balance between inbreeding and outbreeding which he believed worked, with respect to fixing type and maintaining vigour. Although he touted ideas about the need to preserve purity, Bates was apparently following Bakewellianism – inbreeding and careful selection for quality or vigour – more closely than it appeared from his public utterances. The founder of the purebred method was a brilliant breeder, but equally a brilliant promoter. Thoroughbred horse-breeding culture clearly could attract the interest of the elite, as Bates was well aware, and colouring Bakewellianism with it would only help. In the end, Wright confirmed what Bakewell had already proved and the Collings and Bates had followed without the aid of Mendelism: that genetic change results from inbreeding but not from the mating of two non-inbred animals that, to the eye, share certain characteristics.45 Genetic change, Bakewell had understood, resulted from laws within that governed what an animal would be, and certain selection practices could streamline how those laws would work. At the time, Wright’s genetic work in Mendelism seemed to add little beyond Bakewell’s work, done 150 years earlier, on how to breed animals for uniformity. But Wright did re-expose the effectiveness of Bakewellianism in fixing type, as well as its fundamental deviation from purebred breeding, which emphasized recorded pedigrees. Breeding for apparent similarities as measured by the eye might not work overly well in producing new fixed types, but neither did breeding by genealogical pedigrees simply on the basis of purity. A general return to straight Bakewellian principles by purebred animal breeders, however, did not take place as a result of this genetic research. They continued to cling to cultural ideas found in the Thoroughbred

Modern Purebred Breeding 17

horse culture: allegiance to the genealogical purity found in pedigrees, which were used as breeding tools to provide quality and consistency. The rise of eugenics within this intellectual environment further complicated the situation. Eugenics was built on the purebred breeding theory that pedigree keeping could act as a breeding tool to improve quality (in this case, human beings). The connection of pedigree keeping, per say, to human genealogy was not new at the time eugenics was born and had, in fact, dovetailed with the concern over animal pedigrees at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Burke’s Peerage first appeared in print in 1826, and Burke published his work on genealogy in 1833. Scholars have noted that human ‘pedigrees’ and the tracing of generational backgrounds became common about the same time that the earlier public stud and herd books emerged.46 It was Francis Galton who introduced new ideas by suggesting that human pedigrees could be used scientifically to breed for better human stock. Born in 1822 and a cousin of Charles Darwin, Galton coined the word eugenics in 1883. The control of the racial qualities of future generations of people interested Galton, and he hoped to find a way to weed out the physically and mentally unfit members of the human population. Darwin’s theories of evolution and the survival of the fittest, Victorian concern for the decadence of the lower classes, and the Malthusian threat of overpopulation all influenced him. Selective animal breeding and its recording in public pedigrees – purebred breeding – also affected his thinking. Galton’s belief that a pedigree system could be used to improve humans shaped the views of others. The study of human pedigrees, according to followers of Galton in Britain and in North America, indicated which people could be labelled as unfit to breed.47 Eugenics drew on the theory of purebred breeding but was also irrevocably intertwined with the fortunes of early genetics, through a common interface with evolutionary biology. The eugenic movement was part of a late nineteenth-century scientific search, before Mendelism’s rediscovery in 1900, for laws that could explain Darwin’s theory. The groundwork for a genetic/eugenic entanglement, then, began before the science of genetics was born. Karl Pearson’s work was particularly important to this genetic/eugenic linkage. Between 1891 and 1906, Pearson, a professor of applied mathematics and mechanics at University College in London, developed a system of statistics, called biometry, that could be applied to biology in populations. He hoped to explain the laws behind Darwin’s theory of evolution and to prove how it worked. Pearson, who had been a student of Galton, could never really separate

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his views, however linked they were to evolutionary biology, from his equal interest in eugenics. Fellow eugenicists, both British and American, quickly adapted biometry to their studies. The rise of Mendelism after 1900 only confused the situation. While British eugenicists tended not to see their research results in Mendelian terms, their American counterparts did, thereby fusing genetics to eugenics. American eugenicists such as Charles Davenport hoped to combine the implications of Mendelian genetics with eugenic aims through a synthesis of pedigree analysis.48 Attitudes to biometry complicated the implications of all these eugenic, genetic, or eugenic-genetic theories. In the United States, for example, eugenicists argued that their work in biometry would provide new answers to laws of heredity. Their counterparts in Britain believed that pedigrees, and their interpretation through biometry, revealed the effects of Mendelism, though they did not explain it in any greater depth.49 A cleavage over the value of biometry developed. Geneticists who pursued Mendelism increasingly refused to accept biometry because they believed the system did not show how heredity worked.50 Perhaps the most important thing about biometry in the long run was not this controversy over its role in Mendelism or eugenics, or the fusion of the two, but the fact that it reintroduced the Bakewellian principle of progeny testing – the idea of genetic assessment by group – to the problem of understanding heredity. That linkage ultimately allowed progeny testing to become part of a synthesis of ideas that were of vital importance to all the life sciences as well as to purebred breeding. Although eugenicists claimed that purebred breeding provided them with a model, breeders did not see eugenics as a model for them, nor did they accept the theory that human pedigrees could be used in the same way as animal pedigrees.51 Their lack of interest in eugenics and their disassociation of it from their work served to make genetics less appealing when a stronger eugenic/genetic link developed. The disenchantment of animal breeders with genetics early in the twentieth century escalated when the new science became ever more closely connected to eugenics. By 1920 the American Breeders’ Association had virtually been taken over by eugenicists, and this early eugenic component of organizations devoted to genetics made it difficult for breeders to see genetics outside of eugenics. Since most early geneticists were also eugenicists, whose interest in genetics seemed driven primarily by their eugenic concerns, it was hard to separate the two.52 The eugenic/genetic link did much to ensure that purebred animal breeding would continue to have

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a troubled relationship with genetics for some time. Animal breeding practices remained largely impervious to information arising out of any of the biological sciences, perhaps partly because scientists rarely addressed the practicalities of domestic animal breeding outside the laboratory.53 Social Darwinism – the tendency to see a linkage between laws in evolutionary biology and those governing structures found in human society – also arose in this period of confused interplay between genetics, evolutionism, eugenics, biology, and animal breeding. Eugenics, in one sense, can be described as a more specialized form of Social Darwinism, and the advent of Mendelism at the beginning of the twentieth century increased the tendency to Social Darwinism.54 The entanglement of biology, genetics, and evolutionary theory with eugenics, specifically, and Social Darwinism, more generally, deepened under these conditions. Although eugenics had little or no effect on purebred breeding (except to drive it still further away from genetics), Social Darwinism seemed to influence the way breeders labelled their animals.55 By the late nineteenth century the highest-quality Shorthorns were systematically divided up by breeders into ‘families’ or ‘tribes’ with names like Lavender, Broadhocks, Orange Blossom, Crocus, Lovely, Rose, Butterfly, and Fragrance.56 Even geneticists like Castle adopted this classification of animals. He referred, for example, in his Heredity in Relation to Evolution and Animal Breeding to pure lines within a breed as ‘families.’57 Relative purity within the already existing purebred breeds became increasingly important to breeders. In other words, there were good and bad Shorthorns by virtue of their family. Farm animals that did not belong to the pure breeds were increasingly viewed not as cross-breds or even as grades, but as defective or evolutionary failures. In this way, certain animal groups were equated to the ‘natural’ or evolutionarily advanced human elite, and others to people who, by the laws of nature, made up the defective underclass of city slums. In effect, Social Darwinism re-enforced Thoroughbred horse culture. In many ways the aspects of Social Darwinism that infiltrated purebred breeding were only a modernized manifestation of the Thoroughbred horse culture already embedded in the method. When the breeders rejected genetics in the early twentieth century because of its failure to help them and its close connection to eugenics, they returned to a pre-Bakewellian emphasis on the artistic aspect of their work. They had always seen their activities at least partially as acts of creativity, even after the overlay of empirical thinking in the late eighteenth century had repressed that approach before the purebred breed-

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ing system had even been born. They often explained the success of certain breeders in terms of the strength of their artistic vision.58 Aristocratic breeders in Britain collected paintings of their improved stock. The 3rd Earl of Spencer commissioned several paintings over the midnineteenth century portraying his Shorthorns. Paintings of famous animals began to be reproduced in vast numbers in Britain and proved to be profitable to sell. As the nineteenth century advanced, North American farm journals carried increasing numbers of lithographic prints of paintings of improved livestock. One Canadian farm journal, for example, stated in 1880, ‘The language of the eyes is the only universal language.’59 Artistic images could even be viewed as useful tools for a breeder.60 By the early twentieth century, artistic imagery and discussion of the breeder’s ‘art’ became even more prominent in reference to purebred breeders. In the journal of the American Breeders’ Association, the reader would be more likely to find purebred breeding headlined as the art rather than the science of breeding, which had been the more common way of describing the system over the nineteenth century. Purebred breeding had become the art of genetics. By the mid-twentieth century, genetics had come to play a substantial role in purebred breeding by providing useful guidance in the selection of individual animals for breeding within the system. The groundwork for the re-entry of genetics to the world of purebred breeding had actually been laid down as early as the 1920s, when the work of Sewell Wright on Mendelism influenced young American geneticists such as Jay L. Lush, who wrote extensively in the 1930s about the breeding of farm animals.61 In 1951 Lush pointed out that this early research in Mendelism did, in the end, contribute three facts of significance to purebred breeders. First, identical pedigrees did not mean identical heredity. Second, there was a distinction between genetically caused and environmentally caused variation. And third, Mendelism explained why, over generations, individual variation within a population did not appreciably change.62 Ultimately, however, Mendelism did not affect farm animal breeding, and purebred breeding in particular, as much as did the study of population genetics, which has also been described as evolutionary synthesis. The Bakewellian idea of progeny testing survived the decline of eugenics, following the defeat of Hitler’s Germany, and entered the field of genetics. Statistical analysis of whole populations (or population genetics) became part of evolutionary biology when the study of genetics focused on heredity as expressed in populations, not individuals. Progeny testing re-emerged as a part of animal breeding through population

Modern Purebred Breeding 21

genetics. It might be argued that this evolutionary synthesis healed the break that had happened when animal breeding, under the principles of Bakewell, became separated from developing knowledge in both genetics and evolutionary biology. This rupture occurred as a result of the rise of the purebred breeding method, with its initial absorption of the culture of Thoroughbred horse breeding. At the heart of the synthesis between Darwinism and Mendelism was the theory of population genetics, which in turn brought information into systems of animal breeding.63 The attachment of pedigree keeping to animal breeding also played a crucial role in modern purebred breeding, which was unrelated to the genealogical information inherent in both systems. The original value embedded in the keeping of a public registry did not vanish after new attributes relating to breeding practices became attached to public pedigrees. The fact that public records simply pinned down which individual was which (and therefore guaranteed the proper identification of animals) continued to lie at the heart of the matter, and they played an important role in the trade of stock over long distances, such as across the Atlantic. Transatlantic shipping rates became sufficiently reduced in the early 1870s to make the large-scale movement of livestock between Britain and North America viable. A trade in beef, in the form of live cattle, drove the rise of a huge transshipping industry, which needed complicated support systems to survive: refitted ships and large holding areas or stock yards near train terminals, to say nothing of the logistics of providing hay and water for thousands of animals in transit, or the health issues that ensued. The strong market for commercial cattle (shipped in considerable numbers across the Atlantic as early as 1871 from the United States and 1873 from Canada) in turn triggered an increased desire for purebred British breeding stock in North America.64 This trade in commercial animals played a critical role in the rising North American demand for purebreds. The existence of a complicated cattle trade in both directions, and of support systems to make it work, made the marketing of other types of livestock easier. Commercial hogs, sheep, and horses soon left North America for Britain, and purebred stock of various breeds left Britain for North America. The first significant shipment of commercial horses from Canada to Britain occurred in 1876.65 By 1891, Canada exported horses worth $1.5 million and cattle worth $9 million. Ten years later the figures were similar, though the value of horse exports had declined to $1 million.66 The conviction that the demand for commercial horses

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would grow in Britain encouraged importers in North America to bring in purebred horses. Government agents often saw the import of purebred stock as being in the national interest. A Canadian immigration agent, John Dyke, worked tirelessly with the Department of Agriculture in Ottawa to promote a transatlantic purebred industry in sheep, cattle, and horses.67 ‘I am fully persuaded,’ he stated in 1884 with respect to horses, ‘that there is a wide and remunerative field open to those farmers … in Canada who will use sires of the right class’ of horses.68 And the ‘right class’ was, of course, purebred stallions. These animals could produce the best type of commercial horse, which would then find a market in Britain. Dyke encouraged the trade in both commercial and purebred animals by introducing buyers and sellers to each other. In the process, he hoped to stimulate more immigration of agricultural people to Canada. When North Americans in considerable numbers entered the market for improved breeds of farm animals, buyers demanded publicly recorded pedigrees and set up public herd books in the New World to register their purchases. Public herd books for other farm animals came into existence in North America and Britain for most of the improved breeds too. European breeders found that they needed public registry systems to sell stock in North America, and, late in the nineteenth century, herd books developed there.69 In many cases, public herd books existed in North America before they came into existence in the country of the breed’s origin, thereby triggering European registry systems.70 Public pedigree recording required that a structure be in place for the compilation of pedigrees into books, and that a body regulate that structure and set standards for entry into the herd books. This need led to the establishment of breed associations, which determined what animals within any breed qualified for pedigree status. These criteria were particularly important to breeders in importing countries, where the animals were rarer than in the country of origin. Importing breeders tended to look on the process in one of two ways. Some argued that incoming stock should be seen as material that could be grafted onto local animals or be used over generations to ‘breed up’ local stock. Other importers believed that the new stock should be kept separate from indigenous animals, that the blood of the pedigreed creatures would be contaminated by that of the local herds. It became a question of how much breeding up (how many generations) was required to acquire purebred status, or if any breeding up should be allowed. Attempts to maintain purity was particularly important to Americans, and

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interest in the topic forced them to look into just how pure breeds actually were in their country of origin. Two viable systems of pedigree qualification evolved and competed for recognition in relation to these approaches. In effect, each gave a different definition of what animal could qualify as purebred. One, known as a cross system, made animals eligible for pedigree registration if they had been bred up from local stock by using imported, registered purebred males, generally over four but sometimes five generations. The other, known as the closed herd-book system, allowed only those animals that had descended on all sides from imported, registered stock to have pedigrees. Early in the nineteenth century, the cross system generally received acceptance as the sensible standard. The desirability of the cross system declined over the century, however, probably for two reasons. First, Bates had successfully convinced people that purity could be reflected in pedigrees, thereby suggesting that the quality of the animal could be defined by the standards of its pedigree. Second, as purebred animals became more numerous, a sizable market for purebreds that had descended from imports alone could be sustained. When importing countries moved to the closed book, exporting countries were forced the change their standards as well. Standards clearly affected the way the market functioned. Of course, purity, quality of pedigrees, and levels of inbreeding quickly became marketing tools and influenced the way the market worked. The animal-breeding world was complex in itself, and it related to science and culture in complicated ways. Animal breeding under Bakewell, for example, reflected early recognition that what we call genetics played a role in heredity, even if scientific laws around these issues were unknown. This approach suggested that the idea of race constancy was wrong and that species could change. In turn, evident plasticity of species implied evolution (Darwin’s theory), and at the same time also demanded explanations of how plasticity worked (laws of genetics). Answers to these questions would affect other branches of science, such as immunology. No one could grasp the idea that viruses and bacteria attenuate until the concept of race changeability was fully grasped.71 Attitudes to animal breeding, then, affected aspects of medicine because immunology is important to medical knowledge. The culture of pedigree keeping shifted what inbreeding practices were designed to do, and, in the process, imported cultural ideas around such notions as purity. Pedigree breeding also tended to denude animal breeding of its fundamental allegiance to changeability in species. Purebred breeding

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theory encouraged the rise of eugenics, but the concurrent linkage of this movement to early genetics, which in effect had failed to enlighten animal breeders, made them resistant to both. Social Darwinism infiltrated purebred breeding because of its affinity to Thoroughbred horse culture and the intimate relationship between the rise of evolutionism and domestic animal breeding. The connection of pedigree keeping to inbreeding resulted in other purely cultural structures and policies: the establishment of organizations and standards that ultimately supported an industry with strong market characteristics. As modern purebred breeding evolved, it reflected two separate roots that blended together in dichotomous ways: pedigree breeding and its contingent race constancy concepts, which rested on rejection of inbreeding practices; and progeny test breeding and its contingent race plasticity ideas, which in turn worked in conjunction with inbreeding. In the process of this complicated meshing of different theories, pedigree breeding became linked with both inbreeding and concepts of race constancy. Selection by progeny test was lost, while the method that reflected concepts of race plasticity (inbreeding) was now designed to preserve race constancy. Meanwhile the progeny test would go on to play a fundamental role (through pedigree analysis) in eugenics. The production of working horses in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries took place within this scientific/cultural/animalbreeding world and was also part of it. Aspects of this world affected attitudes to general horse breeding, but in complex ways and generally through the avenue of purebred breeding itself. The interaction of horse-breeding theory and purebred breeding created conflicting patterns over the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Purebred breeding, for example, did not affect horses as early as it did other species, ironically because of the nature of the particular type of horse culture embedded in the system. Horse breeding theory could, historically, be divided into two completely separate sections: one applying to Thoroughbreds and one to all others. Useful horses had always been bred by type. Traditionally, the concepts of purity and breed had been foreign to general horse-breeding practices, thereby making them somewhat impervious to the influence of purebred theory. The barrier was so great that the culture of the Thoroughbred could enter the other arm of the horse world only when issues relating to trade made the umbrella of purebred breeding more attractive. Ideas about type changed over the period, influenced by the new divide of heavy or light and overlaid with various emerging methods put forward to achieve the older idea of type

Modern Purebred Breeding 25

through (or across) the newer idea of breed. Chapters 2–4 show the way those complicated patterns affected each other in strategies to create working horses and explain how the breeding of the animals actually worked in practice. Chapters 8–10 will reveal how the complicated world of the late nineteenth-century biological sciences interacted with horsebreeding theory as well in attempts to make horses match various markets and needs in society.

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PART ONE

The Breeding of Horses

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TWO

The Light Horse

Over the years, empirical thinking relating to science and to various cultural concerns became interwoven and formed the basis for a standardized animal-breeding method, one designed to produce breeds yielding better and more economic biological commodities. The purebred system became widespread in the Western world and ultimately shaped views (scientific or otherwise) on the breeding of all species, even people. The production of workhorses in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was influenced by these complicated animalbreeding approaches, which arose from the needs of agriculture and from attitudes to the racing Thoroughbred. But two other distinct patterns, which would interact unevenly with the purebred method, also played an important role in the production of horses: the increasing move to specialization, which resulted in a division between heavy and light stock, and a prevailing concern with the concept of ‘type’ over and above the idea of ‘breed.’ The heavy/light and interrelated type/breed issues affected the ability of horses to serve, with good efficiency, a complex market governed by changing technology and evolving tariff regulations that reflected pedigree status. Breeding strategies must be understood in themselves and also in relation to market factors before the horse industry can really make sense. The three chapters in Part One look primarily at British and North American heavy/light and purebred/type breeding practices in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and do so within the context of markets and technology. It will then be possible to explore the dynamics of the horse industry from a more comprehensive point of view. Information on European patterns, especially in contrast to the British and North American situation, will be more evident in later chapters.

30

The Breeding of Horses

Horses played a particularly significant role in human society from the beginning of contact between animals and people. The very domestication of horses, some five or six thousand years ago, profoundly altered civilization. One of the last livestock species to come under human control, horses revolutionized people’s lives in a way that none of the food animals – hogs, goats, sheep, cattle, and poultry – could. The particular usefulness of the horse led to its first explosive expansion and made it spread quickly from its Eurasian heartland to China, India, Mesopotamia, and North Africa, as well as northern and western Europe.1 By the third millennium BC in Russia and western Asia, and by the second millennium BC in Europe, horses transported – either by carrying or by traction – both people and goods.2 Movement of this nature affected every aspect of society. The better capacity for communication these animals provided encouraged the transfer of supplies as well as the growth of political states. Because of horses, men now had the ability to control ever larger geographic territories, both economically and militarily. Evidence suggests that, by the Bronze Age, domesticated horses in Europe came in two distinct types – a small, hardy pony, which existed in Britain, western Europe, and Greece, and a larger animal found in the Russian steppes. Equine types from northern climates found in Europe also differed, in terms of proportion, from those in southern areas such as the Middle East. Northern animals were stockier and shorter of limb, while those in Egypt and Mesopotamia tended to be lighter framed and longer legged.3 It is not known whether early breeding activities promoted the deviation that the general environment encouraged. The association of these animals with the upper classes and with war led to a second explosion in the horse population between 800 and 300 BC.4 The importance of the horse to military concerns meant that the subject of equine breeding attracted early interest. The first writing to survive in Europe on horse management and breeding appeared in the fifth century BC, written by Xenophon. By the end of the Roman era, European horses had evolved into a cob style – small, stout, but relatively light animals that were used for a number of purposes. Variation in equine types would become more pronounced with their movement among different geographic areas. Horses, still cobs but less like ponies than those found in Roman times, carried medieval knights of western Europe. These animals had resulted from the import of larger horses from the East at the time of the Crusades and their subsequent crossing with native small stock.5 War remained central to the fortunes of the species. A study of equine breeding in medieval times and all over the

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31

world in the period shows how much military issues affected the development of different horse types everywhere.6 For this reason, governments often took direct interest in how the animals were bred, and royal decrees could dictate selective practices. Kings in Britain, for example, tried to enforce the production of the newer larger-sized horse until the end of the sixteenth century, making it difficult to produce the old pony-type animal. This emphasis on larger horses made Flemish horses popular in Britain. The genetics of these animals later supplied valuable material for the great draft equine types bred in the late nineteenth century.7 During the seventeenth century, British horse breeders selected not just for height but also for greater speed.8 Horsemen wanted good stamina and military capacity in saddle horses, and they tested these qualities by racing the animals. Organized racing was originally performed for military reasons and army training rather than for sport or fashion.9 The Thoroughbred came into existence, then, because people wanted a working saddle horse. Under these conditions, horses in Britain in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries were not designed to be fast sprinters. The animals carried heavy weights and ran a distance of 6 to 8 miles. By the end of the eighteenth century, races had become shorter and weights lighter. These ongoing innovations in racing patterns were of concern to many horsemen, however, because they believed that these new habits were detrimental to the production of superior, working, saddle horses. In spite of changes in racing standards and the subsequent shift to sport animals that the new patterns encouraged, the Thoroughbred continued to be part of the working horse world until the end of the nineteenth century in Britain. And the evolution of the Thoroughbred – a new and distinctive type – shaped attitudes to all horse-breeding patterns that developed over the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It is important to this story to know how the breed came into existence and what culture went into Thoroughbred horse breeding. The Thoroughbred was created over the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries by crossing local mares with imported Arabian stallions. As early as 1616, King James I brought the first Arabian, the Markham Arabian, to Britain.10 Because the Arabian had desirable characteristics and, perhaps more important, ones that bred truly, more of these horses would be imported to upgrade the evolving Thoroughbred. The Arab people were known to have practised intense selective breeding on this animal for hundreds of years, thereby enhancing a natural

32

The Breeding of Horses

tendency for these horses to breed consistently to a type not found in northern Europe. Arabians were lighter, faster, and smaller than their European counterparts; and these differences, along with their ability to stamp their style on progeny, impressed British horse breeders. The trueness to type re-enforced certain ideas about the nature of heredity itself. While horse breeders believed in race constancy, Arabians and progeny resulting from their crosses on English mares showed that horses could be altered. How might this happen if a species could not change from within? Breeders thought that, by preserving purity of type in breeding programs – by using only pure Arabians on their local mares – they could in effect hybridize variations of species and in that way create a new horse. Inbreeding was not viewed as part of this hybridizing system (before Bakewell’s time, inbreeding was generally considered unacceptable), as the records of many early Thoroughbreds reveal. The practice would not emerge, even on a limited scale, until after the use of pure Arabian sires was abandoned about 1750. Inbreeding was never popular in Thoroughbred horse breeding, though. Nineteenth- and twentiethcentury pedigrees show that inbreeding did not play a significant role in the production of the more modern racing Thoroughbred.11 Notions of purity emerged in a complicated way from the use of Arabians in this fashion. Thoroughbreds were seen to be ‘thorough,’ or pure in breeding, and therefore ‘thoroughbred,’ when they traced back to these pure Oriental sources, the first true ‘blood horse.’ Long after the evolution of the ‘blooded’ Thoroughbred, the Breeder’s Gazette explained to Americans that ‘no human history [equalled] it in purity of blood. [The Arabian’s] genealogy is traced through many generations back to his Eastern origins, without a shadow of a doubt.’ For purity, nothing beat an Arabian.12 It could also be argued that the desire to trace to pure Arabian sources, combined with the reluctance to inbreed, led early Thoroughbred breeders to emphasize the use of pedigrees in breeding practices. The originators of the Thoroughbred worked with a limited number of mares of local breeding and imported Oriental stallions.13 While a considerable number of Arabians would go into the makeup of the Thoroughbred, the animals remained rare, relatively speaking, in the general population and could therefore be overused.14 In order to avoid inbreeding to these exotic stallions, breeders had to study breeding records, or pedigrees. Concerns with purity, exclusivity, and blood became forever embedded in Thoroughbred horse-breeding culture as a result of

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33

this reasoning and, in the end, infiltrated attitudes to the production of other horse types as well. The breeding of light horses, and the philosophy behind the methodology of production, took a somewhat different course in North America, even though the Thoroughbred was introduced to the continent as early as the breed had become distinct in Britain. To begin with, horses in North America were more likely to be driven than ridden. The majority of gentlemen in Canada and the United States had always preferred to drive rather than ride horses, and for that reason never favoured the pure Thoroughbred to the same degree as British horsemen did.15 This important difference ultimately influenced all aspects of the light-horse trade between Britain and North America. In the production of lighter horses, breeders in North America also traditionally emphasized trotting/pacing purposes more than horsemen in Britain did, where the running Thoroughbred always held hegemony. Early pacing/trotting stock in the New World arose from crosses of the British Norfolk Trotter, Narrangansett Pacers of Vermont and New York (originating, though, from horses in Rhode Island that descended from animals imported by the Dutch and English between 1629 and 1635), and light FrenchCanadian horses (a type that resulted from imported horses brought from France between 1665 and 1698).16 Thoroughbreds were added to this melting pot, designed to produce various types of driving and trotting horses. In the United States, Thoroughbreds had been imported as early as 1750, and by 1880 their descendants were used extensively in the production of light driving, trotter/pacer horses known as roadsters.17 In Canada, British military Thoroughbreds were bred to light French Canadians, and the combined crosses resulted in distinct types of robust trotter/pacers such as the Royal Georges and the Clear Grits in Ontario.18 These horses freely moved back and forth across the American-Canadian border and established well-known lines locally. Canadian trotters known as the St Lawrences, for example, went to New York from Montreal.19 Royal Georges could be found as far away as California.20 A second critical difference in North American light-horse breeding, when compared with the breeding of the Thoroughbred in Britain, was the emphasis on ‘type’ and ‘line,’ over that of ‘breed.’ No pedigree system, for example, existed for the animals. The ideas of ‘blood’ and purity were also absent in the production of these early nineteenth-century North American trotter/pacers.21 A short review of the history of the Royal Georges shows how type breeding in light horses was done within the idea of ‘line,’ not ‘breed.’

34

The Breeding of Horses

In 1816 a man named Isaac Morden from Ontario’s Prince Edward County bought a pregnant American mare, which foaled a black colt named Tippoo in 1817. Tippoo in turn sired Warrior, who then sired a horse named Royal George. This animal’s dam was a Hambletonian trotter that had come from Vermont, and he also carried Thoroughbred blood as well, traced to an imported stallion named Charon. Royal George was taken to the United States in 1858, but returned to Canada, where he died in 1861.22 A whole line of useful horses called Royal Georges followed from this stallion. No pedigree system existed to govern selection, and there is no evidence that breeders followed Bakewellian principles of inbreeding. Careful sorting of stock for breeding purposes within families had resulted in a pronounced type of good quality. In 1880 a horseman spoke about the Canadian Royal Georges to the Ontario Agricultural Commission. A worthwhile class of horses in Ontario particularly, that have a type of their own, that are firm in their characteristics, that are undying in their habits, and that have always held their ancestral heredity, in spite of all opposition, are the Royal Georges. They originated in the Tippoos, coming through Black Warrior, and contain within themselves characteristics that cannot be destroyed. They have size, form, velocity, longevity, and a type that leads to permanency in the family, a type that makes good carriage horses, and has of late produced some valuable trotters ... I have thought it possible that they could be the basis of a class of horses strictly Canadian, which, coupled with appropriately selected thoroughbreds would produce the essential desideratum of the present day – the park or coach horse. The Canadian Royal Georges stand well on their limbs, they are large, muscular, have good sound constitutions, and doubtless originally, in ancestral distance, had a pacing root.23

The trotting/pacing Royal Georges, some argued, also made good farm horses.24 Even though the type was in decline by 1880, it was still valued. Interesting discussions emerged in the Breeder’s Gazette about the role these various trotting horse lines played in the Civil War. In 1915 a veteran for the North reminisced, stating that all animals in the Northern army were of trotting blood and known to boys in the Northern states as farm horses. Some soldiers from Vermont were mounted on trotting Morgans. The Union army bought over 800,000 horses during the war, all trotters belonging to various lines. This veteran had never seen a Thoroughbred type of riding horse until he encountered Southern troops.25 The Southern army tended to be mounted on saddle-horse

The Light Horse

35

3 This horse, named George Sprague and a Standardbred of the 1880s, had a style more like that of the Royal George type (and from his name he might well have descended from Royal Georges). He was robust, weighing more than 1,300 pounds. Standing at over 16 hands, he was also taller than the small, more ubiquitous Standardbred of his day. His short back was an important feature for riding horses. He was not well liked by many breeders of Standardbreds. He resembled the older, less-specialized trotting lines that had been common in both Canada and the United States in the 1860s. Breeder’s Gazette, 6 April 1882, front page.

types with some Thoroughbred blood, one writer noted, and then argued that the reason the Northern army did not win a cavalry engagement until the last year of the war (when the army managed to capture Southern horses) was because the Northern troops had been mounted on trotters designed to be driven, not ridden.26 Clearly, trotting blood dominated the horse population of at least the Northern states in the 1860s. Loyalty to trotting/pacing light horses, over the English Thoroughbred, remained strong in North America. A good off-farm market for a

36

The Breeding of Horses

light trotting/pacing animal continued to exist in Canada and the United States after the 1860s, and by 1880 had resulted in a trend to increased specialization in North American light-horse breeding, which culminated in the creation of a faster and smaller trotting horse out of the various old trotting/pacing lines. The useful Royal Georges and other trotter/pacers had, by 1880, largely been replaced by the Standardbred, a trotting horse that owed its rapid development primarily to the Hambletonians. This line originated from a stallion named Rysdyk’s Hambletonian, which was foaled in New York in 1849 and died in 1876.27 Messenger, a Thoroughbred stallion imported from Britain in 1788, had served as the foundation sire behind Hambletonian. This stallion stood about 15½ hands high and was believed to weigh just over 1,000 pounds. He sired approximately 110 foals over his lifetime.28 Other lines of trotters/pacers, however, played a role in the evolution of a purebred trotting breed. So did the Thoroughbred, but not without controversy. Some breeders of the Standardbred believed that Thoroughbred blood should deliberately be introduced to the developing trotter to increase speed and game. Others disagreed, saying either that the aim in breeding trotters was to produce something different from a Thoroughbred or that the British breed contaminated a horse type that was innately American.29 The Standardbred became a breed, not a type, in a different way from the Thoroughbred. Trotting/pacing horses selected for registration in a stud book were not chosen on the basis of registered ancestry or because of progeny testing. Rather, they were singled out on the basis of performance. Trotters and pacers had to achieve a certain level of speed in races to qualify for recording. Methodical collection of such records began in 1839.30 As one animal breeder expert stated, by continually selecting only fast animals for breeding, the slow ones were gradually eliminated and fast horses became even faster.31 The animals were bred to a speed ‘standard’ and labelled ‘standardbred.’ The U.S. Bureau of Animal Industry explained, ‘it is the roadster type carried to the furthest known limit.’32 The Breeder’s Gazette agreed.33 In the late 1870s any horse, mare, or gelding that trotted at the rate of 2½ minutes a mile, under racing trials conducted by the National Trotting Association, qualified for entry into the Breeders’ Trotting Stud Book. By the early 1880s, though, a move to a system more closely related to the way recording was done under the purebred system had begun. Entry into the book was possible on the basis of a genealogy that indicated a potential for speed. It is worth looking at evolving regula-

The Light Horse

37

4 The Standardbred became the ubiquitous light North American horse, overcoming all rival trotting lines and riding animals similar to it as well. While bred for trotting/pacing speed, it was not simply a racing animal, as this picture indicates. The breed was used for a variety of tasks. Given its long back, the Standardbred was designed for harness, not riding, work. Breeder’s Gazette, 11 January 1893, front page.

tions for entry after that time in detail. By 1882 ‘any animal by a standard horse [that is an animal registered because it had passed the racing test], whose first and second dams [mother and grandmother] were by standard sires,’ could be registered. The dam of any stallion that sired, or of any mare that had produced a 2½-minute trotter was considered a Standardbred, provided she herself was sired by a Standardbred horse out of a Standardbred mare. Trotters/pacers could be ridden, or driven

38

The Breeding of Horses

in teams or singly under harness at public racing trials. Eligibility for entry into the book on the basis of trotting/pacing speed was the same for all three forms of racing.34 Races had been reduced to 2 miles instead of 4 by this time, and horses commonly could trot or pace a mile in 2 minutes, 20 seconds, or even 2 minutes, 10 seconds.35 The move away from performance as a basis for breed recognition to that of genealogy continued after 1882. The Breeder’s Gazette reported that testing for speed in racing trials would no longer be used in 1897 as a qualification for entry into the stud book and stated that the trotting association hoped to eliminate speed as a qualification for registry as a breeding animal.36 Opposition to the new regulations, however, forced the association to postpone their adoption until late 1898.37 By 1902, trotting/pacing horses could do a mile in 2 minutes.38 The Standardbred would overcome all rival types of trotters/pacers, even in Canada. A horseman explained the new trotting/pacing horse situation to Ontario farmers in 1889. ‘Well, brother farmer, one thing I have to say to you is that you must not expect to gather figs from thorns. When you undertake to breed for a trotter you must do so with all conditions in your favor from the start,’ and the way to do so is to use ‘the American Standard-bred Trotter’ as a sire.39 The fortunes of the breed would rise while those of other non-purebred lines of trotting/ pacing types would decline, in spite of the fact that the new ‘Standardbred’ gave up certain useful attributes that horses somewhat less specialized, such as the Royal Georges, had possessed. Even though the Standardbreds were capable of trotting faster, the older trotting/pacing types, or lines, had certain valuable qualities: they were shorter backed and wider between the front legs, resulting in better strength and endurance as riding horses. As time would tell, these issues would ultimately be very important to the international light-horse market. Royal Georges were remembered for their good quality and their greater ability to serve a variety of uses long after the line had disappeared.40 Nor was it forgotten that good horses could be bred by type, not by breed. In 1907 one horseman stated that although he was a ‘staunch defender of the purebred,’ the early trotting families were known for excellent qualities and, in fact, went into the present-day trotting Standardbred.41 While the blood of the Standardbred remained the most common ingredient in light horses of mixed background in most of North America until the twentieth century, other light-horse styles developed in the United States, but not in Canada. The Morgan, for example, remained a recognized type after it went into the makeup of the Standardbred. The

The Light Horse

39

5 This saddle, or riding, horse, known as the Saddlebred, developed in the American South from a combination of pacing/trotting lines and the Thoroughbred. The Saddlebred was most common in Kentucky. The breed remained longer-backed than the Thoroughbred, showing its pacing roots. Breeder’s Gazette, 24 January 1894, front page.

American Saddle horse and the Tennessee Walking horse also diverged from the Standardbred as distinct North American equine variations. In spite of the inroads made by these riding horses, light-horse breeding in both the United States and Canada continued to favour the production of driving, not riding, horses. The use of Hackney, imported from Britain, and Hackney crosses developed in North America by 1890, and by 1906 Hackney stallions would also be considered highly desirable for the production of light horses.42 Driving horses also became more specialized for harness use as time went on. The entire North American equine market went into depression in the early 1890s. The trade in horses always seemed to be influenced by a

40

The Breeding of Horses

cycle marked by glut/oversupply, balanced by corrective undersupply, especially with respect to specified types at certain points in time. When that situation coincided in the early 1890s with general economic recession in the Western world and the expansion of specific superior technology capable of doing horse work, the equine market spiralled downwards. The whole horse trade suffered, but light horses were especially hard hit because technology made them redundant earlier than the heavier animals. The problems of driving versus riding horses, and breed over type, only made the situation worse. In cities, the introduction of electricity as the power to drive street railways seriously undercut the need for the ‘lighter street-car horse.’ In 1893 the O.A.C. Review, the journal of the Ontario Agricultural College, announced that this new power source had ended a lucrative market for farmers.43 In 1895 the Breeder’s Gazette in the United States noted that the bicycle and the trolley car had resulted in the grinding up of many light horses for fertilizer.44 The reduced demand for light stock triggered the founding of abattoirs for the processing of horse meat, even though Americans had never favoured it as food. That seemed a good way to dispose of ‘misfit’ horses, the journal noted, and was worth a try at any rate.45 Strong opposition to horse-meat packing, persisted, however. In Indiana, officials went so far as to imprison two men engaged in slaughtering and packing operations.46 Old lame horses were particularly valueless under these conditions and were labelled ‘killers’ on the market. Cities rounded up many of these animals and collected dead horses as well, taking them to rendering plants where their hides, hooves, and hair were turned into glue and their bone pulverized for fertilizer.47 Clearly, the vast majority of this killer stock belonged to the class of light animals.48 The depressed equine market affected many light-horse breeders. As one wrote to the Gazette: ‘I hear about the bicycle and horseless carriage until I am discouraged.’49 The workings of the horse market could be puzzling, even to the experts. ‘Horses are plentiful. Horses are cheap. Horses are a [drag] on the market,’ the Gazette reported in 1896, yet it was difficult to find a good, light, harness horse. ‘Queer, isn’t it?’50 Locomotive technology alone could not effectively end the demand for horses. Climate and road conditions played an equal role in the early practicality of electric streetcars. Until some way could be found to deal with snow and mud, light driving horses would continue to be seasonally useful. Some breeders of lighter horses in particular, but all equine types in general, were lulled into a false sense of security about the impact of advancing technology on the demand for their animals. Horses were the

The Light Horse

41

only way with mud and heavy snow in Canada, the Farmer’s Advocate noted. Even in cities, snow made electric streetcars useless, and horses had to be brought in during storms.51 With the advent of the first horseless carriages, or automobiles, horsemen looked to the effect that railways and bicycles had made as a means to predict the impact these machines would have on the use of light equine power. Comments found in the Breeder’s Gazette and the Farmer’s Advocate illustrate the variety of contemporary attitudes in the United States and Canada towards the present and future effects of technology on the role of the light horse in society. One person wrote to the Gazette in 1898 that bicycles had been a passing fad and would have no effect on the role of the light carriage horse. Furthermore, ‘the ludicrous failures of horseless carriages the last year or two would seem to put a quietus on the manufacture of the lumbering, loud-smelling vehicles.’ People kept trying, but success in building a useful machine seemed so far in the future that the driving or roadster horse-breeding industry remained perfectly safe for the present.52 In 1902 another writer confirmed that the roadster was here to stay. ‘How poor after all is the joy of beholding the most beautiful scenes mounted on an insensate mechanism when it is possible to view them from the back of a living creature gifted with intelligence that is almost human? With most men the horse has nothing to fear from the competition of the bicycle and the automobile.’53 ‘Present conditions appear to indicate that the horse interests are about to be seriously influenced by the automobile, but I do not think that we have much cause for alarm on that score,’ one thoughtful Canadian wrote shortly after in the Farmer’s Advocate. ‘The automobile is at present a fad with the wealthy classes in cities,’ but harness horses, or roadsters, will always be in demand by real gentlemen.54 Cars are just a fad among rich people and not a threat to the horse industry, another writer announced.55 Carriage horses are not on the way out, a third person added. That cry has gone on and on and started with railways.56 Everyone thought the bicycle would spell the doom of the light horse, but that market collapsed. Overheated markets made the bicycle cheap and the business went under. ‘And may not a similar fate await the automobile? It will not then be a mark of distinction to own automobiles. They will gradually become unfashionable ... When that time arrives the horse will be elevated to a higher plane.’57 Regardless of these prognostications, light stock still glutted the market after the general horse market began to recover in the United States in the early 1900s. The Gazette reported that ‘it was [often] cheaper to let them die than to

42

The Breeding of Horses

call a veterinarian. Thousands were herded up and shot or driven to the cannery to be butchered.’58 Even when it was clear by 1910 that the car was here to stay, horsemen in Canada clung to their views about the limited impact of technology, buoyed, no doubt, by the recovery of both the economy and the entire horse trade. The cry that the horse will soon be put out of business has been raised so often that it is ancient history, almost as old as the horse. In the advent of the railway, the cry was raised that the day of the horse would soon be over. Instead of the railway supplanting the horse, it has increased the sphere of his usefulness. Next came the tram or electric cars, then the cry was that there would be no market for horses in cities; it was well known [these] used up a lot of horses. Now we have the prototype of those theorists saying to breeders that their realm has been invaded, and the [light] horse must give way for the automobile. Yet his usefulness and money value goes merrily up and up.59

In spite of steam, gasoline, and electric power, the roadster type of horse is more in demand than ever, the Advocate proclaimed.60 ‘For many years the argument has been put forward that the horse was doomed to extinction, by reason of the discovery of more suitable motor-power. But time has proven the fallacy of such statements. Years ago, when electric power was being installed in Toronto and other cities for street-car and other purposes, the horse was said to be doomed to extinction. The bicycle did it again, the automobile was to finish the horse, and the traction engine removed all doubt. Still the horse is produced in greater numbers, and of better quality, than ever before.’61 Farmers in both the United States and Canada quickly developed strong views about the effects of cars, not just on the light-horse market but on society more generally. Most believed there was a need to regulate how cars were used. Horses had been frightened of trains, bicycles, and tramways in the past, and now they were of cars.62 This incompatibility made for a dangerous situation. ‘The right-of-way, that is the question,’ one American farmer fumed to the Breeder’s Gazette in 1902. ‘Were the wagon roads of this nation built for the vehicles hauled by quadrupeds, for equestrians, for pedestrians or were they built for steam, gasoline, and electric engines?’ We need protection from these ‘devilwagons.’63 Another correspondent from Iowa described how he was driving into town with his wife and children behind his team of horses

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when, over the hill, came one of these ‘devil-buggies.’ The horses lunged and became almost uncontrollable, but ‘the chauffeur [of the auto] flew past with a grin and a cigar stuck in the corner of his mouth.’64 In 1904 a heated debate took place in the Gazette over the use of horses and cars on roads. One farmer agreed that the issue of speed in cars was critical. ‘Most of the men who have these autos are seeing how fast they can go and they do not want to stop,’ he stated, but he also observed that he had seen ‘lots of autos being pulled by horses to a repair shop’ and that autos were ‘simply death to mares about to foal.’65 Another person wrote in to say that it made sense to expose horses to cars to make them less frightened.66 This line of thinking appealed to another correspondent: ‘It seems to me that the farmers are being very unreasonable’ when they demand that cars be removed from public roads, and he added that he had never heard of an auto/horse accident in his county. His mother and sister regularly drove the roads without fear. ‘The idea of keeping [cars] off the roads by legislative action or gunshot threats is preposterous.’ One farmer entirely agreed with these points, stating that there were reckless drivers for both autos and horses, and that ‘the automobile is here, and here to stay.’ In his opinion, all drivers should obey the laws of the road.67 It is people, not horses, who are afraid of the auto, a writer reported to the Gazette. While he was driving an auto down a road recently, ‘out of all the horses passed ... only two were really badly scared. People would jump out and several got hold of the horse ... They would hold on for dear life while we slowly passed them and the horse would cock his ear at the machine and wonder what it was. Then, pale and trembling, they would climb in and curse us out of sight. Once a whole family climbed under the fence and ran half way through a field.’68 This story struck one person as hitting the right note. In some parts of the country, he claimed, auto drivers were described as devils. ‘We are led to infer that the owners and operators of automobiles are fiends incarnate. They make it their business to go about like roaring lions seeking whom they may devour. Every mile or so along their path can be found the bodies of men, women, and children lying bleeding and dying uncared for on the roads. The surviving men, women, and children who have escaped being crushed beneath the wheels of these damnable Juggernauts, as soon as they recover from their paralyzing fright, flee to the woods where vast numbers have starved to death before recovering their reason.’ The writer doubted if any of this could be true anywhere in the country. It

44

The Breeding of Horses

certainly wasn’t in his neighborhood. And he happened to be a farmer who owned an auto.69 Another writer opined that bringing up ‘a horse in ignorance of every day objects of the road [seemed] ... almost equivalent to murder,’ for autos were and always would be everyday objects on the road. Devil-wagons were not toys: they were used by many respectable people too.70 Accidents may have been common, but drivers of cars could be held accountable. In New York, someone handling a fast automobile in 1902 was charged with manslaughter for ‘running down and killing a farmer in the public road.’71 American farmers demanded legislation at least to control how cars were used on public roads, if not to get the machines off public roads.72 Farmers lobbied for laws regulating the speed of cars, a means of identifying vehicles, and ways of convicting offenders of such laws.73 Legislation soon followed to control the driving of cars; in Iowa, for example, a law was passed in 1906 which regulated car speed and required autos to stop to let a horse and buggy pass.74 The belief that light horses would continue to be needed in large numbers did not die easily, especially when the horse trade began to recover from the devastating effects of the equine depression of the 1890s. In 1907, the Gazette reported that ‘those who were banking on the passing of the horse have some time to wait before they cash in. In every large city in the United States there are more horses today than there ever were since the motor car became practicable in America.’ And there were a lot of dead cars in New York City alone.75 In 1908 the Gazette sounded ambiguous on this matter. In New York City, it said, horse supplies – feed for the animals and veterinary-care facilities – were only half what had been demanded earlier; the car might be here to stay, but it was expensive to run – and it was a craze, this buying of cars, as bicycles had been a decade earlier. The newspaper even argued that a poor horse market had, in fact, fuelled the sale of cars: ‘When one contemplates the high prices and limited supply of harness horses for the past ten years one cannot help wondering what people would have done had it not been for the advent of motorcars.’ With a recovered horse market, cars and harness stock would both be useful: good harness horses would continue to be in demand, though cars would take over some of their work.76 Farmers in Canada persisted in seeing cars as a passing fad of low taste. ‘While the present demand for the carriage or ... harness horse is not as brisk as usual, owing to the fad of using automobiles at present existing among the rich,’ one writer stated in 1905 in the O.A.C. Review, ‘I do not

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think the depression will continue.’77 ‘The Automobile Nuisance’ was the way the Farmer’s Advocate in Canada described the use of cars in 1906. The journal reported on a horse/car accident to illustrate how serious the combination of cars with horses on roads really could be. A horse was killed, a man and woman were injured in an accident involving a car, and the car had not even stopped to see what had happened. Fortunately, new legislation to control these disasters was in effect by 1906. Cars could go no faster than fifteen miles an hour in the country, and ten miles an hour in towns and cities. They had to signal to horses and give their intent to pass, and they had to give horses and drivers a chance to get off the road for safety. Cars had to stop if drivers of horses asked them to. Cars had also to carry licence plates. Meanwhile, the Advocate seethed over the effects of car invasion on society generally. ‘The best-informed opinion is that the motor car will come to be used moderately, much as the bicycle now is. It is the pleasure-seeker, particularly the haughty plutocrat or the profligate young snob, who is most likely to disregard the rights of country people.’ Rich foreigners drove cars and frightened women and children driving to market or even to church. ‘The plain truth is that the use of the “auto” is mainly an evidence of the vulgarity of wealth.’78 Even with the new regulations regarding auto-driving in place, ‘automobiles are a curse on country roads, and will be until there is some law put in force to compel them to stop still when meeting any rig, for there is not one horse out of fifty that will go by an automobile when they are running. But it is generally some city dude that gets in an automobile and seems to take pleasure in seeing how many horses and rigs he can put in the ditch.’79 Change in attitude came quickly, however, when farmers themselves started to buy cars and when road horses got used to the machines. Resistance to cars had largely disappeared in the American press by 1908 and in the Canadian press by 1912. ‘The prejudice of former years against automobiles is dying out gradually,’ the Advocate noted that year in Canada. ‘A decade or so ago those from rural parts were a unit in denouncing them.’ Horses, being unaccustomed to cars, had been terrified of them, and it had been unsafe to drive a horse near a car. Horses were getting used to automobiles.80 It was believed by then that cars and carriage horses could at least cohabit with each other, an attitude encouraged by car manufacturers. Ford, for example, wooed Canadian farmers by trying to tell them that the machine was not in conflict with their lifestyle or with the role played by their light horses. Farmers should buy cars to save their horses for

46

The Breeding of Horses

work on the farms. The animals should not be worn out driving over roads to market. Cars don’t replace horses, but work with them.81 Ads for cars in the American press did not focus directly on uses for cars compared with horses. Rather, they emphasized the reliability of engines in their advertising campaigns.82 A good car could be related to a good horse in American ads. ‘A fine motor car,’ an ad for Rambler stated in 1911, ‘like a fine horse, shows its class or pedigree in its lines, its grace, its performance.’83 Ideas about purity, almost eugenic in nature, could, apparently, be applied to inanimate objects. Many American farmers, however, seemed to subscribe to the message in Ford’s Canadian ads. In 1915 the Breeder’s Gazette reported that ‘the auto is convenient, the horse is indispensable. Evidently autos on farms are not displacing horses. When the auto is used some one or two horses get a rest instead of a stiff workout. That is really the only difference. It puts the horses in better condition for efficient work when they are required.’84 The Gazette noted, though, that the auto tended to do the work of the light horse; while poor roads and mud might make an auto useless, these conditions also required the heavier, not the lighter, horse.85 Horses generally might not be threatened by the car, but the technology spelt the death knell of the light horse.86 It was clear by 1917 that farmers even in Canada were purchasing autos in ever greater numbers.87 The market for light driving horses had, by that time, thoroughly collapsed.88 Even conditions of the First World War could not stimulate renewed breeding of good light horses. The conflict absorbed excess stock still on the market, but did not appear to seriously influence farmers’ breeding strategies. Light-horse breeding had gone into serious decline by 1918, after a period of growth over the mid-nineteenth century. But the nineteenth century had also witnessed the initiation of a huge acceleration in horse breeding outside the realms of the light horse. The continued growth of industrialization and of the related trends of urbanization and developing technology in Europe and North America over the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries had triggered the final flowering in the breeding of horses for work purposes, a flowering that saw the rise of the heavy horse. It was the product of an industrial, not an agricultural, age. Railway building increased the need for horses in all countries, and railways themselves came to own an increasing number of heavy horses. By 1871, as many horses lived off farms as on them in Britain, and by the 1890s, urban/industrially owned heavy draft stock outnumbered agricultural animals.89 One scholar, H.B. Barclay, described this general global expansion in horse numbers as the fifth and largest explosion in the

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world’s horse population since the time of domestication.90 With this last mushrooming of the equine population, the number of horses in the world reached its peak between 1910 and 1920: 110 million worldwide, and twice as many animals as a century earlier. Before the industrial age, roughly 1720, the world’s horse population had stood at about 27 million.91 The nineteenth and early twentieth centuries witnessed not just a crescendo in the equine numbers, but the rise of the heavy draft horse within the equine population.

THREE

The Heavy Horse

Issues relating to city and industrial work initiated the drive to create a distinctly heavier horse in the second half of the nineteenth century and, in the end, led to the zenith of the heavy draft horse’s fortunes.1 Three horse breeds came to dominate the scene in North America: the Clydesdale and the Shire from Britain and the Percheron from France. The story of how these breeds fared both in their native countries and in the United States and Canada does much to explain the world of the heavy draft horse. It also reveals how the shift to breed theory over type theory happened in general horse production and the reasons why that move occurred. The world of the purebred horse in this period is, in fact, the world of the heavy draft horse. The Thoroughbred evolved from different roots, and its culture shaped purebred breeding. The Standardbred reflected some aspects of purebred breeding and, ultimately, became part of the system set up by the method. Purebred breeding evolved in the British heavy horse, first in the Clydesdale and then in the Shire. Once Americans demanded that French breeders fall in line, Percheron production also followed the purebred method. The history of the breeds also reveals the way purebred breeding worked in relation to markets and international trade. In Britain, the breeding for heavier horses culminated in the existence of three types of draft animal: the Suffolk Punch, the Clydesdale, and the Shire. Because the Suffolk Punch never achieved widespread popularity in North America, it did not substantially influence the transatlantic trade in heavy horses or heavy-horse production in Canada and the United States and will not be examined in detail here. The beginnings of both the Clydesdale and the Shire go back to the twelfth century, when robust horses were known to exist in East Anglia. These

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early draft animals, however, were in the minority compared with the standard smaller horse. Over the years, farmers repeatedly crossed imported black Flanders horses with their local draft stock and, by the sixteenth century, had developed bigger animals commonly used to haul carts and wagons. Large black cart horses from Leicestershire apparently sold to London buyers for dray work as early as 1640, and horse dealers traded the animals at Midland country fairs primarily for city uses.2 City markets, then, shaped not only the need for a heavier horse but also the development of what would become a complicated equine trading system. Late eighteenth-century urban industry in Britain triggered a more methodical selection for draft qualities in horses.3 Both the Clyde and Shire had evolved from these early roots by that time, and although the Clyde tended to be lighter and more agile than the Shire, neither one could be described as a truly distinct type or breed. The Clyde was in many ways a Scottish version of the English Shire, and visa versa; both owed their development to the interbreeding of Scottish and English animals.4 Horse breeders made their selection based on the desired quality in individual animals. In the mid-nineteenth century two tenant farmers, Lawrence Drew and David Riddell, set out to establish the Clyde as a ‘breed’ and not a ‘type’ because they believed that distinction would enable them to market horses better. They claimed purity because they kept pedigrees in a stud book, but they also continued to introduce Shire genetics to breeding programs. Drew argued that the way to breed both the Clyde and the Shire was to cross each with the other.5 There was something Bakewellian in this breeding stance: selection made on the basis of desired quality, not genealogy. ‘There is no such thing as a pure Clydesdale,’ he stated.6 The idea of type frequently overrode the concept of purebred in Clyde affairs. The newly named purebred Clyde was still often viewed as a Scottish type rather than a breed. Shires continued to sire prize-winning Clydes in the 1880s and 1890s, and one outstanding mare with no known genealogy had her portrait done as an illustration of the perfect representative of the Clyde breed. (She had been found by Riddell, who was a horse dealer as well as a breeder and regularly scoured the countryside for horses of unknown background.) Even the earlier foundation sire of the Clydesdale breed, Prince of Wales, although bred by Drew, had come from an unknown background. The Clyde might be defined as a breed after Drew’s and Riddell’s work, but reality indicated otherwise. Selection on the basis of quality and type dominated over selection on the basis of genealogy.

50

The Breeding of Horses

6 The Scottish Clyde was the favourite heavy draft type in Canada and competed for that honour in the United States with the French Percheron. It was noted for its enormous size and for the extreme feathering on the legs. This characteristic was not wanted in North America to the extent that British breeders desired it, particularly in show animals. Breeder’s Gazette, 6 September 1893, front page.

The Shire (more likely to be called the English cart horse before 1884) had developed in a similar fashion: crossing of Flemish animals on local stock and interbreeding with the Scottish cart horse. The modern Shire seems to have been fixed between 1760 and 1790 in Leicestershire, primarily through Robert Bakewell’s methods.7 The first horse that could be described as a true Shire to arrive in Scotland for breeding purposes (in 1774) was actually bred by Bakewell himself. But Clyde crosses on Shires would be just as critical to the evolution of the Shire as it was to the Clyde. Attempts to make distinct breeds did not change the reality that, even though the Shire tended to be heavier than the Clyde,

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7 This Shire was bred by Robert Bakewell in the late eighteenth century. The animal was smaller than its late nineteenth-century version, but larger than horses found before Bakewell’s time. The horse was also black, a colour that remained common in the Shire throughout the nineteenth century. It’s interesting to compare the size of this animal in relation to the ones in figure 8, a more modern Shire, and in figure 6, a Clydesdale after the work of Drew and Riddell. There is also a relative lack of feathering on the legs when compared to horses in figures 6 and 8. Feathering had become even more extreme on the Shire than on the Clyde by the end of the nineteenth century. Robert Bakewell’s Black Cart-Horse Stallion, attributed to John Boultbee, oil in canvas, 1790.

the two showed little difference between them.8 Individuals within each breed varied more than did animals between the two breeds. The fortunes of the heavy British types would be affected dramatically by situations that were developing in other countries. By the latter half of the nineteenth century a demand for heavy drafts had emerged in North America. Even though horses had been wanted for urban and industrial

52

The Breeding of Horses

8 This painting shows how much the Shire had changed from the Bakewellian horse by the early twentieth century. Breeders had increased its size, weight, and leg hair, in what appeared to be an attempt to create a show rather than a working animal. White feathering was wanted in show animals as well. Obviously, the Clyde and the Shire could be very similar. Ivy Victor Chief, a Shire Horse, W.A. Clark, oil on canvas, 1914.

purposes in the New World early in the century (in 1832 horse-drawn streetcars could be found in New York City),9 these animals could not be described as heavy types. The new drafts began to be imported in a small way in the 1840s into Canada, possibly in relation to railway-building activities under way in central Canada at this time. But it appears that virtually none went to the United States from Britain at that time. While Americans knew about Clydes in Canada West (later Ontario) by the 1860s, the heavy-draft-horse era did not really start in the United States until well after the American Civil War.10 Brady photographs taken during the war indicate that even horses used for transport and the

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9 Very few photographs of horses seem to have survived from the Civil War. Those that do show that light horses served in the artillery. Civil War veterans of the Northern army recalled them with nostalgia. The animals reminded the men of life at home on the farm, where light trotting stock did all the agricultural work. It is clear that the heavy draft horse was not the common workhorse of the period. Brady Photo, War Department of the United States. G.M. Rommel, ‘The Army Remount Problem,’ U.S. Bureau of Animal Industry, Report, 1910.

hauling of artillery were light horses, not heavy drafts. The animals appear to be Morgan, Standardbred, and Thoroughbred grade crosses.11 The Breeder’s Gazette argued that American farmers had no experience with heavy horses before 1872.12 By 1880 the United States imported heavier animals from Canada in large numbers, stock bred from crossing

54

The Breeding of Horses

the old French Canadian on the Clyde and the Shire.13 Witnesses reported to the Ontario Agricultural Commission that year that the Clydesdale proved valuable both to the export market in horses and to heavy industry in factories.14 Canadian draft animals found ready markets in New York, Philadelphia, and Boston.15 The Farmer’s Advocate explained that Americans wanted Canadian heavy horses in greater numbers because of a new demand for the type in cities. Americans had used stock weighing between 1,000 and 1,100 pounds for urban work but now looked for horses weighing 1,400 to 1,600 pounds. ‘So they came to our markets and bought almost anything that had much weight,’ it continued. This demand raised the price of draft horses ‘fully thirty percent.’16 The golden years for trade between Britain and North America in the two heavy draft breeds or types came in the 1880s.17 The Clyde dominated the trade, and the Shire never achieved the same popularity. Some British breeders later argued that transatlantic buyers purchased Shires only when there was a shortage of Clydes.18 While Canada continued to import, the greatest numbers demand came from the United States and the period became known as the American Boom.19 Americans imported from both Britain and Canada.20 In spite of the falling-off of the market at the end of the 1880s, Canadian farmers continued to find it comparatively easy to sell their heavy drafters for use in U.S. cities.21 The international trade in Clydes between Britain and North America recovered to some degree in the mid-1890s, but the preponderance of Clydes leaving Britain at that time would be destined for Canada, not the United States.22 Americans may not have followed strict purebred breeding methodology in domestic horse production in the early 1880s, as can be seen in recording systems for the Standardbred, but when it came to equine imports they demanded proof, through authentic pedigrees, that the stock was purebred. The purebred horse population of the country at that time was composed of imports. The first volume of the stud book for Clydesdales in the United States showed that, from a total of just over 1,000 registered animals, more than 650 had come from Scotland, 30 from England, and over 270 from Canada, while fewer than 50 had been born in the country.23 This American insistence on purity and its verification in pedigrees would make havoc of the Clyde world in both Canada and Britain. The Clydesdale and the Shire continued to be interbred with each other after the stud book for the Clydesdale was established in Scotland in 1877 and for the Shire in England in 1878. Initially, when the Ameri-

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can Clydesdale Association was formed in 1879, Americans accepted any Clydesdales registered in the British book, and therefore some animals that had Shire crosses.24 The Breeder’s Gazette clearly recognized the value of Shire genetics in the Clyde, and visa versa, in 1882, as well as the fact that differences between types within each breed were greater that those between the breeds.25 One major problem lay in the fact that American farmers could be duped with false pedigrees, created either by British breeders or by unscrupulous American importers. A buyer wrote in to the Gazette in 1883 asking for advice on pedigrees. He stated that he had just contacted an importer about Clyde stock and their pedigrees. The importer had responded by saying he had suitable horses at reasonable prices, but he took no interest in pedigrees. He believed they did not indicate ‘purity of breeding or quality’ in a horse. Paying entry fees to record book associations was, in his opinion, a waste of money. ‘Now if the stud books for draft horses are not reliable,’ the writer said to the editor of the Gazette, ‘I should like to be informed, as men like myself have been led to believe that a good stallion with a good pedigree was much more valuable than a good horse with no pedigree.’ The editor responded that letters like this one arrived every day, and he added this warning: ‘Breeders and importers who disparage the value of recorded pedigrees most likely have horses not eligible to record, and such men are sometimes reckless enough to endeavor to injure the standing of the associations engaged in publishing stud books. Stud books are published for the protection of breeders and are, with scarcely an exception, patronized by reputable dealers or breeders, who are interested in having all spurious and fraudulent pedigrees excluded.’26 There is confusion in this response between what the innate value of an authentic pedigree might be and what the production of false ones meant. In 1883 Drew and Riddell, who openly believed that the way to breed Clydesdales was to cross them on Shires and resisted the developing American ideas about purity in the horses, opened a book called the Select Clydesdale Horse Society of Scotland. (After Drew died in 1884, Riddell struggled to keep the organization going until 1888.)27 Recording was to be done on the basis of merit, which would be judged at Scottish shows. The two men defined any horse, no matter what its breeding, which won a prize at a Scottish show as a quality Clyde and eligible for registration in their new book. Since many Scottish shows had ‘draft,’ not ‘Clyde,’ classes, any horse could be recognized as a Clyde in the Select Book. American purchasers had better be wary, the Gazette warned.28 Drew and Riddell argued that a person buying animals re-

56

The Breeding of Horses

corded in the Select Book was guaranteed that such horses had passed the scrutiny of well-qualified judges who pronounced the horses to be of the best Clydesdale type.29 Drew elaborated on his breeding theory in the Breeder’s Gazette: ‘No man believes more in pedigrees, either in horse or cow, than do I.’ He bought only the best, he stated, and whether a horse came from Scotland or England was never a consideration. English mares were often the best sort to breed to Scottish stallions. Furthermore, all good animals had a good pedigree, ‘although there might, perhaps, be some difficulty in tracing it.’ In response to the accusation that he purchased English mares and sold their foals as pure Clydes, he added, ‘I never in my life misrepresented the pedigree of any animal I sold ... The fusion of English blood has greatly improved the Clydesdale horse, and I recommend my friends not to be led away with clap-trap about stud books.’30 The Gazette made an effort to explain to American readers these British views on the Clyde/Shire question, opinions that emerged from the historical background of heavy horse breeding in England and Scotland. ‘There are two distinct views entertained by breeders of draft horses in England and Scotland regarding the Clydesdale and the Shire horse. The first is that these are two distinct breeds of animals, formed from a different nucleus, and reared for generations after two widelydistinct types. The second is that they are not distinct breeds, but one. That by judicious crossing of the one with the other a better animal than either could be produced, and that therefore there should not be two but only one Stud-book for these horses.’31 The journal, however, clung to the idea that purity must be guaranteed in pedigrees for importers of stock in the United States. The stud book of the Select Clydesdale Horse Society of Scotland contained no authenticated pedigrees, the Gazette warned, and such papers were absolutely worthless in the United States.32 Pedigrees should mean purity, regardless of the historical way either the Clyde or the Shire developed. Furthermore, the journal added, the so-called Select Clydesdale Stud Book was really the work of a few Scottish breeders who had crossed Clydesdale stallions on English draft mares and, in the process, had become overstocked. The Select Stud Book was created by bitter enemies of the true and pure Clyde breeders of Scotland, and these men were interfering with ‘the purity of the grandest and noblest breed of draft horses in the world.’ They were trying to pass off grades as purebred.33 Breeders in the United States had become devoted to the idea that pedigree on the basis of genealogy meant quality, and they dis-

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missed the idea that individual merit played any role as a qualifier for recording. One of the main objections to the Scottish Select Book, in the view of the Breeder’s Gazette, was ‘that the basis ... [was] supposed to be individual merit alone, and that pedigree [was] “no factor in the tests of admission.”’34 American breeders, in an unclear way, seemed to appreciate the need for the progeny test in their allegiance to genealogy. Drew and Riddell were also working on the principle of hybrid vigour when they selected solely on individual merit with Shire/Clyde crosses. A.D. Buchanan-Smith, a geneticist, analyzed the records of the Select Book and suggested that Drew and Riddell did not understand, or did not care about, the fact that the stock they recorded on merit would not breed on truly. They ignored the progeny test.35 The wide use of Shire mares in Clydesdale country continued through the 1880s and even into the 1890s.36 The reliance on a public registry to denote purity of breed contradicted the underlying philosophy in this breeding strategy, however, and British breeders were forced to stop using Shires to breed Clydes when American importers and breeders decided to accept only those Clydes that fit the description of being purebred. The Select Book issues triggered an official demand by Americans that registered Clydes be purely of Clyde background. In 1886 the American association reacted to public sentiment about breeders and changed its standards: Shire genetics were no longer permitted in the ancestry of Clydes for registry purposes. That shift set off a chain of international events. The American insistence on purity in the Clydesdale made Scottish breeders less likely to have Shires in their Clyde breeding programs, even though the practice of Clyde/Shire crossing continued in a more limited way. The secretary of the Clydesdale Horse Society told a group of breeders at a meeting in Edinburgh in 1895 that many breeders complied at that time with the new standards that separated the breed/types. The organization wanted to stop Scottish breeders from breeding English (Shire) mares with Clyde stallions because such mares had no recorded Clyde pedigrees. If it were not for the stud book, no one would acknowledge that these imported Shire mares were not pure Clydes. Stud book rules had been made to ensure that the horses were what they were said to be.37 The downfall of the Scottish Select Society related directly to the American refusal to recognize pedigrees that were unclear or that openly recorded Shire blood. Canada also experienced export problems that related to the Shire/ Clyde problem and the American demand for purity. In 1882 the Agriculture and Arts Association, a voluntary organization responsible for

58

The Breeding of Horses

agricultural policy in Ontario, began to record Clyde pedigrees on the same basis as the American standards of the day: Shire breeding was accepted in the background of some Clydes. The association decided in 1886 to revise its standards to make them match the new American requirements, and it also asked Canadian breeders to form an association. The Breeder’s Gazette thought it was time that Canadians considered their standards in relation to those in the United States. ‘Should the qualifications for registry in the Canadian Stud book be less than in the American Stud book the effect would be to lower the value of all Canadian-bred Clydesdales, and this would be a serious matter for Canadians who have been long breeding Clydesdales, and in not a few cases with distinguished progress.’38 To provide horses that had Shire backgrounds in their pedigrees with credibility, the Agriculture and Arts Association decided that horses of Shire/Clyde cross in future be listed in an appendix, called the Canadian Draught Horse Appendix.39 Many Clyde/Shire producers did not like this solution. W. Fanson and his son, both of Toronto, led a group of petitioners who requested that a separate book be set up for the Shire/ Clyde horse and be called the Canadian Draught Horse Stud Book. The word ‘appendix’ suggested inferiority of quality, these breeders believed, and, since the Clyde had been built on such crosses, it made no sense to imply that the Clyde/Shire horse was inherently a poorer animal.40 The association vigorously opposed this plan, stating that ‘it would be encouraging the breeding of impure Clydesdales.’41 The petitioners succeeded anyway and went on to form a new association in 1888. The Canadian Draught Horse Association published its first stud book in 1889, based on the standards used under the older Canadian recording system set up in 1882.42 ‘From this it will be seen that the Canadian Draught Horse Stud Book is not so much a new work as it is the continuation in an improved form of the old Appendix,’ the new association pointed out.43 The recording of Clyde/Shire crosses had led a group of breeders in Ontario near Goderich to set up a different stud book for this type of horse.44 The Dominion Draught Horse Association registered Clyde/ Shire crosses, but accepted lower standards than the Canadian Draught Horse Association did. Directors of the Dominion Draught Horse Association knew good horses, however, and used their discretionary power to assess the quality of candidates for recording.45 They also prosecuted people for submitting fraudulent pedigrees.46 Readers of the farm press supported the idea of a stud book for Clyde/Shires, but did not believe two books were necessary to do the job. ‘Why have two?’ one person

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queried.47 Why not unite the two and use the lower standards as an appendix? another asked.48 The Breeder’s Gazette was not pleased even with an appendix to the Canadian book for Canadian Clydes with Shire background. American buyers would be confused and believe the ‘grades’ to be purebred. ‘Innocent buyers of such stock have been grossly imposed upon in the purchase and use of animals so recorded,’ the journal noted in 1888, ‘showing as they do a certificate in due form issued by the Canadian society, which is calculated to entirely deceive those who are not aware that distinctions were recognized between pure-bred and grade horses recorded in the Canadian register.’ When the Gazette learned from a Canadian breeder about the new Draught Horse Association, which would replace the appendix to the Canadian Clyde book, the journal’s editor became outraged. The Canadian had written: ‘We are having trouble here in the draft horse business with new associations, which register and give certificates for cross-bred animals. The object is not concealed, viz.: to give certificates that will help to sell animals on your side.’ If Americans would accept pedigrees only in regular standard books, he continued, ‘this would soon stop this registration of mongrels.’ Apparently, the Gazette fumed, ‘interested parties desiring to foist upon the American trade mixed-bred and grade horses of all descriptions are arranging to issue certificates.’ It was high time that some regulation was put in place to stop this confusion. These Canadians ‘seem to be successful in finding victims for their sales in the U.S.,’ it warned. ‘Our Canadian friends are first-class horsemen, and have large numbers of useful grade animals in their midst which they would like to sell to American buyers, but a reasonable regard for the future of their business and proper consideration of common honesty and fairness should lead them to cease at once and forever the nefarious practice of palming off such low-bred horses upon people who buy in good faith for breeding purposes.’ People who bought Canadian draft horses did so at their own peril. Americans believed in purity – in guaranteed purity in pedigrees. If Canadians could not police their ranks better and stop disreputable dealers ‘selling for breeding purposes recorded mongrels,’ their entire market with the United States would be imperilled.49 Fanson responded forcefully to the Gazette’s attack. First, he said, the early records in the United States for Clydes show animals registered with Shire crosses. Second, everyone knew that crossing of Shires and Clydes went on in Britain. Third, the new Canadian Clyde book had the highest standards in the world at this point and accepted no Shire blood.

60

The Breeding of Horses

Furthermore, the original book in Canada had been based on American standards. The appendix book had been established to record and make clear what horses were crosses. The trouble started when American importers bought up young stallions recorded in the appendix book and suggested to innocent farmers in the United States that they should be used as purebred breeding males. That type of dishonesty led Canadians to form the new Draught Horse Association. They wanted to make it clear to everyone exactly what the background was of these Shire/ Clydes. ‘Evil-minded men had not hesitated to head their horse bills “recorded in the Clydesdale book” (in one sense they were, but by no means as pure-bred), and conveying the idea that they were pure-bred Clydesdales when they were not.’50 The Gazette was furious with these comments, which in effect slurred American importers because of an internal Canadian dispute or conflict over markets through pedigrees. The argument that the American book ever accepted crossbreds, and the plea that early Canadian action could be understood as part of the same policy, was ‘not only absurd upon its face, but subversive of all honestly-directed efforts at preserving purity of any of our recognized breed.’ Furthermore, the journal added, ‘the “Dominion” catch-as-catch-can is but one remove from the “Canadian,” and the original scrub himself.’ Cross-bred horses might be good working horses. That was not the point; they should not be used for breeding purposes.51 Members of the Canadian Clydesdale Association were not opposed to backing the Gazette’s opinion. They saw the Shire/Clyde books as detrimental to their trade with the United States. As one Canadian wrote in to the Gazette, there are a few dishonest men in Ontario ‘who are small enough and dishonest enough to try and foist on to an American buyer anything they can possibly pretend to call a Clydesdale horse, still I believe they are in a small minority. Every honest horseman will do his best to stop this.’ He added that the appendix had never been conceived as a method to deceive or as a tool for horse traders to use when practising shady deals.52 Another Canadian importer, who had been purchasing in Scotland in 1886, commented on the whole issue of quality and importation: many Americans ‘went into the importing business for the sake of the almighty dollar alone’ and found that more money could be made by bringing in poor stallions and selling them than by buying the best quality animals. The importation of second-rate stallions, in turn, helped to give the breed a bad name.53 Purity and pedigrees had nothing to do with what stock was actually imported.

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In 1889 the American Clydesdale Association wanted to impose a registration fee of twenty pounds sterling on all stallions, even recognized purebreds, entering from Canada or Britain. Breeders from these countries were incensed. ‘As surely as the Clydesdale Association adopts this rule,’ the Farmer’s Advocate said, ‘as surely will they injure this noble breed and forward the interests of its rivals.’54 New government tariff regulation followed shortly. In 1890 the Treasury Department ruled that no animal could be imported duty free unless an authorized pedigree proving it to be purebred accompanied it. The Gazette was ecstatic over this turn of events because it proved an effective device against the entry of mongrel Canadian Clydes. If this provision shall be rigidly enforced it will put an end to the imposition of Canadian mongrel-bred horses upon unsuspecting and ignorant American purchasers. Horses from Canada must be (1) pure-bred of a recognized breed and (2) must be registered in the book of record established by the breed. The mere certificate of registry of horses coming from Canada must not be considered by the custom officers prima facie evidence of the purity of breeding of the animals seeking entry, for there are two stud books in Canada – the Dominion Draft Stud Book [of Goderich] and the Canadian Draft-Horse Stud Book [of Toronto] – which are avowedly maintained for the purpose of recording draft horses of mixed Clydesdale-shire breeding, and with pedigrees duly drawn up animals recorded in these books are foisted upon unwary buyers.

The journal hoped that the customs officers understood the facts so they could stop ‘the importations of cross-breds and mongrels for fraudulent sale.’ It warned its readers not to touch an animal recorded in either of these books.55 Letters to the journal reveal that American farmers still did not understand the meaning the Clyde/Shire pedigrees or were being duped by a combination of Canadian and American dealers. A farmer wrote in early 1891 to say that men in his neighbourhood had formed an organization to show up the spurious pedigrees of Canadian grade Clydes which were sold with pedigrees. Some fetched as much as $2,000. ‘Many of our farmers are so much put out with these “big horses,” as they call them, that they will not allow one on the place any more.’ The Gazette responded that ‘readers shall have small excuse being swindled by dealers in Canadian mongrels’ because it had warned about this issue over and over again. There could be no other reason for these books, it stated,

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than fraudulent sales of horses to ignorant people.56 The American Clydesdale Association responded by passing resolutions attempting to make customs officials recognize only the American and British organizations. Members at the time, though, were more concerned with the records of the Scottish Select Society than with the two Canadian books that supported Shire/Clyde crosses.57 Not all Clyde breeders in the United States accepted the fundamental principle that the Shire/Clyde cross represented a lack of quality for breeding purposes or even that it reflected some form of impurity. One writer to the Gazette criticized the action of the American association. This person claimed that the horses in the Select Book were as good as any in the American book and were, in fact, purer. The demand to exclude the Select Book showed that the Clyde book people’s ‘selfishness [was] only equaled by their absurdity.’ The writer continued: ‘There are many who believe the Clydes and the Shires are the same breed, and I have asked many importers if they could tell the difference between the two breeds’ and they cannot. The Gazette responded by saying that the Clyde association insisted on purity, and for purity you must have a pedigree.58 The endless circle again: What was quality, or purity, and how did pedigrees guarantee either? By 1891, horses registered in the Canadian Clydesdale Association’s book had trouble crossing the U.S. border because of confusion over the relationship of the Draught Horse stud books to either the Clyde or the Shire (formed in the United States in 1885) books in Canada. Americans found it hard to differentiate these pedigrees from those issued by the Canadian Clydesdale stud book and claimed, as a result, that Canadian Clydes did not have as good records as American animals did. Americans should look to themselves when discussing false and poor records, the Farmer’s Advocate scoffed. Canadian Clyde records were the best, and the horses were just as good as or better than American ones, the journal added.59 But the purity of Clyde records continued to worry American breeders. By 1892 the American Clyde association had managed to get the Scottish Select Society’s book off the duty-free list, but in doing so made the Treasury Department decide to define the meaning of purebred breeding. The wording used made no sense of where breeds originated or what the basis of the early stud book was. The department stated that an animal was purebred when it had five registered sires in its pedigree, if it was male, and four if it was female. The Gazette was horrified: ‘To say that only such animals are pure-bred as can qualify under this ruling is so absurd as to awaken the suspicion

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that something more than ignorance is back of all this.’60 One person wrote into the journal saying the new regulations were excellent because they guaranteed purity, and many breeders did not really understand purity.61 The Clyde association added its support.62 The Shire association, however, quickly backed up the Breeder’s Gazette and explained the situation as follows. ‘Very few if any animals of the old-established and world-recognized breeds [could] be admitted duty free under this ruling, on account of the comparatively recent establishment of a system of public registry.’ Shires were known to be pure even if it could not be proved by lengthy pedigrees.63 A Clyde breeder agreed with this stance, saying that the selfish, mistaken policy, if enforced, would ‘prove disastrous to the horse-breeding interests of this great country.’ Not one horse in one hundred in any breed would quality for duty-free entry, he added.64 The Gazette thought that the Clyde association had not really understood the ruling. Furthermore, it added, the whole thing smacks of protectionism on the part of American breeders: the new rule aims ‘at protection of home breeders pure and simple from foreign competition.’65 Many British and Canadian breeders heartily agreed with this comment, while Hackney breeders and Suffolk Punch breeders officially objected to the ruling.66 As the conflict raged on, the Breeder’s Gazette set out more clearly the American position on pedigrees. ‘The whole nub of the controversy is the willful disregard of the fact that our imported breeds of live stock were for the most part breeds in every acceptation of the term long before the Yankee idea of pedigree registers was suggested to our cousins across the water.’67 As of June 1892 the ruling was revised by the Treasury Department. Animals could be allowed in duty free if they had pedigrees designating them as purebred in their country of origin.68 Horses from the two Clyde/Shire books in Canada, however, were rejected immediately under the regulation at the border.69 Americans did not forget the difficulties inherent in the registers that recorded Clyde/Shire crosses. The Gazette reminded its readers in 1894 that the Scottish Select Book had openly produced pedigrees for crossbreds. The Canadian Draught Horse Association, it added, might not have been so open about papering crossbreds, but its fortunes fell amid scandal.70 One person, who called himself a small, honest, Missouri farmer, wrote in agreeing with the necessity of maintaining and acknowledging only the pure books. ‘Six years ago,’ he relayed in 1894, ‘two gentlemen (frauds), one from Canada, one from Eastern Illinois, came into this county with two carloads of stallions shipped from Canada, or at

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least their certificates of registry were from Canada,’ with the exception of two with papers from Scotland. These horses were sold at high prices to companies. One or two stallions were sterile, and the rest got useless stock.’ ‘The appendix for grades and grade books,’ the writer fumed, ‘should be burned up and then less imposition will be possible by saying to a man or company that “this horse is a registered horse” and then hand the certificate of registry.’71 The straightening out of the two breeds by recording methods would spell the death knell for what many believed had been the best type of horse to arise from either the Shire or the Clyde breed: the true Shire/ Clyde cross. It is clear from contemporary sources that stopping the practice of crossing Shires and Clydes was not based on the question of fraudulent pedigree-keeping standards or even of actual animal quality.72 One reader wrote to the Farmer’s Advocate: ‘The Canadian Draft Horse Book, which admits horses of mixed Shire and Clydesdale blood ... is as select as any.’73 The real point, another argued, was not that of proper recording or of animal quality. It was, simply, one relating to good business practices. The market demand of Americans and the international pedigree/tariff regulations then in place together drove the tendency to abandon what might have been called the ‘golden cross,’ along with the recording of it in Canada and in Scotland. ‘If you are buying a mare with the intention of going into the business of raising breeding stock, stallions and fillies, to sell to the American, be sure and get one that is registered in either the Shire or the Clydesdale Stud Book. Do not be satisfied with a certificate for registration in the Dominion Draught Horse Stud Book, whether it be that published in Goderich or its confrere in Toronto, as neither of these will be accepted by the United States customs authorities as evidence of pure breeding, and so stock registered in them will not be admitted into the United States free of duty.’74 The Clyde/Shire cross produced good horses, and the writer fully admitted this fact. He clearly believed also that such crosses were better than the pure breeds of Shire or Clyde. But, he argued, quality was not the point, and it did not matter. ‘Our market for draft horses is the United States, and they want pure-bred, not cross-bred, horses, and as long as they want them it is our duty, as business men, to breed them. Time and again I see farmers breeding mares with Clyde crosses to Shire stallions, and vice versa, and on remonstrating with them, I am told that they think they will be better horses, and they are breeding horses to suit themselves, not the Americans, and so forth. It makes me tired to hear

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men talk so; it shows such an utter want of business principles.’ Farmers can argue all they want that a cross-bred horse is better than a purebred one, he said, but when time comes to sell you will find that it doesn’t pay. Farmers should breed on a business level, not for what they think is the best horse.75 Shortly after the 1892 regulations were proclaimed by the Treasury Department, it became clear that the ruling really meant the country of origin of the breed itself, not the individual animal’s birth country. Evidence suggests that American breed associations supported these regulations at least partially because they wanted specifically to stop the inflow of purebred Canadian animals. As early as 1889, American breed associations had asked the American government to declare that animals from Canada belonging to the major breeds were unqualified for dutyfree entry into the United States.76 In 1892 the U.S. secretary of agriculture explained to Canadian breeders that the Canadian record books were intentionally omitted from duty-free status because breed associations in the United States wanted it that way.77 The regulations spelt disaster to the purebred Clydesdale and Shire breeders of Canada. Since neither breed originated in Canada, and despite the fact that Canadian standards matched those of the United States, pedigrees for pure Canadian Clydes and Shires were not accepted for duty-free entry into the United States. In 1894 the Canadian Clydesdale Association reported ‘hard times and the American embargo on our certificates for crossing the line had affected the market very much.’78 The story was the same in 1895. A dull market continued and reflected the American decision ‘not to accept certificates from the Canadian Book for custom house purposes at the frontier.’79 The Canadian association, along with other purebred organizations in Canada, had been trying for some time by 1895 to change this situation. The Canadian Department of Agriculture had asked the Washington authorities to recognize Canadian record books the same way that Canada recognized American books. The American Clyde association, when requested to do so, refused to put pressure on the Department of Agriculture to change the ruling accepted by the Treasury Department on the basis that any change of that nature would reduce Canadian registration in the American book. In other words, American breeders were happy to force Canadian registration in the American book because the ruling helped fund their association.80 The Breeder’s Gazette reported that Canadians had become increasingly friendly towards the American association and added that 27 per cent of that organization’s

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revenue between February and November 1895 had come from Canada.81 The American association was not opposed to this Canadian funding. Canadian breeders and government officials who went to Washington between 1896 and 1905 continued to argue that, since standards were identical, the regulations made no sense.82 Clyde breeders were not alone in any of these opinions. Both Hackney and Shire breeders, for example, backed up all the actions taken by the Clyde association.83 A few Canadian breeders thought, under the circumstances, that it made sense for Canadians to amalgamate with Americans.84 In 1897, in spite of the fact that they did not accept Canadian pedigrees for dutyfree entry, American breeders entertained the idea that the Canadian Clydesdale Association join with them. The American association claimed that the union would be good for Canadians because it would allow them to share the better and larger U.S. market while, at the same time, saving them the expense of running their own association. In return, Americans would have some assistance in meeting their current expenses.85 The majority of Canadian breeders were not easily wooed by this small group of promoters: ‘If there is a dollar in this country, they [Americans] must have it,’ one of them remarked.86 Another added that the Americans had arranged things to suit themselves. All agreed that no amalgamation could take place without a new offer that gave some real recognition of Canadian independence.87 Those favouring union, however, persisted in bringing up the matter. Canadians went to meetings of the American association in 1899, where one important Canadian breeder, Robert Miller, strongly urged union. The secretary of the Canadian association remained opposed to union and pointed out to Americans that Miller did not represent ‘the sentiments of all Canadian breeders in his plea for union.’ Another breeder reminded everyone that pedigree registers were designed to preserve purity, not raise money.88 The American association set up a committee to look into the proposal of union.89 Until the issue of duty-free entry could be resolved, some Canadian breeders argued that union was the only other possible solution. It was the only approach acceptable to the American association. The refusal of the American association to accept Canadian pedigrees for duty-free purposes made Clyde breeders focus more on the Canadian market in the western part of the country and on the need to nationalize records in Ottawa, where the full authority of the Canadian government could certify pedigrees to be valid.90 By 1905, Clyde breeders, including Robert Miller, had also decided that Canada should adopt the same regulations for entry into that country as Americans imposed

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for entry in the United States: duty-free entry for animals coming from the place where the breed originated.91 That meant, of course, that American Clydes would not be able to enter Canada duty free. The only horse breed to be allowed in under such regulation would be the Standardbred.92 The duty-free ruling between the two North American countries was finally altered in 1911, when Canada and the United States each recognized the other’s stud books.93 As time passed, the fortunes of the recorded Canadian Shire/Clyde cross continued on its downward decline, even though many believed that the pure breeding of the Clyde had in fact been injurious to its quality. One writer wrote into the Farmer’s Advocate suggesting that the Canadian pure Clyde and Shire books be amalgamated. Clyde/Shire crosses still made the best draft horse, this person argued. Thirty years before draft horses had been better than they were now. ‘At that time there were no stud books known as Shire or Clyde. Breeders simply used good judgment in crossing the best of what is now known as Shire and Clyde, and what grand progress was made in bringing up the standards of the draft horse!’ The writer had been primarily a Clydesdale breeder, so he was not out to promote the Shire with this proposal. He simply believed that separating the Clyde and Shire books had been detrimental to both and had led to excessive inbreeding, in order to meet the requirements of the export market. Clydesdales had deteriorated hugely and, in addition, they were now too small.94 Meanwhile, the Draught Horse group in Goderich believed their future to be bright, in spite of increasing evidence that pedigree restrictions and notions of purity would interfere seriously with their markets, because many people still saw the Clyde/Shire crosses as the best type of horse. By 1901 the association claimed to have registered at least 3,000 horses, many of which had been imported to the United States and valued by American farmers.95 Breeders raised their standards with that in mind, to ensure good quality and proper recording. In 1901, five, not four, crosses back to the Clyde were needed for recording purposes.96 The tightening of standards for international trade by 1905 in Canada finally brought about the demise of this well-recognized type of horse in Canada.97 With the establishment of the Canadian Live Stock Records in Ottawa, purity of breed had to be proven for import and export purposes. Railway authorities would also not carry ‘impure’ stock at reduced rates in Canada. Both Draught Horse stud books were, as a result, put out of business. As the farm press explained, while the Draught Horse Association of Goderich recorded Clydesdale and Shire crosses, the

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stock could not be described as ‘purebred’ and, consequently, did not qualify under the nationalization scheme operating in Ottawa.98 In the old Clyde and Shire types, breed and contingent ideas about purity won out over concerns with quality, in spite of good recording practices, in the most valuable sectors of the international horse market. Purebred breeding in Clydes and Shires introduced other problems to the international horse trade. Fashion and fancy affected trade in and across various countries in different ways. The problem of feather on the two breeds (a great deal of long hair on the bottom half of the legs and over the hooves) illustrates how a purebred feature could work in one market and not another. Feather was common to both Clydesdales and Shires and had long been found desirable in Britain, for work on both London streets and British farms. ‘From this ultimate judgment,’ the Farmer’s Advocate explained in 1883, ‘sprang the great demand for the large-boned, big, black horse, well-known for over a century in many English districts as the Shire horse.’99 From the earliest times of importation, Clydes entering Canada also had heavy feathering.100 Feather would be a controversial issue, however, in the international market. It was not desired, particularly in the United States, and ultimately proved to have a detrimental effect on the demand for the stock in North America. Hair on legs meant coarse skin, one more susceptible to scratches and the swelling of legs, many North Americans found. Because the long hair held more dirt and moisture, it also seemed to lead to excessive itching and irritation.101 Breeds more lacking in feather, such as the Percheron and the Belgian, managed to make inroads in the North American Clyde market when many Clydesdale and Shire breeders continued to select for hair.102 As early as 1884, the Breeder’s Gazette commented on British concern with hair. We never could understand why our English cousins and their American imitators should attach so much importance to the hair on the legs of Carthorses. To judge from the discussions one sees in the papers and hears about in an English show ring, a good supply of hair of just the right sort on the leg of a Cart-horse is regarded as more important than the quality or size of bone, or, in fact, than any other part of the horse. Indeed, it would seem to be the chief concern of an English or Scotch Cart-horse breeder to breed hair! We cannot understand why this should be so. Some of them have told us that a good crop of long hair indicates a firm dense quality of bone; but we don’t believe it. ... Surely the presence of this great mass of hair is a

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positive detriment with horses that are to be used upon muddy roads, especially in freezing winter.103

A vet from Edinburgh concurred, stating that hair was not beautiful, did not indicate good bone, pointed to coarse skin that was more likely to become diseased, and was hard on animals in dirty conditions because it encouraged the retention of moisture.104 Writers to the Gazette continued to object to excess hair.105 ‘The long hair is a curse to the Clydesdale breed,’ one person stated in 1894.106 An article in the Farmer’s Advocate in 1887, labelled ‘Hairy Legged Horses,’ elaborated on the issue in Canada of breeding for hair – its value, the influence of shows, and market implications. Clyde and Shire breeders seemed to appreciate plenty of hair, not just as good fashion but also as an indictor of the strength and size of bone. That is not necessarily the case, though, the journal argued. ‘It would be difficult to name a single advantage in favor of long hair on our horses’ legs, whereas the disadvantages are manifest.’ Judges in the show ring should look at what the marketplace wanted and should note what the major buyers of heavy horses purchased. The Great Northern Railway avoided horses with hairy legs.107 Some Canadian horsemen believed in 1913 that winning Shires were selected solely on the basis of how much hair they had, regardless of the quality of their feet and legs.108 British breeders insisted that they wanted hair for valid reasons, not for exhibition results. Shire breeders claimed in 1912, before a commission on British purebred breeding in relation to the export market, that they bred for their own market primarily, not the American one, and horsemen at home still demanded hair. In their opinion, hair went with other domestic desirable characteristics such as weight and action. A commissioner asked a Shire breeder: ‘I gather from your evidence that the trade at home in the Shire has been so good it has not been worth while for the Shire Horse Society to cater to the trade abroad?’ The breeder answered: ‘I think that is right, and, speaking generally I am quite sure of this, that up to now no one has ever thought of destroying what we believe to be the best features in our Shire horses, that is their weight and action, for the sake of getting a horse to go abroad.’109 Regardless of the hair issue, Americans began looking for heavy horse types in countries other than Britain as early as the 1870s, the most significant before 1920 being France, the home of the Percheron. By the 1880s, huge numbers of this breed were being bought in France by Americans. In 1882, for example, one man alone imported 300 ani-

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mals.110 Similar problems to those experienced in the Shire/Clyde world emerged when Americans sought to make the Percheron ‘purebred.’ Horsemen in the United States imported draft horses from France as early as 1876 (Canadians would start to breed them after importing the breed in 1898 from the United States), and they began registering them in a stud book under the name Norman Percheron.111 By 1882, over 1,800 horses had been recorded in this registry.112 No French draft horse was called a Norman, however, and the Percheron type came in several styles – two facts that the Americans did not at first recognize. Demands by American importers for ‘purity’ and conformation to specific characteristics soon made the Americans realize that the word Norman meant nothing to French breeders and that various types of horses qualified as Percherons. Breeders in the United States set out to change the situation. The American stud book dropped the name Norman.113 By 1883, Americans had managed to force French breeders to set up a stud book to register Percherons. The Gazette pointed out that this action would undermine a clique in Illinois which claimed total control and knowledge of French draft horses.114 In other words, the move to define purity in French draft horses was as much about control of the American importing business as about purity. American importers also encouraged French breeders of Percherons to select for one type. The American desire for greater size and weight in draft horses made the French producers breed for those characteristics between 1879 and 1889. French breeders abandoned the lighter, trotting Percheron type, which they preferred, because of the marketability of the heavier but also awkward and bad-tempered horse that Americans wanted. (There is some evidence, however, that the French government also encouraged the breeding of the heavy, over the light, type, and that it had done so from as early as 1820.)115 A return to lighter Percheron breeding began in France only after 1897, when the American market had collapsed.116 The problem of Norman versus Percheron was not easily solved by this rearrangement of names and recording in both the United States and France. To begin with, an American registry under the name Norman was set up after the newly named Percheron book existed, and many breeders patronized it before they understood how important the name itself was to business operations. In 1885 an importer explained the situation as he saw it. ‘I have been one of those who simply from the force of habit have always called my horses Normans and under this name I have advertised them,’ he stated; ‘consequently I have hitherto

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10 While this horse reflects French breeding for increased size, the animal is still lighter than the stallion in figure 11. The Percheron was normally grey too. The relative lack of leg hair made the breed popular in North America, especially in the United States. Americans might want the Percheron to be large and to compare in scale to the Clyde or Shire, but they welcomed the lack of excessive feathering found in these breeds. Breeder’s Gazette, 14 October 1886, front page.

been disposed to co-operate with the Norman Association and to patronize the Norman Registry, because I did not think it mattered much what name they were called by so long as people knew what was meant. I became satisfied very soon after I began to deal in French horses that there was no such thing as a Norman draft horse in France, but as there was no stud book and no effort to preserve a record of pedigrees in that country I did not regard the question of name as one worth quarrelling about.’ Everyone knows, he continued, that it is cheaper to buy horses without French papers. ‘Registration furnishes something of a guarantee of purity of blood; and it is purity of blood that persons who buy imported stock are now almost universally insisting on.’

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11 Although this stallion’s picture appeared only six years after the horse in figure 10, it is easy to see how much heavier this animal is and how less refined in head and neck shape, as well as in legs and feet. The horse looks not unlike the Clydesdale in figure 6, except that it lacks the excessive feathering. French breeders abandoned the smaller, trotting type of horse they had preferred in order to meet North American demand. Breeder’s Gazette, 12 October 1892, front page.

But, from remarks made by this breeder/importer, the beginnings of fraudulent activity with respect to pedigrees and quality seemed to have begun. He claimed that some men deliberately brought in poor stock to enhance the appearance of the good animals or to make other breeds compete better with French draft horses. The whole problem of varying types of French draft horses, and the fluidity of the situation with respect to recording, allowed the deliberate importation of poor quality in order to enhance the real interests of some importers who focused on, perhaps, Clydesdales. We must, he stated, stop such dishonest practices

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because it lowers the reputation of the true Percheron. ‘We must maintain the purity of the race [of Percherons], we must insist on pedigreed stock, and we must adopt the same safeguards here and in France that have been found necessary to protect the reputation of the Shire and Clydesdale horses in both countries.’117 French breeders, however, did not always comply with American wishes as much as importers in the United States wanted. The Gazette complained in 1885 that some French peasants were unbelievably stupid because many still did not see any point in recording their mares if these animals were not sold. Slowly these people were getting the message, though, that Americans would not buy foals from unregistered dams. ‘But in some cases where the importance of registration of the brood mares cannot be beaten into the heads of such peasants as own really good mares, the stallioners [owners of the breeding stallions used on such mares] are paying the fee and thus securing the registration.’118 Meanwhile, back in the United States, the Norman Horse Breeders’ Association, which ran the National Norman Horse Registry, changed its name to the French Draft-Horse Breeders’ Association. It claimed that it also pedigreed Percherons, on the basis that it was the only draft breed in France, and it issued its first stud book in 1882.119 The ruling for entry into the book, however, aroused the Gazette’s scorn. Any horse born in France and sired by a French Coach horse (meaning the dam could be a French-imported Clyde or Shire) could be papered. Under this ruling, the Gazette said, the book might as well be called the National Hash or Pot-Pie Register.120 A writer to the journal pointed out that the Percheron Society of France printed many fraudulent pedigrees and was no more a guarantee of purity than the records of the French Draft Book. Not the point, the Gazette answered. The French Draft Book intended to accept stock with no information on the background of an animal, openly offering no proof of purity.121 The American French Draft-Horse Breeders’ Association asked the French government to set up another stud book, which it did in 1886. The French government complied with American wishes, but it established well set out regulations that accepted horses under separate categories: draft of no distinct breed or crosses of two dominant breeds, Boulonnais, Nivernaise, or Percherons (which dominated three-quarters of the recording).122 The issue of French Draft (formerly Norman) and Percheron finally made the Illinois Board of Agriculture establish a committee to look into the matter of breeds in France. Were all French horses in reality Percherons, or did distinct breeds exist in France? The committee concluded

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that the essence of the problem lay in the fact that pure Percherons were expensive to buy in France, and American importers found that if they could induce men back home to purchase miscellaneous types and breeds from France as purebred Percherons, they made a great deal of money. French authorities were called in and asked what the word ‘breed’ meant in France. These witnesses argued that the word was understood in France to mean the same thing that it did in the United States – distinct types that bred truly. The American French Draft-Horse Breeders’ Association, when asked to supply information, sent extracts from the old National Norman Horse Registry, which verified the position that it did not identify horses by breed and instead assumed that all French horses under whatever name were in fact Percherons.123 The committee of the Illinois Board came to the conclusion that the Percheron Society’s position that there were a number of French draft breeds, and not just the Percheron, was the correct version. The claim by the French Draft-Horse Breeders’ Association that it recorded horses that were in fact, if not in name, all Percherons was proven to be invalid.124 It was a distinctly valuable victory for the Percheron breeders because it undermined a market for what was known as the French draft horse in the United States. Notably, attention to actual quality in horse types had played no role in the debate. Corruption continued, however, in the importing business. ‘There still remain those,’ the Gazette stated in 1888, ‘who buy disreputable specimens of horseflesh at merely nominal prices, and with them prey upon the legitimate business of the importer.’125 The problem of fraud would cling to the Percheron breed and plague farmers in both the United States and Canada, as much or more than the Shire/Clyde situation had done. French dealers played a role in that situation. Registered Percheron stallions found to be non-breeders were purchased by dealers from Paris. The dealers wanted the certificate, not the horse, and if they found an American who would buy any particular animal, the certificate would be attached to that horse. It seemed that the same practice was followed in the United States as early as 1887.126 The horse depression of the 1890s took its toll on the lucrative Percheron/French Draft-Horse business. The Percheron Society effectively went bankrupt and collapsed in 1893. The secretary of the stud book, S.D. Thompson, managed to gain control of the records and continued to issue pedigrees under the name of the Percheron association, although no books were issued by him after 1898. A sign of market recovery could be seen in the fact that, in 1902, a group of breeders in

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Illinois reactivated the Percheron situation by incorporating under the name of the American Percheron Horse Breeders’ and Importers’ Association, with a capital stock of $10,000.127 The organization received the support of the Treasury Department for the right to import duty free, and the Gazette wanted the association to take over the Thompson records.128 Thompson, however, called a meeting to elect officers to his association and rallied to maintain control of Percheron pedigrees. He even took the new organization to court over the right to issue pedigrees, especially for duty-free purposes, and lost. Those who supported the old association, the Gazette warned, ‘will have cause to regret the company that they have been keeping.’129 The new Illinois organization tried to explain the situation to breeders. The old association had not been properly incorporated in 1885 by Thompson, so it never had corporate powers. A few official meetings of directors or stockholders took place, but even they ended about 1890. If any other meetings were called, it was done without the representation or knowledge of members generally. Thompson assumed control, and by 1901 charges of irregularity regarding import practices had been laid against him by the Treasury Department. The allegations were found to be true. Regardless, in the fall of 1902 Thompson incorporated on his own under the name of the Percheron Horse Breeders’ Association, with stock of $10,000, apparently all owned by him.130 The issuing of pedigrees could be lucrative, and Thompson had no plans to stop doing so. He attacked the Illinois association by putting an injunction on it, as well as on the J.H. Sanders Publishing Company, which issued the Gazette, and on the editor, Alvin H. Sanders. The injunction failed.131 A second one was brought against the three by Robert Burgess on Thompson’s behalf, but it too failed.132 In 1904 the new association managed to purchase Thompson’s records.133 Thompson also agreed, or so the association understood, to engage no longer in the registration of Percherons.134 He announced shortly after, however, that he would paper horses at reduced rates. The Illinois association took Thompson to court over the issue and won. Finally, in early 1905, he agreed to close his office and to ‘retire permanently from the business of recording draft stock.’135 Thompson’s records could not be said to be true proof of purity. The association recognized that fact but, in 1908, ‘recommended ... that hereafter the Percheron studbooks published prior to the organization of this society ... known as the Thompson studbooks, be accepted as the best evidence and as conclusive evidence of’ purity because it was impossible at that point to

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trace errors that might exist.136 The organization that had been founded in 1902 would endure. It amalgamated with another Percheron association, the Percheron Registry Association (formed in 1904), in 1911 and became known as the Percheron Society of America.137 The Percheron horse was now a pure breed with records to prove that to be the case. But, like the Clyde and Shire, difficulties that arose in efforts to make it so would lead to ramifications throughout the entire heavy horse world, outside the purebred industry, in both Canada and the United States, as will be seen in later chapters of this book. The American demand for pure breeding with valid pedigrees could be enforced both by actions of breed associations and by legislation through government, thereby forcing breeders in both Canada and Britain to change their breeding and recording habits. The marketability of purebred animals had, by the 1880s, also triggered the international use of pedigrees to control the way the market worked when trade occurred between countries. Pedigrees could be employed to manipulate the international market for purebred animals for the simple reason that pedigrees could define tariff status between nations. Both breed associations and governments tried at various times to regulate the growing and lucrative purebred trade, and under those conditions each practised forms of protectionism – sometimes separately and sometimes in consort with each other. At first, breed associations effectively set tariff entrance requirements by stipulating what sort of pedigrees were acceptable, regardless of actual standards within those pedigrees. Government authorities traditionally allowed for the entry of purebred animals imported for breeding purposes under duty-free status. As standards became more structured, however, and as they differed between countries, the question for governments, especially in the two North American countries, increasingly became one of definition for purebred animals. Pedigrees, and standards for pedigrees, became crucial to this issue, and, ultimately, decisions about how to handle pedigree standards dictated the tariff status legislated by government. Acceptance of pedigrees by Americans would be critical to the way the transatlantic and North American trade in horses worked.138 The use of pedigrees as tariffs, however, on top of the general move to the idea of purity in the purebred breeds as the definition of quality, could bring about the demise of breeding practices known to produce good quality. The declining welfare of Clyde/Shire cross horses in North America indicated how important pedigrees as tariffs, combined with notions of purity in pure breeds, could be to breeding techniques applied to heavy horse

The Heavy Horse

77

types.139 Growing fraudulent activity in the Percheron world also grew out of the drive to make the French horse a purebred breed. Public pedigree recording had originated with horses, but the Thoroughbred situation was unique in the equine world. Breeders of Thoroughbreds from earliest times emphasized the need to maintain purity of breed, not type, through pedigree recording. Historically, however, general horse-breeding philosophy had been dominated by the idea of producing good types, not breeds – a phenomenon particularly evident when horse breeding is compared to contemporary attitudes concerning the production of cattle, sheep, and hogs. This situation might partially be explained by the fact that, over the ages, equine breeding had tended generally to be practised in a more organized and less haphazard way than the breeding of other farm animals, and therefore appeared for a longer time to be done according to perfectly satisfactory rules. The market-related issues generated by the matter of international pedigrees drew the horse-breeding world into the purebred system in the 1880s and, consequently, initiated a conflict with the emphasis on type. Horses, increasingly, could be bought and sold on the international market at high prices in relation to pedigree standards and their acceptance by breed associations and/or governments. Pedigree standards, though, continued over the years to interfere with the market function. In spite of the inroads that purebred breeding made in the successful marketing of horses, the tendency to think of horses as type, and not breed, did not vanish. Problems over different pedigree standards also lent support to the old allegiance to type breeding. The 1905 O.A.C. Review, the journal of the alumni of the Ontario Agricultural College, reminded its readers that, ‘in regard to other classes of stock, such as cattle, sheep and swine, circumstances are different, and horses are usually spoken of as being of a certain class [type], rather than breed.’140 While the idea of breed weakened the sense of type in horses, it did not replace concern with type in either Canada or the United States.141 Farmers were more likely to want purebred breeding in cattle than horses. Of Canadian farmers reporting purebred stock in 1921, for example, only 23,000 out of 711,000 claimed to own purebred horses, while 82,000 said they had purebred cattle.142 There were 13 purebred horses per 1,000 in Canada that year, as opposed to 35 purebred cattle per 1,000 head.143 Interest in purebred cattle also increased faster than that for purebred horses. In 1911 there were 13 purebred horses per 1,000 in Canada, indicating that no increase took place between 1911

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and 1921. In comparison, in 1911 there were only 19 purebred cattle per 1,000 head.144 Light horses and heavy horses were raised on farms for city and industrial use. The purebred breeds were used on grade stock in varying levels of concentration to produce such marketable horses. But what type of animal did farmers want on the farm for agricultural work? What was the farmer’s horse like, within the framework of the increasingly light and increasingly heavy horse? What did farmers think about purity in the pure breeds, and the quality of grade horses in comparison? These questions provide the subject matter of the next chapter.

FOUR

The Farmer’s Horse

The idea of a general-purpose, agricultural horse, called a ‘chunk’ in both Canada and the United States, changed over the nineteenth century. The horses most commonly used to fulfil that role before 1830 had been small – the French Canadian from Quebec, the Morgan from Vermont, and various crosses of the two. (Some breeders believe that the Morgan stemmed purely from the French Canadian. The stallion that founded the breed, Justin Morgan, foaled in 1795 in Vermont, was, they claim, purely French Canadian.)1 Both the Morgan and the French Canadian had developed by 1800 from complicated interbreeding patterns of the British Norfolk trotter, the Narrangansett Pacers, and Quebec horses that stemmed from the same lines that ultimately led in France to the Percheron.2 While the Morgan remained more common in the United States than in Canada, the French Canadian could be found not just in Canada but also all over Michigan, Illinois, New England, and New York early in the nineteenth century.3 In 1890 the Farmer’s Advocate recalled the service of the French Canadian to early farming with nostalgic eyes: ‘Those of our old time breeders that can remember the French Canadian horse as bred years ago, can look back with pleasure to the wonderful endurance, kindly temper, freedom from disease, universal soundness, and other good qualities embraced in him, which go to make a no. 1 horse.’ Even if the type was considered too small for heavy work by 1890, with individual animals weighing between 900 and 1,000 pounds, the Advocate said, ‘he was, and is, the biggest little horse ever put together.’4 The move to greater specialization among lighter and heavier stock in the off-farm market changed the idea of what a chunk should be. It resulted in the gradual disappearance of the early Morgan and French-

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The Breeding of Horses

12 The celebrated French-Canadian trotting stallion St Lawrence founded a line known as the St Lawrences. They spread all over North America and played a role in the evolution of the Standardbred. In 1856, St Lawrence was taken to the St Louis Agricultural Fair, where a photo of him was taken. This cut was drawn from the picture at that time. Herbert, Frank Forester’s Horse and Horsemenship, 2:63.

Canadian types, as selection ultimately made some of them into lighter pacers, which became the ubiquitous Standardbred, and others (the evolving chunk) into more robust animals as a result of crosses in the 1840s on the newly imported Clyde and, later, the Percherons and Shires.5 Chunks bred from Morgan crosses in Vermont could be found weighing 1,200 pounds by the 1840s.6 Horses of French-Canadian and Clyde blood weighing 1,300 pounds, although far from common, existed on some farms in Canada West (later Ontario) as early as the 1850s.7 Pure trotting blood, however, remained central to chunk production. These animals could be tall, frequently standing over 16 and

The Farmer’s Horse 81

sometimes 17 hands, and were larger than the more specialized Standardbred that had evolved by 1880.8 By the late nineteenth century, farmers in North America favoured a horse that belonged to neither the excessively specialized light nor the heavy draft types available by that time, an animal also not associated with the idea of breed. Various definitions, found in the farm press over the last part of the nineteenth and early part of the twentieth centuries, attempted to describe what it meant to call a horse a ‘chunk,’ or a general-purpose horse. The Ontario Agricultural Commission described a general-purpose horse in 1880 as an animal that is ‘a light horse that can work on the farm and drive about 12 miles per hour on the road.’9 The Breeder’s Gazette in 1882 spoke of a medium-sized horse that made a ‘class of useful horses that may be called the farmer’s horse.’10 In 1905 the Farmer’s Advocate defined a general-purpose horse as ‘one that can be well utilized in ordinary farm work of all kinds and can also do a limited amount of road work.’ A horse defined as a good ‘chunk’ was an animal ‘standing 15 to 16 hands high, weighing from 1,100 to 1,400 pounds, compactly built, with good feet and legs, tractable, lively disposition, a good clean, rapid way of going at walk or trot.’11 Percherons of the early 1870s, before they took on heavy draft characteristics, would have been considered the good chunk type desired after 1900. In spite of a tendency to increased size on some farms, in 1919 the average weight of the general-purpose horse in Canada was still put at 1,200 pounds.12 Descriptions of an agricultural horse, while repetitive over the years, did not clearly put forward the definitive characteristics of the farm chunk. Weight was generally a factor in any discussion of a generalpurpose or agricultural horse, but type and style were equally important. While Standardbreds, Thoroughbreds, and carriage horses could be in the right weight range, none of them made a good chunk horse.13 ‘A general-purpose [or agricultural] horse is understood to be a cleanlegged horse suitable for wagon, buggy or plow,’ the Advocate noted in 1913, ‘and the “agricultural” horse ... in reality, is nothing but a small drafter.’ There was just not enough of him to call him a heavy drafter.14 A general-purpose horse was, in effect, a light draft horse, and it should be at least 1,200 pounds. The issue seemed to be as much about lack of over-specialization as about size. The general-purpose horse of the latter part of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was not a heavy draft animal, nor was it specialized in the way that either draft or light breeds were. If weight alone served as the criterion, lighter horses were always

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preferred for farm work in the golden age of the heavy draft horse. The Farmer’s Advocate frequently wrote glowingly about the chunk in the early 1880s and stressed the importance of lighter, rather than heavier, weight in horses for farm work: ‘We know of no finer animal than the model general purpose horse, who has many representatives in Canada’;15 ‘We fear our farmers are going too far in the encouragement of heavy drafts’;16 and, again, ‘the existing demand, or rather sensation, for heavy draught horses must end somewhere.’ We must have the lighter, generalpurpose horse for farm use.17 In 1905 the Farming World and Canadian Farm and Home claimed that the good agricultural horse was medium sized, and that farmers did not need huge animals for field work.18 As late as 1920, and some time after heavier farm implements had been invented, the Farmer’s Advocate admitted that Ontario farmers still did not care for the true draft horse of 1,600 pounds; in many areas in the province, farmers had never kept any heavy mares and had always preferred to breed for light types.19 Remarks in journals indicated that farmers found light horses far more useful, and that agricultural implements did not require the power of the big drafter.20 Advertisements for farm implements in the Canadian press consistently showed lighter types working in fields over the period, perhaps because farmers were more familiar with them on farms. It seems that western Canadian farmers also preferred smaller horses for farm work, after the initial breaking-up of the prairie soils had been done. In Canada, a witness reporting to the Select Special Committee of the House of Commons to Inquire on Agricultural Conditions as late as 1924 stated that his markets for horses at or over 1,600 pounds were in cities. This dealer believed that western farmers preferred horses in the 1,200- to 1,400-pound range.21 The situation was the same in the United States. The American Percheron Association estimated in 1913 that less that one-quarter of working horses on farms in the United States weighed 1,600 pounds or more at maturity. However, the horse breeders’ association claimed that demand for heavy drafters was still huge in 1913 because of city demand.22 Did anyone but farmers in North America want the chunk? Not really, it seems. Lack of domestic interest in the chunk off the farm in North America was matched by British scorn for the type. There it became known as the no-purpose horse, perhaps because greater specialization to light and heavy horses existed earlier in Britain than in North America.23 The hegemony of the Thoroughbred and the use of heavy drafters by British farmers seemed to have made the medium-sized or even small work animal somewhat redundant. The fact that the general-purpose

The Farmer’s Horse 83

agricultural horse did not fit clearly into any off-farm market created a fundamental problem for the horse industry generally. Farmers tried to breed general-purpose animals for their needs primarily and to serve offfarm markets from that pool of farm horses. But this dual-purpose goal made agricultural experts unhappy with the quality of horses found in the marketplace. Horses wanted off the farm belonged to a variety of distinct classes. A document published in the United States by the Bureau of Animal Industry in 1901 explains horse classification for market purposes and, in the process, reveals that horses were still appreciated as types, not breeds. Horses for urban use were listed as the ‘vanner,’ which worked at a walk, was a compact draft type of 1,600 to 1,800 pounds, and was wanted in the export market for city work. Other draft types which worked at a trot in cities were the ‘expresser’ (extremely desirable and weighing 1,250 to 1,500 pounds) and the ‘busser’ (the omnibus horse, of 1,200 to 1,400 pounds, compact and rugged): ‘He [filled], to some extent, the call for a general-purpose horse, but he should not be confused with the horse quoted as “general-purpose” in market reports.’ Bussers were in short supply, given the demand for them, while ‘trammers’ were smaller, plainer bussers and were used in European cities to pull trams. Today, we would be puzzled to see any difference between a busser or a trammer and a general-purpose or agricultural horse. Describing the light types proved to be harder, and many commentators argued that it was here that most scrub, or really poor-quality, stock could be found. Trotting blood was often the cause of the problem. The strongest demand in light horses was for ‘a high-class roadster, coacher or saddler,’ an animal difficult to produce to market standards. The roadster weighed between 950 and 1,150 pounds. Coachers were similar to roadsters, the main difference being conformation and action. Coachers weighed 1,100 to 1,250 pounds and were somewhat heavier, smoother, and more compact than a roadster. Cobs weighed 1,000 to 1,050 pounds and were even more compact than a coacher and also smoother and shorter legged. Cobs shared the same type of market as coachers had. ‘Saddlers’ were riding horses that weighed 1,000 to 1,150 pounds and were more stylish than other comparable light stock. Hunters were described as two classes, light and heavy.24 The United States Department of Agriculture explained to farmers in 1902 that, within these categories, four distinct divisions of horses found ready markets: heavy draft (most profitable to produce), carriage, roadster, and saddler.25 Market types listed in the American Agriculture Department publication

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The Breeding of Horses

13 The vanner was the most desirable type for the export trade to Britain, where it was used for traction work in London. Vanners were medium-sized draft horses and did not resemble the purebred, heavy breeds. Farmers, however, considered them too large for farm work. G.M. Rommel, ‘Market Classes of Horses,’ U.S. Bureau of Animal Industries, Report, 1901, plate 65.

of 1901 seemed to match those in Canada: the same article was released in the Canadian farm press under the heading ‘The Kind of Horses the Market Demands.’26 The best way to produce animals for this complicated city market, as well as the general-purpose or agricultural horse for use on farms, stimulated huge debate in the farm press. It was not always clear whether the advice was directed at city or farm horse breeding. The problem of breed versus type made the situation only more confusing. Although this discussion looks at strategies for farm horse production, some horse types destined for city or industrial use could be bred in the same way. By 1870 the older, heavy coach breeds of Europe had become popular

The Farmer’s Horse 85

14 The busser seems to be simply a slightly less robust animal than the vanner. Apparently, the work that horses did by 1900 required an ever increasing fine distinction in styles, and the market reflected that fact. G.M. Rommel, ‘Market Classes of Horses,’ U.S. Bureau of Animal Industries, Report, 1901, plate 67.

with some farmers. The Cleveland Bay in particular attracted attention. At the same time that the breed fell into disfavour in Britain, farmers in North America became interested in it for its medium-weight qualities, and many believed it was the ideal horse for farm work.27 The draft might be too heavy and the Thoroughbred too light, but the Cleveland Bay was ideal as the perfect all-purpose horse, ‘suitable alike for work of the farm and the pleasure of the drive.’28 The Cleveland Bay was in high demand in the 1870s, and import into both the United States and Canada began in 1875.29 Europeans also liked the horse and bought any they could find.30 Other coach types were favoured too. ‘The best horses we ever saw in the plough were the English Carriage Horses – strong, vigorous and spirited, but not clumsy,’ noted the Farmer’s Advocate.31 Some preferred the French Coach for the breeding of medium-sized farm horses.32 However, breeding for type within the confines of these medium-sized breeds never worked well over the years and farmers had abandoned the practice by the late 1880s.

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The Breeding of Horses

15 Roadsters were driving horses but could do agricultural work as well, and many farmers preferred them over even moderately heavy draft animals. Roadsters, however, were expensive to raise because they required a good deal more harness training than was needed for competent work in the field. That was one reason why more farmers did not want to breed them. G.M. Rommel, ‘Market Classes of Horses,’ U.S. Bureau of Animal Industries, Report, 1901, plate 68.

How could a farmer produce good general-purpose farm horses or varying types of draft animals for city use from the specialized breeds that represented more extreme heavy/light types than the Cleveland Bays or French Coaches? Over the years a mass of conflicting theories were put forward in the farm press in which farmers were told to breed heavy to light, light to light, and heavy to heavy. They were also, confusingly, told that these conflicting practices produced general-purposes horses and good specialized horses, though they were often cautioned that no such thing as a general-purpose horse existed. Views on how to breed chunk types in particular triggered completely ambiguous statements. Good chunks did not result from the crossing of the heavy Clyde on lighter mares, but from the use of trotting stallions on light stock, a Canadian expert stated in 1880.33 Agricultural experts in Canada continually urged farmers to use trotting stock for the breeding of farm

The Farmer’s Horse 87

16 Carriage-horse breeds were often favoured by farmers who wished to produce less specialized animals than the light Standardbred or heavy drafts like the Clyde. It was hoped that the French Coach, pictured here, or breeds like the Cleveland Bay could be used as road, agricultural, and light draft horses. The equine market, however, demanded more and more specialized types, and also horses tending to a heavier style because of changing technology. These in-between breeds did not work well in that environment. Breeder’s Gazette, 21 December 1892.

workhorses, not the Clyde.34 At the same time, the Gazette argued that good chunks resulted from the crossing of draft and road horses.35 Percherons, Clydes, and Shires should be crossed on common lighter horses, and good grades would result, the Advocate stated at one point.36 Contradictory advice continued in the press. The practice of using heavy stallions on light mares has resulted in many poor horses.37 The heavy horse should be crossed on the Thoroughbred to produce strong working horses.38 A great injury is being done to the horse-breeding of this country by crossing the small mares with the large Clyde, Shire and Percheron.39 Farmers should cross the roaster type on the heavy drafter,

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to blend them.40 Farmers should abandon the breeding of draft stallions on light mares or light stallions on heavy mares41 – that results in mongrels of no use, the Advocate warned in a new interest in purity and its relationship to quality.42 ‘The question of what style or breed, or mixture of breeds, of horses for the farmer to raise, sell and use, has been for some time past, and will be, I am afraid, for many years, one of the most difficult questions confronting farmers of Canada.’43 Agricultural experts often argued that farmers should not be breeding for the chunk type at all, even if it was a good agricultural horse. As demand for horses off the farm grew, theses experts increasingly exhorted farmers to produce for outside markets, arguing that any horse could serve on the farm. The Farmer’s Advocate explained as early as 1878: ‘Now farmers normally say they are breeding for themselves and their own use and want general-purpose horses. But they will sell those horses quickly if the need or opportunity arises. So why not simply breed for sale and not for use?’44 The Gazette reminded farmers in 1882 that it was they who supplied the whole market for horses, and they should focus on more than just the production of agricultural horses.45 Breeding heavy draft Clydes was the most profitable for farmers, the Advocate stated in 1887.46 ‘It is a notable fact that altogether too large a percentage of our farmers have, in keeping of horses, but one view on view – that of performing labor on the farm,’ the Advocate told its readers in 1906. But ‘is it not a fact that a farmer can get his work done – and fairly satisfactorily, too – by the use of almost any kind of horse, from a roadster of decent size to a mammoth drafter?’47 By 1905, ads in the Ontario farm press even showed high-stepping Hackneys working in fields with modern implements – if you can market these roadsters, the argument seemed to be, then why not use them on the farm as chunks?48 The American press published farmers’ reactions to the unrelenting arguments put forward to stop them breeding and using the small nonspecialized chunk. Correspondence sent to the Gazette clearly showed that American farmers not only preferred the light general-purpose horse but also viewed the pressure, particularly directed at the use heavy drafts, as a strategy by purebred breeders to sell their stock. One man wrote to the Breeder’s Gazette in 1883 saying that the crossing of Percherons on light mares resulted half the time in useless horses, while the service of a good roadster led to superb agricultural horses.49 Another stated that farmers might buy imported draft stock, but these men did not breed exclusively for heavy stock and did not depend on city markets to take surplus animals. Half the colts born probably stayed on the farm.

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17 These ads portray light horses raking hay or ploughing in a field with the machines. The manufacturers must have believed the images would not look strange to a farmer. Very light animals must have been used for agricultural work. Farmer’s Advocate, 2 June 1902, 435, and April 1890, 132.

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The Breeding of Horses

‘After all has been said, and in spite of the ridicule and scoffing of the “special-purpose” men, the horse best adapted to the needs of ... farmers is what we call the general-purpose horse.’50 Robert Burgess, the Percheron breeder who later sided with S.D. Thompson in the breed’s registry dispute, disagreed, saying that he had no use for the light general-purpose horse. Heavy drafts were essential for agricultural horse improvement. He thought farmers should use the heaviest stallions to produce horses for farm work, or chunks weighing at least 1,400 pounds. He added that farmers should really breed for the market, which meant even bigger horses of at least 1,700 to 1,800 pounds.51 Of course, the argument that farmers should use and buy heavy draft stock served his purposes as a purebred Percheron breeder. A man who understood the promotional thinking behind the message had an answer for Burgess: farmers needed the original chunk, the all-purpose horse that was not of huge draft size. ‘The all-purpose horse is the only horse we need and the horse that brings in the most money [too],’ he wrote ‘No, Mr. Burgess, we do not want your 1,450, all-purpose horse; the “Norman” horse’s days are numbered here.’ We want a 1,150-pound horse.52 Another man stated that big horses were unsuitable for the farm, and he backed up his argument by describing his experiences with horses that were both heavy and purebred. He had started to breed to imported stallions on the advice of the press (including the Gazette) fifteen years before. He used Percherons at first, but bred to Clydes and Shires as well until two years before when he had one mare served by a light, grade, or what he called scrub, stallion. The result was the best colt he had produced. ‘In regard to their work on my farm I find my scrub teams ... much superior ... I notice in the Gazette lately that several writers on the subject recommend a law compelling the castration of the scrub stallion, or in other words compelling us poor farmers to use their imported stallions whether we want to or not. What folly. Experience is the greatest of all teachers ... and when we farmers learn through bitter and expensive experience that these horses do not fulfil our requirements[,] they [the experts] will find it hard work to make us use them. They have insinuated that one reason why the farmers will not patronize their horses is ignorance and lack of reading the papers. Now this is a great mistake.’53 Farmers wrote in to support these comments, saying that the general-purpose horse was not a misfit, but, rather, was deliberately bred to do more than one job.54 When one subscriber wrote in to state that the 1,100-pound horse served as a better all-purpose horse than the 1,600-pound animal, he was

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answered with the argument that it was all a marketing, not a quality, issue.55 The Gazette continued to reiterate that sentiment: all horses should reflect what the general horse market wanted. The greatest demand was for the heavy horse. ‘Farmers both in this country and abroad may truthfully say that a medium-sized horse rather than a very heavy one is better suited to farm work, but farmers as a rule aim at raising horses to sell, and the kind which the market calls for at the highest price is surely the kind they ought to raise.’56 The Gazette pointed out in 1895 that while it might be true that fifteen years before the average draft horse was only 1,200 pounds and that the 1880–90 imports had made many working animals inferior because of greater weight, farmers should still avoid the general-purpose 1,200-pound horse because such an animal commanded no market.57 Horses should always be bred for off-farm markets. In the late 1890s, before the advent of the horseless carriage, the best markets were either for good light harness animals or for very heavy quality drafts. Farmers should, therefore, not focus on breeding general-purpose horses. Furthermore, the journal warned, crossing of light stock with heavy, which is a form of promiscuous breeding, results in junk-type chunks.58 One reader fumed over these comments, which argued that farmers should focus more on specialization: ‘Eight or ten years ago we were advised to raise horses – draft horse, coacher and trotters. Many of us did so and have become practically bankrupt.’ Buyers kept demanding new things: ‘A few years ago a well-formed, blocky, 1,400 lb horse was a draft horse; now he is only a chunk and worth forty to fifty dollars. A [2½minute trotting] horse was a trotter; now he is despised on the county fair race-track.’ No one near me, the writer added, bred horses anymore unless he wanted a colt himself. He bred only for a general-purpose horse, the one he could sell to his neighbours.59 For the Gazette, this type of thinking had been a major cause of the depressed horse market of the 1890s. Poor-quality stock had glutted the market as a result of these ‘haphazard’ breeding strategies.60 In other words, the horse market continued to carry a large number of generalized, poorly specialized animals, in spite of the fact that demand called for ever greater distinctive types. Electric tramways, bicycles, and horseless carriages had undermined the market for all lighter horses by 1900, in such a way that it was hard to see how it could recover. Farmers were not encouraged to breed them. Demand for the heavy horse continued unabated. The roadster received much less attention in the farm press in 1900, and relatively little by 1910. Journal editors were more likely to focus their attention on what

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The Breeding of Horses

appeared to be the more stable market: draft-stock production. The press argued that all horse breeding on farms should be directed at the heavy horse. Comments written between 1900 and 1914 in the Canadian farm press questioned the advisability of breeding the general-purpose horse in an increasingly heavy, draft, equine world. Because there is no longer a market for any horse of the general-purpose type, one writer opined, why encourage the breeding of such horses?61 Farmers should breed for use on the farm and for sales purposes, and the best horses to fill both needs are the drafts, Clyde or Shire.62 The farm chunk is not desired in any off-farm trade; it is the heavy drafter that is wanted everywhere else.63 The demand for heavy drafters makes them the horse the farmer should breed.64 ‘There are a lot of odd jobs and regular doings on the farm [in] which the light type of drafter excels the very heavy animal,’ but the problem is that when selling a horse, weight becomes extremely important. General purpose horses command no money. ‘The demand is for heavy horses. They do the farm work almost, if not quite, as well, and at practically the same cost, as the lighter drafter horses.’ Therefore, farmers should breed heavy drafters. ‘The cry of the city is for the massive draft animal. It is this type of horse which tops the market. ... Therefore, all things considered, the heavy-drafter is the horse for the farm.’65 In North America, cities and industry, not agriculture, had drawn on the production of heavy draft horses from the beginning of the heavyhorse era. In the 1870s, Ontario farmers and agricultural experts did not consider the Clydesdale, for example, to be an agricultural horse.66 The Breeder’s Gazette in the United States agreed and reported that heavy horses were needed not on farms, but in American cities. When no city demand existed for such a type of horse, he ‘goes a-begging for a buyer,’ because he was not wanted for work on the farm.67 The age of steam had created an almost insatiable demand for heavy horses in cities and in industry, and farmers who wanted to make money and not simply raise stock for home use should take note of that fact, the Gazette told its readers in the 1880s.68 The journal noted in 1888 that, in New York City, a horse lasted for only four years, meaning that 25,000 animals were needed each year. And that was the requirement of only one urban centre. How many horses would be needed in all cities combined every year?69 The initial stimulus for horse improvement in the United States had come from the urban and industrial demand for heavy animals.70 The American boom in horses of the 1880s reflected concern with heavy draft animals destined for industrial and urban, not agricultural, use.

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The situation was not different in Canada. Railway companies in that country were known in the 1890s to buy large numbers of Clydes, Shires, and their crosses in spite of the horse recession.71 By 1905, Canadian farmers were still told that ‘the keen demand for good heavy-draft work horse continues, and as shown by the horse market reports, becomes more urgent as the months go by. The unprecedented activity in expanding business enterprises in every direction, the marvellous growth of our cities, the opening up of new country for farming purposes [heavy stock animals were useful in the breaking up of wild grasslands for agricultural purposes], the building of new railways, the active prosecution of the timber business to meet the demand for building and pulp-making pursuits, all contribute to increasing demand for good strong teams of horses.’72 Farm journals often illustrated and described horses working on city streets, to help farmers understand this trade and its divisions between increasingly heavy and light types. In 1906, for example, Canadian farmers were told that the Manitoba Dray Co. did the cartage in western Canada for the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) in Winnipeg and that it wanted the heaviest type of horse. The company owned between seventyfive and ninety teams, and the average life of each horse was eight years. Large milling and lumber companies also kept heavy drafters, as did coal and wood companies, and many of these animals were brought from Ontario. The Winnipeg Transfer Co., which operated buses between hotels and stations, wanted a lighter draft type – heavy road animals.73 ‘The largest users of draft horses in Canada are the lumber companies, the transport industries, the express companies, the milling and coal companies,’ the Farmer’s Advocate reminded its readers in 1910. Transport companies handled the freight of the railways but also did other work as well. One of these, the Sheddon Forwarding Company, operated in Montreal in connection with the Grand Trunk Railway, and it had 800 draft horses. Another, the Dominion Transport Company, working for the CPR, kept some 400 horses in each of Montreal and Toronto, owning in total around 1,000 animals. Many of these horses were purebred Clydes. Meanwhile, in the Ottawa area, the centre of the forest industry, the W.C. Edwards Co. used at least 400 horses to haul logs in the winter, and the J.R. Booth Co. kept 800 animals for work in the forest industry.74 In 1915 the Farmer’s Advocate still claimed that the best market for the heavy draft horse was in the city.75 There was a tendency for heavy drafts to become bigger over the years. As they did so, and chunks began to come in varying sizes as well, it could

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often be difficult to separate one from the other by definition. In 1907 the Gazette discussed the drafter and the chunk. A 1,400-pound chunk could bring in good money, the journal admitted. ‘For the sake of argument let us assume that ... the word “chunk” refers to that large and indefinite market known as “wagon horses.” There is nowadays no single class of horse reaching the wholesale market which can definitely be described by the single word “chunk.” As used in different localities in the East and West they differ very greatly, so we may bunch them as wagon horses and let it go at that.’76 The ever increasing emphasis on heavier horses generally made people recall how important the trotting horse had been to agriculture. The Gazette noted in 1915 that trotters had been highly valued on farms in the past and still could be found in the service of farming. ‘There came a time,’ the journal stated, ‘however, when trotting blood stock was not appreciated as a general-purpose type, because the trend set in strongly for draft stock ... the farmers of this country have now on their hands horses of trotting blood, the carry-over from a demand of yesterday. Can some outlet be found for them? Or, since the draft horse is becoming the farm horse, must the trotting blood be entirely sacrificed – scrap-heaped?’77 (As late as the 1930s, some Ontario farmers used the Standardbred light horse for farm work.)78 It’s possible that a demand taken over by cars, as much as a change in the wants for farmers for agricultural work, spelt the doom of the trotter. Removal of an off-farm market probably had as much to do with the abandonment of trotters for agricultural work as did the move to the draft horse. Trotting blood would find its final outlet in the service of war, as this book demonstrates in Part Two. It became increasingly difficult, when the concept of ‘breed’ worked with the idea of ‘type,’ for farmers to breed for differing kinds of horses and to match them successfully to farm concerns. Experts asked farmers to produce varying versions of light and heavy horses for market reasons, but, as the nineteenth century wore on, they also argued that the animals so bred should be either purebred or at least the result of crossing distinct breeds, in order to bring good prices on the market. This new emphasis on purebred breeding often distorted older notions about basic quality to be found in type. Stud books were put in place not to ensure quality or improvement but ‘to keep [a] breed in as pure a state as possible, which is most essential in all breeds.’79 Lack of attention to purebred breeding meant ‘a lot of riffraff [had] been produced that no intelligent buyer [would] take at any price.’80 Crossing breeds resulted only in ‘mongrels.’81

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The pressure may have been towards a shift to breed emphasis, but resistance to that move in horse breeding was stronger than in other farm animals. One way to see how the divisions of breed/type and heavy/light in horses changed over the years under this form of market pressure is to look at how the animals were divided up in classes for exhibition purposes. At the Provincial Exhibition of 1870 in Ontario, for example, there were 137 entries of general-purpose or ‘agricultural’ horses (chunks), 312 road or carriage horses (light), and 74 heavy draft animals.82 Between 1885 and 1889, entries at the provincial show were listed by type, but now with some cross reference to breeds. ‘Breeds’ were still seen as primarily part of, or made to fit into, ‘type,’ and it is important also to note that most breeds relating to type could be found in the heavy draft divisions.83 Another way to see the domination of type concepts in horses is to compare how they were classified with the way other farm stock were categorized for show purposes in the nineteenth century, and even into the twentieth century. At a time when cattle and sheep were discussed and exhibited by breed at all major shows in Canada, for example, almost all horses were organized by type – roadster, general-purpose, heavy draft, carriage, saddle, and agricultural horses.84 The adherence to type in horses did not imply that the breeding of these animals was considered less important. Consistently, the most valuable prize money offered at exhibitions for various species of farm animals went to the owners of winning horses. A first-prize horse brought in far more money than a first-prize cow or pig.85 The situation was the same in the United States. American horses were categorized by type, not breed.86 Sometimes farmers did follow the advice of the journals and used specialized horse types designed to serve in the off-farm markets. In the United States, farmers were known to deliberately raise only light or only heavy stock as early as 1891, with outside markets in mind, and they farmed with whatever was left after sales.87 When technology undermined the role of the light-horse types in the market around 1900, these farmers had an even greater incentive to focus on heavier horses for agricultural work. Off-farm sales of such stock seemed safer. The heavy draft horse, it was believed, would not be removed from work by either the truck or the tractor, in the way that the car had finished the day of the roadster. In 1913 the American Percheron Association claimed that the motor truck would not replace the heavy draft, because the horse was more effective over short distances, and 80 per cent of city hauling was done in a radius of 3 miles.88 ‘Motor trucks are all very well,

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but we notice they make poor headway in snow,’ the Advocate noted.89 Even in conditions without snow, trucks were good only for long hauls and on perfect roads.90 Would trucks ever take over the work of heavy horses, the way cars had taken over the horse and buggy? No one knows, the Advocate admitted in 1915.91 The situation looked different, though, by 1918. Even while bemoaning the lack of appreciation for the heavier horse’s capacity to serve, Farm and Dairy was forced to state that the new technology might mean the end for the workhorse at some point in the future: ‘The Tractor, the Truck and the Horse – a cursory examination of the horse outlook is not conducive to optimism. Motor power is everywhere looming up as a tremendously powerful competitor of the ... horse. It is only a few years since the automobile practically banished from our city streets the roadster and carriage horses. The truck and the lorry seem now to be supplanting [the heavier type of] horse. Even on the farm, it appeared, the position of the horse was no longer as secure.’92 Hope for the heavy horse’s future, though, did not die quickly. The following year the Advocate argued that, while it was true that the day of the carriage horse had ended, the car had not threatened the future of the drafter. ‘The growing popularity of the automobile has influenced some farmers in the belief that horse breeding will no longer be profitable, and the writer has in the last year been frequently told that the average farmer could not expect to make money raising colts. We think this is an extreme and erroneous view. The future of horse breeding, provided the big drafter is grown, is brighter than ever.’93 The rapid advent of the small efficient tractor (first seen in Ontario in 1914, when twelve could be found in the province, a number that expanded by 1918 to some 800)94 seemed to stimulate sensations of outrage in Canada, and also nostalgia for the horse as an agricultural servant. ‘The horse, in spite of the invasion of the tractor, is a mighty factor in the world’s agriculture today. We cannot farm properly without horses,’ the Advocate noted in 1918.95 Concern for the future of the horse in society generally worried the Advocate throughout 1919, as the following comments indicate. ‘Thousands and thousands of dollars are being expended in perfecting the tractor and making it suitable for farm work. The horse is not given a chance to demonstrate its usefulness, and is gradually being relegated to the background. It has long been the custom of officials representing founts of information and learning to advise farmers to breed their mares annually, yet at one of the leading Ontario institutions not one colt was raised in years. This is a sample of

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what is being done to save the horse and prevent the almost entire extinction of the farmer’s favorite animals. It is time our agricultural institutions got busy and recognized the horse as a farm animal, rather than as a mere machine.’96 ‘Unfortunately we know practically nothing regarding the horse from the standpoint of his efficiency as a motor.’97 And, finally: ‘The horse is being relegated to a position in this country where it is used more and more for special purposes only, instead of serving man in all branches of agricultural and industrial life. In these days of haste it is not surprising that the roadster and park horse should give ground somewhat to the speedy motor vehicle and the fashionable limousine. Yet, when it comes to a question of moving the heavy city truck or farm implements of any kind the animal which has been man’s best servant down through the centuries is being displaced, simply because it has not had a chance to demonstrate its worth.’98 Increased mechanization for locomotion and traction left the heavy draft horse as the main survivor, even if somewhat shakily by 1920, of the working horse world. Because there were still markets for the type off the farm, farmers became more inclined to breed the heavy drafter, or what might be described as a heavier chunk, for use on the farm as well. The farm horse of the 1950s would look more like the classic Clyde, or Percheron, even if it was a cross-bred animal.99 Chunk had merged into, or with, the heavy draft horse, which served on farms until the midtwentieth century. These complicated breeding strategies, which related to light/heavy, type/breed, off- and on-farm markets, resulted in the production of all kinds of horses. To see how well the resulting animals could serve social needs, Part Two will focus on the functioning of one particular sector of the market: the trade in army ‘remounts,’ the animals destined for use in the armed forces. The equine situation in Britain and Europe from 1850 to 1914, particularly in relation to both general and army purchasing strategies, is important to the story of how horses served this international market is the subject of chapter 5. The availability of remounts from an international perspective, and structures put in place to purchase them by the British army, particularly in North America, is dealt with in later chapters.

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PART TWO

An International Horse Market: The Remount Story

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FIVE

Finding Horses for the British Army

While horses served many industrial, urban, commercial, and agricultural needs in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the animals were also critical for the performance of armies in combat. This chapter reviews the British and European equine situation within that framework between the 1850s and 1914. Through an examination of documents released by the British Parliament, it looks at horse breeding and trading patterns in Britain, the changing British and European equine market in relation to technology and army needs, and the approaches taken to control horse production in various European countries, including Britain. These contemporary attempts to understand the structures that shaped the horse world provide us with valuable information on the subject both inside and outside army affairs, even though government concerns with horses could never be entirely separated from issues of war. The linkage of horses to war has an ancient history that probably dates back almost to the time of domestication. Developing technology seemed to enhance, not detract from, that connection. When weaponry changed in the sixteenth century, for example, many argued that the long-standing value of the horse in combat would disappear. That result ultimately happened, but, as with so many interconnections between the horse and technology, it did not take place as fast as predicted. At least five hundred years would pass before firearm technology finally brought about the demise of the war horse. In the eighteenth century, new weaponry actually increased the horse’s role in combat. Frederick the Great devised in a plan in 1760 that allowed for the faster movement for artillery, but, contingently, it led to a greater reliance on horses. Teams of six light, agile animals pulled guns swiftly to points of battle. Both the

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British and the French armies copied the technique in the Napoleonic period. When the technology of guns modernized after 1815, many believed that the value of the cavalry, if not the horse-drawn artillery, would be reduced. But mounted men remained the fastest sector of any armed force throughout the nineteenth century. During the reign of Queen Victoria, for example, the British army fought in eighty major and minor engagements and, in every one of them, horses proved to be as essential as men.1 Because the animals proved critical for national safety, army demand could literally shape and drive market conditions for horses. The Crimean War, which broke out in 1854 and lasted until 1856, would be critical to the future of the war horse. The causes lay in the clashing of complicated interests emanating from most of the significant European powers as well as those of the Ottoman Empire. In essence provoked by Russia, in an attempt to gain control over parts of Turkey’s empire and, at the same time, divide England and France, the combat took place at and near the Black Sea on the Crimean peninsula. The port of Sebastopol became the most strategic point of the conflict. While Russia was defeated and the Ottoman Empire maintained its independence, no significant changes in the relative balance of power between nations resulted from the war. The Crimean War was, however, a conflict of surprising significance for other reasons. To begin with, it was the first conflict to be covered by dispatches sent home by telegraph to newspapers. This phenomenon brought immediacy to the battle and provided a realistic sense for the general public of terrible suffering in the Crimea, particularly in the winter of 1854–5, caused by lack of food, shelter, medicine, and fuel. Such direct communication also enhanced the glory of the British ‘Charge of the Light Brigade.’ This was Florence Nightingale’s war as well, and her work led to the development of the nursing profession and the instigation of better conditions for the ordinary soldier. The British army had gone to the conflict with no leadership and, more important, without any ability to use the cavalry, infantry, and artillery together. A general apathy towards military affairs developed in Britain after the Crimean War as a result of this lackluster performance. The course of events in the world of horse breeding in Europe, and ultimately across North America, would be influenced by a crucial British army decision made after the Crimean War, probably partly as a result of this apathy. When British authorities chose to buy only four-year-old animals for remount purposes (instead of three-year-olds, as had been

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done previously), that decision put British buyers in direct competition with European purchasers of horses.2 Europeans bought only four-yearold horses, and they also tended to take mares, causing a shortage of this particular class of horse.3 Furthermore, foreign purchasers, especially Germans, paid more for good horses than did the British army.4 Britain began to experience an increased drain of horses. The Franco-Prussian War made the drainage situation worse, even though Britain was not part of the conflict. It began in 1870, and foreign purchasing accelerated, this time by the French. The war resulted in the unification of Germany, changing the dynamics of Europe. The horse situation in the newly created country became of some interest to Britain, and military horses and their availability took on new significance. The British government was alarmed to see that the German army had been able, within a short time, to mobilize one million horses during the war.5 People in Britain wondered if this drainage of horses from Britain had led to a serious horse shortage, at least in comparison to demand, in the nation. In 1873 a committee of the House of Lords was asked to look into the entire horse situation of Britain and to explore the equine world of European countries as well. A great deal of information about the functioning of the British and European horse industry in the latter half of the nineteenth century can be found in the comprehensive document released by the committee: it is rich in material on subjects that can be hard for historians to grasp, given the poor contemporary census compilation. Even people at the time found it difficult to appreciate trends going on around them owing to the lack of data.6 The committee claimed that it was concerned with the health of the entire horse industry, not remount issues specifically. The members stated that, while they had interviewed military authorities on the topic of horses and the army, they did not want to devise a ‘detailed scheme for providing army remounts.’ The question of remounts, members argued, was only part of the larger horse supply issue, and they believed that ‘military authorities should simply remain ordinary customers of the market.’7 Evidence indicated that there was a genuine shortage of horses for general work in the nation, and that exporting patterns during the Franco-Prussian War had played a part in that situation. The committee did not, however, think the shortage reflected declining numbers. The deficiency resulted from the fact that supply could not keep pace with the increased demand.8 It was clear also that wartime markets had played a major role in the

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way the entire horse economy worked. Figures for exports and imports of horses between 1831 and 1872 showed that far more horses were exported in 1870–1 than in any other year and that, while exports were back to normal in 1872, imports had skyrocketed to four times that of exports. Over 12,000 horses were imported that year, mostly from France.9 The general manager of the London Omnibus Company explained how important the implied shortage could be for general business. He stated that horses for the company tended to cost about £24 throughout the 1860s, but between 1870 and 1872 the price jumped to over £32. This rise in price was caused by acute scarcity. While the company hired dealers to look all over England and Scotland for stock, these men found it difficult to find suitable animals because, during the recent war, the French had bought up all the horses they could. The company was forced by 1873 to purchase foreign stock which, ironically, originated in France. The inability to secure horses had, the manager added, put many cab proprietors out of business. They simply could not find any animals to buy.10 Members of the committee understood the strange logic implied in the testimony of the London Omnibus Company. ‘How do you account for the facility which you have in getting horses from abroad, compared to England, when you say at the same time that many horses go from England to the Continent, because if they have such great requirements on the Continent they could buy their horses there?’ one member asked. The manager replied: ‘I think that the requirements on the Continent have ceased since the war has ceased, and probably, there was some reason for their not taking up all the horses from Normandy, for they must have been in Normandy at the time the war was going on.’11 The dichotomy of shortage due to export, which enforced imports from the country exported to, illustrates how complicated the international horse market could be and how poor data made it difficult to understand its dynamics. Evidence brought to the committee revealed many aspects of both the British and the European horse worlds. In Britain there seemed to be a real scarcity of agricultural horses. For a variety of complex reasons, farmers stopped breeding horses and turned to raise sheep or cattle. They also sold many of their existing horses for work in cities, such as hauling wagons and vans. Industrial demand was huge for equine traction. Many farmers also believed that railways had undermined the need for horses, even though it seemed clearly evident that trains only increased equine work.12 One of the most damning things about the horse

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economy in Britain, however, was the way the warranty and dealer licensing systems worked. ‘Warranty is simply a custom; but when a warranty is given the law gives it force, is it not so?’ a member asked a witness. ‘Yes, you are obligated to give a warranty, the horse is liable to be returned to you [the seller] if he does not prove sound and all right,’ was the answer. No time limits were set on such warranties, though, and farmers could be forced to sell other stock in order to acquire the money needed to repay a warranty after a late claim was laid. Some witnesses thought the warranty did have a time limit of six months, but that seemed to be based on custom alone. Dealers liked warranties from breeders because they, the go-between, could get their money back after selling a horse. They could effectively pass the debt incurred back to the breeder.13 One witness claimed that when he sold a horse, he always received a letter from the purchaser saying the horse was unsound. If the seller thought the horse was sound, he simply ignored the letter. Money could be made simply by sending out warranty letters, regardless of soundness. A London buyer was known to make a considerable amount every year by sending out letters, because he knew that many sellers would pay up rather than go through the trouble that might emerge from not doing so.14 The warranty issue could be so serious that many farmers preferred to sell to foreigners to avoid the problem.15 Another complexity for farmers stemmed from the effects of restrictions imposed by dealer licensing allowances. Whenever a purchaser bought a horse and sold it within six months, he had to pay a licensing fee. Breeders did not have to pay the fee when selling because it applied only to purchases. Witnesses told the committee, however, that the licensing fee cut down on the number of horses a farmer was prepared to keep over short periods of time. If farmers could buy horses for use over the summer months and sell them without having to pay the licensing fee, the numbers and the turnover for market would be far greater.16 The committee also collected information about horse-breeding support systems in different European countries. This material made it clear that many European governments traditionally played a role in horse production under what was known as the Haras system, and that these efforts to regulate horse breeding were invariably linked to army/war concerns. In 1665 Louis XIV established the first Haras stud in France, with additional studs founded in 1714 and 1775. By 1690 the ‘Administration des Haras’ had owned at least 1,600 approved stallions, many of which had been brought in from foreign countries such as Spain and

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Turkey and carried Arabian genetics. After 1815 the French Haras increased its purchasing of breeding horses of differing types, and Arabians continued to play a particularly significant role. State-owned stallions in France served government-owned mares (though by 1873 the females were no longer kept) and were also licensed to breed privately owned mares, being lent out at nominal fees to local farmers.17 From that time on, the state-owned studs had almost complete control over the breeding of horses for cavalry purposes.18 Privately owned stallions approved by the Haras through inspection were exempt from all taxes, but those not accepted were taxed at 400 francs per annum. The Administration des Haras also distributed yearly prizes among the horse-keeping population, principally for good brood mares. The Haras supported races as well as horse shows. A strong government structure had been in place in France for some time to encourage horse breeding, but with army needs fully in sight. By 1873 state efforts to ensure a good horse supply had reached a new level, with the conscription of all French horses fit for military duty in the event of emergency under consideration.19 Certain earliest developments in the French Haras indicate the importance of the Arabian to European warfare as early as the late seventeenth century. War and the Arabian had a long interrelated history by that time in other parts of the world. While the Arab people first relied on the horse in tribal combat and in campaigns of conquest, it was the Ottoman Empire that initiated what would become the global spread of Arabians. The sultans of Turkey encouraged the founding of private Arabian studs in all their provinces so cavalry horses could be made available to the state when the need arose. When the whole Arabian Peninsula and Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and all of North Africa came under Turkish influence after the thirteenth century, Egypt developed into the centre of a Turkish province. As early as the fourteenth century, princes in Egypt established their own stables for the breeding of Arabian horses.20 Arabians reached many European countries from these Egyptian studs, which were often, in turn, based on foundation stock from the Arabian Desert. The Arabian might have gone into the British Thoroughbred, but the breed also played a role in the production of military horses in other European countries such as Austria-Hungary and Prussia, as witnesses to the 1873 committee made clear. While the Haras method could be found in Russia (where Peter the Great had set up the Russian system as early as 1680) and Italy (depots had been established by the government to stable horses required for remount purposes), the Haras system in the Austrian Empire and Prussia

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interested the committee more.21 Austria-Hungary was discussed first. In considering the action the government took to encourage equine breeding in Austria-Hungary, the British respondent replied: ‘The breeding of horses is largely and systematically encouraged by the Governments of Austria and of Hungary, each for itself.’ The two ministries of agriculture controlled each state’s breeding operations. Two government studs existed in Austria, and three (with a fourth about to open) could be found in Hungary. Imported Arabian stallions often stood at these government-owned studs. The depots collected foreign horses, acclimatized them, and raised mares. Stallions standing at the government depots could provide sufficient stud service for the country’s needs. When stateowned stallions served privately owned mares, no lien existed on the resulting foal: it was owned fully by the mare owner. A Horse Conscription Act, which divided the districts of each country into levying areas, had been legislated in recent years. Orders for mobilization meant that horse owners had immediately to make their animals available for use. Exemptions could be applied to approved breeding stallions and brood mares. It was the Prussian situation, however, that concerned the committee the most. Depots for the breeding and training of army horses existed in Prussia, members learned, and the British reporter told the committee in detail how stock was bred, housed, and fed in these studs. The Prussian government had a number of depots where stallions served local mares, and it also maintained three principal breeding studs, which influenced horse production throughout the country. The first had been established by Frederick the Great in East Prussia in 1732. ‘Originally intended for the supply of horses for the royal stables, this stud has exercised an important influence on horse-breeding in general, not only as a model for which the organization of the later establishments has been derived, but as the source of much valuable material,’ the official observer reported to the committee. The second was set up in 1788, and the third in 1815. The improvement of horse breeding was viewed as a government responsibility, and, he added, also as forming one of the measures for the defence of the country, and for its emancipation from foreign control. Military concerns clearly lay at the heart of German involvement with horse breeding. ‘Every horse in Prussia is available for the public service in the event of war,’ the British reporter said succinctly.22 Evidence brought to the committee indicated as well the historic importance of the Arabian horse in Prussian army breeding programs in the nineteenth century. As early as 1831, Count Lindenau wrote of the

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Arabian in breeding programs: ‘As it is now evident that the Arabian blood alone gave the impulse to the present breeding of thoroughbred stock in England, and as England is indebted solely to the Arab for the thoroughbred, we may conclude that the Arabian stallion of the most perfect race is nobler than his mixed posterity, which has derived its high value from him alone.’ He argued that it was necessary to reintroduce Arabian blood.23 The East Prussian horse of 1873 reflected this large infusion of Arabian blood, he said of the type: ‘Taken altogether, I consider the Prussian remount for riding purposes ... about the best and most useful horse I have ever seen.’ The horse’s endurance, he believed, far surpassed that of the English cavalry animal. Certainly, German horse breeders attributed the excellence of the Prussian horse to its preponderance of Arabian blood.24 The witnesses revealed that census material on the movement of horses in Europe could be as poor as that in Britain. The AustroHungarian authorities took no note of the destination of exported horses or of the origin of imported horses. Consequently, the commission had to rely on estimates. The witness for Austria-Hungary believed few animals were exported from that country to Britain. As to imports to Austria-Hungary from Britain, he guessed that 60 to 100 were imported from England for breeding purposes, while 100 to 200 British horses were bought for other reasons.25 The British dispatch from Berlin on the import/export situation in Germany with respect to Britain showed a similar lack of available information. The witness from Prussia explained: ‘I have in vain endeavoured to procure any statistical information of the numbers of horses passing between England and North Germany. I have tried, without result, the Remount Department [one clearly existed here long before one did in Britain] of the War Office, the Ministry of Agriculture, the Royal Statistical Board, and the German Agricultural Society. From the director of the latter I have, indeed, received partial information as to the class of horses exported from England, but only a confirmation of the hopelessness of obtaining correct statistics. As the transit takes place chiefly from and to Hamburg and Bremen, and through Dutch ports, none of whom furnish returns to the Zollverein, it will be perceived how unlikely it is that this information should be forthcoming.’ The director did, however, say that Prussia imported three classes of horses from Britain: Thoroughbreds for racing and breeding, ‘farm’ horses, and ‘dray’ horses.26 The committee now had an overview of the horse situation in Britain and the continent. Shifting policy on how to provide horses for the

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armed forces had brought the British government into conflict with foreign buyers, and, because lower prices were offered by the War Office, many horses were exported. The demands of industry and changing technology had also affected the way the horse market worked, as did customs in trade such as the warranty and licence fee. Although the situation in Britain contrasted sharply with activities in Europe, the committee members of 1873 on horse conditions in Britain did not wish to adopt any of the regulatory measures that existed in Europe. They distrusted the Haras system of licensing; they rejected the idea of inspection for soundness. They opposed the idea of government ownership of breeding stallions in various parts of Britain because these depots would compete with private breeders. ‘There is not ... the requisite machinery in England [to place stallions], and it is questionable whether any compulsory examination would not be regarded as an undue interference with the liberty of the subject,’ the committee’s report stated. ‘In this country Government interference in such matters is justly unpopular, even when practicable. Much more is to be hoped for from private enterprise, aroused by the high prices on horses.’27 The committee’s attitude to ‘private enterprise’ was in keeping with convictions held by most British people in the 1870s and reflected a general governmental aversion to interference in virtually any aspect of society. Patriotic British subjects should follow their own instincts, it was believed, and these in turn would lead to the betterment of the nation. The committee’s recommendations on the level of government interference with the horse industry reflected the opinions of most, but not all, witnesses who described the British horse world. A job-master, dealer, and contractor in horses stated, for example, that he did not believe farmers would use government-owned stallions because of their concerns about control over the progeny.28 One veterinarian, however, doubted the wisdom of this stance. Poor and unsound stallions went around the country serving mares, he said, while their owners stressed a long pedigree rather than admitting they had ‘spavins and curbs and all manner of defects.’ Stallions should only be allowed to serve mares if they had a certificate indicating they were ‘free from disease or roaring.’ (These conditions will be discussed in chapter 8.) No animal with a heredity defect should be allowed to breed, he argued, and it was easier to control stallions.29 Inspection may have been rejected by the committee, but the idea at least had been raised. The committee decided also to leave in place what was known as the Queen’s Plates, a system established during the reign of Queen Anne in

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which £3,000 annually provided ‘Royal Bounty’ to the winners of certain horse races. Although the intent of this prize money was to improve horse breeding, some witnesses stated that, in their opinion, it had done nothing to improve horse production.30 Queen’s Plates also, of course, supported only Thoroughbred breeding. The committee turned a surprisingly blind eye to the potential shortage of horses in the advent of war. Questions on this point were put to witnesses: Where would we get horses during a war and in an emergency? We couldn’t get them on the continent, and certainly not if we were at war on the continent. We couldn’t get any in either France or Germany anyway. Where would we get them, with the continent ‘virtually closed to us for the purchase of horses?’ Somewhat convoluted answers came in response to these questions. In wartime we could use the omnibus horses. But, a committee member responded, don’t you think that would be hard on the public? Not in wartime, came the answer. Wouldn’t it be better to have a safe supply of army horses? Yes, we should encourage horse breeding. Another line of questioning went as follows. ‘Could not you understand the public complaining that their horses were seized when the War Office ought to have had such an emergency in view for some years before?’ The answer: ‘I can understand the public complaining very much; but I do not understand how the War Office could remedy it.’31 The idea that Canadian horses could supply the British army with remounts emerged as a solution to the problem. In the advent of a war with the continent, one witness suggested that horses could be procured in Canada and that the expense of transporting the animals would not be prohibitive in properly fitted ships.32 Members of the committee wanted to learn more about the potential of finding army horses in Canada. The witness explained that the Allan Company could ship stock at the cost of £10 to £15 and, while the price of a good horse at age four to six years in Canada three years before had been £30 [$146], it had risen to £40. ‘I think it would be a very good thing to import Canadian horses in an emergency. They are as good troopers as I ever saw,’ he added. Canadian horses might not compare in quality to ‘a high-class British horse worth £150 to £200,’ but they were equal to ‘a British horse worth £60 to £70, and 4 to 6 years of age.’ At least 5,000 were available in Canada at the time. The committee members asked how the prices and horses compared with American stock. ‘I do not think that the horses in the States are as good as they are in Canada, and they are very much dearer in the States,’ the witness replied. Canadians exported horses to the United States too, he added.33 The committee concluded that it

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might be worth using these horses in an emergency, but believed that, under ordinary circumstances, all the stock needed could be found in Britain and Ireland. Canadians seemed to be aware of the comments involving Canada in the report of the House of Lords committee. Farm journals argued as early as 1873 that the British market for their horses had huge potential, and they recognized the impact of the Franco-Prussian war on horse supplies. A good trade in chargers for the British army certainly existed, the Farmer’s Advocate stated in December 1873.34 By 1876, more comments appeared in the farm press about the markets in Europe, the high prices paid for horses there, and the potential to sell large numbers of Canadian stock.35 ‘Our horses have been making a name in England, and we have a good steady market, which will take from 25,000 to 40,000 every year, and go on increasing,’ the Advocate told farmers in 1878.36 John Dyke, Canada’s immigration officer in Britain, reminded the Canadian government in 1884 of a large potential market for Canadian horses, based on military need. He reiterated that for such a trade to exist, good breeding was critical. ‘The improvement of the breed of horses in the Dominion,’ he pointed out, ‘is not only of importance to Canada, but to the Empire, as in the event of war, England would undoubtedly have to look to the Dominion for re-mounts for her army.’37 By the late 1880s it looked as though such a market might develop because of changing British policy under new wartime conditions. The report of the committee to the House of Lords triggered no immediate efforts to bring the military horse situation under control in Britain. A policy of small peacetime buying for the British army began in 1879, when a few animals were bought from Hungary. The issue of horse breeding, government regulation, and army remount was discussed again after the 1882 Egyptian campaign. It was estimated in 1884 that, in the first six months of a war, the army needed 25,000 horses, and previous experience had shown that the number could not be raised in the home market within such a time frame. In 1886 a recommendation was put forward to purchase of 300 animals in Canada. A proposal to buy a few each year in order to ensure steady supply was, for some unknown reason, turned down later.38 The farm press told farmers in Canada about the 1886 British plan and explained that the army would be looking for both cavalry and artillery horses. Calvary horses should weigh between 1,000 and 1,150 pounds and were worth $150 to the army. Artillery horses came in two types, and the army would pay $175 for both. Ridden artillery horses should weigh 1,100 to 1,250 pounds, and

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draft artillery animals should weigh 1,200 to 1,400 pounds. Farmers should be alert to this new army market. Unfortunately, the Farmer’s Advocate noted, only 5 to 10 per cent of horses in Ontario matched the standards set by the Imperial army. Horses bred to army specifications, though, if not absorbed by the military, could serve as general-purpose farm horses.39 ‘This trade, if properly attended to, may attain considerable proportions,’ Canada’s Yearbook for 1886 reported. Canada had an almost unlimited ability to produce horses if farmers would take the care to breed properly for market.40 In 1887 Colonel Ravenhill of the British army spent over six months in Canada and travelled almost 15,000 miles within the country looking for horses. He was shown 7,500 head, examined 1,000 carefully, and bought just over 80. Ravenhill found many horses of the right size and type, but felt they had been worked too young and had become unsound. He also noted that many horses had short drooping quarters – a bad characteristic in a military horse and reflecting too much trotting blood. Money did not influence his decision: he had not purchased more because of the presence of unsoundness, at least for army purposes.41 It is not clear whether Ravenhill’s comments affected the end of buying from Canada. Any records generated by the venture did not survive. By 1902 it was known that the British secretary of state had ordered all future purchases to be made in the home market. Where the animals had been bought in Canada (the British government set the purchase figure at 300 head), the methods used in selection did ‘not seem to have been recorded.’42 Colonels Ravenhill and Philips prepared a paper on the qualities of a good military horse, and the Canadian Live-Stock Journal published it in June 1887 to help Canadians understand what the new international demand in army horses meant. ‘The question naturally arises as to “what constitutes a military horse,”’ the two colonels wrote. ‘They are distinctly of two different kinds, though no more “warlike” than any other good general purpose horse between 15 hands 2 inches and 16 hands high in general use all over [Britain],’ Philips explained. The first type, a riding horse, was the hardest to procure. The animal should have the best blood possible and, therefore, the most Thoroughbred blood. The second was a draft horse, but a short-legged, quick-walking van one, and it could found all over the world.43 The emphasis here was on Thoroughbred breeding and the riding horse, though Canadians had long favoured trotting light horses and had never been riders to any extent. In October 1887 the Advocate advised farmers of the decision of the British government to discontinue importing Canadian horses for the

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army. ‘The consignments from Canada already have given excellent satisfaction; but the present complaint is that our horses are too dear.’ The comment implies that price, as much as quality, had affected the decision made by the British Army to discontinue buying. Numbers presented to the British Army, compared to actual purchases, seemed to suggest otherwise, though. Farmers were encouraged by the press not to abandon breeding for army needs: ‘What we desire specifically to urge is that our farmers should not relax their efforts in breeding the classes of horses required for army purposes.’44 The Advocate supported production of what might be described as the farm chunk when it appeared that an on-going off-farm market existed for them. The apparent instability of that particular market, though, made some horse experts believe that breeding especially for the army was a dangerous thing to do.45 Experience proved that these individuals understood the volatility of the warhorse trade. When demand sky-rocketed during the Boer War in 1900, the North American press had generally changed its mind about the desirability of focusing on the production of army remounts, as chapters 6 and 7 make clear. In 1887 the Remount Department was established in Britain, and it set up a system for a horse reserve, through horse registration, to overcome potential shortages. ‘Owners of horses could register a proportion of their horses, under an agreement to produce the number of suitable horses at a fixed price in the event of their being required.’ These horses were to be used for riding, not transport. In the case of conflict, the British War Department could take any or all of the horses at a fixed price and, if the owner did not fulfil that supply, he was fined £50. The authorities reconfirmed in 1892 that the need in wartime would be 25,000 horses for six months of fighting. By April 1899, over 14,000 horses were registered in the reserve. Throughout the 1890s, though, the availability of horses generally in the country had improved because many were thrown on the market at reduced prices as tramways became electrified.46 The Commission on Horse Breeding was set up in 1887 to provide better support for general improvement in horse breeding, though it explicitly focused on improving riding animals for army remount purposes. Canadians noted the new commission’s concern with the army remount problem in 1887, especially its support of Thoroughbred horses, and the Advocate advised farmers to use more Thoroughbreds if they wanted to sell in this market.47 In Britain, everyone involved with horses accepted the fact that the Queen’s Plates had failed utterly in their goal

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of improving horse breeding. The commissioner did not recommend the founding of a Haras to correct that situation but suggested, instead, that stallions in shows, not races, should be granted prizes. Awards, known as Premiums, would now go to Thoroughbreds who won at the Royal Agricultural Show.48 The commission gave away £5,000 annually in Premiums throughout its existence, between 1888 and 1911, originally at the rate of £200 for each prize, an amount later reduced to £150 when distribution was extended to more horse owners. Rather than addressing the general problem of horse improvement, these British government actions and concerns over the horse situation continued to reflect army issues, and to be driven by the fear of crises emerging from remount problems. Army needs and horse improvement remained hard to separate. The commission warned the government repeatedly, but to no avail, that the equine situation continued to be serious in Britain and that, over the years, the system of Premiums proved to be of little help. Horse breeding in Britain was left entirely to private enterprise, unlike the large and sophisticated Haras government support systems found in European countries. The commission could not see how, in these circumstances, a shortage of good horses in circumstances of war could be avoided.49 Strong resistance to the Haras method still existed in Britain. Sir Walter Gilbey, for example, wrote to the London Times in 1901: ‘It is not, I think, desirable that the British Government should embark upon costly horse-breeding operations in emulation of foreign Powers. Private enterprise in England has succeeded in producing domestic animals of all kinds so far superior to those bred in other countries that the best of our English stock, whether horses, cattle, or swine, are purchased at “fancy prices,” to improve their kind in every civilized part of the world.’50 Other than providing awards to prize-winning Thoroughbred stallions, the government took no action to regulate horse breeding. In 1899, conflict broke out in South Africa. Trouble had been seething for some time between British settlers and explorers in South Africa and the Dutch Boers in the Transvaal and Orange Free State, especially after the discovery of huge gold deposits in the Transvaal. British imperialists such as Cecil Rhodes resented the Boer government’s attempts to control the influx of the British into the territory. In 1895 L.S. Jameson led a British raid into the Transvaal, which was put down by the Boers. The situation deteriorated until 1899, when Britain found itself at war. The Boers quickly laid siege at three British strongholds – Kimberley, Ladysmith, and Mafeking. Under Lord Roberts and Lord Kitchener, the

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British broke the sieges in 1900, but guerrilla warfare practised by the Boers extended the conflict until they finally sued for peace in March 1902. The war showed the military unpreparedness of the British army and the difficulties that had to be faced in such long-distance warfare. Providing an adequate supply of horses proved to be a major problem. At first the British government found it easier to procure horses at home than had been expected. Horses could be bought cheaply on the open market, so fewer than half of the registered reserve horses were called upon. Purchasing officers of the Remount Department believed also that retaining an untouched supply of reserve horses gave the government some command over the market by keeping down the prices demanded by dealers.51 Tram horses had averaged £55 a piece, but the price dropped to only £43. Cobs averaged £29 a head.52 How ‘domestic’ this stock was, however, tended to be a moot point. The importing of North American horses had begun long before this time. The equine crisis caused by the Franco-Prussian War had initiated a market for North American horses in Britain, and a trade between the United States and Britain of ‘any dimensions worth mentioning’ had begun by 1877.53 Numbers of working horses sent to Britain from the United States and Canada climbed steadily to the end of the century. Between 1895 and 1900, of horses imported into Britain, at least 80 per cent came from North America, and these animals tended to serve as omnibus horses in London.54 Most horses in the British army by the end of the nineteenth century had been drawn from this imported North American pool of carriage and omnibus horses, the Marquess of Anglesey argued in his authoritative work on the British cavalry.55 Again, existing statistics made it difficult for army authorities to assess actual reserves: they did not seem to be able to distinguish how much importation was reflected in the British domestic equine reservoir. Availability of horses from this source, however, did not mean that Britain could horse her army for the duration of this war. It quickly became apparent that the limited actions taken by the British government had not brought about any appreciable improvement in stock and, more critically, they had no hope of solving the problem of supply in a major war. Moreover, the use of London omnibus animals would not suffice over a sustained period. Horses were not easy to acquire from other countries in this period, either: France prohibited export, as did Morocco and Algeria. Polish horses were considered unsuitable, Italy’s poor, and Germany’s unacceptable for political reasons. Prohibition of export could come at any time from other countries

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as well. Even within British-controlled territory, it could be difficult to procure horses for certain locations. The Remount Department of India, for example, was much larger than that in Britain, but the two operations had little contact with each other.56 The Indian Remount had been established much earlier, in 1810. ‘Neither the diminutive Remount Department nor the inadequate registration system bore any realistic relation to the needs of the war upon which Britain was now embarked,’ wrote the Marquis of Anglesey. The largest army Britain had ever raised had to fight a war some 6,000 miles away. ‘Early in the conflict it became apparent that all previous estimates of remount requirements were hopelessly unrealistic,’ Anglesey noted.57 The Thoroughbred and Thoroughbred crosses were the most favoured by the British army. But, once again, it was often the Thoroughbred/ Arabian cross that proved so valuable. The Indian Remount supplied such mounts, bought in Australia, to the war effort. These horses, known as ‘Walers’ because of their origin in New South Wales, had developed after 1788 from Arabian horses originating in South Africa and from English Thoroughbreds. After 1875, the Indian Army had effectively been horsed by Walers.58 Pure Arabians also served in the British army. British generals brought Arabians, privately owned by them, into battle campaigns. Lord Roberts, the British general in charge of forces in the Boer War, rode a white Arabian stallion named Volonel. Bred in Arabia, the horse carried Roberts through numerous battles in different wars that stretched over a period of twenty-two years. The animal was awarded service medals by Queen Victoria.59 Arabians were well recognized by the British as good war horses during the Boer War, as witnesses reporting on the performance of horse types after the conflict made clear. Statements such as ‘Nothing beats an Arabian’ or ‘No horse stands hardship and keeps condition better than an Arabian’ were common.60 The demand for horses in the Boer War and the terrible wastage – some set the loss of horses from disease, poor treatment, and starvation at 67 per cent, or 240,000 head – shocked the British army and government.61 The British army now fully recognized that estimations regarding the demand for horses, and the nature of their role in conflicts, had been hopelessly inaccurate. The mounted infantry, for example, had been just as valuable as the cavalry in battles.62 Horses were vital to any troop movement because no mechanized system existed for transport of supplies or artillery. It was now clear to everyone that the Remount Department had to be expanded and that a comprehensive appreciation of available horses worldwide had to exist. In 1909 the War Office

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18 Volonel, an Arabian stallion that served in the British army for over twenty years. He carried Lord Roberts in the Afghan campaign and the Boer War, and he was the only horse to be decorated with medals by Queen Victoria. British horsemen might favour the Thoroughbred, but many individual officers sought out Arabians because of their endurance. Illustrated London News, 28 July 1900, opposite 136.

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19 The death of a mounted soldier. In fact, the loss of horses was probably greater than that of men. There is something pitiful about the helpless fear in the horse’s eye. The effects of the Boer War on horses forced people to address the needs of animals in wartime. Illustrated London News, 9 June 1900, 773.

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requested a horse census for the home front which gave a count of 2 million horses in Britain.63 The following year a conference was held over the issue of horses and the army, and agricultural societies and associations connected with horses joined in the discussions. Everyone agreed that a considerable decline in light-horse breeding had occurred over the last thirty years. On top of this problem, in recent years the rapid introduction of motor-cabs in London and other cities had greatly lessened the demand for heavier horses. The London Omnibus Company disposed of its horses at a rate of 150 a day as motorized vehicles replaced horse-drawn ones. The committee believed that, in an emergency, the army would be compelled to raise between 300,000 to 500,000 horses within twelve to eighteen months. It seemed to the committee that the expenditure of £5,000 in support of horse breeding was pitifully small, especially when compared to the £300,000 spent by France and the £200,000 spent by each of Germany and Austria-Hungary. Surely the United Kingdom could spend £500,000 on such a cause. Another proposal put forward suggested that 50,000 mares throughout the country be ‘earmarked’ for military purposes and that a subsidy be paid to the owners to prevent their being exported. After the Boer War, many top British regiments were mounted on poor, weedy stock.64 In 1911 the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries in Britain took over the work of the Horse commission, which was abolished that year, and began a new program for horse improvement which focused, as had the old commission, primarily on light-horse production. The board established what was known as the Light Horse Breeding Scheme. As in any regulatory action set up to encourage the breeding of better horses, the proposed scheme presented an ambiguous attitude to the remount question. ‘The scheme, which has so often erroneously [been] supposed to be one encouraging the breeding of remounts,’ the committee running the scheme announced in 1914, ‘was devised for the purposes of reviving interest in the breeding of light horses and of improving quality – not necessarily quantity – of horses bred.’ Breeding for improvement would result in many misfits, and these horses would well serve as army remounts. Better light horses, though, would also be produced, and they could serve the home and export trade, as well as being used for military purposes.65 Good stallions were bought by the government and stood at nominal fees to farmers for breeding. The Premiums were now offered to more than just Thoroughbreds.66 The scheme did not seem to be very effective, though. The War Office repeatedly wrote to the board expressing the terrible state of the horse situation in Britain and encouraging

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the board to get on with its work.67 When the First World War broke out in 1914, there were only 25,000 horses in the British army.68 The Boer War might have had a cataclysmic effect on the equine market, but the demand for horses in the First World War was even greater. What stock could armies mobilize? How did changing technology, the impact of export markets, and new breeding techniques relating to distinct heavy and light horses and type/purebred emphasis affect the available pool of horses? How would North American farmers fit into this rapidly evolving trade in horses? Chapters 6 and 7 attempt to answer these questions by looking at the way the British demand for horses during the Boer War and the First World War had an impact on horse affairs in the United States and Canada.

SIX

American Horses and War: A National and International Issue

The war situation in Europe after the mid-nineteenth century affected horse operations in North America. Transatlantic shipping became economically viable in the 1870s, and North American farmers participated in many overseas markets for horses. The remount trade, and more specifically sales to the British army, proved to be particularly significant. In this and the next chapter I look at the role American and Canadian horses played in the market for remounts during the Boer War and the First World War. The American situation shows how a nation with one of the largest horse populations in the world became involved in a lucrative trade with countries at war while the United States itself was at peace; and also how war conditions made Americans focus on the role of horses in national defence. Ironically, in the end, efforts to ensure an adequate number of military animals laid the groundwork for what would be a huge pleasure-horse industry in the 1980s. The Canadian situation illustrates specific difficulties relating to the country’s unique position between the United States and Britain, its attempts to supply the war efforts of allied nations and itself under these conditions, and its difficulty in doing so due to geographic size relative to the national horse population. American farmers were not exposed to British army purchasing until the end of the nineteenth century, but they knew something about the market for remounts because of the horse requirements of the American military. As early as 1775 the colonies established the Quartermaster Department to procure and train horses for the army. During the Civil War, the demands of both the Northern and Southern armies had been enormous for both cavalry and artillery horses. In 1860 the United States had five million horses; of these, over one million would die in the war.1

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Civil War records gave some indication of what equine requirements could be to keep an army mobilized at that time. The Federal government purchased during the 1864 fiscal year some 189,000 horses, and added 20,000 more from captures. Losses had been huge. During eight months of 1864, the cavalry of the Army of the Potomac, for example, was remounted twice, requiring 40,000 animals over that period. In the Shenandoah Valley campaign, Sheridan needed 150 new horses a day, which meant three remounts per person per annum. The average cavalry horse during wartime lasted four months under Sheridan.2 This point would interest horse breeders when people tried to predict what the equine needs of later wars would ultimately be. Predictions based on the experiences of previous wars, however, proved to be useless in the long run, as both the Boer War and the First World War made clear. During the Civil War, though, there did not seem to be any difficulty in procuring throughout the countryside the numbers needed on either side. Horses of the light breeds were used for all artillery and transport movement in the Civil War; the era of the heavy draft horse had not yet begun.3 It was the job of the Quartermaster Department to acquire and train the animals. In 1863 the Federals organized a special structure to secure horses, the Cavalry Bureau, which then had the task of inspecting and purchasing animals for the army. Six depots were established to do the job.4 Much of this structure put in place to deal with the problem of military horses was disbanded after the war ended in 1865. In 1890 the American government kept in service ten regiments of cavalry and five of artillery. The cavalry regiments consisted of nearly 8,000 men each. The artillery had ten light batteries of 65 men each. The Gazette estimated that the entire U.S. army had only 7,000 horses. If so, the cavalry and artillery were extremely under-horsed. The price paid by the government for a cavalry or artillery horse was between $118 and $140. Army horses stood at 15½ hands and weighed 900–1,000 pounds. The Gazette thought they were all of poor quality and that officers were no better mounted than the men.5 The journal also argued that between 10 and 25 per cent of cavalry horses were condemned each year as unsound and were replaced by appropriations of the War Department.6 Only geldings could be purchased.7 Americans were aware of the demand for horses by the British army as early as 1885.8 The potential for a transatlantic market in remount animals became more attractive in the 1890s, at a time when the horse market (especially for lighter stock) had slumped in North America. A depression in equine affairs started about 1890 when streetcars became

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electrified, ending what had been a large trade in lighter horses of no fixed type. But it was the panic of 1893 that really affected the whole horse market, and many believed it would never recover. The bicycle and motor car that followed would only serve to keep the market for all horses depressed, particularly for light animals. The general equine population had continued to grow over the 1890s, in spite of the slow markets, making the situation worse. Experts believed the increased numbers reflected the greater production of what they described as ‘scrub.’9 It might be better to define them as ‘misfits,’ meaning animals that could no longer find a position in the marketplace because of advanced technology. In fact, the words ‘scrub’ and ‘misfit’ were increasingly used interchangeably in the farm press by the 1890s, and it seems clear that neither word necessarily meant poor quality as such. A rising export market by the late 1890s seemed to be just the thing to bring faith back in the horse industry because it provided an outlet for these undesirable horses. The United States exported about 3,000 horses in 1893 and, by 1896, that number had risen to over 25,000. Half of them went to Britain. Horse shortages abroad and the low prices in the United States fed into this expanding export market.10 The demand for small horses by the British army made Americans focus on a type of horse not common in the United States: the cob. They exhibit ‘a combination of strength, courage, vigor, hardiness, docility and dignity,’ the Gazette told its readers. Cobs had been imported to New York, and the Gazette expected them to become increasingly popular in the United States. They were 15 hands, short-legged, and could be had from pony, Thoroughbred, Hackney crosses.11 In spite of the rise in American exports, the Gazette reported in 1896 that most imports to Britain from North America had come from Canada.12 The general European market for American horses, though, looked very promising.13 But Americans became increasingly focused on horse shortages in relation to the British army when, in 1897, British agents planned to purchase some 2,000 head in Indiana for the artillery.14 The Gazette believed farmers should pay more attention to the new remount market. ‘The British have tried the American farms with indifferent success, partly because our breeders have made no welldirected effort to breed for the trade’ in remounts, the journal noted, but admitted that the United States was a huge country to cover by agents seeking certain horse types.15 One problem was the predominance of trotting blood in American horses. British vets condemned the Standardbred as a poor horse for army needs.16

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When the Spanish American War broke out in 1898, the American army stepped up its buying of horses and mules and planned to purchase between 6,000 and 7,000 head immediately. The Gazette noted that Congress seemed to have little understanding of the value of horses because the money appropriated for animals amounted to about onethird of their actual market values. Authorities making these decisions did not seem to realize that horses required for cavalry service were not plentiful and that the breeding of horses had for years been away from the riding type. When cavalry officers could pick their own horses, as had been the case before 1890, they had been able to locate good riding horses, in spite of the more general emphasis in the United States on driving horses. The contract system in force by 1898 led to the purchasing of poor animals. Horses were not selected and bought on an individual basis from the breeder/owner; rather, contractors purchased horses in groups that had been collected at central points.17 The Boer War broke out in 1899, but the British army did not initiate serious purchasing of horses abroad until 1900, when three officers were sent to the United States to form a purchasing committee. The Gazette took considerable interest in remount markets triggered by the war. ‘Thirty months ago we were told that as a factor in war the horse had passed into history,’ it reported. ‘The long-range guns and repeating rifles of tremendous powers of penetration would mow down the flower of any cavalry service.’ At first no one could see that horses in large numbers would be sent to South Africa. But apparently horses remained critical to the moving of large armies, and no nation had failed to appreciate that fact.18 Russia, France, and Germany had stepped up army purchase of horses. Britain was desperate for stock; the army was losing about 5,000 a month in South Africa, the Gazette thought. The British army might be planning to set up huge buying operations within the United States, the journal told farmers, but the army wanted small cavalry horses. The Gazette hoped that farmers would not respond by breeding undesirable stock that the journal described ambiguously as small ‘scrub.’ Misfit and unmarketable horses in the United States could easily be spared, it argued.19 The fact that the British army was buying mules in huge numbers seemed more threatening. What would happen to the South, where mules were essential to the agricultural economy of the area?20 The Gazette was amazed at the mounting foreign demand for remounts. ‘To America the eyes of all European governments are turned for the means whereby to mount their foot soldiers,’ it told its readers. Britain seemed prepared to spend $50 million for transport and re-

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mount horses – a stupendous amount of money – and that represented the purchasing of only one power.21 In May 1901 the Gazette reaffirmed how important the trade in remounts was and described the structure then in place for British purchasing. The British army hired Americans to establish depots where horses were to be assembled after British agents had purchased stock. The horses were all tested for good health and remained in depots for three weeks.22 Dealers hurried to supply stock because most believed that the conflict would not last long. At its height, the operation set up by the British purchasing commission consisted of four main departments.23 American dealers found British buyers wanted value for their money. Cobs, particularly small ones, were in demand as war dragged on. British buyers became more selective, too, in what animals they would accept. Americans found it hard to unload many of the misfit horses. In the summer of 1901 the purchasing commission in the United States stopped procuring any cavalry horses; it wanted only small horses for the mounted infantry, but animals of good quality. They became harder and harder to find, a curious paradox when, merely six years earlier, such animals had been unmarketable and, consequently, had been shot.24 Between 1899 and 1902 the British army bought 100,000 horses from the United States.25 Prices ranged from $85 to $125.26 Military animals were classed separately as draft type for the artillery and saddler type for the cavalry. Artillery horses were described as horses of the draft type weighing from 1,100 to 1,250 pounds, but they were also said to be of the blood of the lighter breeds. That description presents an inbuilt dichotomy, made even more confusing by the stipulation that they ‘must fill very exact requirements to be acceptable.’ Cavalry horses were said to be selected from various light types and to weigh 950 to 1,150 pounds. Problems would emerge, though, when it was apparent that most socalled saddlers were, in fact, of trotting blood. Colour was important in army animals, for obvious reasons: white drew attention.27 Selection by colour restricted the numbers available from the general pool of horses that matched standards and fit desired type.28 According to the British government, over 200,000 horses were shipped to South Africa between September 1899 and December 1901, Britain alone supplying 46,000.29 Another 100,000 horses and mules would be sent before the war ended, bringing the total to just over 300,000.30 Statistics about the horse situation in the Boer War are often in conflict and must be regarded only as indicative of overall trends. Figures in the

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range of 400,000 horses were quoted as being shipped to South Africa.31 The British secretary of war claimed that 446,000 horses had been purchased.32 What is clear is that the major single supplier outside Britain of horse power to the war was the United States. American statistics support the fact that huge numbers of horses were exported during the Boer War.33 Even as the war was drawing to a close, there seemed to be no end in sight to British purchasing. In the spring of 1902 the Gazette reported that British agents intended to keep buying for the army. ‘It is plain from the lessons taught in the Boer-British war that modern military tactics are entirely different from those thought the best several decades ago, and from this time forward all the great powers will find it necessary to keep on hand many more horses than they have ever done before,’ the journal explained.34 Markets might have been good in those years because of war, but the loss of so many animals made American authorities focus on the remount situation in their own country. The shortage of good saddle horses of varying size and style, evident by 1890, had become even worse by the end of the Boer War. As early as 1902 a bill to encourage the breeding of horses for remount purposes was before the U.S. Senate. A number of clauses were designed to get farmers to breed better riding horses.35 Concern about remount supplies made the U.S. Department of Agriculture interested in horse production for the army, much to the delight of the Gazette. The ‘future of the saddle horse looks bright,’ the journal predicted.36 ‘The bicycle has had its brief day and while the automobile is increasing rapidly in numbers it can never supplant the horse for military purposes.’37 The good saddle horse, the old Kentucky type, remained scarce and was bred only in a very limited territory.38 Technology continued to make the production of light horses undesirable, even if they were needed for the armed forces. Remounts were largely drawn from trotting blood, not the American Saddlebred, for two reasons. Saddlebreds were relatively rare compared to Standardbreds and cost more than the army was willing to pay. The question of how best to breed for army animals seemed to the Gazette to be one that shifted with war conditions. What should the army or even the farmer breed as a war horse, if either chose to do so? The troop horse of old was now considered too big and bulky. Even the desired style of artillery horse had changed and was lighter. Particular wars taught what was needed for that conflict, but it was hard for a government to know what would be an appropriate horse-breeding program in peacetime.39

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20 This prize-winning stallion, like most of its kind, came from Kentucky. By the 1890s the saddle horse’s role in society had changed: it was most commonly used as a pleasure or hobby animal and was bred increasingly for show purposes. So began what we call today the pleasure riding-horse industry. Military people might favour the refined saddle horse, but in reality remounts looked more like the animals found in figure 21. Breeder’s Gazette, 3 January 1894, front page.

In 1907 the War Department reported increasing shortages and difficulty in procuring good remounts. A foreign government would, by that time, find it almost impossible to obtain a large number of good remounts. ‘How, then, could the United States itself mount an army?’ one expert asked in 1910.40 Americans began to look more closely at their entire horse industry. It was understood that the buying of trotting stock for both cavalry and artillery uses had affected the overall quality of horses serving in the military. Another difficulty arose from the fact that

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the army still did not buy mares. It accepted only geldings.41 The long focus on breeding the heavy draft horse, it seemed to some, really lay at the heart of the problem. Heavy draft purebred stallions far outnumbered those of the light breeds,42 and proper light-horse breeding had been abandoned. Although people recognized that technology, and the automobile in particular, had played a role in that pattern, they still thought that overemphasis on draft horses had done much to undermine the position of the light horse. Heavy selling during the Boer War had made the problem worse. How, they asked, could an army mounted on draft horses hope to deal with ‘a hostile cavalry properly mounted’?43 A variety of suggestions were made in 1907 to organize a remount system in the United States: remount stations could be used as depots where young horses could be brought to be trained: animals could be purchased directly from the breeders, then raised and trained by the army for their future work. The quartermaster-general proposed using abandoned military posts, such as Fort Reno, as depots. In 1908 Congress authorized the Remount Service, a subdivision of the Quartermaster Department, to take over the problem of army horse supply.44 The Fort Reno Remount Depot was established that year, and another depot opened in 1909. According to calculations, the army needed replacements of 2,000 head a year in peace time.45 It proved difficult to procure even that number of quality horses.46 By 1910 there were over 20 million horses in the United States, but that did not seem to make it easier to locate the right type or to acquire horses from all over the country on short notice. Still, however, no system was in place to encourage breeding for the proper type of army horse.47 The secretary of war asked that representatives of the War Department and the Department of Agriculture develop a plan to enable the government to establish its own breeding centres for army horses and no longer be forced to purchase the remounts needed.48 When the authorities tried to put a structure in place, they found they were hampered by insufficient information in the census material collected by the Department of Agriculture about the general horse population.49 Undaunted, they did put forward a new breeding plan: the country would be divided into four districts, and 100 stallions of Thoroughbred, Standardbred, Saddle, and Morgan breeds would be purchased in each and made available free of charge to approved mares; the owners would have an option on the resulting foal for a short stipulated period.50 Congress, however, turned down this plan.51 In 1913 another strategy was put in place. The government bought

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21 Cavalry mounts in the United States army in 1910. Horses for the artillery would have been heavier. G.M. Rommel, ‘The Army Remount Problem,’ U.S. Bureau of Animal Industry, Report, 1910, plate 4.

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stallions of these same breeds and put them in suitable locations. Mare owners agreed at the time of breeding to give the government an option on the resulting foal when it was three years old at a price of $150. No stud fee was charged.52 ‘Farmers should know that army buyers will only purchase geldings,’ the Gazette warned.53 Furthermore, no one really knew what the U.S. army wanted. ‘Talk to the first half-dozen officers you meet, and you will get as many different opinions.’ Exhibitions held for army horses revealed only that officers knew nothing about horses. ‘The farmer has been the goat on every conceivable proposition for many years,’ the journal concluded. ‘That he will add to his record over this army remount business is not likely, but it is possible.’54 Many horsemen argued that the government simply did not pay enough for good remounts. The army, in turn, said it did not offer more because the quality of horses was so poor. Farmers replied that they would not breed better stock at the prices set by the army.55 Military officials said that foreign buyers would purchase the better-bred stock at higher prices and thereby take up the slack of excess horses. The Gazette scoffed at that idea. Foreign buyers in the Boer War had been astute in their dealings. They never paid particularly well either, even for quality. And while they might have taken inferior animals at the beginning of the war, these men offered only low prices for such stock. During that war the British had ‘proved the shrewdest and closet buyers we had,’ the journal reminded its readers. ‘To be sure they took anything that would trot sound, and had good wind and at least one good eye, but they cut the prices to correspond. Why would they do much differently in the future?’56 Furthermore, the idea that the U.S. army would pay low prices until stock improved and then would call in foreign governments to buy what was not wanted by them was ‘like throwing a few crumbs to a starving man and telling him that if he will chop a mammoth pile of wood in record time he will be given something that will put strength into his body.’57 When the Turkish government bought 7,000 horses that year for $140 a head, the journal stated that the removal of scrub or light misfits at such prices would be a good thing. But such buying activities had nothing to do with the promotion of breeding for quality remount stock.58 It seemed to some people that the army should be in the business of breeding horses because cavalry animals did not fit into any recognized market class. The demand for war horses also obviously fluctuated with conditions of war and peace, a fact that helped make prices capricious.59 Shortage of funds, however, made it impossible to continue any organized buying and breeding plan, and efforts to sup-

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port the remount were discontinued shortly before the United States entered the First World War. When Americans began looking into how to deal with the army horse issue, they also took an increasing interest in European strategies and became more aware how differently their country and Britain had handled the problem over the years. The Haras system remained well entrenched in Germany, France, and Austria-Hungary. Americans believed that, by 1910, Germany probably made the largest expenditure to encourage horse breeding of any nation. Some breeding stations were purely devoted to the production of army horses, and no expense was spared in procuring high-quality stallions. Prices paid for remounts were very high – mostly over $300 a piece. France also supported breeding operations with the military in mind. In 1906 the government owned over 3,000 stallions which served privately owned mares at a very nominal fee.60 The size of government-breeding farms, however, was greatest in Austria-Hungary.61 As the First World War loomed nearer, something of the magnitude of the horse problem in wartime seemed to make American horsemen more inclined to be competitive on a world scale. Rumours emerged at the beginning of September 1914 that European countries were on the lookout for horses.62 ‘Depletion of our horse stocks during the Boer War is an interesting chapter in trade history, and the present war will probably have the same effect, cleaning out a lot of undesirable stock,’ the Gazette told its readers. Some thought that 300,000 horses would be bought. Unlike the Boer War, when a few dealers did all the buying, the country had been divided up for purchasing purposes by the British and the French.63 The British army paid an average price of $175 for a horse, with the owner getting $125, and agents the rest.64 Americans were aware that the British were also buying in Canada at this time.65 The Swiss purchased U.S. horses for cavalry purposes.66 A superb market for farmers in the United States had opened up, the Gazette announced. ‘The business of breeding horses never was more promising than just now. War in Europe and peace in America promises rewards for the farmer who produces sound horseflesh of approved pattern.’67 The journal went to lengths to describe what the British army looked for in military horses and supplied pictures of animals to help with the explanation.68 The Gazette believed that the country should be able to market far more army horses than it had so far. The United States had over 20 million horses when war broke out and, by March 1915, had been able to sell only 500,000 head. Three or four times that number had

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been rejected by foreign armies as not being good enough for cavalry or artillery purposes. The Gazette believed that conflict among horse breeders, due to breed allegiance and attempts to control market share, played a role in this problem. Men interested in the promotion of certain light breeds (possibly the Standardbred, though the journal did not mention this breed) had somehow managed to stop the spread of Thoroughbred horse production in the United States by setting up ‘a loud and persistent howl against using Thoroughbred stallions in this country for any purposes whatsoever.’ Meanwhile, Britain, with a horse population of less than 3 million, had been able to send 200,000 topquality Thoroughbred crosses to the front.69 Not everyone accepted the idea that remounts should be of Thoroughbred blood or that the Standardbred did not produce good army horses. Readers of the Gazette often supported the idea of trotting blood for remounts. ‘Perhaps the war might find the American trotter adapted to its uses and therefore solve the problem’ of poor remounts, one person stated. Some military authorities said that trotters made wonderful army animals, he added, and that should be of ‘vital interest to the average farmer who still does much of his plowing with horses tracing back to Rysdyk’s Hambletonian.’70 The conflict over Thoroughbred and Standardbred animals could take on nationalistic overtones as well. The trotter would fill the armies in Europe, just as they had in the American Civil War, another person stated.71 An American exporter claimed that many so-called saddler cavalry horses were indeed trotters, and added that people should be proud of the national breed and its contribution to the war effort.72 A reader scoffed at this whole concern with breeding strategies involving Standardbreds and Thoroughbreds. ‘Surely this is not a time to breed war horses; it is a time to sell them,’ he wrote.73 Farmers often worried that many exported horses were mares and would be needed by farmers to breed new stock.74 The mares were good farm chunks.75 The Gazette could not agree with this last point, probably because the editor had long campaigned against chunks. The animals leaving were all misfits and nondescripts, which to the Gazette equalled poor quality. It was a good thing such stock was leaving. Those who complained about drainage did not seem to grasp the fact that the quality was poor and that removal of these animals would stimulate better breeding practices.76 Farmers should breed heavy drafters. ‘With a very small demand for horses of this in-between size before the war, there is nothing to encourage their breeding.’ The future in peace time is the heavy drafter. ‘The history of the past quarter of a century in this

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and other countries records the gradual and steady replacement of the small farm horse by the heavy draft horse.’77 Get rid of your lighter horses, the journal told farmers.78 From August 1914 to August 1915, American farmers exported horses worth $74 million to the Allies.79 By December 1915 it was estimated that the Allies had spent $100 million on horses in the United States and that farmers had received $70 million of the total.80 The Gazette calculated that Britain had 800,000 horses in the field by early November 1915; France, 600,000; and Germany and Austria-Hungary, 1.5 million. Other nations also had thousands at the front. The journal thought that roughly 4.5 million horses were in the war in Europe.81 Horse statistics for the First World War, however, could be just as unreliable as those for the Boer War. Figures released after the conflict indicated that the number of horses in the British army peaked in 1917 at just under 500,000, considerably less than the Gazette estimates. It was also difficult to calculate how many head were in transit, stockpiled in the foreign country where they had been purchased, or waiting in holding depots to go to the front. In the spring of 1916, the Gazette notified its readers that the U.S. army was also planning to buy remounts – 5,000 cavalry horses and 1,200 artillery animals. ‘Inspection will be rigid,’ the journal warned.82 The total number of horses in service for the army in 1916 was 35,000, of which about 15,000 were part of the fifteen regiments of cavalry. If the army was to increase its size ten or twenty times, though, the Gazette believed it would find it hard to get enough horses of good type.83 Buying proceeded very slowly over the summer of 1916.84 Exports continued to climb, and by early 1917 the British army paid more for remounts: artillery horses commanded $165 and transport animals brought $185.85 The American entry into the war that year seemed to confuse the horse market. Horse traders did not know what position Washington would take over the way the market functioned.86 ‘Every “horse line” in the country is awaiting news from Washington,’ the Gazette announced. It looked as though the British and French believed that the United States government would act as the buying agent for the Allies.87 By May 1917, the American army seemed poised to buy 326,000 horses and 100,000 mules over the following six months.88 Later that month, American horse policy had taken firmer shape. The U.S. army wanted 250,000 horses within sixty days. Mares were excluded, and animals had to be six to eight years old. Buying would be done by contract, and the lowest bid would be accepted with top prices fixed as

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follows: cavalry at $180, light artillery at $195, and siege artillery at $235. All bids must be for the purchasing of at least 300 head.89 These regulations caused difficulties in the horse market which emerged almost immediately. First, while the Allies continued to buy on their own and not through the American government, they no longer took mares. British army officials paid from $160 to $190 by this time, a price high enough to cause other buyers to drop out of the market. The French, for example, stopped their purchasing completely. Dealers for the American government also found it hard to procure 300 head at a time at the required specifications. It was expensive as well to do so. Furthermore, Washington delayed accepting any bids for contracts from dealers, making havoc of the summer market generally for any horses.90 The war horse market had become very troubled. The Gazette explained: ‘When overseas activities began, foreign buyers quickly restricted their purchases to the large market, finding that they were under no necessity of seeking the initial source of supply. They were able to contract with large dealers, who made handsome profits by inspiring the small buyers to canvas the country and to ship their stock to the large points of concentration. Rejected stock was sacrificed, and went to fill the many European markets that were not particular as to their supply, so long as the price was interesting.’91 Buying by Americans under the same type of contract system – collection at central points – had been even more difficult, for various reasons. It was hard to meet the rigid American requirements, and contractors had no reliable outlet for rejected animals.92 This situation discouraged both farmers and breeders.93 By August 1917 the American government had decided to change its horse-buying policy. It abolished the contract system, which favoured the lowest bidder, and attempted to cut out the subcontractor or middlemen positions. The government wanted to reach farmers more directly, but the Gazette argued that this new approach would not work. Horses still had to be collected at points by dealers. No one would go to every farm. New prices had not yet been set either. It might be better, the journal suggested, to hire competent men to do the buying for the government. ‘In a war emergency the army has been in the position of attempting to buy horses on a peace basis, and that too after four foreign governments have combed the country for a couple of years or more. Its standard of specifications is the same as it proposed in peace times, and horses which come near to filling the Standard would command much larger prices than the government offers.’94 Purchasing commenced under what was called ‘the open-market system.’ Dealers did not think there was any-

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thing ‘open’ about the trade, and the British were no longer in the market because they were not permitted to acquire mares.95 Rumour had it, though, that the French would be buying soon. Even so, the future of the ‘army game,’ as it is known in market parlance, was doubtful, the Gazette believed. It remained hard to get animals that were dark-coloured, geldings, sound, and of the right size and age. ‘The whole country has been ransacked for that kind since the European war began,’ the Gazette argued, ‘and unless the United States Government consents to take mares and 5-year-old geldings[,] many dealers will drop out of the business.’96 By September 1917, the British army was allowed to take mares, but they had to be eight to ten years of age.97 In spite of problems in the army horse market, by the end of 1917 that trade dominated the overall equine market. At least 75 per cent of the horses offered were purchased by the American and British armies combined. The horse market was, in effect, the war horse market.98 The low level of horse buying outside military purposes meant that many unwanted light animals could not be sold. This situation suggested a new outlet for them: food for human consumption. Slaughter plants to render horse meat existed by 1917, but they were not inspected by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which did not recognize horses as meat animals. ‘Prejudice alone has delayed the uses of horse meat in America,’ the Gazette announced, ‘but in times of war many foolish notions and unreasoning prejudices must give way to commonsense.’ Some 3–4 million small, useless horses could be eaten.99 Eating horse meat was done worldwide, the journal told Americans.100 The Gazette outlined the magnitude of equine drainage from the United States by early 1918. The nation had sold 984,000 horses and 342,000 mules to overseas governments between 1914 and February 1918.101 By February 1918 the U.S. army had purchased 350,000 horses and mules.102 In November 1918, the War Department released figures that clarified exactly what the army at that point owned. The figures were set at 114,000 cavalry and riding horses, 186,000 draft horses, 145,000 pack mules, and 15,000 unclassified stock, for a grand total of 477,000 head.103 In 1919 the Breeder’s Gazette enlarged on what those figures meant and on how the American remount system worked during the period the United States was at war. The first American remount operations in France were set up in June 1917, when a depot was secured in that country to receive incoming American horses. By the end of the conflict, there were seventeen such depots in France. From the outbreak of war until peace, some 40,000 animals were received at the depots from

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the United States. Americans also bought horses from Britain (some 19,000), France (136,000), and Spain (9,000) for their French depots, indicating that the whole remount purchasing story was complicated by international buying and selling. These figures suggest that a huge number of animals acquired by the American government were still in the United States at the end of the war, or possibly in Britain. The Gazette added some interesting information about the life expectancy of an army horse and the numbers of animals serving in the British and French armies over the war period. Based on figures between July 1917 and November 1918, a horse’s lifespan during the war was three years, three months. However, death rates could be higher, and life expectancy therefore shorter, during the conflict. Figures from July to October 1918, for example, showed the average lifespan of a horse to be two years, eleven months, twenty-two days. During times of the most severe fighting, the average military lifespan of horses in the British army could, however, be much lower – less than three months.104 The Gazette added that the wastage of army horses for the British army was 12 per cent. Thousands of animals could be found in France and in American and British holding depots at the end of the war. Britain intended to bring home some 25,000 horses from France and to send another 50,000 through to Belgium. Americans did not want a return of American horses from France: they carried the potential for disease.105 The remount stations in the United States began to sell the horses the government had bought back to farmers.106 British-owned army horses still in the United States were also auctioned off. (In the fall of 1918 the British army had begun stockpiling horses in the United States for potential campaigns in the spring of 1919, if the war continued.)107 Meanwhile, some 100,000 American mules were still in Britain, not having left yet for France. No one knew what their fate might be. Neither the British nor the Americans wanted them.108 The important role that horses played in the First World War made the United States rethink its remount organization. ‘Interesting developments may be expected in the United States after this war in the breeding of remounts for the army,’ the Gazette announced in early 1919, ‘as it is the unanimous opinion that this branch of the service will be kept up, and some means devised by the Government to foster the breeding of remounts.’109 Shortages during the war had made the quartermastergeneral submit a plan to the War Department for the breeding of army

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horses for the Remount Service in cooperation with the Bureau of Animal Industry. A new and more comprehensive breeding program began in 1919 when the War Department created the Remount Board, which consisted of prominent civilians and army officers who made recommendations on breeding stock. The board’s job was to pick the best stallions and place them with the best civilian breeders. In 1921 the Remount Service assumed total responsibility for the Bureau of Animal Industry’s horse-breeding operations. Civilian breeders were contracted to breed for the army, which had the right but was under no obligation to buy the resulting foals. The army assumed no cost for raising them. After purchase, the army took the young stock to depots to be trained. While the remount breeding program lasted (it was not disbanded until 1949), the army bought about 75 per cent of the foals bred under this plan. This reorganization of the American remount system, which the First World War stimulated, interacted with the future welfare of an ancient breed, the Arabian, and helped to take light-horse breeding to new heights in the latter half of the twentieth century. The story is interesting because it shows how war initiatives in modern times affected an entire pleasure-horse industry. Arabians had commanded interest in the United States before the early twentieth-century remount issues appeared. The Breeder’s Gazette commented on the value of Arabian blood as early as 1883, saying the breed was useful for the improvement of American horses. It even argued that the Arabian might improve farm horses.110 The Gazette admitted that Arabians might not be good race horses – they had been tested by two Arabian horse breeders, A. Keene Richards in the United States and Wilfrid Blunt in Britain, in that capacity – but the breed was still useful.111 Arabians attracted attention at the World Fair in Chicago in 1893.112 By the early twentieth century, a number of Americans had become interested in Arabians for remount purposes. In 1905 H.K. Bush-Brown, an early American Arabian horse breeder, announced in the United States that Arabians should be crossed on Thoroughbreds to breed cavalry horses. The Gazette was not so sure about the validity of that idea and took a reversed stand from its 1883 position. ‘Was there ever such balderdash written on an interesting subject? The Arab as a practical feature in horse breeding has reposed in the equine scrap heap for half a century or so.’ The Thoroughbred had superseded the Arabian.113 In 1906 Homer Davenport, a man with a passion for ‘authentic’ Arabians

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found in Arabia, with the support of President Theodore Roosevelt, brought in twenty-seven horses from Arabia for the breeding of army horses.114 Men like Albert Harris and W.R. Brown, influencial horsemen who bred and imported Arabians, became attracted to the animals because of their potential to serve as remounts.115 Spencer Borden, who imported Arabians from the Blunt stud in England to the United States between 1898 and 1911, had advocated the use of the Arabian for remount purposes for some time and, after visiting European studs, in 1912 wrote What Horse for the Cavalry? in which he described the use of Arabian stallions for the production of cavalry horses in Germany, France, Austria and Hungary under the government Haras system.116 In 1913 Spencer organized the first weight-carrying test for horses over long distance, with the thought of army remounts and, thus, a market for Arabians. The horse that won was an almost pure Arabian.117 The outbreak of the First World War brought more attention to Arabians as military horses. ‘The Arab is considered by many experts in America, such as Colonel Spencer Borden and Major Benton, both men with experience, as the best cross to use for cavalry horses,’ the Graphic in Britain stated in 1915, and added, we should follow this American example.118 In 1917 the president of the Arabian Horse Registry of America called a conference of breeders of all classes of horses to discuss the need for a better remount breeding program and the value of different breeds for the various demands of war. The response of cavalry officers to an army questionnaire sent out in 1918, asking what made an ideal cavalry horse, pleased Arabian horse breeders. The description fit an Arabian like a glove, they believed – not over 15 hands 2 inches, deep chested and thick set.119 Breeders of all light riding horses, the president believed, could profit from encouraging the military to purchase their stock. In 1918 Brown, with the help of two army officers, organized the first Cavalry Endurance Ride and won with a purebred Arabian named Ramla. The generals were amazed at the endurance and stamina of the small Arabians. The Remount Service took notice and established a cup – the United States Remount Service Cup – to be awarded in future endurance rides. Various breed organizations competed for the attention of the remount service. Thoroughbred owners went to great lengths to have their horses do well in the races. Arabians continued to perform admirably in the races they ran up to 1923, after which few competitions were run. The Remount Service noticed Arabians because of these races, but contacts between Arabian breeders and men involved in remount

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breeding programs in the Bureau of Animal Industry probably did more to link Arabians to the remount. H.H. Reese, who orchestrated the remount’s efforts for improved horse breeding at the Bureau of Animal Industry, discussed the merits of Arabians with both Harris and Brown.120 By the 1920s, he found himself running the W.K. Kellogg Arabian breeding farm in California. Here he linked his remount breeding ideas to producing good Arabians. Reese was also involved in the exhibitions that the Kellogg ranch put on, displaying Arabian horses to the public. Important Arabian horse breeders of the latter half of the twentieth century often encountered Arabians first at this ranch, run by a remount expert. Kellogg gave the operation to the University of California in 1932 and, in 1942, the Remount Service took it over. Important Arabians from Europe, notably the stallion Witez II, arrived at this station after the Second World War. When the whole breeding part of the remount structure was disbanded in 1949, these animals were bought by private breeders, who, in turn, through their import programs in the 1960s and 1970s, initiated what would become a worldwide Arabian horse industry. Somehow things had come full circle here, and individual people and individual horses helped that happen. But the Remount Service played a critical role too, linking Arabians closely to better light-horse breeding. This complex interrelationship between remount, light-horse production, and improvement in horse breeding helped lay the groundwork for what would, in the 1980s, become an international industry based on the Arabian horse.121 Wars took a heavy toll on the horse population of the Western world between 1899 and 1919. Combat led, in the process, to huge and complicated international markets that served an ever expanding military horse industry. Governments took considerable interest in this industry over the years and focused as well on all aspects of horse breeding. The light/ heavy division within the equine world complicated the situation because the army needed both types at a time when light-horse breeding was in decline. Renewed military interest in light-horse production made governments organize remount structures to promote the breeding of light horses. Ironically, governments did so at a time when the use of horses in combat was all but over. In the end, remount organizations played a role in the evolution of the late twentieth-century pleasurehorse industry. The present-day light horse owes much, as a result, to the war horse. The British and European wars that stimulated such a huge trade in horses with the United States had somewhat different effects on the

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Canadian horse situation. The country was smaller and supplied animals for both itself and the British army in the Boer War and throughout the First World War. Close ties to Britain and the United States also made Canada’s position different. How Canada functioned within a transatlantic and continental context in this global situation is the subject of chapter 7.

SEVEN

Canada’s Equine War Effort: A Story of Conflicting Interests

Canadian farmers were affected by British army purchasing as early as 1887 and, even though this buying spree was short lived, horse breeders had been introduced to a new market. Before 1887, Canadians had had little experience with horses in relation to the armed forces. The Crimean War had stripped the country of men in regular British cavalry units and, therefore, of equine armed forces. After Confederation in 1867, Canadian attempts at a horsed militia had not been overly successful. Cavalry units in Canada tended to be small, and they were raised and disbanded on a volunteer basis. In 1883 the Cavalry School Corps was established and several mounted units had been raised in the North-West Rebellion of 1885. The 1887 purchase by the British army made a few Canadian horse breeders focus on the production of remounts. Western ranchers bought and imported suitable stock for breeding first-class cavalry horses. Thoroughbred stallions were purchased, and one ranch imported three hundred Irish mares. While the Dutch, Belgian, and French armies acquired some animals bred on these ranches, the British army did not buy another single horse before 1900.1 Purchasing by the Canadian North-West Mounted Police and a few foreign buyers was not enough to make the operations profitable, and the disappointed owners closed them down.2 In the spring of 1900, British purchasing for the Boer War began in Canada. British authorities at the time believed that the only safe outside supply of horses would come from British-controlled territories: India, Australia, Canada, and South Africa. It is somewhat ironic, then, that in the end the United States supplied more animals over the course of the war effort than all the British colonies combined! When Colonel H.S. Dent arrived in Canada, he had orders from the British War Office to

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buy 1,500 horses. Horse breeders quickly recognized the potential of the new market. ‘Horse-breeding, from a farmer’s standpoint, may be considered to have settled down to three main classes, the draft horse, the carriage horse, and the army remount,’ the Farmer’s Advocate told its readers.3 Farmers in Canada also realized that Thoroughbred blood brought the most money for remount horses and that trotting blood should be avoided.4 Regardless of trotting blood, though, the remount trade worked unevenly when a country at war was also selling horses to another country at war. Dent reported to the British government in 1902 that he had found it difficult to obtain the class of army horse he wanted because of direct competition with the Canadian government, which was also looking for horses to mount troops. The Canadian government wanted 2,500 horses and paid $150, whereas Dent was authorized to spend only $140 for the type of cob animal desired by both.5 The Court of Enquiry, which had been called by the British government to look into the administration of the British Remount Department in 1902, concluded from Dent’s overall testimony that Canada was unable to furnish large numbers of horses and that emphasis on harness or driving horses, rather that riding animals, in the mid and eastern sections of the country made the situation worse. A continuing and sustained demand by the British army, even in peacetime, was needed to induce horsemen in Canada to use Thoroughbred stallions.6 It is interesting to note, in light of these comments about quality, that when Dent reviewed animals in Ontario in 1901, he accepted about 80 per cent of the horses offered to him.7 Trotting blood had not stood in the way of purchasing. Direct competition for the same horses by two countries at war did not help matters, though, given that the horse population in Canada was so much smaller than in the United States. The American army, not being at war, did not need horses in the same way as Canada did and did not compete for animals the British wanted. War conditions always changed the amount governments were prepared to pay for remounts and the animals designated as acceptable. Canadian farmers tended to look on the remount market as a place to sell horses that did not fit any recognizable type.8 ‘It certainly has been a boon in so far as it has given an opportunity for horse owners to dispose of, at a fair price, a large number of horses that are not valuable for other purposes – horses not representative of any recognizable class, and for which there is, under ordinary conditions, little demand; still animals that are serviceable for certain purposes,’ the Advocate noted. The problem was that farmers might try to breed for this unwanted type. This

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stance represented a complete change from that taken by the same journal in 1887 over the remount issue. The Advocate also questioned the ability of the officers to pick proper horses. British buyers, although touting Thoroughbred blood, chose horses known to be nothing but trotting horse blood. What was a farmer to think?9 Anyway, the farm horse from Ontario had stood up well as a riding horse in South Africa – in fact, better than the fine-boned English riding horse.10 British purchasing methods could annoy horsemen as well. What did it matter if a horse’s neck was short by an inch? Did the British officers think they should select for show horses? Furthermore, animals turned down at one point got accepted at another.11 News that the British government might become involved more actively in the breeding of Canadian remounts brought mixed reactions in Canada. A plan seemed to be in the making in early 1901 to set up a remount depot in the Canadian west to breed and train horses for the British army. Under the scheme, the Canadian government would provide free land, sufficient to support 25,000 horses, and the British government would contribute to its operation and cost. ‘We have seen or heard no expression of opinion by farmers or stockmen in regard to the proposal to take out of their hands to this extent the market of a class of animal which they have engaged in producing,’ the Advocate noted, ‘but we shall be surprised if they regard it with approval or even with indifference.’ Governments could not breed stock; it took experience.12 Interprovincial tensions arose over the issue, too. Ontario’s agriculture minister pressed the British government to establish remount stations in Ontario, on the basis that a government-run remount depot should be set up in the East, not the West.13 By the spring of 1901, however, the initiative seemed to have died. ‘The absurd proposal was made that the Dominion Government should establish depots, and go into the business of selecting and selling horses, but practical men of good judgment saw its needlessness, and its dangers, and that it would be a serious expense to the government, and of no advantage to the farmer,’ the journal noted.14 In the end, the British bought 12,000 horses in Canada during the Boer War, paying between $125 and $150 in the East for an animal, and $100 in the West.15 Canada also supplied horses to mount her own troops: Strathcona’s Horse, which exists to this day, was established in 1900 by Lord Strathcona to serve in the Boer War, and Canada sent approximately 3,300 horses with its men to South Africa.16 Therefore Canada supplied in all more than 15,000 horses to the war effort. Canadians did not forget the market experiences of the Boer War, but,

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rather than attempting to supply horses for any armed forces in Canada, horse experts tried to assess the value of changing breeding practices in order to pursue sales to the Imperial army. Horse breeders discussed the whole issue in 1904. Most argued that the price paid by the army was too low to warrant any attempt to breed artillery, and especially cavalry, horses. The only way to produce such animals economically was to select misfits from breeding projects other purposes. The presence of the Standardbred had made it increasingly difficult to breed good light horses. Excellent stock had been produced by the old Royal Georges, which actually descended from British army Thoroughbreds. Then those small American trotters seemed to flood the land and the Canadian road horse deteriorated, one breeder noted.17 When the British army announced in 1905 that it planned to buy 500 horses in Canada, the issue aroused little interest. The Farming World commented: ‘No attention whatsoever has been given in Canada to the breeding of horses for remount purposes. The number purchased here during the South African war have, as far as we know, not induced one farmer to make the breeding of army remounts a business, for the simple reason that prices paid then were not sufficiently high to induce him to give any special attention to raising and training this class of horses. If the purchases of a few thousand horses in war time has proved no incentive to breeding remounts, it is hardly likely that the purchase of from 300 to 500 annually will do so.’ If the British army paid more and bought more in peace time, farmers would turn to the breeding of these horses.18 In spite of this lack of interest, a proposal was put forward from other quarters that the Ontario government set up a remount station as a means of securing stock.19 In 1909 Canada’s livestock commissioner published a pamphlet explaining the new remount situation. The Boer War had taught everyone that horses were crucial to movement in modern warfare, and there would be an increased general demand for military horses by many nations in the future. He admitted that, through lack of any encouragement, Canadian breeders had made no attempt to produce horses for the army. But, he noted, in view of the fact that a future demand for remounts seemed likely, it might be worthwhile knowing exactly what made good military horses and also how to breed them. The artillery, cavalry, and mounted infantry required three distinct types. The artillery horse was really ‘a smart, active van or express horse,’ which could be produced using Hackneys or Thoroughbreds on mares of good size and substance, comments that seem to conflict with descriptions published

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earlier on the characteristics of a vanner or expresser. The cavalry horse was hard to come by in Canada owing to the predominance of trotting blood; rather, breeders should use a Thoroughbred on a good roadster to produce this class. The mounted infantry horse, which had undergone the most unprecedented demand and which was likely to be even more sought after, was a smaller and cheaper animal, basically a cob. Thoroughbreds crossed on the French Canadian would produce good cobs.20 The commissioner’s advice clearly indicated that the basic problem with Canadian horses, from the army’s point of view, was that Canadians were not riding people and that small, fast, specialized harnessed trotters dominated light stock. The fact that the FrenchCanadian horse had all but vanished by this time, and that it had gone into the makeup of the Standardbred, seems somewhat ironic in light of this advice. The commissioner’s words also echoed what other horsemen said: government aid was needed if Canada was to participate in the industry of remounts. It cost more to produce a riding horse than an army official would pay for such an animal.21 Some believed that the Boer War and its demand for stock had a role in the inability to maintain a viable light-horse industry: it had stripped Alberta, for example, of all excess stock.22 The Canadian government took the problem of light-horse breeding seriously, however, and in the summer of 1911 undertook to promote better production by offering support for the maintenance of Thoroughbred breeding stallions. Owners of Thoroughbred stallions standing at public stud for the production of saddle and carriage horses would, in future, receive government funding.23 The First World War broke out in 1914. One immediate response to the British horse problem in Canada occurred in Saskatchewan, where the provincial government decided to buy remounts and present them as a donation to the British government. Some 1,300 were bought at $162 each, though a few were given free by their owners. The British government accepted this ‘Gift to the Empire’ and, by the end of 1914, almost all the animals had landed safely in Britain.24 In Canada, the horse market was generally depressed in 1914, and farmers had slowed production. The Advocate thought this response made little sense, with both the Canadian and the British armies needing horses. It advised the breeding of heavy drafters, though, not light horses, because, when the war was over – and that could be expected by summer of 1915 – drafters would be needed to work in the fields.25 By early September 1914, however, the Advocate had decided that the war

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would be ‘rather long-drawn-out,’ which meant that thousands of horses would be killed. In Britain, purebred show-winning Clydes and Shires had been purchased for transport work in combat. Soon the British army would be looking to the colonies for supply. The Advocate reiterated one point: ‘We have previously hinted at the danger of the demand for army remounts changing the breeding operations of many farmers of this country. The lighter horse is now wanted, but it is not the horse that is likely to prove the most profitable breeding proposition for the average farmer, and we must again discourage the practice of crossing purebred heavy mares on purebred light stallions.’ The light horse might be wanted by the army now, but the drafter still commanded twice as much as the light horse – and even the army paid more for drafters.26 The Advocate claimed that, by October 1914, some one million horses were in the war.27 It denied that motor transport would ever replace the horse in combat, reminding farmers that the animals were essential for artillery in heavy wetlands.28 The journal pointed out, too, that Britain planned to buy 5,000 horses in Canada.29 Light horses were wanted for the cavalry, but the excess of these animals meant that prices remained low.30 In fact, until at least 1917, the armed forces merely took horses made redundant by the automobile. Prices of war horses slightly outstripped what would have been paid at home before that time, but no real increase in prices could be expected for Canadian farmers until the supply of light stock did not outweigh demand.31 Pity for horses on their way to combat could creep into the Advocate’s comments. It noted, for example, how sad it was to see so many good, calm Clydes and Shires with bright eyes leave, knowing they would not return. ‘It is a certainty that none of the haulage horses sent to France and Flanders will ever reach their old homes again.’32 By 1915, Canadians were aware that being at war at the same time as Imperial Britain made for a strange market for Canadian horses. The Canadian and British armies, as well as those of other Allies, might reasonably look to Canada as a source for horses. Ironically, just as in the Boer War, this set of circumstances appeared to make it difficult for farmers to sell their stock in proportion to the rate of buying going on in the United States. Many farmers complained that the British army buyers were not acquiring animals in Ontario and the other provinces of Canada but, rather, on an extensive scale in the United States. The Advocate tried to explain the situation: ‘In the buying of horses for the army or armies of the allied nations there is no overlapping. When

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22 The Canadian government hired Sir Alfred Munnings to record the activity of the Canadian army during the First World War. The great British horse painter produced scenes of men and horses in France. The white horse must have been an officer’s mount, because it would attract attention. Generals, from the Emperor Napoleon to the nineteenth-century British general Lord Roberts, rode white horses. Watering Horses: Canadian Troops in France, 1918, Sir Alfred Munnings, oil on canvas, 1918.

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Canada started to buy horses for her army the British authorities withdrew, because it would be folly for one set of buyers to follow another the country “bucking” against each other and all interested in the welfare of one army.’ In the United States, although Russia, France, and Great Britain were all buying horses, there was no overlapping because the country had been divided up into three separate purchasing zones. Some farmers also thought the Canadian army had finished its buying. Not true, the Advocate said. The Canadian army had bought only onethird of its requirements, and, when it had completed its purchasing, the British army could and would step in to procure remounts. The need would be huge.33 The issue of war and horse markets came up in the Canadian House of Commons in March 1915, when a western member asked the government whether there was an embargo on Canadian horses going for sale to the United States. Apparently, horses appropriate for army use could not be sold to Americans. Farmers, however, did not necessarily find a market for such militarily suitable animals with either the British or the Canadian army. The Canadian government, while prohibiting sales, made no effort to provide a market for horses that farmers were finding difficult to hold over the winter because of hay shortages. The government admitted that ‘this embargo was placed on horses by the Government for the reason that the British Government asked us to do so.’34 But the Canadian government denied that having no access to the American market would mean that Canadian horses could not be sold or that demand for them would not be good. It is worth reviewing this debate in the Canadian parliament over the functioning of the remount market in Canada because the discussion reveals many of the underlying problems in the trade for a country trying to sell to at least two governments, at war itself, containing a small horse population relative to its geographic size, and functioning within a continental economy that supported the same war effort. The government held that the underlying issue was not that Canadians could not sell horses to the United States but that sale of army horses by the United States reduced the buying of horses in Canada. The British government wanted to do as much purchasing as possible in the United States, lest that source be shut down in the future.35 (Experiences of the Boer War had taught Britain that horse sources from countries outside the Empire could not be guaranteed.) Members of parliament, however, persisted in bringing up other odd aspects of the trade in horses in relation to remount issues and the reservoir to be

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found in the United States and Canada. Horses were being imported from the American Southwest, trained in Montreal, and shipped to Britain as remounts at the same time that an embargo existed between Canada and the United States on the equine trade. The animals came through in bond, but many of them were unfit for service, and this stock was simply dumped on the Canadian market or died in Montreal. American horses came through in bond to Toronto as well, and unfit animals also went on the Canadian market here after their American owners paid duty on them. Meanwhile, Canadian horses allowed into the United States as unsatisfactory for remount purposes from a Canadian point of view were being sent as remounts out of U.S. ports. ‘It is strange that horses of that kind should be brought in here for sale at the same time that horses were going from here to the United States to be sold as remounts,’ one puzzled member commented.36 The farm press was equally mystified by this strange state of affairs. ‘Is there any truth in the statements that unsound horses bought in the United States for army purposes and “gone bad” in transit are being dumped on the Canadian horse market’? the Advocate asked. If so, that situation would not ‘tend to smooth the ruffled feelings of the farmer overstocked with horses.’37 Available census material over 1915–16 indicates that dumping of American horses in Canada occurred and that shoddy business practices and poor inspection within the United States played a role in the American horse market. Some 82,000 horses entered Canada from the United States in 1916 alone, for example, most of which were intended to go through to Britain.38 Between the spring of 1915 and late 1916, thousands of horses en route through Canada to Britain were found unfit, and many died in veterinary hospitals before disembarking.39 At least 25,000 of the survivors never left the country.40 Poor American horses that crossed the Canadian border and did not sell to any armies were sold in Canada.41 But when the Ontario Horse Breeders’ Association called a meeting to discuss the problem, Canada’s livestock commissioner simply denied that poor American stock were left behind to glut the already depressed Canadian market.42 When the horse issue came up in Parliament in 1915, the government suggested that the matter was so critical to war strategy that it should not be discussed at all, for safety reasons. ‘I ventured to bring the matter to the attention of the Prime Minister [Robert Borden] himself on two or three occasions,’ a defender of the government explained, ‘and I found that there were many aspects of the case which, because of certain imperial responsibilities and international complications in connection

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with the matter, he could not even discuss with a member of parliament, much less with Parliament itself.’43 Prime Minister Borden stepped in to speak. When war broke out, the Allied powers, aware that wastage of horses in wartime was huge, made certain arrangements that he was not able to disclose publicly. The viability of the horse market was further complicated by the fact that different armies wanted different types of animals, which might or might not be in conflict with another. Members of parliament in opposition to the government accepted this explanation of Imperial secrecy and Allied needs, but then asked about the truth of allegations which suggested that the Canadian government had asked British agents not to buy in Canada because the Canadian army wanted the horses for itself.44 Borden was forced to answer in the affirmative and tried to explain why so many horses would be held back. The huge wastage of animals in the war and the need for replacements in the future dictated such action. There was another reason for the withdrawal, temporarily, from Canada of the British buyers, he added, but he was not free to explain it.45 This reason probably did not relate to Imperial relations but to a problem within Borden’s caucus: one member had been involved in a scandal involving the purchase of horses, and in April 1915 Borden expelled him from the Conservative Party in disgrace.46 Fraudulent dealings in horses did not end, however. In late 1915 the Advocate reported on the way Canadian army buyers worked with farmers. In Peel County, a farmer sold a lame mare for $40 to a firm, composed of an MPP and one other person, which purchased for the army. The government paid $165 for the animal. Why, if the government is in the business of buying, the journal asked, did it not go directly to the farmer?47 Borden admitted that the government had prohibited the export of suitable army horses to the United States at the request of the British government, which wanted not only to preserve a reserve but also to be sure that these animals did not become available to the enemy. The United States was not at war, and therefore could sell supplies to enemy forces.48 The problem of competition came up too, and members of parliament told stories they had personally experienced where British buyers said that the Canadian government had asked them not to buy because the Canadian armed forces needed the animals.49 Borden would state only that he was doing his best to make it possible for Canadians to sell to British and French buyers and that he could not explain any further.50 The parliamentary debates did nothing to still the flow of discontent

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over the remount issue reflected in the farm press, alleviate the frustration of agricultural people, or clarify the situation to them.51 Over the summer of 1915, farm journals questioned the wisdom of the government, claimed that farmers were as eager as anyone else to support the war effort, and asked repeatedly for explanations about the way the horse market functioned. The comments found in the press, by their very repetition, show the level of frustration felt by agricultural people, as well as the fact that the government did little to enlighten them on the situation. ‘The Canadian farmer is prepared to do his duty,’ the Advocate stated, and ‘he is not looking for exorbitant prices for his horses, but he would like to see some signs of a chance to dispose of some of them at a fair price. He gets restless when the neighboring Republic is being scoured for horses and no demand exists in Canada. All outlets are closed for Canadian horses at the present time save to the Canadian army, which is not purchasing farm chunks and the heavier classes of army horses on an extensive scale. The Allied forces, we are told, use large numbers of these heavier horses, and horsemen in Canada have thought they should have a chance to sell these horses to the British army.’52 The Advocate argued that, since farmers were paying to feed and hold these reserve animals, it was them, not the government, that was funding the Imperial supply.53 If the situation did not change, the Advocate added, the market for travelling stallions used for breeding purpose would be slow in 1915. Mare owners would hesitate to breed for foals. Experience in the Boer War, though, had suggested that this was not a good strategy. The journal advised farmers that ‘the safest plan seems to be to go on breeding mares as usual and make the best of a puzzling situation.’54 Some 8,000 horses were still needed from eastern Canada for the country’s army.55 Even though the Canadian Remount Commission did some buying of heavier horses in June 1915, horse purchasing activities remained very limited.56 Canadian army commissioners purchased two animals for every twenty offered one week in Ontario in late June 1915, at the same time that American horses poured into Canada by the thousands.57 The situation was not much better in the West. The Canadian government stopped purchasing horses in Saskatchewan in early 1915 and, for the rest of the year, there was virtually no market for horses in that province. A New York firm, Mayer and Carpenter, had been in the province to buy for the French army but offered only from $85 to $130 – far too low to induce a farmer to sell a good and useable horse.58 French agents appeared in Alberta in late 1915 but did not purchase many because of

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the low prices they offered. The horse situation in Alberta improved over the summer of 1915, when the Canadian government arrived to buy in June. The Imperial purchasers came in September 1915 and, between the three governments, some 4,000 Alberta horses were bought for war purposes.59 By the end of 1915, Manitoba had supplied 4,500 horses for the war, of which 3,000 went to the Canadian army and the rest to the British army.60 The horse situation in the summer of 1915 outraged farmers, who rejected the argument that military secrets – reserving an Imperial pool of supply or allowing only the Canadian army access to the animals – should be allowed skew the marketplace. ‘Canadian farmers have good cause to complain in the treatment meted out to them by the Federal Government in the purchase of army horses,’ Farm and Dairy stated. ‘While every horse market in the United States is selling freely to representatives of Great Britain, France, Belgium, and Italy, Canadian farmers have horses to spare – and there are thousands of them – are limited in their market to the scanty demands of the Canadian Government. Even horse buyers from the mother country are forbidden access to our markets. Apparently military authorities prefer to play “dog in the manger” in order that they may get the horses cheap.’ Cabinet ministers might talk vaguely about Imperial agreement, but it all seemed an attempt to keep horses cheap for the Canadian army.61 Readers of Farm and Dairy wrote in about the surplus of horses in their districts and the inability to sell horses,62 but that only further enraged editors of the journal. In answer to one letter, the Farm and Dairy said, ‘Is it any wonder that Canadian farmers are becoming impatient with the “dog in the manager” spirit exhibited by our military authorities.’63 Increased Canadian army purchasing in late 1915 did little to ease farmer discontent with the horse situation. That year, Britain bought in total about 8,000 horses in Canada and France purchased 1,000. The Canadian army became active in the second half, taking around 19,000.64 Why can’t foreign armies procure horses in Canada? the Advocate persisted? ‘The Canadian farmer is ready to accept any reasonable excuse for the present condition of affairs but so far none have been forthcoming.’65 ‘Thousands upon thousands of horses have gone out of the United States and Canadian farmers see trainload after trainload cross their farms, where their own surplus horses roamed unsaleable in the pastures.’66 ‘Great Britain and her allies have been buying horses for their armies by thousands, almost constantly in the United States since the outbreak of this war, and with the exception of the fall of 1914 and a

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short time in the spring of 1915, they have not been privileged to buy in Canada,’ the Advocate reiterated. When the livestock commissioner claimed army purchasing of horses was under way, an angry reader wrote in to say that no horses in his location had been bought in months and that a huge surplus of horses in the neighbourhood had simply become unsellable. How could the livestock commissioner claim that buying was going on?67 In January 1916 the Advocate happily announced that the embargo on horses going to the United States had been removed and that Britain and her Allies had access to Canadian animals.68 Even though there were strong hopes for a better horse market over the summer, Canadian farmers continued to watch the huge selling going on in the United States with concern.69 In May, however, the livestock commissioner reported that the Canadian, British, and French armies had begun purchasing in Canada and that demand had overtaken supply.70 Statistics show that foreign buying in Canada rose significantly in 1916. Some 22,000 horses were bought by the British army that year, while France purchased 2,000. By the end of the war, France had bought 14,000 horses in Canada.71 It appeared, though, that in 1916 and from this point on most purchasing was done in eastern Canada. None took place in Alberta, for example, after 1915.72 In 1917 the British government made a few attempts to buy in Manitoba, but offered so little money that no one would sell.73 The Advocate reported that year that the British Remount Commission was buying only artillery and transport animals in Canada – heavier animals that served as good farm chunks.74 Still, in 1917 the British army purchased 9,500 Canadian horses.75 Loss of the military horse trade was not too devastating in the West, where a rising demand for agricultural horses had developed. In fact, by late 1916 a healthy market had sprung up among the three western provinces. Demand was particularly high in Saskatchewan because of heavy wheat crops and the need for more traction.76 The demand for heavier horses alone by the British government shut down an outlet for light horses. By 1919, Alberta had such an abundance of poor light horses, in spite of the horse shortage that had persisted since the Boer War, that they could not be sold. P. Burns and Company hoped to market them as meat for human consumption in Europe.77 Various governmental statistics provide some insight into the horse situation during the First World War. By the end of the conflict, the total number of horses bought by the British army since mobilization stood at 468,000 within Britain (17 per cent of the nation’s working horses), and

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23 Artillery horses were active animals that might be robust, but hardly qualified as heavy draft types. Many may have been London vanners that originated in North America and had been bought by the army when the tram companies mechanized. The painting shows that teams of animals were needed for traction purposes in warfare. The cavalry-type horse to the right is lighter. Forward the Guns, Lucy Kemp-Welsh, oil on canvas, 1917.

419,000 from North America (this figure does not include the thousands of American mules that served).78 Of these, it appears that some 53,000 were purchased in Canada.79 The United States, then, supplied Britain with 366,000 horses from a pool of approximately 23 million animals, while Canada’s contribution came from a total equine population of just under 3 million.80 In spite of Canadian farmers’ concerns about selling to Britain, proportionately to the nation’s equine population, Canada provided slightly more horses than did the United States to the British army – 1.9 per cent compared with 1.6 per cent. In the end, nearly all of Britain’s remounts came from Canada, the United States, and Britain, but, clearly, the United States supplied nearly as many horses to the British war effort as did Britain herself. The drainage of horses in

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relation to total national horse populations was by far the greatest, however, in Britain. Trained and acclimatized before being shipped to the front in France, and better cared for than during the Boer War, horses died less frequently from disease and starvation in the First World War. Even so, an estimated 1.5 million horses perished in the combined British and French armies.81 The remount question made Britain and North America focus more seriously on the problem of horse breeding. Ideas on how to regulate equine breeding had emerged as early as 1873 in Britain in relation to army needs. In North America, other problems connected with the purebred industry helped to bring the issue to a head. In Part three, I look at attitudes to the role heredity played in the production of good horses and at the rise between 1880 and 1918 of legislation in the United States and Canada to control the work of breeding stallions. I start with an assessment of the 1890 report of the British Horse Commission, which, in exhaustive detail, attempted to understand horse defects and how to prevent them.

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PART THREE

Governments and Horse Improvement

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EIGHT

Understanding Heredity: The 1890 Report of the British Royal Commission on Horse Breeding

All methods of horse breeding reflected underlying, often unconscious, attitudes to the problem of heredity. Purebred breeding theory, with its Thoroughbred cultural and Bakewellian roots, had by the late nineteenth century crystallized more forcefully what many horsemen thought about the issue. Breeders frequently linked concepts of purity with race constancy (a notion associated with the theory of immutability of species) at the same time that they believed purebred breeding led to improvement (an idea that implies the capacity to change). Science’s approach to heredity had shifted, meanwhile, from one generally espousing the immutability of species to one supporting the idea that innovations could occur in animals over generations, even if it was not known how such phenomenon took place. A complex and often confusing relationship came to exist between developing scientific theory on the subject and purebred animal breeders’ ambiguous convictions, which suggested both race constancy and hereditary change. This conflict can be seen in a British government document of the period. In attempts to encourage better horse production in the late 1880s, the British Commission on Horse Breeding questioned how the ‘science’ of heredity could work with purebred breeding. All future legislative activity with respect to horse breeding in North America would reflect the commission’s work, addressed in its lengthy 1890 report. In this chapter I look in detail at the report, which, by trying to understand how transmission of certain characteristics in horses happened, reveals contemporary genetic (or pre-genetic) views held by people involved with animal breeding. The document is important for two reasons: it influenced North American horsemen as well as state and provincial governments in the early twentieth century; and it provides us with insight on how certain sectors of society absorbed the larger questions of science.

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Equine unsoundness and its potential connection to heredity had concerned and puzzled horsemen and veterinarians for years. These issues had been discussed, for example, at meetings held by the Select Committee of the House of Lords on Horses in 1873. A breathing defect known as roaring was clearly inherited, a veternarian told the committee.1 By 1883 the Breeder’s Gazette in the United States was arguing that it resulted from some form of obstruction and could not be thought of as a hereditary issue.2 The same British vet who spoke about roaring in 1873 believed bone defects in legs, such as swellings known as ‘spavin,’ should also be considered hereditary.3 The Gazette did not agree, but attributed the condition to injury.4 It admitted, though, that problems like these, if not inherited, remained difficult to understand and virtually impossible to cure. An American veterinarian argued in 1887 that unsoundness in horses related to heredity, but in a complicated way. While the defects themselves might not be inherited, he explained, the predisposition to them was passed on. He then listed characteristics that were inherited under three categories. First, any form of irregular conformation must be inherited, including the shape of leg joints (hocks in particular), and overall conformation. Second, an acquired disease or predisposition to it could be inherited – to bone disease such as spavin, ringbone, and splint, and to eye problems leading to cataract. Third, a habit that became thoroughly established must be considered a heredity problem.5 Evidently, by the late 1880s, no consensus of opinion about how or whether unsoundness was transmissible across generations had evolved. In 1888 the British Commission on Horse Breeding changed its conditions for awarding Premiums for the encouragement of good equine breeding: prizes went only to what was believed to be constitutionally sound purebred horses, meaning purebred animals free of hereditary diseases.6 The Breeder’s Gazette responded that the commission needed to define what it meant by a defect, particularly a hereditary defect. British journals and horsemen might claim that the system of inspection at shows for purebred horses helped the equine industry generally by identifying poor sires, but evidence suggested otherwise. ‘Farcical exhibitions’ often took place, ‘wherein a stallion of certified soundness according to veterinary authority was disqualified from competition by [another] authority no less eminent on account of unsoundness.’ We desperately need an agreement on a list of what constitutes hereditary unsoundness and, therefore, rejection in the show ring, the journal argued. The real problem was that vets simply could not agree. It was less difficult to diagnose defects than to find ‘a consensus of opinion as to

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what should be considered hereditary unsoundness in the sense of disqualifying a sire from service.’7 Within a year of operating under the new structure of offering rewards, the commission realized that the Gazette was right about the need to define defects and that the system made it harder to understand the connection of physical appearance (phenotype) or genetics (genotype) to either purebred breeding or quality (the presence of improvement) in horses. How, in effect, did genotype (for contemporaries, the mysterious principles or forces within the animal that caused unsoundness) work with phenotype (the observable physical characteristics in the show ring) in the production of desirable horses? Veterinarians, breeders, and judges all used phenotype in their assessment of quality, but judges had little interest in its relationship to genotype. By making soundness an issue to be seen in relation to or in conjunction with show standards for purebred stock – which the commission did by its criteria for Premiums after 1888 – the roles of the veterinarian and the judge often became entangled. Both were asked to explain the process of what we would today call genetics (or genotype) in phenotype. Both were asked as well to make decisions about quality on the basis of physical appearance. Was the animal an excellent example of a purebred breed, for example? Did the horse have good symmetry? How did the occurrence of defects relate to the breeding of good and purebred animals? The answers appeared to lie in a clearer definition of what it meant to call unsoundness a heredity disease. The commissioners hoped in their hearings of 1889 to find out more about the nature of heredity itself. Before reviewing in depth the extensive discussions that took place before the commission in 1889, it will be helpful to define diseases or defects that concerned nineteenth-century horsemen and to note how present-day veterinarians explain their causes. Lameness or injury to the legs and feet (and often the hocks or hoof), for example, was at the root of many of the musculature and skeletal issues that concerned these horsemen. All such problems relate to both general leg conformation and to environmental conditions, but in an unclear way. Bog spavin describes accumulation of fluid causing distension of the hock (the joint of the hind leg which angles mid-leg). Capped hock means a swelling of the hock due to injury. Curb defines a swelling below the hock that results from ligament rupture due to straining. Spavin is the inflammation of the covering of the bones on the inside of the hock. Stringhalt is a condition in which the hock is over-flexed – the horse moves, as a result, with a strange gait. Thoroughpin is a soft swelling due to disten-

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tion of the tendon sheath of the hollow area in front of the point of the hock. Splints reflect bone growth on the inside of the foreleg just below the knee (the joint of the front leg which flexes half way up the leg). Knee spavin is an injury inside the knee caused by turning at high speeds. Ringbone describes the erosion of bone at the joint surfaces from the fetlock (lower joint just before the hoof) down. Founder results from congestion within the hoof. Coffin joint means a problem in the navicular bone, which lies within the hoof. Navicular disease is a chronic inflammation of the navicular bone.8 There is some evidence today that this particular problem, if not the others here, might be inherited, but there is also no question that work and poor shoeing encourage the condition.9 Sandcracks are cracks in the hoof. Sidebone means the ossification of the lateral cartilage of the foot.10 Other ‘defects’ are respiratory problems. Pulmonary emphysema, or heaves, is a chronic irreversible but noninfectious disease that results from the walls of the lungs losing elasticity. The horse has difficulty expelling air, and inhaling enough oxygen for its needs. The condition often results from breathing dusty air in unclean barns and from eating mouldy hay, which releases spores.11 It is equivalent to human asthma. Roaring is another respiratory problem that concerned nineteenthcentury horsemen. It relates to the larynx, and today is known to occur in the larger animals of any horse breed. Roaring does not seem to be a simple inherited defect or to be environmentally induced either; instead, it appears to result from the general genetic makeup of the species. It might exist in all horses to some slight degree. It varies hugely in its severity in those animals most obviously affected by it.12 Neurological symptoms in St Vitus’s dance, described as crampiness and shivering, were also of concern.13 Generally speaking these nervous syndromes cannot today be traced to defective hereditary factors. No one knows what causes them.14 The causes of various forms of unsoundness are complicated. Some of these ailments at least partially result from environmental conditions – feed, stress from work, and use of immature animals. But environmental factors usually work in consort, in an unclear way, with heredity. One underlying difficulty is that the species is not physically designed to do much of the work that people ask it to do. Horses were not built to haul equipment, run on hard roads, or carry people on their backs. Hocks are meant only to propel the horse forward, not to pull objects behind the animal. The constant stress of traction puts abnormal strain on the hocks. Hooves were not designed to take the pounding of hard roads or

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to wear shoes. Respiratory issues arise from demands on their systems that horses would not experience in the wild. In other words, the hereditary background of the species is mismatched with what is needed to perform human-made tasks required of the animals. The overall conformation of the legs only exaggerates the pressure or stress levels on the hocks in particular. Such hereditary issues mesh with environmental factors such as work and with housing and feed conditions. But it is not possible to link most of these ailments to a gene or set of genes that could be effectively eliminated by selecting for their absence.15 The commission began its 1889 investigation into heredity and horse breeding by writing to the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons and asking that body to ‘confer with members of the Veterinary Profession, and if possible, to define what defects in a horse for breeding purposes [should] be regarded as constituting hereditary disease.’16 The Breeder’s Gazette was delighted with this state of affairs. We need to understand what defects result from hereditary unsoundness, it stated, and the British are now about the find answers.17 The journal believed this investigation to be the ‘first utterance on this subject; at least nothing so authoritative has ever found declaration,’ and it hoped that the commission would ‘be able to formulate authoritative conclusions of the greatest value’ for all horsemen.18 What the college wrote back proved ultimately to be of huge significance to the horse industry. This list of defects provided the foundations for what defined and explained hereditary equine unsoundness for at least the next thirty years, not just in Britain but in all sections of the United States and Canada, and it laid the groundwork for what would be considered the ‘professional’ approach to the problem. The 1890 report established a strategy to improve horse breeding through quality purebred breeding and inspection for inheritable problems. The list of these problems was set out by the veterinary profession and accepted by horse breeders. It would be carried forward, albeit in a somewhat different way, to a system of stallion enrolment and inspection legislation in North America. The background as to how the list was arrived at in 1889, the list itself, and much of what was said by veterinarians and horse breeders about it at the commission’s hearings are all important to this story. There was no consensus among veterinarians at the time the list was produced about its validity, or even whether the profession had a right to an opinion on the subject of heredity in horses. Of the 2,000 questionnaires sent out to vets, only 300 responded with information. Some wrote in to say they had ‘no observation to make.’ Many considered

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questions of this nature not within their sphere. One told the commission, ‘I think it is fair that I should ... state further that I am in the same position as the majority of persons in my profession in regard to the actual practical knowledge of transmission of disease. The vast majority of us accept the mere statements that are made by persons who have had opportunities of making direct observations.’ It was the ‘breeders and persons who had had opportunities of watching the breeding of animals and noting what patent defects were transmitted’ who had the answers.19 Another stated: ‘I have no practical experience with regard to breeding horses, therefore I could not say what diseases are transmissible from parent to offspring ... I have nothing whatever to do with any breeding establishments.’20 Veterinarians tended to believe that the only way to understand heredity was through experience based on observation. This attitude is consistent with traditional approaches to animal breeding and care – these were not questions of scientific knowledge but issues of practice learned through experience in the field alone. Such conflicting attitudes from veterinarians and the poor level of response to the questionnaire did not stop the college from dealing with the Horse Commission’s query. The council of the college replied to the question of what constituted hereditary problems in horses in these exact words: ‘The following diseases shall be deemed a legitimate reason for disqualification: – roaring-whistling, sidebone, ringbone, navicular disease, curb, bone spavin, bog spavin, grease, shivering, cataract. The Council also consider[s] that under certain circumstance the undermentioned diseases shall be deemed to justify rejection of an animal for breeding purposes: – splint, stringhalt, weak feet, contracted feet. Bursal enlargement (such as thoropin and windgalls).’21 The commission presented the list, dealing with the defects separately, to each witness – all of whom were either veterinarians or horse breeders – at the 1889 hearings. Testimony given in response reveals how contemporary vets and horsemen labelled, defined, and understood many of these problems in horses, and how they did so in relation to breeding practices. In the process, we can see that the people who were involved with animal production in 1890 had little real knowledge of how hereditary actually worked. Attitudes towards two theoretical stances concerning the problem of heredity at that time – Darwinism and neoLamarckism – underlay many of the witnesses’ remarks found in the 1890 report. These avenues of thinking need to be explained before contemporary views towards the problem of heredity and its relationship to horse improvement, as found in the document, can make their fullest

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sense. Darwin had argued in his Origin of Species (published in 1859) that, through natural selection, species change over time. His theory of evolution was based on the notion of species mutability. With no proof of how alteration could occur (there was no knowledge of genetics before 1900), natural selection would not be as readily accepted as Darwin’s general thesis about the rise and fall of species. That situation allowed for the emergence over the latter half of the nineteenth century of a variety of ideas concerning the nature of heredity itself. The theories of the French scientist Lamarck (Jean Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet, Chevalier de Lamark, 1744–1829) resurfaced in various forms and combinations with or without Darwinism. Lamarck had argued that animals could change in a predetermined way, but only with mild variation. Species did not shift characteristics in fundamental ways. But he supported the theory of acquired characteristics, meaning that environmental influences could alter an animal and that such alteration could be transmitted to the next generation. Modifications acquired during an organism’s lifetime could, therefore, be passed on. This theory gave rise to various forms of what has been called neo-Lamarckism, which became particularly prominent in the 1890s.22 Neo-Lamarckian thought supported the contention that environmental factors explained evolution. It followed logically from this line of reasoning that alteration occurred because of environmental issues. Did other factors interplay with the effects of the environment? Darwinism and neo-Lamarckism were both called upon to explain the occurrence of defects, or ‘unsoundness,’ in horses.23 Attitudes to purebred breeding, lack of genetic understanding, the very complexity of horse ailments, and both Darwinism and neoLamarckism all coloured the comments made by witnesses. Veterinarians provided particularly conflicting evidence, and the dichotomies that arose in their statements resulted from two separate patterns: disagreement within the testimony of one person concerning the role of what we would call genetics in unsoundness, and disagreement across the testimony of different veterinarians. The comments of one veterinarian, George Flemming, serve as an example of the first pattern. This man thought that bone spavin was not necessarily transmissible by hereditary factors. But bone issues such as splints, ringbone, and sidebone he considered could be inheritable. He would not be thoroughly pinned down to any concept regarding heredity and bone issues generally. All bone problems, for example, could simply be related to the conformation of the animal’s legs and feet. Overwork also produced defects in a

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horse’s leg or foot.24 Taken in total, at the same time that he listed leg matters separately as being transmissible, this veterinarian’s words suggested that virtually none of these ailments were hereditary in their own right because they related to, or were part of, the larger issues of conformation and environment. The conflicting thoughts that arose between statements made by veterinarians could be even more revealing about the level of genetic understanding. G.T. Brown began his discussion about unsoundnesses with his overview on the problem of heredity, and his words are somewhat prophetic: they ring true to today’s views on ‘unsoundness’ in horses and on wider heredity issues. ‘I am bound to say that everything is hereditary,’ he said. ‘... The law of heredity is a physiological law which related to every structure and function of the animal body in health and disease.’ But he elaborated, in a less clear fashion: ‘The real question, to my mind, is not what form of unsoundness is hereditary (all forms are hereditary), but what form of unsoundness is likely to be injurious so as to disqualify an animal for breeding purposes.’ What of roaring, for example, in light of those thoughts? Brown believed roaring to be clearly and purely an issue of heredity.25 Although he was far from alone in holding this opinion, not all vets agreed.26 One, for example, argued that roaring resulted from environmental factors. Horses in his neighbourhood which drank from the local river, which contained heavy levels of lead, always became roarers.27 Another believed that roaring related to poor feeding ‘because there is a great sympathy between the digestive organs and the larynx.’28 Navicular disease and its relationship to other features of the hoof influenced what a veterinarian’s judgment might be with respect to heredity. If navicular disease was found in a well-shaped hoof, that meant something different from being found in a poorly shaped hoof: the problem could be seen as a hoof issue or a completely separate defect that had nothing to do with the hoof itself. One vet claimed that navicular disease could be inherited in some cases, but resulted solely from injury in others.29 Some vets saw it purely as a disease of injury and overwork.30 Other vets believed it to be strictly inherited. (Interestingly, today vets suspect that navicular disease is an inherited problem.) Comments concerning laminitis (founder) revealed confusing attitudes to heredity. Founder is a painful condition of the hoof brought about by a number of factors: overeating grain, serious illness such as pneumonia, or concussion during hard road work. It is a difficult disease to treat, even today, and its resistance to cure made some vets define that as a

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hereditary factor. While they believed it to be a purely heredity issue, others, through their experience, clearly linked it with feed and environment and therefore reasoned that heredity played no role at all.31 The general conformation of the horse raised interesting issues around the problem of how heredity related to or expressed itself through the breeding methods used on horses, and which methods resulted in either desired conformation ‘type’ or ‘breed.’ Vets generally believed conformation to be hereditary, but they also argued that it was not a veterinary matter: it was a problem for show judges, who assessed the overall quality of purebred horses.32 Other vets saw conformation as a concern for both.33 Direct attempts were also made to link certain aspects of conformation to specific defects. Long necks, for example, could be related to roaring.34 Some vets argued that conformation explained much of the unsoundness of legs.35 Poorly conformed legs made an animal predisposed to develop leg and feet ailments. The problem of conformation and its relationship to heredity often brought out the most clearly formulated ideas concerning what might be described as attempts to set out genetic laws. One vet answered the question of heredity’s linkage to conformation by saying that like begets like.36 Another replied to the question Do you think like begets like? with the answer ‘not always, but there is a predisposition to do so.’37 A rough understanding of dominant and recessive gene function seemed to underlie the convictions outlined below. The law of inheritance was counterbalanced by the law of variation, a vet stated with respect to the working of heredity on conformation. When a commissioner asked: ‘Therefore you would not say that conformation is hereditary because there is this law of variation that steps in and stops it?’ the answer was ‘Exactly.’38 Another vet took a completely different stand on that point, but his approach still implied at least some recognition of dominant and recessive genes in the workings of heredity. When asked, ‘Do you think in matters of conformation that the law of heredity is stronger than the law of variation?’ he answered, ‘I think it is.’39 Genetics could be seen as two laws that acted in conflict with each other. The topic of colour and inheritability raised comments heavily influenced by underlying neo-Lamarckism and Darwinism as well. Yes, it was purely heredity because Darwin had proved it was when he explained the work of pigeon breeders, one veterinarian stated.40 Most vets stated flatly that colour was inherited.41 A few elaborated on that statement and explained how heredity patterns actually worked. The idea that maternal impressions shaped colour, was brought up. When asked if colour was

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inherited, one vet answered: ‘Yes, to a certain extent. I think it depends a good deal upon surrounding objects. People notice that if you turn out grey animals with mares when they are in foal they are likely to have grey progeny. In fact, some people think so much of it that they will not even have their pailings painted white. I think colour has a great deal more to do with the mare than it has with the horse. I am bound to say that the colour of the surroundings, if she had been turned out to grass, will have an effect, and I think that a mare is likely to have a grey foal if she has been with grey animals.’42 Another vet put it this way: ‘I do not think colour is entirely hereditary[;] of course there must be a predisposing influence towards color no doubt.’43 Environmental issues here worked with some internal process to create colour. Habits in horses could be linked to heredity. Crib-biting (grabbing the stable wall with the teeth and then both sucking in and swallowing air) was one. Horses could learn it from each other, clearly proving it to be a habit, but veterinarians often saw it as heredity, too, because they thought the animal had to have some predisposition to do it in the first place. The habit was seen as leading to other issues such as roaring, generally believed by most to be inheritable.44 Other vets simply stated that cribbiting was both inherited and learned.45 One vet believed it resulted from indigestion and, at the same time, argued that it caused indigestion.46 Neo-Lamarckism underlay many of these statements. As with so many horse ailments, crib-biting is not much better understood today. It might be caused by stomach problems, and some believe that it results in indigestion. If so, it is not a habit. Crib-biting might also be encouraged by the unnatural way horses are forced to live, because stall confinement and the resulting boredom seem to play a role in the syndrome. If so, habit does play a role in its development.47 Horse breeders showed greater uniformity in their testimony and were more likely to see defects listed by the veterinary college as being hereditary. The conviction with which they spoke and the more general agreement found in their opinions is interesting in light of the attitude of contemporary veterinarians that breeders, not vets, qualified as the experts on heredity. A breeder from Yorkshire, for example, believed all unsound qualities listed by the veterinary profession to be inherited.48 Complete accord on the subject, however, did not exist among breeders. The Earl of Haddington was not so sure about several problems, such as thoroughpin and windgalls, but, generally speaking, he believed the ‘diseases’ mentioned were hereditary.49 General A.R. Thornhill was taken through the list of defects designated as hereditary by the commission,

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and his testimony serves as a good example, first, of views from an experienced horseman and breeder and, second, of inconstancies lying behind them in spite of the tendency of horse breeders to define the identified defects as hereditary. It is clear from his words that many problems in horses related to legs, feet, and lungs and resulted from stress, general care, and conformation. Thornhill believed that roaring should be included in the list, but at the same time raised ambiguous points about its hereditability. He seemed as inclined to define it as an individual horse fault as a transmissible issue. He stated that the problem of sidebone existed in cart horses and resulted from bad formation of the foot and leg, and, since he believed conformation itself must be hereditary, then sidebone by default was inherited. He regarded ringbone as being caused by the same issue as sidebone. Bone spavin was another conformation issue, as was curb. He claimed to know nothing about nervous syndromes like shivering. Splint depended on the shape of the leg, but stringhalt was not transmittable by hereditary factors. He did not like weak and contracted feet, but they resulted simply from conformation. In this case, unlike sidebone, bone spavin, ringbone, and curb, he appeared to believe that hereditary conformation was not important.50 It is interesting to see how much and, at the same time, how little attitudes to the same problems have changed since the late nineteenth century. Clearly, we know more about genetics. We do not think maternal impressions affect the fetus, for example, and we understand the role of genes in heredity. We have largely resolved the Darwinian/ Lamarckian puzzle. The keys to unravelling the mysteries of evolution and animal breeding that so mystified these nineteenth-century horsemen, commissioners, and veterinarians would be the development of evolutionary biology through the advent of Mendelian genetics, the rise of population genetics, and the synthesis of these two bodies of knowledge with both evolution and animal breeding. The question remains, though, whether this enormous growth in knowledge had helped to reduce these ‘unsoundnesses’ over the years. These ‘defects’ are still with us, and they do not appear to have lessened to any great extent. While no study exists to confirm the statement, veterinarians today confront the same problems with considerable frequency. Can these musculature and skeletal aliments, respiratory problems, and nervous syndromes ever be eradicated from the horse population by selection against them for breeding purposes, as these nineteenth-century horse people hoped? It does not seem likely, according to modern veterinary

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opinion, which suggests that selection for breeding against many of these defects would not have the effect of eradicating the problems from the horse population, or even materially reducing the occurrence of most of them.51 In many ways, the document reveals not just a lack of knowledge of genetics, but also how little was known about the care of horses at the end of the nineteenth century and about the prevention of difficulties. The confusion that arose from the complicated discussions that took place at the 1889 hearings did not deter the faith of horsemen everywhere, after the release of an enormous report in 1890, that the experts had answered the problem of heredity and unsoundness and had shown how to solve it, even though no true overall conclusions had been reached in the mass of conflicting evidence. In 1895 a vet in the United States, for example, argued that inspection for soundness at shows should be practised even if understanding the nature of unsoundness remained an inexact science.52 In 1905 the Gazette told its readers that ‘a commission was appointed some years ago in England to make out a list of hereditary unsoundnesses’; the question was not whether the unsoundness problems considered were hereditary but what predisposition made any of them hereditary.53 The report impressed people in North America, perhaps partially because of its exhaustive nature. The reality that the evidence before the commission shed little light on the causes or nature of unsoundness, especially in relation to heredity, seemed to have been forgotten. As the years went by, other aspects of the report underwent reinterpretation in North America. The commission had attempted to improve on the results that purebred breeding could achieve by ensuring the perpetuation of soundness in purebred animals. It had not believed that purebred breeding always produced soundness. Those who testified at the hearings might have connected both purebred breeding and soundness to good quality, but they had not been prepared to say that one equalled the other. The basic assumption that the two were not synonymous with each other did not endure with the same clarity in North America, especially in the minds of purebred breeders. Over time, a blurring of issues took place in their thinking. Many of these horsemen seemed to believe, or else convinced themselves because of their own interests, that a distinct linkage existed between soundness or unsoundness and other aspects of horse breeding. Soundness (a desirable attribute) became more closely, even if not openly touted as such, associated by them with purebred breeding (another desirable characteristic). Un-

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soundness (a poor quality) became equated by purebred breeders to grade status (another poor quality) in the animals. The attempt to control what stallions should be allowed to stand at public stud in the United States and Canada, in light of this contemporary understanding of the workings of genetics in relation to purebred breeding, produced friction between purebred breeders and those farmers interested in non-purebred horse production. That story is one of the subjects which emerges in chapters 9 and 10.

NINE

Producing Better Horses in the United States: Attempts to Control Fraudulent Activity and Market Share

In the late 1890s various regions in the United States and Canada began to adopt strategies designed to enforce improved equine breeding practices. Government regulation of horse breeding took the form of a twopronged attack, where both facets focused on the control of stud stallions. In order to breed mares publicly, stallion owners were at first encouraged, and later forced, to ‘enrol’ the animals by paying a fee and, ultimately, by carrying a licence that certified the animal had been inspected for health and soundness purposes. Conflicting views over the effectiveness of either factor for the improvement of horses made efforts to control the breeding of stallions complicated. The special concerns of purebred breeders and importers drove the movement as much as or more than a general desire to control the spread of the ‘transmissible’ faults in horses outlined in the British Horse Commission’s 1890 report. The old problem of type or breed, when overlaid with the trend to specialization for light and heavy animals, made efforts to legislate for equine improvement difficult. Under these conditions, it was essential to define the meaning of good quality, something that was hard to do, especially in importing countries where the concept of purity was particularly strong. The move to control breeding stallions tended to come later in exporting countries. In 1913 a law was passed in Ireland which required stallions to be inspected and licensed.1 By 1918 the same was true in Britain.2 Ireland and Britain, being unitary states, could legislate only at that level. This chapter looks at the situation in the United States, while chapter 10 discusses the development of regulation in Canada. In English-speaking countries, the idea that breeding stallions should be regulated originated in Britain. Interest in army remount issues had forced Britain in 1873 to consider the promotion of better horse breed-

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ing. At the meetings of the committee for the House of Lords on horse breeding that year, the issue of stallion control came up. Incentive programs had seemed appropriate, but direct government interference, through the regulation of breeding decisions, had not been culturally acceptable. The committee had rejected outright the suggestion that ‘there should be an examination by Government inspectors of all stallions covering other than the owner’s mares.’3 Members had not thought it feasible, but, more important, had believed that such an action would interfere with the liberty of both stallion and mare owners.4 The focus on stallions, though, is interesting in itself and should be explained. It reflected more than the reality that stallions produced a larger number of offspring than mares. This gendering of strategies designed to improve horses was tied to the way the whole horse industry worked. Stallion-owning for breeding purposes was a highly orchestrated business at which men made their living in Britain, both North American countries, and continental Europe. Stallion men took ‘travelling stallions’ throughout the countryside and charged mare owners a fee for breeding privileges. This stud service made it relatively easy to regulate the public breeding activities of most stud animals in Britain, North America, and European countries. The European Haras system had kept control of these privately owned stallions in different countries by inspecting them before allowing them to travel and taxing those considered poor for breeding purposes, making it less attractive financially for owners of such animals to stand them at stud. France had tried to control the breeding of privately owned stallions that way since about 1830.5 The earliest attempts to control the breeding activities of stallions in the United States were not linked to any ideas of enforcing improvement in stud males. Rather, legislation was directed at certain business concerns of the purebred stallion owners – protection from fraudulent use of pedigrees by grade stallion owners, and assurance that the payment of stud fees could be enforced. Horse dealers regularly produced bogus pedigrees. The heated purebred horse import industry, as reflected in pedigree problems within the Clyde/Shire framework and the Percheron world, made owners of animals holding qualified pedigrees for these breeds want to maintain credibility with the buying public, to collect money for the service of such animals, and to protect what the breeders/ owners considered as intellectual property embedded in the biology of the animals. Issues of quality and soundness were not central to this early legislative activity. In 1881 an act was introduced in Illinois whereby

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purebred stallions could be certified as purebred, but it failed to pass the legislature.6 In 1885 a new proposal was brought to the Illinois legislature which was intended simply to deter the use of fraudulent pedigrees and encourage fee payment on the strength of qualified recording. Owners of purebred registered stallions, under the proposed act, could certify the horse to be purebred in a local area and would then have the right to a lien on the foal when charging the breeding fee. The stallion would, in effect, be licensed to serve as a purebred stud and therefore entitled to the lien.7 The Illinois License Law for Stallions that went into effect in July 1887 took a more relaxed position with respect to non-purebred males than originally had been planned. Grade stallions could qualify under a grade category, and therefore could also be ‘certified’ for the right to have a lien on the resulting foal.8 The listing, or enrolment, of stallions quickly resulted in statistics that suggested underlying patterns in the whole stud business. By 1888 it was apparent, for example, that 60 per cent of certified stallions were in fact purebred. Breeds represented within that group also proved interesting: 20 per cent of purebred horses were Percherons, 13 per cent were Clydes, and 5 per cent were Shires. In the light-horse category, 20 per cent were Standardbreds, 1 per cent was Thoroughbred, and 2 per cent were Cleveland Bays.9 These figures made many horsemen believe that the law encouraged the use of purebred and, therefore, better males. The legislation in effect helped to get the ‘grade,’ or non-purebred (which was increasingly described by the somewhat ambiguous term of ‘scrub’), off the road. Scrubs and grades were also frequently referred to synonymously as unsound. The Gazette argued that another advantage of the new act was lower stallion fees: owners could afford to set lower prices because they did not have to charge more in order to recover losses incurred from unpaid fees.10 The Illinois act, however, even at this early stage, provoked controversy of a complex nature. Arguments that were made for and against its effectiveness are worth looking at in detail because many of them would be played out over and over in other locations, when legislation took a much more aggressive attitude towards defining quality in stallions and regulating their use. As early as 1887, readers of the Gazette wrote in to express their views on the subject. What about better protection for the stallion’s patron? How did a farmer avoid owners who overuse a stallion so he is sterile when serving the farmer’s mare?11 The following year one person called it a ‘flat fizzle.’ ‘Stallion owners,’ he argued, ‘are not, as a rule, fools, and

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24 These ‘scrub’ or ‘unsound’ stallions look as much underfed and uncared for as of inherently poor quality. Their hooves need attention as well. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Yearbook, 1916, plate 63.

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25 Definitions describing quality in horses could be confusing. On the left are two stallions considered undesirable, and on the right are animals considered of good quality. It remains unclear what characteristics led to this distinction: their soundness quality alone or their purebred breeding. The pictures on the left illustrate mongrel grade animals that are also described as ‘unsound.’ In contrast, while good stallions shown on the right are defined as ‘sound,’ they are also clearly purebred versions of their left-pictured counterparts (on the top, Standardbred, and on the bottom, Percheron) and conforming to breed type. These illustrations imply that ‘unsoundness’ was a characteristic unique to grades, not to purebreds. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Yearbook, 1916, plate 64.

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will never in any great number, pay any attention to this particular law in its present form.’ Not only that, they do not want protection and don’t want the scrub, or grade, off the road either. Most stallioners, he stated, were not interested in promoting the concerns of purebred breeders. Furthermore, the law was useless because the right to place the lien on the colt expired in so short a time (six months after service, with the gestation period being eleven months) that it was usually impossible even to know if the mare was in foal. Stallion owners tended to operate on service by insurance – fees were not due until the mare was known to be in foal.12 Another reader asked what right a stallion owner had to protection: What about doctors and protection? ‘I own a stallion and have had one for twenty years,’ this man wrote, ‘and never thought of insulting a farmer by asking for such security, and I would never breed to a horse who was registered under such a law. It is about time the farmer looked into this question of protection. What on earth does a farmer raise that is protected? ... Repeal the law and put everyone on the same footing – protection to nobody.’13 Absolutely so, a third writer reported, and, furthermore, the Gazette should stop talking about numbers of stallions certified or licensed. The information revealed nothing, because not 1 per cent of stallions in the state were licensed.14 In spite of opposition to such legislation, the right to lien on foals with stallion enrolment was enacted in other states over the 1890s. By 1893 Iowa had such an act,15 and in 1897 the state of Indiana passed similar legislation.16 In 1898 Wisconsin passed a lien act for foals resulting from licensed stallions.17 Other states did so as well.18 The problem of questionable breeding males had become serious by this time because of fraudulent trading patterns in the stallion business and the use of bogus pedigrees. The Gazette noted in 1904 that many unethical horse peddlers were at work in the newer portions of the country. These men set up companies that effectively sold stallions, usually of inferior quality. Farmers bought the stallions by purchasing shares in the company. Evidence of fraudulent activity made it difficult for legitimate importers to do business in many localities. Farmers increasingly feared buying stallions from anyone. No one really knew how extensive the practice of selling inferior stallions by company actually was, but there seemed to be more of it going on than ever before – both imported and domestic horses of very low quality (see chapter 11). But part of the problem, the Gazette believed, lay in the general business naivety of farmers themselves: they should not allow themselves to be taken advantage of. Farmers ought to form their own company and pick a committee first to visit breeders and

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importers, and then to choose for the group.19 Bogus pedigrees in the West, the journal reminded its readers, came from new registries recording grades.20 Shortly after the Boer War, more strenuous attempts to control the quality of breeding stallions developed. The movement appeared to originate in Wisconsin. By 1903 the state was trying to stop the worst aspects of stallion companies, which in some cases sold useless stallions and then collected money with no recourse for the purchaser. Buyers could, by the 1903 act, refuse payment until satisfied that stallions had proven fertile. The law operated more against the dealer and importer than the breeder. The Gazette predicted that ‘itinerate peddlers of whom his doings we have all heard so much will be driven unceremoniously out of the state.’21 In 1906 Wisconsin began to regulate the public service of stallions and jacks (male donkeys) by enforcing the enrolment of all males standing at public stud.22 Enrolment was no longer a voluntary action that horsemen could undertake to establish the right to a lien. All stallions standing for public service in Wisconsin after 1906 were not only enrolled by law but also classified according to soundness, their purebred/grade status, and their level of quality and nature of type within that status.23 Soundness, though, was associated with purebreds more than grades. The act listed any unsoundness taken to be hereditary and also various infectious diseases. Both are worth noting because the same lists would appear in almost identical form in other forthcoming state legislation. Defects not acceptable were cataract, glass eye, and periodic ophthalmia (moon blindness); laryngeal hemiplegia (roaring or whistling) and pulmonary emphysema (heaves or broken wind); chorea (St Vitus’s dance, crampiness, shivering, stringhalt), bone spavin, ringbone, sidebone, navicular disease, bog spavin, and curb with curby formation of hock. The 1890 report of the British Horse Commission clearly had served as a reference point in the act’s definition of what constituted proven, hereditary unsoundness. Infectious diseases listed were glanders, farcy, maladie du coit, urethral gleet, mange, and melanosis.24 The act called for the examination and certification of stallions by the owner. Quality of type and freedom from both unsoundness and infectious disease at this point, then, were owner authorized, not veterinarian or government certified. The Farming World in Canada believed the Wisconsin law served only as a beginning to what should and would be a widespread movement to legislate better horse-breeding practices everywhere in North America, and the journal therefore suggested what amendments should

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be made: yearly renewal of licences, authority of the government to refuse licences to unsound stallions and to revoke licences for the same reason, and the introduction of a plan by which veterinarian inspection of all stallions could be undertaken.25 Other states quite quickly adopted enforced enrolment. Iowa’s stallion law showed, however, that the problem of fraudulent pedigrees still played a role in the growth of support for laws designed to promote better breeding stallions, and that stallion legislation was still connected to the interests of the purebred breeders. The law in Iowa, the Gazette explained, was in answer to complaints about bogus pedigree mills. Attempts to guarantee qualified pedigrees might be admirable, but there were problems with this act. Stallions had to be double registered – in record books and with the state. No animal was recognized as purebred unless it held two sets of papers. This requirement, of course, tended to involve government in dictating what purebred status meant, and the journal believed that the state had no business actually defining purebred status. ‘The object of the law is commendable,’ the journal stated, ‘but its method is bungling and unnecessarily oppressive.’26 The licensing of stallions by enforced enrolment, however, could be done for reasons unrelated to the concerns of purebred breeders or the interest in soundness. It could be imposed simply as a tax. The licences were a means of raising state revenue and were not related to the right of the stallion owner to put a lien on a mare served by his horse. The question of stallion legislation as a tax movement was reported on in 1905 in the Gazette. In Oregon, all travelling stallions had to be licensed or enrolled, a policy that reflected a state tax, not an effort to regulate breeding stallions. A similar act in Tennessee had earlier been attacked, but not successfully, as being unconstitutional. Montana also had such a tax law. It seemed, the journal stated, that only Montana, Tennessee, and Oregon required licensing of stallions for tax reasons.27 In 1906 the Ohio Live Stock Association took steps to have a law passed which licensed all stallions standing for service in two categories – grade and pure – and required an inspection for soundness of the animals. A reader of the Gazette suggested that $200 be charged for a licence, and, because no non-purebred or scrub stallion owner would want to pay that amount, scrubs would soon be eliminated. What else is there to encourage a man to spend $3,000 or $4,000 on a good, purebred stallion and then put him up for stud? he asked.28 These comments drew quick response. How ridiculous, one person wrote, to charge $200. The man suggesting such action ‘seems to think that one man knows

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more than another and has a right to boss him around and get well paid for it. A license is sometimes considered to be a permit to do something wrong, if you will pay for it.’ Those who stand poor stallions, purebred or otherwise, will get their just rewards – no one will patronize them. ‘The inspection fees, license fees and such expenses would lead to using colts or private stallions and would probably be a turn in the wrong direction.’29 The call for stallion legislation did not materialize into law in the state. In 1910 the Ohio Horse Breeders’ Association (a body that spoke for purebred breeders in the state) took up the cause. The only people opposing the legislation this time, some argued, were grade stallion owners. But, as the Gazette pointed out, such an act had been defeated three times before this one was proposed.30 Either lethargy or generally strong opposition to stallion laws interfered with the association’s plans. A law would not be enforced in this state until 1914 – and about time, the Gazette thought, because Ohio had been the dumping ground for imported purebred and so-called purebred horses that were good, bad, and indifferent.31 Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and Utah followed Wisconsin’s path in 1907 by passing stallion acts, and these states modelled their legislation after the Wisconsin act. Roughly 40 per cent of the stallions enrolled in all the above states combined were, by 1909, purebred, while the other 60 per cent were grades.32 The Gazette pointed out that Wisconsin stallioners owning scrub or grade animals hated the certificate issued for their stallions.33 By 1909 more states had taken action to regulate horse breeding beyond the simple certification policy (for the purpose of applying for the right to a lien by stallion owners) through enforced enrolment: some thirteen in total had stallion legislation in place. Slight variations existed – sometimes soundness was not demanded in travelling stallions that were enrolled, and sometimes liens could be placed on either the mare or the resulting foal.34 The state laws concerning breeding stallions, which enforced enrolment and, contingently, some form of inspection for soundness, brought a wave of new letters to the Gazette from various regions about the value of such legislation. Some felt the disqualification of purebred horses for unsoundness was unreasonable. An unsound purebred was always better than any type of grade. ‘This law will certainly bring in a cheaper class of stallions,’ one reader fumed, ‘for horsemen as a rule do not care to put their money where there is so much chance of never getting it back ... Throw out the grade stallions ... and we shall come nearer getting a

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better class of market horses than by throwing out pure-bred stallions with spavin or ringbone.’35 Attempts to restrict the use of unsound purebreds was ‘a deadener to the improvement of horses,’ another person argued. ‘The law prohibits stallions with moon blindness, spavin, ringbone, curb or curby hock from standing at public service.’ But what if a man bought a pure-bred stallion for $1,000, and the animal was examined and pronounced sound but later developed spavin? Two men and a vet would send an affidavit to the government stating the horse to be unsound, and he would be rejected for service. How could this man get his money back? The law would lead to more scrub stallions, he argued, because too many purebreds would be rejected.36 Another reader concurred with this writer: all non-purebreds were scrubs. ‘What has the scrub done towards the betterment of the breeding business?’ he asked.37 Neither of these men seemed to connect the word ‘scrub’ with unsoundness or poor quality in purebreds, the way other horsemen could. Letters and comments came into the Gazette at increasing rates over 1911, and conflict over the legislation continued. Some opposed what seemed to be a blatant attempt to support purebred breeders, in itself an inherent interference with personal liberty. One person doubted that the legislation was even constitutional.38 Another reader stated: ‘Now, really, if ... mare owners do not know enough to make their own selections, it is not worth to bother with them. Then again if the public needs all this government care, let the state governments pay the bills ... The law is a restraint upon the free use of one’s ideas ... It is exasperating to be bossed around by some professors, doctors and secretaries who have not spent a lifetime in the real business ... It looks like taxation without representation or remunerations.’39 The ‘man who has the right kind of horse should not be afraid of the stallion law,’ one person stated.40 All ‘personal rights’ stuff, in relation to enforced use of purebreds, seemed off the mark to another reader. Good breeders of horses wanted quality (by definition purebred) stallions, and these people ‘are swiftly moving toward this end and they refuse to be longer impeded by the old fossils who find it “exasperating to be bossed around by some professors, doctors and secretaries.” Thanks to the professors, the farmers and horse breeders of the United States are progressing by leaps and bounds.’41 Other farmers argued that the laws did not sufficiently encourage the use of purebred breeding because they had no effect on the reduction of scrub stallion use. One reader used the Wisconsin law in

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particular to describe what happened under such legislation. ‘It was said that the grade and scrub stallions are finding it difficult to obtain patronage,’ he began. ‘Not one grade or scrub has ever been put out of business in this vicinity.’ Grades and scrubs should be completely debarred from service under licensing, another argued. Farmers should be forced to use purebred males. Enrolment should reflect only purebred stallions.42 Soundness as quality, purebred versus grade, breeder rights, expert views versus those of farmers on breeding matters, the role of the mare, and inheritability within the framework of all the above coloured most of these comments, but often in a confusing and entangled way. An Ohio reader argued that not one farmer in five hundred would recognize unsoundness in a horse and therefore needed a form of protection. ‘The law further serves to impress the average farmer that there is a difference between purebred and mongrel,’ this person added.43 Stallioners, in contrast, often objected to enforced, veterinary inspection. ‘If a stallion is unsound,’ one argued, ‘the people will find out very soon. There is always someone who can tell whether his is sound or not ... The idea that the stallion law can do away with scrubs and grades is all imagination.’44 ‘The uselessness of these licenses arises from the fact, which is very evident from my experience, that not one mare-owner cares enough about the license law to look at the papers to learn anything concerning the horse,’ wrote another. The vet inspection is ‘no insurance that a horse will stay sound and free from so-called hereditary blemishes ... Stallion owners should combine with sufficient opposition to repeal this law.’45 An Illinois resident suggested that farmers, who produced 90 per cent of the horses, were not as foolish as ‘some wise stallioners’ think. No law could compel someone to breed his mares to a stallion that did not suit his ideas of breeding. ‘The ones who want the law are those who paid too much for their stallion,’ he concluded. A thoughtful reader stated that the law was better than nothing and questioned what it meant to call a stallion ‘scrub.’ He recognized that the word had been used loosely and ambiguously in relation to the idea of sound quality. Some seemed to think the battle was about getting rid of the grade, but there were many poor purebreds out there, and unsound mares should not be used for breeding either.46 All mares should be certified sound, another agreed.47 The issue of pedigrees was central to stallion laws and, in the end, led the joint body of record associations, the National Society of Record Associations, to look into the question of pedigrees. It seemed that the

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whole concept of purebred breeding and the meaning of qualified pedigrees needed to be better understood. The association recommended that various state governments accept the standards set by its member breed associations, and it also provided a list of what it believed described heredity unsoundness.48 In spite of strong opposition to the regulations and the many entangled arguments brought up against them, more states enacted stallion laws. By 1916 some twenty American states (California, Colorado, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Oregon, Utah, and Washington) had stallion legislation in place to regulate breeding of stallions. There was an increased emphasis on purebred stallions as well. Between 1907 and 1915, purebred stallion use increased from 35 per cent to 58 per cent.49 About 60,000 stallions were licensed in the country.50 It was feared, though, that the lowering of grade stallion service in states with stallion legislation matched the rise of their use in states without such legislation. When grades found no market in one location, they would be sold to a location where they would.51 The Gazette agreed, but argued that the outcome would be beneficial. States without laws got an influx of ‘outcast stallions,’ thereby encouraging them to have stallion legislation.52 It was deplorable, the Bureau of Animal Industry announced, that many farmers still did not use purebred stallions in states with laws.53 Grades seemed to be favoured by farmers breeding their mares. There was no abating of dissatisfaction with the laws in the farm press, in spite of the fact that state after state adopted them. Arguments put forward against them did not change over the years. ‘What have stallionowners done to deserve such a wholesale curse inflicted upon them?’ one person asked in 1916. ‘It is very uncomplimentary to breeders in general to insist that they are not fit to run their own business without such extra tax and bother ... I should like to see one reasonable article on the subject showing wherein the Illinois or any other stallion registration law safeguards any one to any appreciable extent ... Someone might say the law of the survival of the fittest has more to do with the elimination of the scrub ... than the bothersome, expensive and useless registration laws.’54 Another person totally agreed, writing in to say that ‘the stallion laws are flimsy arrangements that do not benefit the people. They are no protection to stallion owners, and work as an injustice. The scrub stallions are still standing for public service. I do not know of one put out of business ... As to the talk of enrolment boards driving the

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scrubs out, there is nothing to it.’ Some stallion owners thought legal action should be taken and appealed to their colleagues to join them in taking steps to end the laws. A stallioner in Indiana, for example, asked others to join him in testing the constitutionality of the state’s law.55 ‘The stallion law is a fake,’ another person from North Dakota wrote. ‘It is unjust to stallion-owners. We have no use for it. I do not know where the money goes; veterinarians probably get it. Stallion peddlers and veterinarians are the men whom the law benefits.’ Farmers in North Dakota, where he lived, opposed the legislation and were organizing to get rid of it. Not one man in that location liked it.56 A horseman answered these comments by saying that he owned a ‘mongrel stallion,’ a grade Clyde that had been represented as a purebred to him, a fact that the stallion board had been able to disclose to him. The law protected buyers from bogus pedigrees.57 It is hard to see how the law protected this individual; it merely clarified to him that he had not bought a purebred stallion. In Ohio, after years of efforts to get stallion laws enforcing enrolment and inspection passed, legislation came into existence in 1914. However, as a writer to the Gazette explained in 1916: ‘Ohio had a stallion law, but it was quickly repealed after one year’s experience. Stallion men were all put out about it and called it a nuisance and a graft for the veterinarians and the stallion peddlers. I know of some stallion peddlers who have bought counterfeit stallions, taken them into Michigan and other states and obtained licenses and then sold them to ignorant, innocent parties as crack stallions ... All the stallion men I have seen in Ohio, Michigan, and Indiana have no use for the stallion laws.’58 Here again the problem arose of understanding what a pedigree meant and what a licence meant. The issue could be even more confusing when the two became linked together. Not everyone in Indiana, though, thought stallion laws encouraged fraud. In fact, some saw the law as one that did drive stallion peddlers – those that sold fraudulent purebreds – out of business. One person argued that progressive breeders and farmers supported the law because it was driving the scrub off the road. It also drove out dealers using shady practices. ‘The stallion peddler has gone on an indefinite vacation and the man who dealt in horses with fake pedigrees has received his death warrant.’59 It is apparent that stallion legislation aroused strong feelings in farmers, stallioners generally, and purebred breeders particularly. Some saw it as a measure to ensure that purebred breeders had a monopoly on the stallion business. Under these conditions, it appeared that quality had

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nothing to do with the legislation. It seemed, too, that the law was not designed to help either those generally in the stallion business or farmers who patronized their animals. Purebred breeders argued that it protected farmers by guaranteeing the animal to be what it was stated to be, and it protected the stallion owner by ensuring that fees would be paid – and that, in turn, would defray the expense of buying good stallions. The fact that a few states enacted compulsory licensing for tax reasons only clouded the issue even further. Where did the money go, or what was it used for, if not simply a tax? Why didn’t the state, not the owner, fund for licences? Some questioned how to define quality. Purebred breeding was not, to many people, equivalent to good quality. But the fraudulent activity of horsemen trading in false pedigrees had, in fact, played into the hands of purebred breeders, who could legitimately argue that the public should be protected from this form of dishonesty. Stallioners, breeders, and dealers also seemed confused about laws regulating the selling of stallions and the standing of stallions for public stud. Surviving letters seem to accuse the licensing laws of creating problems that appeared rooted in the structure under which stallions were sold for private breeding purposes. Farmers seemed equally confused. Of course, quality, soundness, and valid pedigrees were issues relating to all aspects of the stallion trade. Behind the confusion over these interconnected themes ran the conflict over private rights and the liberty of the individual person – be it dealer, breeder, stallioner, or farmer. There was also the question of health and soundness – all in relation to heredity. Did soundness not matter in purebreds? Was a sound grade inferior to an unsound purebred? Or should one assume all purebreds to be sound, because they were improved breeding animals, and all grades unsound, because they were scrub? What was more important to the maintenance of quality: purebred breeding or soundness? Within this framework, why control stallions and not mares? How did one deal with the fact that soundness did not last a lifetime in horses, or at least could not be guaranteed to do so? Did this situation mean that unsoundness was not heredity, thereby making it meaningless with respect to quality? And what of personal liberty to breed as anyone wished? The United States, like Britain, had a traditional dislike for interference in decisions relating to breeding practices. Did experts know more than practical men? Was the legislation in fact having any effect? It is difficult to tell how much support there actually was for the legislation, making it hard to see how the movement to control breeding stallions grew in the face of what was evidently serious opposition.

TEN

The Canadian Experience in Horse Regulation: Continental and National Concerns

The regulation of breeding stallions in Canada followed a path similar to that in the United States and resulted from many of the same concerns – the desire to stop the perpetuation of fraudulent pedigrees and the specific attempts of purebred breeders to control the stallion market. The meanings of ‘scrub,’ ‘quality,’ and their relationship to ‘soundness’ were just as unclear in Canada as in the United States and reflect the fact that, while purebred breeders claimed they understood the process of ‘improvement,’ in reality they knew little about the workings of heredity. This chapter deals with issues similar to those found in the preceding one, though consideration of the Canadian situation alongside the American one illustrates how aspects of the horse world could be as continental in nature as they were national. Farmers in either country were often most affected by the dynamics nearby in the neighbouring nation. Canadians viewed the fraudulent pedigree syndrome, for instance, primarily as a regional, or western North American, cross-border problem. In some ways, cross-border conflicts only exacerbated what were, fundamentally, regional difficulties. Another characteristic in this continental movement is that neither country took the lead in stallion legislation. Rather, it sprang up as early in Canada as in the United States and, over the years, regulation issues in both countries influenced and were influenced by each other. Regions demonstrated greater variations in approaches to stallion legislation than did nations as a whole, and both countries were equally but independently influenced by the 1890 report of the British Horse Commission. Moreover, all legislative activity in both countries took place at the state or provincial, not the national, level, indicating that the continent legislated by region and not by nation.

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The idea that stallion breeding should be controlled by licensing or enrolment of purebred stallions came up in Canada in 1880 before the Ontario Agricultural Commission. The licensing of stallions for travel in the province was considered a desirable plan, but not practical. It could not be enforced, especially in remoter regions.1 The issue was raised again in 1891. ‘Now, surely, something should be done to put a stop to [the traveling of inferior and/or non-purebred stallions],’ the Farmer’s Advocate pleaded, ‘and yet when the advisability of licensing stallions is brought up a howl is at once raised that the poor man’s liberty is being infringed on, and that every man has the right to breed to any horse he likes, and that in this free country it would be an outrage to try and prevent any man who chooses to do so from a travelling stallion of any breed or kind he chooses.’ Does this make sense? the journal asked. Can a man sell rotten food? Can the government do nothing for the general welfare? The Advocate went on to describe what would happen in the stallion business. Because Ontario was flooded with scrub stallions, owners of purebred ones would be forced to lower their service fees – which they couldn’t afford to do because of the cost of these valuable animals – or to stay home. Soon purebred owners would choose to go out of business and sell the stallions for whatever they could get. Suppose a fee of $100 was set on any travelling stallion. Soon no scrubs or nonpurebred stallions would travel, and purebred owners would not be able even to keep up with the demand commanded by their studs. ‘I would now suggest to the horse owners and breeders of the province that some steps be taken to petition parliament to grant to the different county councils the right to place such a licence on all horses standing for service within the boundaries to their respective counties,’ the Advocate’s editor advised.2 A horseman brought up the separate issue of soundness in 1899 and wrote to the dominion minister of agriculture suggesting stallion inspection for defects at the federal level.3 Farming wondered about the desirability of such action at either the provincial or the federal level for various reasons. Was it a good thing in a free country like Canada? Many believed the action would give too much control to veterinary surgeons. At the same time, the paper said, ‘In France and Italy a system of inspection and regulation of stallions has been in force for many years with splendid results.’4 Over 1900, the farm press supported contemporary American legislation under way: certification of purebred recording in return for right to a lien on the foal.5 Purebred Clyde breeders agreed and argued that legislation for the registration of purebreds should be

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enforced in order to have the right to a lien on the foal. The agriculture minister, perhaps coincidentally, considered a Stallion Owners Lien Act, though nothing materialized.6 The Clyde association then approached the Ontario government for such an act, but again, there was no result.7 The first legislative acts regulating stallion use in Canada appeared in 1893 in Manitoba and provided stallion owners with the right to put a lien on the resulting foal if stud fees were in arrears.8 The intention of the act’s promoters was to carry the simple lien regulation further, by enforcing an official inspection for soundness and the registration of all stallions kept in service. Populist opposition effectively stopped this extension.9 An act, similar to the one in Manitoba, the Horse Breeders’ Lien Ordinance, was passed by the government of the North-West Territories (later Alberta and Saskatchewan) in 1899, which gave a lien on a colt to the owner of the service sire.10 Actions to control the breeding activity of stallions made some people suspect that elites were attempting to control market share.11 Just as in the United States, any form of regulation could also be seen as an interference with the democratic right to make breeding decisions, a factor that many Canadians considered critical in the production of good stock. Quality animals resulted from knowledge of how to breed properly, and that was something that could not be legislated. One horseman stated in 1901 that he disliked the idea of any type of stallion tax because ‘the government may tax and inspect stallions, but it cannot supply men with brains, to make a success of horse breeding by a proper selection and proper mating of the male and female.’12 While stallion legislation drew criticism from both farmers and general stallion owners in western Canada, purebred owners favoured even more legislative action. In 1901 an act in Manitoba allowed the government to certify a stallion as a registered purebred so that the owner would have some protection for payment.13 In 1902 the Territorial Horse Breeders’ Association asked the government to charge all owners of standing stallions a fee for the right to put the animal at stud. Those who possessed non-purebred males would drop out of the stallion business, the association argued, because they would not be inclined to pay the fee. Legislation in the North-West Territories enforcing enrolment for all travelling stallions came the following year under the Horse Breeders’ Act and provided for three different types of enrolment certificates: purebred, grades, and cross-breds. Animals were not licensed by any official inspection at that time.14 The Breeder’s Gazette in the United States liked the legislation. ‘A step

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has been taken by the authorities of the British Northwest Territories, which may later, from all appearances, lead to government inspection of stallions,’ the journal stated. ‘The move is to be commended, but it would seem to be a step in the direction of governmental inspection of stallions for soundness, and there are some doubts as to the feasibility of such inspection under North American conditions.’ At least farmers would know more about purebred breeding, though, and, if the act worked in Canada, there was no reason why it couldn’t in the United States.15 The Wisconsin law was, in fact, modelled on this act.16 By 1907 the enrolment system in the Territories had revealed that 40 per cent of stallions serving in the section that became Saskatchewan were grades, while 60 per cent were in the region of Alberta.17 At least half of stallions in the enrolment program were not purebred at this time. In 1905 a Horse Breeders’ Act, which copied legislation in the Territories, was passed in Manitoba. The new bill enforced the enrolment of all travelling stallions. Inspection for soundness was not compelled, but the wording of the act made it strongly advisable.18 Various issues in the travelling stallion business were of concern to purebred breeders in western Canada and explained their support for legislation regulating stud animals. Owners of purebred and valuable stallions wanted to protect their interests by reducing the use of fraudulent pedigrees. Regional problems of this nature were exacerbated by cross-border patterns. The proximity of many farmers in the Canadian West to the American border, and the concurrent shortage of horses, particularly purebred ones, just as settlement expanded, made it attractive for unscrupulous horse dealers to bring poor, ‘counterfeit’ purebred stallions across the border. The Farming World in Ontario reported that absolute junk came over from the United States into western Canada. Since, at the time, Canada accepted any stud-book certificate for dutyfree entrance, poor-quality ‘purebred’ horses could be imported duty free. ‘The worst offenders are a number of breeders of Percheron horses, whose stock, not eligible for registration in the recognized Standard Herd Book of the United States, are, because they are registered in some mongrel herd book, allowed into Canada duty free,’ the farm press in eastern Canada reported. We do not mind good American horses entering, the journal added, but the junk is the trouble. The crossborder trade functioned within the framework of national attitudes to pedigree standards. Let the Americans get a taste of their own medicine, it advised, by changing regulations regarding herd-book and duty-free status. Only recognized purebred stock should be admitted free.19

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In 1904 the minister of agriculture considered passing a dominion stallion inspection act to alleviate the problem in the West.20 The Canadian livestock commissioner thought it was none to soon to address the cross-border aspect of the continental problem. ‘It is undoubtedly a great handicap upon the [Canadian] owners of good stallions that syndicates of hawkers and worthless American stallions should be allowed to pump them into the country, and thereby compete with the genuine animal at a greatly reduced price,’ he said.21 An Ontario purebred breeder agreed, saying that all horses crossing the border into the Canadian West which were designated as purebreds by Americans should be recorded in Canadian books.22 Canadian horsemen thought it only fair that the situation be ‘the same as we [are required] to do before we can take a pure-bred horse into the States.’23 Continental restrictions caused by cross-border legislation, they argued, should be equal on both sides and not provide advantages to one country. Horsemen also contended that import regulations regarding nonpurebred stock warped, or shifted, the natural continental movement of horses: the duty of $2 or $3 on non-purebred working animals should be raised to the same $30 level charged by the United States to stop the flood of inferior American horses.24 The combined purebred and nonpurebred tariff status in force in Canada and the United States compelled the continental market to work as follows. In 1901, all horses exported to the United States from Canada averaged a value of $119, while all horses imported averaged $31.25 By 1906, the figures for export relative to import were $190 and $63. Horsemen in Canada saw this imbalance as continuing evidence of poor business: it encouraged the drainage of good Canadian horses, while poor ones not wanted in the United States found a market in Canada. ‘Do you think it is a good thing that we should be forced to send out that class of horses before we can get a market for them in that country while we encourage them to bring into our country a class of horse that can do us no good and that they are anxious to get rid of?’ a Canadian breeder asked.26 Regulation to ensure higher tariffs and stricter enforcement over pedigrees for entrance into Canada came shortly after. In 1908, taxes on grades meant that a horse could not enter if valued under $50. The tax rate was set at 25 per cent of the horse’s value or a minimum of $12.50. Rates into the United States by that time set the minimum value of a horse at $150, no matter what the animal was worth. Canadians requested in 1911 that the government raise rates into Canada again in order to make them match those in place for entry into the United States.27

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A review of the movement for stallion legislation in Ontario shows clearly the importance of purebred breeder interests to regulation anywhere on the continent. It also reveals how one group of purebred breeders managed to overcome the unrelenting opposition of those farmers more interested in grades. Such a review indicates, by suggesting that breeder/owners were attempting to enforce a type of biological ‘patenting,’ that stallion legislation was at least partially about the protection of intellectual property. Activity in Manitoba renewed the concern of Ontario purebred stallion owners with legislation, but letters to the farm press indicate that, initially, they simply wanted the enactment of a lien to protect them with respect to payment.28 The Farmer’s Advocate approved of this stand. ‘How long are the owners of stallions going to put up with the present arrangements? They are truly a long-suffering party.’29 Purebred owners became more aggressive about the issue after the 1905 legislation in Manitoba.30 But some purebred stallion owners believed now that a fee for licensing (unrelated to the lien) should apply to owners of grade, or what they defined as scrub, stallions, as letters of 1905 to the Advocate reveal. If owners of scrub stallions were effectively ‘taxed’ that way, they could not afford to do business, and purebred owners would extend their stallion markets. It is worth quoting portions of one letter because its conflicting arguments would re-emerge again and again in the evolving Ontario enrolment and licensing/inspection movement. ‘It is very discouraging for the men with good horses to compete against those that are sometimes run [for breeding service fee] as low as one dollar,’ this writer fumed. ‘There are unregistered individuals [many cross-breds or grades] travelling better than some that are registered [or purebred], still in the eyes of the practical breeder they must be classed as mongrels.’ This stallion man wanted to protect the higher fee of the more valuable stallion at the same time that he admitted purebred breeding did not guarantee quality. Even so, being ‘mongrel’ was more damning than lack of good quality in purebred breeding. The writer argued that poor stock should be forced to pay an enrolment fee, but not good ones. ‘As to the value of our future horses depends largely upon the stallions used this spring, what are we to expect’ if governments seemed satisfied with the state of affairs. Breeders and dealers believed the situation could be remedied ‘by imposing an annual license [or fee to be enrolled] of $200 and upwards on every stallion not eligible for registration in some one of the different studbooks.’ Make it hard to travel with a non-purebred stallion and earn a profit, this person argued. ‘Some say, why not tax every horse?

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This would be detrimental to the business. The man who purchases a purebred horse has expenses enough without being burdened with licence fees. Besides, the service fee would have to be raised $2 or more, an increase that would discourage rather than encourage breeding. It would prevent purebred stallions from coming into certain districts. ‘It is the mongrels we want to cut out,’ he said, and not to burden the men who have invested large sums and take great risks.31 In 1906 purebred stallion owners, through the Ontario Horse Breeders’ Association, pressed for greater control of breeding stallions by compelling inspection and enrolment through legislation.32 Purebred stallion owners appeared to believe that inspection for soundness would not materially reduce the business of standing purebred studs. In an unconscious way, these men linked soundness with purebreds, and unsoundness with grades, and therefore felt their interests were safe when approaching the Ontario government on the issue of inspection. The Ontario minister of agriculture decided to gather comprehensive information on the horse industry of the province in order to consider the advisability of legislating for inspection or enrolment. Reports from the investigation revealed confusing attitudes, prevalent at the time throughout North America, about the meaning of words such as ‘unfit’ and ‘scrub’ and their relationship to ‘unsound.’ In one county, for example, 30 of the 39 stallions serving were designated as ‘unfit’ to breed, though no one knew whether ‘unfit’ meant unsound or lack of purebred breeding. Returns from another county showed how significant the heavy over the light horse had become. Of 44 stallions breeding in that county, 32 were heavy, 12 were light, but only 9 were designated as unfit.33 When all the information had been collected, it presented the following overall picture: of the 1,700 registered purebred stallions at stud in the province, 9 per cent were labelled unsound. Of the 900 grade stallions used for breeding, 22 per cent described as unsound.34 Although the survey revealed that the majority of travelling stallions were purebred, some of these animals might also have qualified as scrubs or unfit. Contemporaries stated over and over again that scrub stallions dominated the horse industry, and they seemed to suggest that scrubs did so as much as or even more than unsound animals. The investigation stimulated heated discussion in the farm press about the desirability of enforcing inspection and/or licensing by the enrolment of travelling stallions.35 ‘Should the Government see its way to such legislation, many owners of unsound stallions may have to face some hardships,’ the Canadian Dairyman stated.36 ‘Just where to draw the line

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in the granting or withholding of a licence seems to be the stumbling block of this licensing plan,’ Farming World noted.37 Like many North Americans, the Advocate worried about the right of government to interfere in stock breeding through regulation. Horse production might well be floundering in the province because individual farmers lacked a clear objective, but what should be done? ‘Shall the State step in and regulate our breeding operations, as it had done in Germany and other European countries? We are scarcely prepared for that. Rather a few moderate restrictions and regulations, framed cautiously in the general interest and for the general welfare,’ was recommended by the Advocate.38 Should legislation for inspection also provide for a lien on the foal? At least one reader did not think so. Inspection was all right, he stated, but lien on the foal would not work: ‘I think it would be better to let the stallion man look out for his customers, the same as any business man.’ Farmers might support inspection but not licensing or lien. They often believed both interfered with private rights and that farmers knew how to breed their horses. They also had a right to do so as they wished. Government action to control the breeding of horses was improper – and, moreover, did not apply to cattle, sheep, and hog breeding.39 Letters to the press on the subject over 1906 and 1907 reveal that many sentiments concerning stallion legislation were continental in scope. Canadian horse owners reacted in a manner similar to their American counterparts.40 Proposed regulation was of no use, said one person. ‘Indeed, I go further,’ this man remarked, ‘and say that I believe such legislation will be a decided mistake, as it will ... lead to all sorts of political trickery ... Surely you will agree with me that if I, as a breeder, wish to breed to one of these so-called scrubs, I should be accorded the privilege of doing so. If there is anything to be lost in doing so, I am the loser and have to foot he bill ... I regret to say that I believe the average importer is bringing into this country English and Scotch scrubs on manufactured pedigrees, and who is the wiser?’41 One farmer stated, ‘I think the Government is taking hold of the wrong end of the rope in this stallion-inspection business because they don’t start inspection with the stallions being imported as the present time.’ Many poor purebreds, even with legitimate pedigrees, were brought into the country. ‘Now, whose interests are this act in favor of – the importer or the farmer breeder? Certainly the importer, as it gives him a clear road.’ Men in his neighbourhood agreed. ‘I think the farmer of the present day is well able to choose the sire he wants for himself.’42 Another stallion owner wrote: ‘In discussing the proposed stallion inspection and lien act, let us

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grant at the outset that our horses really need improvement and that the Government was intending ultimately [to reach] the average breeder and stock-raiser.’43 And what did the government know about breeding stallions anyway? another owner asked. A few weeks before, two inspectors for the government ‘called at my place in the pursuance of their appointed duties in inspecting stallions,’ he explained. ‘They were sent by the Ontario government to examine and express an opinion as to the value, etc. of the horses, which I had already passed my own opinion on, and more, had backed my opinion with my money.’ Licensing added no value to the animals and was a waste of the public purse. Furthermore, asking $10 for a licence was too low – ask $100, he advised, and the non-purebred stallions would be left out. That would rid the country of scrubs.44 The Farmer’s Advocate wanted to calm everyone down and informed its readers that the government was not attempting to meddle in the horse business. ‘Nothing could be further from the truth. The government has committed itself to no line of action whatsoever ... It is true that one of the questions on which the commissioners were instructed to gather the opinions of horsemen was the advisability of a stallion-inspection act, and it was a fair inference that the Government would consider the question of whether such a law should be passed ... But the government has expressed no intention of passing such a law.’45 Moreover, the idea that licensing is an interference with personal rights missed the point. We license the sale of liquor; we license doctors, dentists, and veterinarians before they have the right to practice. ‘Owners of licensed stallions would find themselves in a large company.’46 Directors of the Ontario Horse Breeders’ Association decided to submit a set of proposals for discussion to horsemen attending meetings at the Eastern and Western Exhibitions in 1908. Representatives of the Ontario government attended as well.47 A detailed look at what was said at these meetings, through questions raised and answers given, shows how complicated the issues could be, how little was understood about heredity by either purebred breeders or supporters of grade animals, the difficulties that arose from attempts to legislate improvement when no one could agree what improvement meant, and how conflicting were the definitions of unfit and scrub in relation to those for quality or soundness. At the Ontario Provincial Winter Fair, the Ontario minister of agriculture addressed those present: ‘Horse-breeding is not confined to any

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particular set of men. The great bulk of farmers in this province are horse breeders and we want to get the views of the great majority of farmers in this country on the questions which are raised in this set of resolutions.’ When question of licences indicating inspection came up, a director of the Ontario Horse Breeders’ Association claimed that no one intended to force the ideas of distinguished horsemen and politicians on general farmers. ‘You are the speakers,’ he told his audience, ‘it is in your hands, it is a parliament of horse-breeders of the Province of Ontario.’ The ensuing discussion, however, revealed very confused thinking, especially on the part of purebred breeders. The meaning of unsoundness from the standpoint of heredity, for example, remained unclear. When a general farmer asked how, just because a horse was sound, you could say it was free of hereditary unsoundness, a purebred breeder answered that, you had to know the stallion’s ancestors. Another breeder added that horses would be passed on the basis of their personal soundness, not their hereditary soundness. This issue would prove to be important because the problems listed as ‘unsoundness’ in a horse were normally labelled as hereditary issues. Breeders attempted to weed out those males that could perpetuate unsoundness. An unsound stallion that could not pass on his unsoundness should not be considered a problem from the breeding point of view. The issue of quality as inherently lacking in grades and existing in purebreds was raised. One individual said that, in his county, practically no purebreds existed, yet many horses could be described as high-quality animals. He asked: ‘If there is a horse in this Province that is known to be an excellent stock getter and if he is a beautiful horse, and if his outlines are pretty nearly perfect, why should that horse be graded two?’ He admired the importers of purebred stock, he added, but there were far too many poor registered horses, and farmers were insulted to be told they didn’t know how to choose a stallion. Another person asked if the grade 1 and 2 system merely distinguished purebred from grade and was told that was the case, though both classes had to have good conformation. A farmer responded, ‘Why not just say registered and unregistered?’ The whole problem of quality in relation to purebred/grade remained murky. A government official commented that anyone who said grades were as good as purebreds must have seen some pretty poor purebreds. In fact, grades should never be used. Had anyone ever seen a grade win a show? One person at the meeting suggested simply putting ‘unregistered’ on a grade’s certificate and removing the three-year limit

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on the right to travel with grade animals. The Royal Georges came up in this discussion. What quality they had! a horseman remarked, and they had not been purebred. The topic of inspection aroused heated emotions when one person asked if the question was really about licensing or inspection. ‘It is the kernel of the whole thing,’ answered a purebred breeder. Horsemen in the room became increasingly agitated. ‘Are the inspectors to dictate to us and tell us what horses are suitable for us to breed from? I would like to know if we are not capable of knowing what is the best horse,’ one individual remarked. Government representatives tried to calm people down by saying that they simply wanted to make it clear to a farmer exactly what the stallion was: grade or purebred. The question at this meeting was whether licensing should be endorsed. One person then stated: ‘I am heartily in sympathy with most of the resolutions of the Horse Breeders’ Association but I am not in sympathy with this resolution. It is a monopoly of the Horse Breeders’ Association, and we do not want that, there are a few men who want to monopolize the whole thing.’48 A conference also took place in the eastern part of the province, where the same issues and proposals were discussed. Horsemen readily agreed theoretically with the idea that some form of restriction on what stallions could travel for breeding was desirable. The issue of grade versus purebred brought out strong and differing opinions. One stated that he would not hesitate to use a grade. Another claimed that he had a cross-bred Shire/French Canadian, ‘as good a horse as ever was collared,’ which could trot 36 miles and could outwork his neighbour’s pair of purebred Clydes. ‘Do not tie the farmers’ hands; I do not think it is right,’ he added. Others backed up this point of view. One said he was opposed to this type of coercion – no man could tell him how to breed. Another added that there were a lot of poor purebreds around.49 At the conclusion of the 1908 meetings, and in spite of evidence that many horsemen had serious concerns with what purebred stallion owners were trying to do, the Ontario Horse Breeders’ Association decided to present resolutions suggesting both enforced enrolment and licensing to the government. The Canadian Dairyman approved; the government needed direction here.50 In March 1909 the association approached the Ontario government with suggestions.51 There should be restrictions on stallions used for service, it advised, and only purebred, registered stallions should be allowed to breed – with the exception of grade horses that had been inspected and from good sires. Grade stallions, restricted

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to one-third of the breeding group, should be allowed to stand for three years under what would be called Class 2. No unsound stallion should serve. No horse that was diseased should serve. Purebred stallions should reasonably conform to their breed descriptions. Inspected and passing purebred stallions should be known as Class 1. Three inspectors should be appointed by the government for each district and, if a negative decision of the three was unanimous, the owner would have no recourse. If the inspectors disagreed, the owner could appeal. Licences should last for one year. No one could accept a fee for service unless the stallion was licensed. Any advertising material on a stallion should include information concerning his licence. The licence fee should be $10, which would be used to pay for the inspection. Any money left over would go to each county to support horse shows. Local horse associations in each county should be encouraged, and they would be affiliated with the Ontario Horse Breeders’ Association. Educational lectures should accompany the spring horse shows held in each county. Finally, ‘“syndicating,” under the generally accepted meaning of the word, would not be encouraged and ... some legislation should be passed to regulate it’ (see chapter 11).52 In 1911 the government introduced an Ontario Stallion Act, which contained a revised set of the association’s proposals. The act was modelled on one put in place in Victoria, Australia, in 1907. The proposed Ontario legislation called for enforced enrolment only.53 Inspection was optional, and registration as purebred not essential for enrolment. At the last moment, however, the minister of agriculture killed the bill. He sensed that the general farming public was not ready for such an act, which controlled an individual’s breeding decisions and appeared to favour purebred stallion owners.54 Opposition in the Legislature to the act clearly existed for the same reasons. Purebred horse breeders were not happy with the proposed bill, either, because of the paring down that had been done to it to make it pass (there was no restriction on the use of grade animals or and compulsory inspection).55 In 1912 the act was brought forward again, and this time it passed.56 The Ontario Stallion Enrolment Act stated that all travelling stallions should be enrolled, with optional inspection.57 The Ontario Horse Breeders’ Association still wanted compulsory inspection, but settled for this compromise. Enrolment cost $2, and inspection, $5.58 Enrolment certificates lasted one year; inspection certificates expired after two years.59 By the beginning of 1913, between 1,000 and 1,200 stallions had been inspected as well as enrolled, showing that many owners wanted the highest certificate possible.60

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The Advocate canvassed opinions in 1913 on the new stallion act. No one was pleased: people thought it did either too much or too little. Purebred owners did not favour legislation for one or the other of these reasons. A purebred stallion owner, believing the act interfered with the stallion business inappropriately, wrote as follows: What right has the Government to compel every stallion owner to pay five dollars to have his horse inspected and two dollars for enrolment? I don’t consider government inspection any good to my horses. They are inspected by intelligent men that breed their mares to them. That’s the kind of inspection I believe in. I consider the Government Inspection Act an insult to the farmers of Ontario. The government might as well tell the breeders they don’t know what kind of horse to raise. My two horses not inspected bred 326 mares at $15.00 each in 1913, and they travel together all season ... Give the mare owners the goods and they’ll pay the price. That is my experience. There are three classes of men that want stallion inspection and enrolment. The first class is the men looking for positions; the second class are those owning registered culls, and the third class are the men who don’t want their neighbors to make a living in the same business they are in.

The writer added that he had not kept a grade stallion in over twenty years and that he would never keep a grade for service at any price. But if his neighbour wished to do so, that was his business. And if the government wanted to take on the job of inspecting stallions, then the government should pay the cost of doing so.61 Many purebred owners disliked the act because, by permitting grades to enrol, it had not gone far enough.62 Men often repeated the argument that the act put scrubs and grades on the same level as purebreds and, in doing so, lowered the potential of purebreds.63 One purebred stallion owner was puzzled, as well as thinking the act had not gone far enough. It seemed that enrolment was compulsory and inspection optional, yet he believed that half the breeding stallions serving were neither enrolled nor licensed. Perhaps he had misunderstood and believed that all enrolled and inspected studs had to be purebreds. Enrolled stallions that were actually only scrubs passed as purebred. He had imported four stallions, enrolled them, and had them inspected. As far as he could see, it had done him no business good whatsoever. It had just cost him money. This importer raised another point that many purebred owners supported. Purebred stallions should not have to be enrolled. It was the scrub, or grade, that made the problem. Why should the im-

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porter be taxed in the same way as the owners of scrubs? Get the scrubs off the road.64 Comments by grade stallion owners, who generally took the side that the act did too much or interfered inappropriately with the stallion business, could be particularly interesting in light of Bakewell’s principles and the nature of purebred breeding. After forty years’ experience in breeding stallions, one grade owner claimed that inspection would not work. Stallions should be judged by their progeny, not by inspection. Furthermore, the mare played an important role, one that was overlooked in attempts to regulate stallions. ‘What do you expect, apples off a thorn tree, or cranberries from a gooseberry bush?’ Too much emphasis went to stallions winning shows as well. Other writers argued that inspection should be compulsory, and some believed inspection was useless because so many mares were unsound.65 A horseman who used grade stallions wrote in to say that the system would not work. No government agent could rival a breeder in estimating which horse was the better one to use. Grades could produce good stock, and many purebreds proved to be inferior as breeders. Some purebreds should be described as scrubs, and grades should not be thought of necessarily as scrubs.66 The Advocate subscribed to the idea that the act had not gone far enough: only purebreds could be described as improved animals.67 Again the message: Get rid of the grade.68 The Ontario Horse Breeders’ Association agreed and, in 1913, pressed on to achieve what it had originally desired: compulsory inspection and the enrolment only of purebreds.69 The association approached the government again and succeeded this time in getting what it wanted. The government amended the act, effective August 1914. Inspection would now be compulsory.70 Diseases (really malformations) considered not acceptable were listed as bone spavin, curb, poor hock formation, bog spavin, ringbone, stringhalt, sidebone, roaring or whistling, periodic ophthalmia, navicular disease, and radical defects or general defectiveness of conformation rendering the stallion unsuitable for stud.71 By 1916, ‘no grade stallion of the scrub order, that [means] having diseases or malformations mentioned in the regulations, shall be allowed to stand, travel, or be offered for service.’ By 1918, no grade stallion of any kind, even if free of unsoundness, would be allowed to breed.72 The Ontario Horse Breeders’ Association had finally got what it set out to achieve in 1906. Stiffening the rigour of the act did nothing to decrease criticism of it, especially by grade stallion owners. The notorious and infamous Stallion

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Enrolment Act had been hatched by a few importers and dealers, one horseman stated, so that they or their agents could pose as inspectors and incidentally sell their horses. Ontario had a law for the ‘discouragement’ of horse breeding, which stated ‘trot out your horse at 7 am on a cold November morning; give me four or five dollars for a worthless certificate, which, by the way, although you have paid for [it] did not belong to you (I suppose they had to have a lawyer on the committee to frame that clause) and we will allow you to do business.’ This man had been in the stallion business for twenty-five years, he said, and always charged just enough to make a living, hoping to be of service to his community.73 Even the Advocate continued to have mixed feelings about the act, because of the fundamental difficulty in legislating for quality and the unclear understanding of what constituted hereditary unsoundness. In 1916 the journal reported that it had never favoured legislation for the enforcement of improved breeding because it would work only if it had the support of the general community. Clearly, that was not the case here. ‘In various provinces of Canada legislation has been enacted, making it compulsory to have stallions inspected and enrolled, and in Ontario the grade stallion is being legislated out of business … Some objections may be raised to legislation which would prohibit the use of unsound stallions, particularly as authorities are not agreed upon what constitutes an unsoundness.’ Fundamentally, it is difficult to legislate for quality, the journal continued. What is quality to one person is not quality to another. And even some unsoundness many be all right if the stallion has other fine attributes and does not seem to pass down unsoundness. Legislating what breeding decisions should be made might not even bring good results in new stock.74 In spite of ongoing friction after the amendment in 1914, the Ontario Stallion Act, ‘which for four years [had] been subjected to ridicule and abuse by certain horsemen and [had] been eulogized by others,’ reached its mature form in 1918, according to plan. By August 1918 no grades or scrub purebreds (as defined by the regulations) could serve at stud. In 1917 some 640 grade stallions were still on the road, and their owners tried to extend their right to breed. ‘Such a concession would be altogether unjustifiable for the warning was given in 1914 that grades would, four years hence, be disqualified under the Act,’ the Advocate reminded its readers.75 In other provinces of Canada, purebred owners managed, over time, to gain the same objectives as their counterparts in Ontario and other regions of the continent: enrolment of only purebred stallions and

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compulsory government inspection for soundness. The Saskatchewan act to regulate stallions enforced enrolment and the licensing/inspection of stallions after 1912, as did the act in Alberta. Enrolment under these acts was to be annual rather than for the lifetime of the horse or until ownership changed, as under the old act.76 By 1918 the stallion legislation in Manitoba precluded the enrolment of grades of any style. Purebreds had to undergo assessment as to quality and required inspection for soundness.77 By 1919 all provinces in Canada had some form of legislated control over breeding stallions.78 Stallion legislation in Canada had changed dramatically in just a few years. In 1914, of the 5,941 stallions enrolled across the country, 3,976 were purebred.79 By 1919, of the 7,774 stallions enrolled, 6,678 were purebred.80 An emphasis on purebred breeding and inspection for soundness in breeding stallions could be found in all regions of Canada and the United States. It was a continental, not a national, movement and resulted in one interest group’s successful domination over the marketplace. Purebred owners won the right to control the stallion business in every region of the continent. Stallion regulation started off as a voluntary system to defuse the opposition of grade owners in particular to government involvement. The right of government to regulate in this fashion was never really accepted by the general farm population, in either the United States or Canada. Stallion legislation was always viewed as an elitist tool to promote the interests of the few. Many also saw it as an ineffectual device in the breeding for quality in animals. This outlook seems to be the correct one: stallion legislation probably did little to eradicate ‘unsoundness’ in horses. Modern veterinary opinion on the nature of horse heredity supports the contention that restriction of breeding stallions on the basis of various skeletal, musculatures, respiratory, or neurological syndromes would not substantially reduce the problems in the general horse population.

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PART FOUR

Society and Horses

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ELEVEN

Aspects of a Pervasive Horse Culture in Society

By the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, there was an overarching horse culture that was composed of many entangled facets. As we’ve seen already, it involved breeding practices and attitudes to heredity, market dynamics, military demand, and government legislation attempting to regulate horse production. In this chapter we will examine other characteristics of this interconnected equine world by reviewing changes in the systems of stallion ownership and a variety of horse-trading tricks, as well as the way both these factors acted as drivers in the move to stallion legislation. We will then investigate how the development of the veterinary profession resulted from military concerns with horses. The ubiquitous presence of horses in society also provoked the growth of humanitarian movements. This same era produced the well-loved novel Black Beauty and several examples of fine horse art, all of which give us a sense of the special position that horses held in society. The North American import boom in horses during the 1880s played a role in the general move from single to joint ownership of stallions and the formation of companies to buy and sell the animals. In Canada, early stallion companies often reflected selling patterns that related specifically to the Percheron. Such companies had direct connections to the French Haras and tended to be based in the province of Quebec, normally at Montreal, with both English and French Canadians participating as well as Europeans. Canadians normally ran the organizations, while French horsemen acted as investors and as expert buyers of stock in Europe for export to Canada. The Haras National Co., incorporated in 1889 with headquarters in Montreal, serves as an example.1 While the company intended to import Percherons and Arabians, supplying Percher-

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ons for stud purposes to the Canadian market was its primary focus.2 The directors claimed that its French shareholders knew La Perche and other areas in France where excellent horse breeding could be found. Company-owned horses would be rented out to agricultural societies and individuals in Quebec. The organization hoped to do business in Ontario as well.3 Canadian horsemen did not mind the infiltration of the Haras method of breeding horses as long as it remained outside the control of the government. Organizations such as the Haras National, they believed, should help get scrub and runt stallions off the road.4 The Canadian government might not have controlled the Haras system in Canada, but it rented stallions from Haras National at high fees and placed the animals at various experimental farms, in the hope that local farmers, for a small charge, would use them to serve their mares. Government attempts to control breeding, even through encouragement to use certain stallions, found no favour with farmers. The plan proved to be a miserable failure, the Advocate told its readers in 1901: ‘The farmers [know] better what they need than the Government officials, and as a consequence, the stallions stood in their stalls ... worn out with waiting for work, while enterprising men with their own means brought in the class of sires they knew they needed.’5 Companies like the Haras National Co., however, continued to come into existence in Quebec because the stallion market was sufficiently lucrative to warrant a level of investment that benefited from multiple shareholders. Remount issues also triggered early efforts at stallion companies in Canada. Colonel Ravenhill’s British army purchases of 1887 were not entirely forgotten. One horse-breeding scheme, aimed solely at the remount market, was presented to the Canadian public as a government endeavour to breed horses for the British army. In the fall of 1908 the press excitedly told farmers that a British officer had announced a plan, now under the consideration by the Canadian militia, to breed army horses in Canada through a government agency known as the National Bureau of Horse Breeding. In fact, the ‘Canadian National Bureau of Breeding, Ltd.’, as it was called, had nothing to do with the government. An individual, John F. Ryan of Montreal, set it up in 1909 as a private enterprise. Ryan, a man interested in Thoroughbreds, planned to establish places where Thoroughbreds across the country, not just in Quebec, could be used to produce army horses. He hoped to have government funding, though, for his scheme. In March 1909 Ryan and a number of others approached the dominion minister of agriculture, asking for a grant of $25,000 to help buy suitable stallions and arrange for various farmers across the country to

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do the breeding. The minister said he would make no decision without more information.6 It is not known whether Ryan managed to get the money, but, regardless, the company survived at least for the short term. It set out its various regulations, such as terms under which stallions would be rented out to farmers for breeding purposes. Service fees per foal were $10. The company told farmers that it had a French-Canadian secretary, so could deal in letters written in French.7 It was apparent by 1913 that the organization had had little luck in renting out stallions in Quebec8 – a fate shared by other Quebec organizations owning stud horses. Stallion-owning companies based in Quebec all tended to go out of business quite quickly, partially because they did not seem to understand the basic horse situation in that province. Horse breeding in Quebec had not made any real recovery from the downturn of 1893, when electricity for tramways virtually shut down a market for these animals. Within ten years, lighter horses became so cheap in the province that hardly anyone even considered raising them.9 While some interest in trying to preserve the old French-Canadian breed could be found in the province, Quebec’s horse-breeding activities remained basically dormant.10 By 1903, farmers in the province had largely given up any serious horse breeding, years before Ryan based his company in Montreal. There is no proof, however, that there was any fraudulent activity in either Ryan’s organization or other business operations that collapsed, or that such activity played any role in their demise. Other joint ownership structures that developed did introduce crooked business dealings in the stallion industry. In the United States, various companies were formed in the 1880s to import and sell horses, and these organizations were most commonly designed to deal in Percherons.11 Light and somewhat exotic breeds could also play a role in these companies – for example, the Percheron and Arabian Importing Horse Co. operating out of Nebraska by 1889.12 Many of these organizations followed fraudulent practices. The recollections of an importer and horse trader in 1902 about the nature of the early draft-horse importing trade are illuminating. Importing was often done through organizations run by men who were anxious to make money but knew nothing about horses. Scandals involving pedigree-fixing and insurance frauds helped undermine the credibility of the importing business. Both the Americans and Europeans could be blamed for the many high-priced junk animals that were sold in those years. ‘On this side of the ocean it was very much dog eat dog,’ he explained.13 Importing companies in the boom years often accumulated many undesirable horses – either poor purebreds or animals holding false

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pedigrees. To unload this stock, the companies hired peddlers to take these inferior stallions to the western sections of the country, with the intent of duping groups of farmers into buying them jointly at very high prices.14 Sometimes dealers bought these poor stallions from companies for low prices and then peddled the animals for their own profit.15 ‘There is no denying the fact that ... the worst scrubs that could not be sold to individual buyers were peddled and all sorts of frauds were foisted on the uninformed farmers,’ an importer from the 1880s reminisced. His use of the word ‘scrub’ is interesting: he clearly was referring to inferior purebreds, not good or even low-quality grades. Purchasers played a role in this situation, he added, because they knew next to nothing in the early 1880s about heavy draft horses.16 Farmers sometimes formed companies or syndications of their own to buy and/or import stallions. In late 1891, for example, one person reported to the Gazette that some twenty farmers had recently joined together to form a company to purchase two draft stallions.17 When the horse market began to recover after the recession of the 1890s, joint ownership became common once more. Importers, active again because of relatively better economic times, found they could rarely afford to buy as individuals. To make a profit on their costs, they had to make their transactions as companies.18 And companies, in turn, often hired dealers to sell the stock. Usually they sold to groups formed by farmers, because single purchasers could rarely afford to buy stock owned by importing companies.19 But, as in the 1880s, it was the dealer, not farmers, who set up these structures for joint ownership. The Gazette explained the system: the dealer took a horse to a certain locality; he commanded the respect of farmers there, and he sold between twenty and thirty shares (each worth $100) to farmers; notes were made out jointly and severally. The journal thought it might be good for the dealer, but suspected there could be problems for the farmers who ended up owning the horse. Who, for example, would look after the stallion?20 Companies should be set up and run by farmers, who would appoint a committee to do the buying. As it was now, dealers controlled how the companies worked and what stallions were bought.21 Readers of the Gazette tended to agree with these sentiments. Farmers should organize themselves to form purchasing companies, one person wrote in.22 It was soon apparent that farmers could be duped just as easily under the newer dealer system of companies – in 1903 one company of farmers reported buying a stallion with a false pedigree.23 In Canada, the earliest joint ownership of stallions under farmer

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companies or syndicates was undertaken by farmers themselves, not dealers or importing companies. Syndicates formed by farmers originally appeared most commonly in Ontario, where breeders found organizations of this nature helpful for importing the animals. Farmers, jointly and severally, bound to an agreed purchase price and used syndication methods to import British stallions (normally Clydes). British Clyde breeders often took advantage of this situation and sent sterile stallions to North America, which helped kill interest in the breed.24 By the 1890s, though, fraudulent activity had increasingly become attached to dealerinitiated stallion syndicates in Ontario, especially after the horse market declined in 1893. The farm press took note of the situation. Many stallion owners were forced by the poor markets to find more resourceful methods of disposing of surplus animals, and their success could be measured by the increasing numbers of poor breeding stallions to be found throughout the province, bought through syndication. Poor stock could be unloaded at huge prices, and syndicates doing business in this fashion were not composed of men getting together in order to buy a good horse.25 The Canadian Live-Stock and Farm Journal explained to its readers the way such fraudulent activity worked: A dealer, whose chief characteristic consists on his being a good talker, brings over one or more stallions into a town or locality best suited for his purposes. Prices varying from $2,500 upwards are quoted as the lowest sum at which a certain horse can be bought. The operator next looks up one or more local men suitable for his work. These men are used as decoys, or receive one or more shares in the syndicate gratis, provided that their influence is successful in getting up the desired number of names, which is one part of the understanding. All kinds of arguments are made use of to induce men to buy shares. They point out the number of successful horsemen who have made money out of the stallion business, and how that by taking a share they will not only have the service on the horse for nothing, but large profits will accrue from outside patronage. As each new member is obtained he signs a contract binding him to carry out the bargain, and when sufficient names are in place on the contract each discovers that he has to sign a note in which he is liable for the whole amount should there be defaulters at the maturity of the note, which latter is also drawn subject to a liberal [rate of] interest.26

With the recovered horse market after 1900, the syndicate plan in Ontario continued to be dogged with unethical practices that related to

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dealer/peddler purchase and resale of horses, not farmer-established companies doing the purchasing. The Farming World explained: The plan universally adopted is that of sending out some particular horse, in charge of an ‘expert’ syndicate man, who pushes the adoption of this horse to a ‘fare-you-well’ and praises his virtues until he makes his patrons see gold dollars hanging on every hair in his tail. The syndicate plan has been found much more profitable in the case of a cheap and inferior horse at a long price, but if it is attempted with a good animal honestly sold, the plan is too often found to entail a heavy loss.27

The association of fraudulent activities with stallion syndication was even more severe in western Canada. It is no surprise, then, that the movement for stallion regulation legislation developed first in this region. The problem of bogus pedigrees seemed worse in the West too. The honest stallion owner, and especially purebred stallion owner, found it more and more difficult to conduct proper business under these conditions, at the same time that farmers were more easily duped. In earlier times, stallion syndicates had served well in Manitoba. Individual farmers simply could not have bought good stock, and many Clydes were sold and bought by eastern and western farmer syndicates, set up by farmers themselves. ‘The stallion syndicate as at present exemplified in Manitoba is the old syndicate system “run to seed,”’ the Farming World noted.28 The press warned western Canadians: Beware the Stallion Faker! The huge demand for stallions in the Canadian West led to the import of draft animals not by individuals but by syndicates set up by American dealers or stallion companies, according to the Advocate in 1901. ‘In the States, where they do things on a big scale, the stallion business has developed into colossal proportions. Stallions are imported by the shipload, fitted out under high pressure at the headquarters of the importing firms, and special agents employed to travel the country over, disposing the horses to farmers.’ Beware – many are not good, and many have false pedigrees.29 The problem had become only more serious by early 1903. American imports from Europe had resulted in importing companies holding excess stallions of poor quality. Companies and dealers unloaded these animals through fraudulent means in both the western United States and western Canada. Cheap horses, ineligible for registry in any of Canada’s stud books, entered the country duty free.30 The problem pertained mainly to one breed, the Percheron, and Canadians believed that the men running the American Percheron stud book had

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played into the situation.31 Farming World thought farmers in Manitoba should buy good Ontario Clydes. Fraudulent syndication now had international or continental ramifications. Syndicates for the selling of American Percherons, and poor ones at that, tended to take the following form. While dealings could be remarkably insidious and could be carried on by local residents in pay to American breeders, they showed repetitious patterns to the fraudulent activity that took place elsewhere: An influential and moneymaking farmer is selected and persuaded to go into the enterprise on the understanding that he receive from 5 to 10 per cent commission on the price paid by the syndicate ... The objectionable feature is that the fact of this man being paid is usually concealed and farmers are induced to take stock on the understanding that Mr. Blank, whose opinion is respected and whose business sagacity is known, is going into the syndicate on the same basis as his fellow farmers ... A further objectionable feature is that farmers are frequently induced to sign a contract which purports to be merely a requisition that a certain horse be brought into their district for examination and approval before purchase. This requisition turns out to be contracts for purchase.32

In 1904 an interesting stallion syndication fraud took place in western Canada: A large Percheron dealer syndicated a stallion at a point in the West for $3,600. The animal turned out to be a non-breeder. When the farmers complained, they were told they could have the pick of any other stallions in the seller’s stable, none of which were worth over $500. But they had to be content [with their choice]. This same barren horse was taken to another point 100 miles away and there syndicated for $3,000, the farmers having uneventfully to fall back on one of the $500 variety. But this did not satisfy the scheming ‘Yankee’s’ desire to rope in more Western farmers’ good shekels. For a third time the stallion was syndicated for $3,500 in another district and of course not getting any colts, a place was found for another $500 horse. But the fraud did not stop there, the stallion was moved again and syndicated a fourth time, and he may continue thus to bring in thousands of dollars to his owner so long as there are farmers willing to be duped by this clever rascality.33

Fraudulent ownership schemes seemed to be sufficiently on the rise in eastern Canada by 1906 to make the Ontario government deeply con-

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cerned about the implication of joint versus private ownership of stallions.34 Single stallion owners found the entire stallion business undermined by the activities of dealers who formed farmer companies. That situation had made them even more likely to press for control of the stallion business by legislation. Eastern purebred breeders saw their market undermined at home and in the West as well. It seemed to many men that licensing for soundness was not as serious an issue as fraudulent joint-ownership schemes, which ultimately brought more inferior stallions into the breeding industry. A horseman stated in 1907, for example, that while he did not approve of licensing, a ‘great hindrance to the improvement of stallions in this country is the syndicate man or stallion peddler, as we call him, who travels the country frequently, with a class of horses he cannot sell at his barn. He may be found in nearly every district of our province [Ontario] and in 9 cases out of 10 his horses are a failure. Not always because the horses are at fault, but very frequently the company formed is composed of men who never owned a good horse in their lives, and never had any intention of owning a stallion before the syndicate man met them.’ This deceptive activity kept the men who have good stallions from getting into business.35 Within this environment of fraudulent selling, horse trading tricks flourished. It is worth looking at how some of them were carried out. A detailed review of the tricks reveals how devious the horse trade could be, as well as the limits of understanding about horse ailments both among veterarians and the general horse community. In 1913 the Farm and Dairy outlined tricks for buyers in four articles. The first was described as ‘plugging a roarer.’ The journal explained that the most common unsoundness that unscrupulous dealers could temporarily disguise was disease of the respiratory tract, especially roaring and heaves. A horse was called a ‘roarer,’ when, after exercise, he emitted a loud whistling or roaring sound during expiration. No sound was heard when the animal was simply standing, but some horses roared with little movement. Even walking could start it. In other cases the horse had to have a violent workout. The sound also varied in nature and loudness. The noise resulted from a large amount of air being forced through a restricted passage, so any means of preventing large volumes of air from entering the nostrils could prevent the noise. ‘If the finger be passed up at the superior position of the nostril it will enter a cul-de-sac, which is called the “false nostril,”’ the journal explained. The fraudulent dealer understood these facts and, when he hoped to make a deal, he simply filled the false nostrils with absorbent cotton, to stop sufficient air from

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entering the nose and causing the noise. After selling the horse, the trader removed the plugs or let them fell out on their own. The farmer would be fooled, only to learn that he had ‘a musician for a horse when out working in the fields.’36 The second trick was an account of what gave rise to ‘heaves’ or ‘broken wind,’ and how drugs could check the outward symptoms. Farm and Dairy explained that it was disease of the lungs, but was generally caused by stomach irritation. It was seen most frequently in big horses that had been heavily fed and then worked on a full stomach. ‘In most cases there is probably a congenital weakness of the lungs,’ the journal added. The illness resulted from the fact that nervous sympathy existed between stomach and lungs. Various small air sacs in the lungs collapsed into each other, and the horse had to work hard to expel air. The journal admitted that much was not known about heaves. It varied greatly in intensity and also with air conditions, improving markedly with clean air. Horses could recover completely in a new environment. Dealers knew how to drug a horse to hide the symptoms for a few hours. The drugs hid the condition only if the horse was at rest or moving very slowly. The buyer would be wise to pass up on a horse that couldn’t be put through an exercise test.37 ‘Did you ever buy an apparently sound horse that went lame soon after?’ the journal asked when dealing with the third trick. Farm and Dairy gave a description of two systems of disguising lameness in a horse and explained how the purchaser could detect fraud. When a horse was lame in one forearm below the knee, the trader knew that the lameness would disappear if the nerve supply to the foot could be temporarily rendered inactive. The trader would inject cocaine on each side of the leg with a syringe. Nerve supply to the lower leg became paralyzed, and the horse felt no pain. Even the cleverest horseman could be deceived. Fortunately, traders did not follow this practice often. It required too much skill and special equipment. ‘A more common, more cruel, and less effective plan of attempting to disguise slight chronic lameness in one foot is to set up a slight irritation in the other foot.’ That could be done by paring down the hoof, adding irritants under the shoe, or driving a nail into the hoof. The horse would respond with a choppy gait in order to favour the newly pained foot. If the purchaser looked for this queer gait and then examined the hooves, it would be apparent what had happened.38 The fourth trick involved the use of drugs to mask a horse’s vicious habits as well as minor unsoundness such as quarter crack, bony enlarge-

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ment, and sweeny. Dealers had ways of filling sandcracks in hooves to cover the fact that they were there. Enlargements and diseases of the hocks could be doctored to hide the defects. ‘When there is an enlargement, as bone spavin, curb, or a thickening of any part of one hock and not on its fellow, a hypodermic injection of a small quantity of some irritant into the sound hock will cause a swelling, which to any person except a careful observer may appear normal.’ If hocks were alike, even of poor conformation or unattractiveness, it was normal to assume the horse had sound hocks. ‘Then again in case of sweeney or other disease that has caused an atrophy or shrinking of muscle[,] the trader is aware that by forcing air underneath the skin covering the shrunken muscles he is able to fill the hollow.’ Sometimes irritant fluids were injected; they lasted longer than air. Usually the purchaser could feel the difference, and a sound of crackling could often be heard as well. The journal expanded on various other issues. ‘Means of temporarily checking undesirable or vicious habits are many. The use of iron extension to the crupper so hidden in the hair of the tail’ would stop a switcher and sometimes a kicker who responded to a line under his tail. ‘The introduction into the rectum of a small piece of ginger root will cause a tail hugger to elevate his tail. Horses that are kickers, shyers, too high lifed, and generally hard to handle can be doped by administering proper doses of opiates and narcotics.’ Local abrasions could be covered with harness. If the dealer wanted to keep the horse moving, it meant the animal probably had bone spavin, a lameness that often showed up only in a horse standing at rest. ‘A horse only slightly lame in front will often go sound if the head be checked high and he be driven smartly on a tight line.’ Ridglings, stallions with one or no apparent testicles in the scrotum, could be sold as geldings. The overall masculinity of the animal should alert the buyer to this problem.39 Stallion legislation could be used to control some of these tricks, which many saw as cruelty to animals. The stallion law of Indiana, for example, by 1907 ‘was designed to stop cruelty to horses as well as cruelty to “easy marks.” In the past years,’ the Gazette reported, ‘it has become a common practice for traders to dope their horses with powerful drugs and various devices, regardless of the suffering they inflict on the poor animals. If these ignoramuses cannot dispose of their horses by means of dope or trick, the poor horses will escape that much suffering anyway.’40 A review of the tricks reveals not just how complicated unsoundness issues were but why it was important to understand these defects. They were an issue for everyone. Attempts to deal with them stimulated the

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general development of the veterinary profession over the period and played a vital role in the way animal medicine evolved. A look at the historical background to veterinary medicine before the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries indicates further that horses and their problems were central from ancient times to the evolution of animal medicine. Concern with the welfare of horses resulted in some of the earliest treatises on animal care, and use of horses in war played a direct role in that phenomenon.41 The fact that men who made and fit horse shoes, farriers, were the first specialists in animal medicine – they took care of all farm animals – is proof of the importance of horses’ feet and legs to the development of veterinary medicine. They could also be regarded as animal, not simply horse, doctors. Complicated issues relating to feet and legs laid the groundwork for the future understanding of infectious disease in animals. It has been argued that the cattle disease, rinderpest, triggered the rise of the first true veterinary schools. The devastation brought about by recurring episodes of rinderpest throughout the eighteenth century terrified people and brought huge economic hardship.42 Horses, however, seemed even more central to the phenomenon. It appears that Claude Bourgelat, the man who set up the first institution to study animal health and to teach methods for dealing with it in France in 1762, was primarily interested in horses.43 He had good reason to be. The army provided the support the new institution needed, because of its horse needs. The early veterinarians at the school in Lyon continued to focus their main attention on the health of horses and on proper training for shoeing, because of the increased military demands being made on the animals. This school would be the model of others founded over the second half of the eighteenth century in other European countries. The London Veterinary College, which opened its doors in 1791, was one such institution. The advent of college-educated veterinary surgeons in the eighteenth century shifted responsibility for horse care from farriers to veterinarians. The veterinary profession in Britain, as in France, from the beginning owed much of its development to the army and its need for horses. Emphasis on the cavalry, new artillery technology, the mounted infantry, and the provision for auxiliary services to the army generally increased the demand of the armed forces for the maintenance of healthy horses. In the past the army had contracted private farriers to look after its horses, but these men could no longer cope with problems associated with keeping large numbers of animals together in times of peace and

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war. Crowded conditions also led to the spread of glanders, a disease infectious to humans. The British army decided at the end of the eighteenth century to hire educated veterinarians, rather than relying on traditional farriers for horse care. The prestige of veterinarians increased under these conditions: they were officers, albeit of low rank. Horse topics continued to dominate the teaching courses in veterinary schools after this time. One important authority argued in the 1830s that veterinary medicine should concern itself only with the horse.44 The emphasis in animal health on the need for practical experience, not scientific knowledge, and the traditional focus on care given to horses for leg and foot ailments (outside the issue of heredity) continued to shape the way the veterinary profession looked on its role in society, in spite of the fact that a chair for cattle pathology was established at the London school in 1842.45 The rinderpest outbreak of 1865, however, highlighted the inadequacy of veterinary knowledge of any infection and forced the profession into the world of bacteriology and microscopy – the world of science. The cattle plague showed clearly how ineffectual veterinary education had been with respect to transmitted and infectious illness.46 People wondered if any advancements had been made in animal medicine under the profession at all. Veterinarians, apparently, could not control disease any better than their earlier counterparts, the farriers. One of the most important infectious diseases that horse doctors had to contend with from earliest times was glanders, but they had virtually no control of it or its spread before the end of the nineteenth century.47 The illness had puzzled people for centuries, partially because it could be confused with tuberculosis. Glanders had been one of the chief concerns of Bourgelat at his school in Lyons. It was not until 1820 that it became evident that glanders had a connection between humans and horses. People contracted the subcutaneous form known as farcy, while horses acquired the pulmonary form called glanders.48 It was always fatal and made special havoc of horse and human health, especially during warfare. Interest in glanders drew veterinarians into the problem of infection and horses, but it would also come to play a significant role in the development of comparative pathology and comparative medicine generally. By the 1860s many medical people became interested in diseases that attack both humans and animals. That focus would, in the end, lead to a new emphasis on laboratory work, and on knowledge about such issues as natural and acquired immunity.49 Glanders, then, played a significant role in developing microscopy and vaccine work in the late nineteenth century.

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Its bacillus was located in 1882, the same year that Robert Koch found that of tuberculosis. In 1883 the state of Illinois tried to limit its spread, even though little was actually understood about the disease. The Gazette described glanders as that ‘loathsome, contagious and incurable disease’ whose growing presence alone revealed the ‘deplorable scarcity of qualified veterinarians all over the country.’ Humans died of it, yet so-called vets couldn’t seem to diagnose farcy even though glandered horses might be in the stable next to them.50 The hunt was on at least for a prophylactic. In 1891 the substance mallein was discovered. The history of its preparation and use bore strong resemblances to the course that tuberculin followed. Both mallein and tuberculin could detect but not protect. The mallein test located the disease in horses, just as tuberculin revealed TB-infected cattle. If horses injected with mallein had a rise in temperature over twenty-four hours, the animal could be called a reactor.51 The battle against glanders, through detection but not cure, began in the 1890s in both Britain and North America. By 1903 it was apparent through the mallein test how extensive glanders was in apparently healthy horses. It seemed to be most prevalent in urban settings. Some 90 per cent of horses in Britain that gave positive results for glanders, for example, could be found in the vicinity of London.52 Glanders, like TB, was apparently a hidden as well as an open menace. The mallein test justified renewed government quarantine regulations to combat the disease. In Canada, the dominion government set up a policy to eradicate glanders in 1904. After 1905, any animal that reacted to mallein was destroyed and the owner compensated at the rate of two-thirds of its value, with a maximum of $150 for grades and $300 for purebreds. By 1911 there were no reactors in Canada.53 The disease re-emerged with a vengeance during the First World War, but by 1926 it had been eradicated in Britain, and by 1939 in North America, through programs of testing, isolation, slaughter, and compensation to owners.54 Government inspection and testing for glanders increased the need for veterinarians. So did inspection and licensing of stallions under new legislation early in the twentieth century. This demand for trained vets led to new emphasis on veterinary education, not just in Britain but in North America as well, and the profession responded by undergoing modernization and growth. The impetus created by the need for more vets allowed for changes within the profession that rapidly developed after the end of the nineteenth century. The history of veterinary medicine cannot be seen outside the new use of veterinarians for government inspection of sickness and soundness in horses.

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The background to veterinary knowledge, practice, and schooling in Canada and the United States echoed that of Europe. The earliest animal doctors were farriers, and most of their health work with horses revolved around the care of legs and feet, not genetics or infectious sickness. Modernization in North America evolved from the import of British structures, methods of treatment, and medical theories. Central to the evolution of veterinary schools in both North American countries and to specific methods of training would be the philosophy of William Dick and his teaching at the school in Edinburgh (founded in 1823), and John Gamgee’s approach after 1857 from his work at his separate Edinburgh school. The veterinary school of London, under James P. Simonds, proved to be less significant for North Americans than either of the Scottish institutions. Dick subscribed to the art of veterinary medicine rather than its science, or, in other words, practical application through clinical work only; Gamgee, in contrast, supported the scientific approach, or greater academic training and the need for research into problems as much as practical experience. The Dick and Gamgee approaches – clinical and practical versus the application of scientific research results to the problems of animal health – would be played out in Britain, not so much through Dick and Gamgee as through a conflict between Simonds and Gamgee in 1865 over the way to control the spread of rinderpest. The influence of Dick would be felt in Canada through Andrew Smith, one of his students and founder of the Ontario Veterinary College. This institution trained Canadian vets, many of whom subsequently worked for the Canadian government or practised veterinary medicine in the United States. The Gamgee approach emerged in Canada through Duncan McEachran, who had trained under Dick and became the first veterinary general of Canada and founder of a veterinary school in Montreal. Gamgee’s thinking later influenced John Rutherford, a graduate of the Ontario Veterinary College. Rutherford played an important role in Canada’s fight against bovine TB and glanders and in veterinary education across North America. He also served as veterinary general of Canada, the nation’s livestock commissioner, and as president of the American Veterinarian Association. Gamgee’s thought affected American vets more directly through James Law, a veterinary professor at Cornell. Another important Gamgee influence on American vets came through D.E. Salmon, a student of Law and the first director of the U.S. Bureau of Animal Industry, the body responsible for animal health and industry. Salmon initiated the first quarantine measures to control the

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spread of animal disease in the United States. These North American veterinary schools and individuals trained the men who inspected for glanders and unsoundness in Canada and the United States. While inspection issues might have been the primary driver of veterinary matters in North America over the period, in Britain veterinary medicine continued to owe its growth to the ongoing needs of the army and the subsequent backing the military provided. The welfare of the veterinary profession in Britain – support of its schools and hiring of its graduates – remained closely tied right up to the end of the First World War to military affairs. In 1878 the army established the Army Veterinary Department and began a move to centralize structures to deal with horse health. Regulations of 1888, 1891, and 1892 provided for one hospital for sick horses, with a capacity to hold 300 animals, for each army corps. The hospitals also served as the remount centre to receive incoming animals, thereby infecting new recruits through the sick ones. Regulations changed in 1898, but they made no provision whatsoever to separate sick animals in the field from fresh horses. At the outbreak of the Boer War, the veterinary department had no organization for the care of sick animals and was forced to turn for help to the armed forces in India. Since the Afghan War of 1879–80, the Indian army had recognized the need for field veterinary hospitals, and it was those from India that provided the only semblance of organized veterinary care during the first year of the conflict. Need for vets in that war ultimately drew 10 per cent of the profession from Britain to South Africa.55 Until the end of 1901, however, shortages of fodder, people to work with the animals, and shelter proved to be abominable. Disease from glanders was rampant and horses died by the thousands. To make matters worse, newly arriving horses had no time to acclimatize, and often they came from cold northern winters into the intense heat of South Africa. Vets claimed that clipping heavy coats alone would have saved many equine lives. Some animals simply starved to death. The number of men needed to feed and water stock was so limited that, when the army found abandoned horses, they shot them. As an added advantage, the animals could not then fall into the hands of the enemy.56 Squadron Sergeant-Major Cobb wrote to his wife in 1901, ‘This has been a dreadful war for the horses.’57 Acclimatization of horses played a significant role in the way the Boer War unfolded. The sturdy native animals ridden by the Boers allowed them to fight prolonged guerrilla warfare because the horses were so well adjusted to the local environment. War highlighted issues of cruelty and suffering in the lives of horses.

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The remount service and the veterinary department learned something from the horrors that the Boer War inflicted on the animals. If infectious disease remained hard to control, they could at least give closer attention to animal welfare, especially in terms of feed, rest, and care of both legs and feet. In 1906 the Royal Army Veterinary Corps was formed. It instituted better training in military and technical duties, and the corps maintained a clear understanding of the availability of civilian vets (in the First World War about 33 per cent of Britain’s veterinarians served). In 1909 the Division Reserve of Veterinary Officers was set up, and in 1913 the Veterinary Directorate came under the umbrella of the Quartermaster-General’s Department and was removed from the direct control of the remount. The veterinary part of the army, as a result, held autonomy over health and medicine issues and was not subject to remount demands. By the time war broke out in 1914, the structure for attaching a mobile veterinary section to every cavalry and infantry division of the army existed. Throughout the war the corps expanded impressively. An unforeseen but common hazard for horses when they reached the front was picking up nails in their shoes. Field cooks used packing boxes in which provisions came to the front to make fires, and the nails remained on the ground when the fires went out. Horse sickness was greatly reduced from that during the Boer War because of better and more humane care, not greater medical knowledge. The army gave horses time to acclimatize, for example, before they went to the front in the First World War.58 Women played an important role in this aspect of the remount. They replaced stable boys in the conditioning of the animals at remount depots in Britain and, many claimed, did the job of calming and training better than men. The Ladies’ Army Remount Depot at Russley Park was established in 1915, but the depot at Calcot Park near Reading had initiated the use of women even earlier.59 British society had increasingly over the years become concerned with issues of animal cruelty, and specifically with the poor treatment of horses. Stories of horrors at war served only to accelerate the movement against cruelty to horses. The general public had been appalled at the loss of horses in the Boer War, and attempts to enforce humane treatment of the animals outside the army became increasingly common. In 1910, for example, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals objected to the selling of sick, suffering horses to Belgium and Holland as meat. The animals were considered too weak to travel, and the society wanted them killed humanely in Britain.60 Total export figures for the years 1900 to 1910 of horses from Britain reveal that the largest market

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26 Lucy Kemp-Welsh tried to get to France to paint at the front, but, when she was rejected, she produced war art at home. Here she portrayed war work by women grooms. Women trained, exercised, and helped acclimatize the animals before they left for the front. There is immediacy to this painting that is lacking in the finished version. Colour, freshness, and a sense of early morning fill the air. The white horse would stand out in a battlefield, so Kemp-Welsh probably included it here as an artistic devise. Preparatory sketch for Exercise, Lucy KempWelsh, oil on canvas, c. 1915.

for British horses was in slaughter animals destined for Holland and Belgium. The movement of purebred horses to North America over that period was a mere trickle in comparison.61 When the First World War broke out, the public participated in attempts to ensure horse welfare. A number of voluntary organizations initiated schemes to care for the horses serving in the conflict. The Blue

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Cross Fund was organized by Our Dumb Friends’ League with the intent of helping horses injured in battle.62 It had been founded in 1912 during the Balkan War.63 The French government gave permission to establish eight horse hospitals as near the fighting front as possible. The French military authorities agreed to assist by rounding up injured animals and taking them to the hospitals. Blue Cross men attending to the cripples and moving them each carried a humane killing agent that could be used if suffering was too intense. Three hospitals were operating by late 1914, but outbreaks of glanders had hindered work. Besides providing comfortable and sanitary conditions in stables, the Blue Cross rented meadows near the stables ‘so that the invalids may get out to graze and exercise and enjoy the fresh air and any gleams of sunshine,’ the Graphic explained. ‘There, with the sounds of guns not far distant, they dream for a little space of the old peaceful days at home.’ ‘Another society for succouring army horses on the battlefield has been recently inaugurated at Geneva by a conference of representatives of the countries at war. It is styled the Purple Cross Service,’ the journal added.64 The American Red Star Relief provided for horses in the American army in the same way the Blue Cross did for the French army.65 Horses suffered horribly, morally and physically, in wartime, the Gazette told its readers.66 Public sympathy owed much to Anna Sewell’s Black Beauty, published in 1877. Sewell loved horses because she was not able to walk well and they provided her with a certain amount of mobility and freedom. She became deeply concerned with the way they were treated, particularly in an increasingly mechanized society. As Black Beauty himself stated, ‘Then there [was] the steam-engine style of driving; these drivers were mostly people from towns, who never had a horse of their own, and generally travelled by rail.’67 In many ways throughout her story, Sewell argued that the industrial age had forgotten that horses were living things, not mechanized objects.68 Cab horses in London streets could be driven until they fell down dead or simply dropped – as happened to the mare Ginger, who died that way in the novel. Black Beauty would be luckier. When he fell on the street, a farrier saved him from death. Skinner, the cab owner of the horse, wanted to destroy Black Beauty after the incident. ‘He must go to the dogs [for meat],’ Skinner said. ‘I have no meadows to nurse sick horses in – he might get well or he might not; that sort of thing don’t suit my business. My plan is to work ’em as long as they’ll go, and then sell ’em for what they’ll fetch, at the knacker’s or elsewhere.’69 Sewell’s overriding concerns with respect to kindness and working horses culminated in her attack on the use of the bearing rein and, in

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27 The Blue Cross worked with sick and injured horses in France. Many men brought their own horses with them and formed a bond that made it painful when the animals died. Those in too much pain were mercifully put down. Horses are being rounded up in the bottom picture and taken to hospitals. The Graphic, 9 January 1915, 47.

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particular, the gag bearing rein. In unforgettable stories of Ginger, her temperament, and her fight against the rein, Sewell brought home its fundamental cruelty to millions of readers in North America and Britain. Objections to the gag rein, which held the head of a horse in harness high, and in doing so, weakened its ability to pull and even to breathe, had emerged as early as 1845. In the 1860s veterinarians railed against this rein in the press, stating that it ruined the wind of horses. Some veterinarians argued that the rein reduced blood circulation to the head and caused brain damage. Although the gag bit was dropped, bearing reins would be used in reduced numbers in Britain until 1914, when the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals persuaded undertakers to remove the rein from funeral horses. The battle against the rein was harder in the United States, where cab and omnibus horses and even teams hauling very heavy loads wore it. By 1905 the gag rein was rarely used, but the common bearing rein continued (and was still used in the 1970s by Amish farmers).70 While Anna Sewell’s Black Beauty made clear the many aspects of cruelty practised on horses over the late nineteenth century, she also revealed patterns in the prevailing culture surrounding the horse in a world dominated by its presence. She portrayed horses as part of a vast array of human activities, clearly showing the centrality of the species to a human society dominated by urbanization, industrialization, and a variety of commercial activity. She explained how to harness a horse, how to train it for riding or driving, and how to ride or drive the animal. Horse sickness and its treatment emerged in issues of pneumonia and leg and shoeing problems. It was farriers in her book, not veterinarians, who took care of the animals. The role of horses in combat also emerged in the story. Black Beauty was stabled with a survivor of the Charge of the Light Brigade in the Crimean War, an animal that was serving as a London cab horse. Even the issue of type versus breed, and of use in relation to either, came up in the book. Black Beauty and Ginger ‘were not of the regular tall carriage-horse breed’; they ‘had more of the racing blood’ in them. Both were of medium height – 15½ hands – and serviceable for either riding or driving.71 The animals carried a good deal of Thoroughbred blood, Britain’s saddle horse, but were deliberately cross-bred to allow them to perform several light-horse duties. One way to appreciate the special culture of working horses in the age of increasing mechanization is to look at paintings executed in the period. Horses have been portrayed in art since the beginning of human civilization – in war, sports, racing, and as treasures of royalty and the

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elite classes. But something new entered the world of horse painting in the late nineteenth century. The horse as an animal for work commanded the special love of certain painters in this period, exemplified in the art of Lucy Kemp-Welsh and Sir Alfred Munnings. Lucy Kemp-Welsh (1869–1958) devoted her life to the painting of the working horse. She envisioned the animals as heroes, not drudges. Kemp-Welsh saw and appreciated each horse as an individual – a rare quality in an environment where horses were a necessary and ubiquitous group. Like Anna Sewell, horses provided Kemp-Welsh with a measure of freedom. ‘The relationship she established with her ponies as a girl,’ her biographer wrote, ‘was much more than a teenage passion; it was both intuitive bonding and release into a private world. It was an understanding so well tuned that it would [be] fundamental to her later ability to paint horses with acute sensitivity yet without a trace of sentiment. Out of necessity, horses became a channel for her emotions, and though shy and modest in most things, where horses were concerned she was both articulate and bold.’72 From the 1890s until the 1950s, Kemp-Welsh painted images of heavy horses hauling lumber in forests, working in fields, or returning to barns. She continued painting these scenes even after the heavy-horse era had ended – a situation she would never have believed possible in her youth. Her art usually made horses so central thematically that she seldom included people in them. She also depicted war horses, painting scenes from South Africa and the First World War in her studio in Britain. She tried to get to the Western Front during the First World War, but her application was rejected. She did, however, produce powerful images of women working remounts at the depots in Britain and portraying the freedom that riding gave women. Kemp-Welsh’s work took her into the many roles that horses performed, and she admired both light and heavy animals. She was not usually breed conscious, looking instead for something special in each animal. She became intimately connected with the work of Anna Sewell. Kemp-Welsh illustrated the most significant edition of Black Beauty and, in doing so, immortalized a living horse, Black Prince. The animal belonged to Robert Baden-Powell and had served in the Boer War. The black charger was large – about 17 hands – and hard to handle. BadenPowell had decided to sell the horse or put it down when he met KempWelsh. In 1905 he lent her the animal to act as a model, but warned that the horse had never been ridden by a lady.73 When J.M. Dent asked Kemp-Welsh to illustrate a new edition of Black Beauty in 1915, Black

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28 This magnificent painting portrays the power of horses and their grace in performing tasks. The animals work together and, by their strength, Kemp-Welsh seems to say, society is sustained. Breeze across the Cornlands, Lucy Kemp-Welsh, oil on canvas, circa 1939.

Prince served as the model for her art and, in the process, became forever identified with the fictional horse. As Baden-Powell noted, KempWelsh managed to turn a temperamental charger into a children’s hero.74 A contemporary of Kemp-Welsh gave a slightly different vision of the horse within this period. Sir Alfred Munnings (1878–1959) spent his artistic life painting pictures of horses. ‘Although [horses] have given me

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much trouble and many sleepless nights, they have been my supporters, friends – my destiny, in fact,’ Munnings wrote. ‘Looking back at my life, interwoven with theirs – painting them, feeding them, riding them, thinking about them – I hope that I have learned something of their ways, their appetite, outlook and ideas. I have never ceased trying to understand them.’75 While he maintained a deep sensitivity for horses (and many would consider him the greatest horse painter since George Stubbs), his images were never as horse-centred as those of Kemp-Welsh. People always played a critical role in the art. Munnings’s work, however, revealed the importance of horses to everyday life in Britain over the turn of the century. He concentrated on working horses, both heavy and light, early in his career. He also painted pictures of ponies, light cobs, and animals at horse fairs. Some of his most impressive paintings would be done during the First World War, when he executed many images of horses and men in the Canadian army for the Canadian government. This work began at the remount depot at Calcot Park, where thousands of Canadian horses were brought before being shipped to France. Most were half-bred Percherons and served as artillery horses, called gunners.76 Munnings, however, like so many horse painters before him, would be best known for his portraits of race horses and sport horses of royalty and the gentry. After 1920 he devoted most of his time to that subject, and the art was often commissioned by the owners.77 Munnings may have reverted to a more traditional approach to horse painting after 1920, but that shift also reflected the very real change in the horse’s role in society: the centrality of the horse as a working animal was on the wane. Horses would increasingly be sport or hobby animals, light bred, and highly valued by the rich. The work of Kemp-Welsh did not portray that new role. She would paint and love the heavy horse as long as she lived. When they became harder to find, she either painted from memory or turned to any working horse she could find: circus and gypsy equine subjects took much of her attention in later life. Unlike Munnings, she rarely painted racing Thoroughbreds. The horse world was complex over the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Complicated business structures arose in both Canada and the United States to serve the marketing of breeding males. Stallion companies and syndicates could not always be clearly distinguished from each other. Companies were initiated to sell or rent out imported stallions, or for remount reasons, in the hope that they would improve all horse breeding. Syndicates, in contrast, originally arose to serve farm

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29 The model for Black Beauty in this picture, which appeared in the 1915 Dent edition of Black Beauty, was the Boer War charger Black Prince. What is so extraordinary about the image is the intensity of the horse’s focus on the man and boy in front of it. We feel the horse’s emotions more than those of the people about to buy the old animal, as is fitting in this horse-centred book. It Was an Anxious Time, Lucy Kemp-Welsh, oil on canvas, 1915.

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30 In this early painting by Munnings, workhorses are portrayed lovingly as objects of beauty and value. The mare and her foal are the main focus of the image. The man, in contrast, melts somewhat into the background. Sunny Jane, Sir Alfred Munnings, oil on canvas, 1901.

needs but quickly became infiltrated with fraudulent methods of forming joint-stock ventures for the benefit of dealers and importers. Fraudulent syndication and the contingent masking of unsoundness in stallions through horse tricks and other means seemed to be a major drive in the move to stallion regulation. Provinces and states with the worst syndicate problems and hidden unsoundness in stallions, particularly in the western part of the continent, legislated first. Syndication also seemed to be closely affiliated with the Percheron breed and with American interests. The importance of horses to society drove concern for their health. The predominance of problems in legs and feet would be a critical factor in the rise of the veterinary profession. In turn, military dependence on horses led the army to rely on veterinarians. The need for trained vets to

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31 In his later paintings, Munnings tended to concentrate on the sport of racing, though he still focused on the horses. As in figure 1, the horse illustrated here is a Thoroughbred. This breed played a central role in the evolution of all specialized and purebred horses. Going Out to Epsom, Sir Alfred Munnings, oil on canvas, circa 1931.

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undertake government inspection of soundness served as an impetus for the growth of veterinary education. Under that stimulation, the profession took on a more developed approach to education in relation to practices in the field and their connection to scientific research on veterinary affairs. Veterinary concerns widened, under these conditions, beyond those associated with clinical matters relating to horse feet and legs. The problem of infectious disease began to command attention. It is doubtful whether cattle plagues alone could have stimulated the support needed by the state to encourage the evolution of animal medicine. Veterinary employment expanded, both with the need to inspect for glanders and under the influence of new structures within the army. War, medical concerns, and the subsequent knowledge of animal suffering encouraged a general preoccupation with humanitarian issues. Movements to minimize cruelty to horses gathered momentum under this impetus. Literature magnified the need to control cruelty and also explained why the problem had become so serious: the importance of horses to society had led to their being seen en masse and as machines. In this environment, Anna Sewell’s Black Beauty became one of the most well-known and beloved books ever written. At the same time, the appreciation of the working horse in painting reached new heights during the latter half of the nineteenth century and the early part of the twentieth century, as a review of the work of a few artists makes clear. The workhorse is portrayed as the real hero of the age.

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Conclusion

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the horse remained central to the functioning of society, in spite of the fact that advancing technology made some of its uses obsolete. As late as 1920, most people still did not believe the working horse would vanish in the near future within Western industrial and agricultural life. The animals were so ubiquitous, too, that in many ways they remained virtually unseen, a fact that partially explains why comprehensive data were not collected. This lack of good documentation on the equine industry worried horsemen at the time, and often made it difficult for these people to make sense of underlying patterns in horse populations, breeding, markets, and culture. Then, rather suddenly, after years of listening to predictions that technology would make the horse redundant, people finally found that the day of the working horse had come to an end. It was too late to collect documentation, and also no longer necessary to do so. It is almost as if the working horse disappeared before anyone really knew it had happened. Certainly from a historian’s point of view, remarkably little clear statistical material has survived to trace the horse’s impact on life over the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This deficiency is more than compensated for, however, by qualified information arising from the thoughts of expert witnesses reporting to government commissions and from documented discussions that took place among horsemen. The world of the working horse over the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was complex, and it was made increasingly so by many interacting patterns. For instance, production itself was difficult because of conflicting theories on how to breed properly. Attitudes to all horse breeding reflected not just convictions arising from purebred

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breeding but also the particular culture embedded in Thoroughbred horse production. The situation was made more complicated when views associated with knowledge evolving in the life sciences (biology, genetics, evolution) interacted with purebred breeding and Thoroughbred horse culture. Other developments played a role in horse-breeding patterns. A clearer division between light and heavy types in ‘draft’ horses emerged and resulted in the appearance of heavier breeds (such as the Clydesdale and the Shire in Britain and the larger Percheron in France) and lighter breeds beyond the British Thoroughbred (most notably the American Standardbred). Extreme variation in type by light/heavy classifications made it hard to make horses fit into market varieties. When purebred breeding ideology overlaid light/heavy distinctions, the situation was worse. The ethos of the purebred system gradually eroded and/or confused prevailing views about what provided good type and even quality in horses. The fate of the cross-Shire/Clydesdale serves as an example of this phenomenon. Both the Shire and the Clyde had evolved from a pattern of interbreeding the two types together. By the late nineteenth century, animals produced by such strategies could not find import markets into the United States, a fact that in turn changed attitudes to the value of the Shire/Clyde in both Britain and Canada. Americans demanded that Clydes and Shires both be pure and that they carry authentic pedigrees to prove they were so. Purebred breeding played a role in driving market structure, then, and captured trade incentives – favourable tariff status. This situation would come to affect the trade in all horses. Eventually ‘type’ itself, as well as quality, came to be translated into ‘breed’ characteristics. The history of the French Percheron shows another way that a ‘type’ was forced to become a ‘breed’ in order to meet American demand. French horsemen bred for a heavier style of Percheron and set up a stud book for this stock, not because they found such animals more desirable or believed a stud book improved breeding methods but because Americans wanted heavier horses and proof of ‘pure’ breeding. The heavy type and its association with ‘breed’ resulted in what would comprise the major aspects of the purebred horse industry in both Europe and North America. Lighter types as breeds never played anything like as significant a role in the purebred horse world as did the breeds representing heavier animals. Purebred breeders also played a disproportionately important role in the entire horse industry and market, probably because the cultural environment of the time defined improved quality in

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all domestic animals in terms of ‘pure’ breeding. Heredity, generally, was understood through the effects of purebred breeding, in spite of the rediscovery of Mendel’s laws in 1900. While the purebred horse world was dominated by heavy drafts, most working horses were not in fact as heavy as Clydes, Shires, or Percherons. The vast majority of heavy horses working in these environments were not as large and did not weigh as much as animals belonging to those pure breeds. Many hundreds of thousands continued to be much lighter, weighing as little as 1,000 pounds. Nor did heavy drafts come into existence because of the needs of agriculture. The heavy horse was a phenomenon of industrialization and was needed to serve railway companies, in cities, mines, lumber camps, and on construction sites. Farmers preferred light stock for field work. Farm journals increasingly bemoaned the predominance of the lighter, agricultural generalpurpose horse and called the animal a drag on the market, but farmers preferred these horses for agricultural work, and farmers were the main producers of horses serving all markets. Farmers could change tactics, however, when the ability to sell light or medium-sized general-purpose horses fell so low that it was not worth keeping them. The growing urban/industrial need for heavy over light horses played a role in this transition, and eventually influenced what farmers chose to breed. Horses performing farm work became heavier only because a lucrative market demanded them for export and for city or industrial use. Another phenomenon that made the world of the horse so complex was the continually changing and evolving level of technology and its interaction with horses. Shifting technology made attempts to produce working horses that fit certain niches with light/heavy or purebred/ grade varieties even more difficult, while simultaneously complicating and enlarging on the need for horses. It also specialized the jobs that the animals did. Increased job specialization made it harder for horsemen to make sensible breeding decisions in relation to the heavy/light issue and the breed/grade divide. The fact that the world of the working horse was international or global in nature and reflected the demands of the international market made production even more complicated. Horses raised on farms, and normally produced for home use, could end up on a complicated international market. The increasingly international nature of the horse market over this period can be seen particularly well in the buying and selling of horses for war. The story of the remount – any horse serving with armed forces of the cavalry, mounted infantry, artillery, and transport divisions – shows

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how international markets, technology, farm production, and the effects of light/heavy and purebred/grade classifications interplayed with each other during this last flowering of the working horse. Efforts to control the horse supply in Britain would have effects around the world, but most particularly in North America. Technology (the steam engine, electric city tramways, bicycle, and internal combustion engine) had shifted the way horses were produced, and therefore what stock would be available for war purposes. Animals did not necessarily have the qualities that armies wanted, even though virtually all encouragement for horse production had emanated out of the war departments of governments. The Crimean War initiated changes in horse production in Europe, Britain, and North America. The Franco-Prussian War brought the issue to a head in Britain, and in the end stimulated weak efforts, normally aimed only at the Thoroughbred, to promote good horse breeding. The Boer War showed how ineffective many of these initiatives had been in preserving a good supply of horses. It also revealed the way technology allowed for the use of horses at an unprecedented rate (steamships could transport hundreds of thousands of horses many thousands of miles at sea to a war front far from home) and dictated what type of animal would be available. British buying of remounts in the United States made horse experts in that country acutely aware of this problem. How could an army go into battle with cavalry and mounted infantry carried by heavy draft horses and effectively face an enemy properly mounted on good saddle horses? The disconnect between available animals and the obvious future need for them resulted in the more active involvement of government in the regulation of the breeding of horses. Horses played a vital role in the First World War. Britain, as in the Boer War, would rely on the United States for foreign horse supplies. As in the Boer War as well, that situation aggravated continental tension. Crossborder issues, such as transshipping American horses through Canada or visa versa, aided some people but hurt others. While farmers in the United States might have benefited from sales more than their Canadian counterparts, railway and steamship companies in Canada found good business in moving American horses through to Britain. Canada’s unique position with respect to Britain, when compared to that of the United States, caused special difficulties for Canada. The fact that Canada was part of the British Empire made the nation anxious to sell horses to the British army, but at the same time Britain saw Canada as a safe reserve for

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remounts and resisted making heavy purchases until absolutely necessary. The position of a country itself at war, and therefore needing to supply animals to its own army at the same time as selling to another army, only made the situation worse. Canadian farmers found themselves with horses on their hands that they could not use and had no market for because technology had made them redundant, at the same time that they witnessed what appeared to be minimal purchasing efforts by the Canadian government and British buying mainly in the United States. When the United States entered the First World War, the huge army horse trade in that country became more troubled than when the United States was at peace. Curious contradictions arose with respect to beliefs about the horse population and its value and quality both during and after the First World War. The cry everywhere was shortages, even though many farmers could not sell to the armed forces. Shortages often pertained to the availability of desired types, particularly riding stock. North Americans generally bred lighter horses for carriage, not riding work. That meant that thousands of animals in the general horse pool were not wanted. At the end of the war, the surplus of unsellable horses was staggering. Nothing could prove better that the varieties of type, through breeding strategies relating to heavy/light and breed/type in relation to changing technology, had resulted in a horse population that poorly matched the needs of ever more specialized forms of work. Animals that did not fit into rigid sectors of the market were often labelled as scrub or useless. The First World War finally forced the American government to become directly involved in the breeding of horses for the army. As with so many aspects of horse/technology relations, an understanding of how the two interacted was difficult to understand. Elaborate government intervention in horse breeding to ensure army needs came at a time when the role of the horse in war had, in fact, ended. Interest in the army’s testing of stamina in riding horses played a large role in horse breeding in the 1920s, and, ironically, the rise of remount breeding stations and concern for stamina in army horses ultimately played an important part in what would be a huge horse industry by the 1980s that had nothing to do with military concerns. The lucrative Arabian horse industry of the late twentieth century owed much to the connection of the army after 1918 to horse breeding. Stations that bred government horses supported critical centres for Arabian horses at a time when the breed was relatively rare in the United States. Remount issues, then, laid the groundwork for the modern horse world and the use of the horse for recreational purposes.

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Remount concerns underlay the move to regulatory legislation for control of horse breeding in most Anglo countries – a pattern that was not natural in the English-speaking countries but, historically, had been part of European horse-breeding culture for centuries. The 1890 report of the British Horse Commission was particularly significant in this respect and laid out, among other things, the professional veterinary approach to the problem of heredity in horses. The 1890 report served as the blueprint for governments in American states and Canadian provinces when they attempted to legislate for quality in horses in relation to heredity at the end of the nineteenth century. Other factors in the horse industry encouraged such regulation. In the United States, worries over fraudulent pedigrees had developed. Because of the hot import market, especially for the heavy drafts (‘pure’ Clydes, Shires, and Percherons), and the American devotion to pedigrees as a guarantee of quality, some importers and horsemen had found they could dupe American farmers by providing false papers for cheap horses or for crossbred Clyde/Shires. Dishonest stallion companies encouraged that pattern. These companies emerged from older syndicate systems that had originally developed among farmers to pool the necessary money to buy stallions. But as early as the 1880s, syndicates generally had changed character and, in the process, had become increasingly corrupt. Stallion companies were formed by dealers who ‘peddled’ stallions and convinced a number of farmers to jointly and severally buy what were often poor animals – sometimes animals carrying bogus pedigrees. It was a method of unloading cheap and useless stallions by large importing companies. This situation, of course, undermined the position of horsemen owning stallions qualified for legitimate pedigrees. Syndication, as a result, spurred on American purebred owners in their desire to have stallion enrolment and inspection legislation in place. Fraudulent activity often aggravated cross-border issues between the United States and Canada, and it also interplayed with the interests of purebred breeders and owners for tariff reasons. The problem of fraudulent pedigrees entered the Canadian West, chiefly through the trading practices of American Percheron importers and breeders. Purebred horse owners increasingly demanded protection from such activity. Stallion enrolment and inspection schemes sprung up very rapidly at local – state and provincial – levels in Canada and the United States just before and after the Boer War. Men in the stallion business who took the animals out to stand at public stud had to enrol the animals and, as time passed, were compelled to have the horses inspected for unsoundness problems studied and listed in the 1890

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report of the British Horse Commission. At first a number of grade stallions were allowed under the legislation to breed, but purebred stallion owners from the beginning had seen the laws as devised to promote their interests: protection of what they believed should be their market exclusively. In the end they managed to force most governments to legislate against grade stallions being allowed to travel for public breeding purposes. It was a marketing triumph by owners of purebred stallions, and it ensured that they could raise the breeding fee they charged. The whole stallion enrolment and inspection issue enraged many people for that very reason – it provided protection for a small and specific group. It also seemed to many that governments had no right, and were unequipped, to tell a farmer how to breed. Stallion enrolment and inspection would not develop in Britain until after the First World War. A look at the stallion legislation movement within Ontario shows how important purebred market interests really were to the whole movement, because the simple issue of fraudulent pedigrees was less strident in that province than in either western Canada or the United States generally. Fraudulent activities, however, were not confined to syndicates. Horse-trading tricks were legendary, and a review of only a few of them shows how treacherous it could be for the uneducated to deal in the horse market. Detailed documentation of the enrolment movement in Ontario also reveals how purebred owners managed to get the control they wanted. It took them close to twenty years to achieve their ends. The story of North American stallion legislation is really one of attempts by the breeder/owners to protect the intellectual property found in the genetics of their purebred horses. Legitimate pedigrees guaranteed, or patented, purebred status, and false pedigrees undermined the force of certification found in valid ones. The story is also interesting because it illustrates the dynamics of Canadian-American relations within a transatlantic context. The agenda of farmers and purebred breeders in each country was surprisingly similar, and showed regional as well as national tensions. Fraudulent pedigree activity might, for example, have entered the Canadian West from the United States, but eastern Americans were just as concerned with the issue as were eastern Canadians. Provinces and states used each other’s experience when up-grading legislation, and they were all independently influenced by the 1890 report of the British Horse Commission. The importance of this complex horse world in the United States, Britain, and Canada led to other developments. The ubiquitous presence of horses in the urban and industrial world made horse medicine

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important. Horses and their diseases, as well as ‘soundness’ problems, had always been central to the welfare of veterinary affairs and, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, played an even more critical role in the development of the modern veterinary profession, in the study of comparative pathology, and in the understanding of immunity generally. The move of animal medicine from primarily practical work to a combination with scientific investigation cannot be seen outside horse problems. The existence of government inspection for diseases like glanders, on top of that for the licensing of stallions for soundness, provided employment for veterinarians, stimulating the development of veterinary schools in both North America and Britain. The North American profession would take the British system as its role model when it modernized over the period. Army affairs continued to have a profound affect on the profession in Britain by supporting the schools and being a major employer of vets, even in peace time. Humanitarian moves to care for the animals and educate the public grew with increasing strength over the period. War played a role in that phenomenon too. The loss of life to horses during the Boer War had so horrified people that, when the First World War broke out, voluntary organizations took some responsibility for horse health within armies. This outpouring owed much to the enormous popularity of Anna Sewell’s Black Beauty, a timeless book that revealed much of the horse world in this industrial age. Sewell had campaigned against many aspects of cruelty to horses at a time when the very ubiquitous nature of their presence almost made them unseen. Horse culture and shifts within it are well illustrated in changing attitudes to the painting of horses. Lucy Kemp-Welsh reveals the dependence of society on horses in her portrayal of the work horse as a hero. Her horse-centred images did not change over her lifetime, even though horses by the 1950s were clearly on the decline. Sir Alfred Munnings serves as another example of an artist whose life was dominated by the horse and its role in society over the period. He painted war horses and working animals, but moved to portraiture of the racing Thoroughbred when work horses went into decline after 1920. The working horse, light or heavy, no longer plays a significant role in Western society. But horses used for pleasure and sport, more likely to be light but sometimes heavy (Shires and Clydes, almost extinct for a time, are making a comeback), have found increasing favour in recent times. While the equine species has served sport and entertainment purposes

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for thousands of years, probably in fact from the time of domestication, the late twentieth century witnessed a huge growth of interest in horses for recreation. Breeding conflicts do not seem to have evaporated with this shift of emphasis from work-horse production to pleasure-horse production. Many of the problems, conflicts, and contradictory culture arising from a criss-crossing of traditional horse-breeding theory and the ethos of purebred breeding help explain the dynamics in present-day pleasure-horse breeding. Some trends in modern horse breeding make little sense if viewed outside these historical roots. To illustrate how closely patterns in contemporary horse-breeding practices reflect an uneven union of past trends, it is probably easiest to follow developments in one particular breed – the Arabian. It is the oldest breed of horse, and the culture embedded in its production from its Bedouin times in Arabia have not just clung tenaciously to the Arabian itself but also laid the groundwork for the Thoroughbred horse-breeding theory that ultimately affected all purebred breeding in horses. I have indicated how critical the Arabian was to the development of many horse breeds, in its own right and also through the Thoroughbred. I have noted what an important role it played in the European production of remounts, and how, in turn, the remount situation within the United States triggered an explosive growth in the popularity of Arabians for their own sake, worldwide, after the mid-twentieth century. Recent patterns within the Arabian horse industry, however, show that even this breed – the original font of purity, and to some people the very embodiment of pure breeding itself – was not impervious to traditional eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century European horse-breeding theories that prevailed before heavy-horse production introduced purebred breeding to the equine world.1 In the 1970s new patterns began to develop within the American Arabian horse world. Some breeders became less interested in breed purity than in cross-breeding with the Saddlebred, to achieve a better, high-stepping show horse. This trend would ultimately cause great friction within the Arabian horse world and would also reflect how entangled profitability and markets concerns could be with breeding decisions. The deliberate cross-breeding of Arabians, in attempts to produce new types, was of course anything but new. What was new in this particular case was the underlying sense that the Arabian itself could be improved and/or made more marketable in the process. A re-emergence of allegiance to ‘type’ (the traditional approach of Western horsemen before late nineteenth-century horse production) was developing within

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the Arabian horse world. One man played an important role in promoting the new Arabian/Saddlebred type. Gene LaCroix shared the conviction of others that the Saddlebred/Arabian cross resulted in a saddle show horse that was better than either breed, and in 1981 he decided to give the cross-breeding practice better market credibility. LaCroix named the cross-breds, calling them National Show Horses (NSH), and in 1982 established an independent registry for them, but he did not set up a closed stud book. He regulated how the interbreeding of the American Saddlebred and the Arabian would work, however, by allowing only nominated stallions (under the direction of the National Show Horse Registry’s board) from either breed to sire foals eligible for recording. National Show Horses were to have as little as 25 per cent Arabian blood or as much as 99 per cent.2 While LaCroix was interested in producing quality horses on the basis of selection for good type, his vision was equally influenced by his sense of marketing. At the National Arabian Horse Show of 1982, where many animals carrying Saddlebred blood were eligible for entry as HalfArabians, the new registry offered prize money to horses with National Show Horse Registry (NSHR) pedigrees. Entries in the new stud book rose immediately from 90 to 400. Within a year of operation, the registry had issued 1,400 pedigrees and had listed 190 nominated stallions. Soon shows for NSHR horses were held and, by 1985, fully orchestrated sales were also run – both of which enhanced the monetary value of the animals.3 By running an open stud book with regulations designed to protect quality and type, and by providing marketing devices such as show and sale operations, LaCroix was able to organize and formalize breeding efforts already in existence and then to capitalize on the increased marketability of the resulting horses, as did his fellow breeders as well. Desire for quality and type in breeding, then, could be allied with trade issues. It was a lesson that LaCroix would not forget. Shortly after 2000, he began a new cross-breeding program and a new registry system to support it. This time LaCroix was interested in combining the genetics of the Dutch Warmblood and the Arabian, and in using the European culture of inspection and licensing as a method of setting standards for entry into an open stud book. The complicated cultural interplay in this endeavour – type versus purebred, open versus closed studbook, evaluation versus no evaluation for right to hold a pedigree – cannot be understood properly without some information generally on warmbloods (what they are and where they came from) as well as the historical development of the Dutch Warmblood itself.

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Warmbloods are horses that result from various crosses of so-called cold blood from the heavy draft types or breeds on the so-called hot blood of the Arabian, Thoroughbred, Hackney, Saddlebred, or Morgan. Warmbloods are not ‘breeds’ the same way that cold and hot blood breeds are, in that they are not pedigreed solely on the basis of genealogy. They have registry systems that maintain open stud books, and therefore profit from hybrid vigour that comes with outcrosses. Most originated in central Europe and have an ancient heritage. They were all originally working types, designed to meet agricultural needs, provide transportation for rural people, or supply rulers with remounts for the army. Warmbloods reflect breeding strategies concerned with type, not breed, and also the belief that individual animals should be evaluated by inspection and subsequently licensed – patterns that British and North American breeders historically viewed as interference with personal liberty. One example of a warmblood is the Trakehner, produced under King Frederick Wilhelm 1 of Prussia at royal studs where the Arabian, Thoroughbred, and native mares were interbred to produce army horses. For some time the name Trakehner referred simply to any horse born at Trakehnen. The Hanoverian is another type of German warmblood. It too emanated primarily out of a state stud established in Lower Saxony in the eighteenth century. The horse was bred for cavalry and agricultural needs by crossing local horses on Thoroughbreds. Hanoverians, like Trakehners, are robust horses with good bone. Horses of warmblood background began to enter North America shortly after the Second World War and served as competitive hunters and jumpers. They were desirable because their extra size and heavier bone, over the Thoroughbred in particular, gave them better stamina for jumping events. The breeding methods applied to the warmbloods – open registries, emphasis on type, and standards set by inspection – reintroduced North Americans to horse-breeding patterns that had been prevalent before the advent of purebred breeding in horses. The Dutch Warmblood, the warmblood that would become linked to the Arabian in the United States, was derived in the Netherlands from various crosses of French, German, and English horses on local animals. Over the years, two distinct types of Dutch Warmbloods appeared: the smaller, more active animal from Gelderland, and the heavier one from Groningen. The types were freely interbred with each other. A third type, a harness horse known as a Tuigpaard, appeared at least one hundred years ago. A stud book for the Dutch Warmblood was set up as early as 1887, but attempts to control breeding through inspection of

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stallions for approval started as early as 1610. A more formal system for registering the various types of Dutch horses was organized in 1969 under the Koninklijk Warmbloed Paardenstamboek Nederland, or the KWPN Studbook. Three separate horse types qualify as Dutch Warmbloods: the riding-horse (largest section), the Gelders horse (also generally ridden), and the Dutch Harness Horse. It is this last one that would become part of the American Arabian horse world through Gene LaCroix.4 The Dutch Harness Horse was developed from early strains of the Dutch Warmblood carriage or driving (as opposed to riding) horses, with the addition of Hackney and American Saddlebred blood in the twentieth century, in the attempt to produce a high-stepping elegant show animal that could be either driven or ridden. It is, like all Dutch Warmbloods, pedigreed by the KWPN. But to be recorded in this stud book, all horses must undergo rigid inspection, called keuring, generally speaking starting at the age of three years. Mares are evaluated for conformation and movement, but are subsequently further ranked in accordance with the quality of the foals they produce. Inspection and testing of stallions is more stringent than that of mares. Every year young stallions must undergo a seventy-day test, where conformation, paces, and attitude are assessed, and genetic testing for defects is done (the KWPN claims it has reduced the incident of navicular disease in these horses). If the stallions meet certain standards, they are classified as either ‘keur’ (choice) or, at a higher level, as ‘preferent’ (preferred).5 In 1983 the KWPN set up the North American Department, called the NA/WPN, for the Dutch Warmblood in the United States to promote the horse in that country. The name of the NA/WPN was changed to the Dutch Warmblood Studbook of North America in 1997. The riding type used for jumping and dressage has maintained the most popularity in the United States. The Dutch Harness Horse was relatively unknown, fewer than ten being imported originally to the United States. In 1999, however, an American breeder of Saddlebreds, Clarke Vestry, came in contact with a Dutch breeder of Dutch Harness Horses, Marcel Ritsma. The result was a partnership and the import in the year 2000 of several Dutch Harness Horses to La Grange, Kentucky, where Vestry lived and also the home of Gene LaCroix. By the end of 2000, 75–100 Dutch Harness Horses had been exported to the United States. The KWPN reacted quickly to this rapid growth in sales by setting up systems for inspection of Dutch Harness Horses specifically for recording purposes in North America. The first keuring of Dutch Harness Horses (or DHH)

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in North America took place under the Dutch authorities in the summer of 2001 in Kentucky. The European open registry, with its contingent regulations regarding licensing, came with the breed to North America. Gene LaCroix recognized quickly that demand (stimulated by the National Show Horse Registry’s work) for high-stepping horses of Saddlebred/Arabian background was strong enough to warrant the suggestion that a new cross-breeding practice – combining the Dutch Harness Horse with the Arabian – could bring even better results. Using a recording system designed to resemble the Dutch keuring method, LaCroix added another new dimension to his scheme.6 By this point, LaCroix himself owned and was promoting a DHH keur-approved stallion.7 He set up what was known as the Renai Registry and hoped to show the Arabian horse world not just the value of the new warmbloods in the breeding of show horses but the advantages of the breeding culture that produced them. As he explained: For long-term success, a responsible horse breed organization must protect, perpetuate and constantly improve the breed it governs. Leadership must establish clear standards of excellence. Conformation, movement and athletic function must be absolute prerequisite to the achievement of these standards. In some of the pure breeds of horses today, particularly the Arabian, these qualities have been compromised in favor of ‘breed type’ or ‘fashion’ and their popularity significantly diminished. This is not fair to the fine integrity of these fine breeds, nor to the breeders, owners, and trainers that aspire to realize their maximum potential. Until now there has been no choice or better alternatives for those wishing to say loyal to their breed.8

LaCroix organized a system for approval and licensing of stallions within three divisions of the Renai Registry. Division A recorded stallions of various breeds that had been inspected and approved under conditions that resembled the keuring of the DHH. These stallions were to be foundation sires of what would be known as the Renai Horse. Division B registered pure Arabians, also inspected but only after 2004, and these were labelled Renaissance Arabians. Division C listed stallions belonging to all show breeds, including the NSH, and even admitted qualified ‘cross-breds’ or grades.9 He also started orchestrating shows and sales in 2002 for the developing Renai ‘breed’ and for Renai-registered horses.10 At the same time that LaCroix was promoting the DHH as a show horse, its crossing on the Arabian for improvement of the Arabian as a highgaited horse, and the system of Dutch keuring for pedigree purposes, he

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attacked systems in place for the purebred Arabian, such as show structures and the lack of accepted breed standards.11 He was not alone. Many Arabian horse breeders were disenchanted by 2003 with the quality of breeding, and, especially, the show situation and its relationship to breeding practices. A few quotations from letters to the Arabian Horse World are worth including. ‘I knew fifteen years ago,’ one person wrote, ‘that the Arabian breed was in trouble when our sweet, beautiful horses were turning into an animal bred for nothing but halter [conformation exhibition] ... I refuse to show my horses at any allArabian shows because of the methods of showing, the artificiality, the trainer’s win-at-all-cost attitude, and the poor judging.’ Another letter commented: ‘I concur with everything [bad] that I have read regarding the judging of the breed. I have been out of showing since 1989. I cannot express enough the change I have witnessed.’12 Some thought poor judging resulted from the fact that no proper breed standard existed.13 The American system was based on the scoring of three judges, who used their overall judgment on the quality of each animal in front of them – a subjective and loose system at best. In Germany at this time, for example, exhibited Arabian stallions were inspected in order to evaluate them for breeding purposes. Stallions were assessed on a score of one to ten in defined and clearly understood categories: type, head, topline, frame, front legs, back legs, correction of movement, elasticity of movement, walk, development, and overall expression. If they past these tests, they were then re-evaluated at a trot and canter.14 Many breeders identified the main problem in the Arabian horse world as the general infiltration of Saddlebred blood in both the breeding of Arabians and in shows. More and more Saddlebred/Arabians entered shows as Half-Arabians, and many people believed the phenomenon resulted largely from LaCroix’s work over the previous thirty years. Purity, not cross-breeding, defined quality and also type, these breeders argued, in their adherence to the purebred outlook and the ancient view that Arabians were the original and the best of improved horses. Emphasis on the Saddlebred in the NSH, and now in the Renai, using the DHH and the Saddlebred, seemed to have undermined the purebred Arabian horse industry. A breeder with well over fifty years’ experience with Arabians and half-Arabians explained: I always [bred half-Arabians] so that Arabian blood could improve the other breed involved. I don’t believe there is another breed on earth that can improve the purebred Arabian. I think the alternative is to choose another

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breed if you don’t like the purebred Arabian for some inexplicable reason. I love other breeds. Thoroughbreds bred for conformation and jumping I think are spectacular. They can sometimes be improved on with Arabian blood. Some of the large European breeds such as the Trakehner and Dutch Warmblood are magnificent beasts. They can be improved by Arabian blood and indeed it is frequently used. Using those breeds to produce something for us is totally non-productive because we don’t get a better Arabian nor do we get anything as good for its purpose as the other breed involved. I love to see a spectacular Saddlebred, but the Half-Arabian version is just short of ridiculous in comparison.15

Many Arabian breeders agreed with this point of view. One stated: ‘The Half-Arabians certainly have their place, but it is not sharing the stage with the breed that made their existence possible ... [I have seen] many Half-Arabians looking, and often times performing like Saddlebreds. If I wanted to see that I would [go] to a Saddlebred show.’ Another letter to the Arabian Horse World added: ‘We find the promotion of the HalfArabian at the expense of the purebred the most distressing trend.’16 One correspondent to the journal suggested that its name be changed to the ‘Half-Saddlebred World.’ (The editor of the journal took exception to this comment and stated that the Arabian produced beautiful crosses.)17 Conditions in the modern Arabian horse world illustrate how old trends have resurfaced in horse-breeding patterns and that, even within this breed, an allegiance to type over breed is again alive and well in horse circles. I have found it interesting visiting the Royal Winter Fair in Toronto over the last few years to see how that pattern has been reflected in what is represented in horse exhibits. There have been significant changes in what is called the cavalcade of horses. Here horses were displayed until a few years ago under traditional breeds – the Arabian, the Thoroughbred, the Shire, the Clyde, the Hackney, or the Saddlebred. Today we are more likely to see the ‘Sport’ horse, the ‘Mountain’ horse, the ‘Show’ horse, and possibly a warmblood or the types that are registered by colour: Pinto and Palomino. The world of the Arabian also shows how much European culture – with respect to old concerns of licensing and inspection – has infiltrated the ethos of purebred breeding and its recording in English-speaking countries. The trend has not been without friction. Within this environment of patterns in breeding practices, modern genetics has played a surprisingly small role. Population genetics seems to have affected horse-breeding decisions only in the most informal way,

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unlike the situation in cattle, sheep, and swine breeding. As with all animal breeding, however, genetics has been used to identify carriers of genetic defects in horses wherever that is possible. The world of horse breeding practices reveals, in some ways, how impervious animal production can to the advances made in the biological sciences. Between 1850 and 1920, horses influenced and were influenced by the whole fabric of the industrial world. It could be argued that it is hard or impossible to understand this age properly without taking into account the role of horses in it. And, conversely, knowledge of the horse industry and culture can tell us much about the way many sectors of society developed in that period. This situation no longer exists, probably because horses are not essential to the way society runs. They are not critical to the mechanics of society, do not play a significant role in either military or veterinary affairs, and are no longer ubiquitous in everyday life. But they are still very much with us, and the nature and dynamics of modern pleasure-horse breeding make little sense if they are viewed outside past patterns that came into existence over the heyday of the working horse.

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Notes

Introduction 1 Grant MacEwan, Heavy Horses: Highlights of Their History (Saskatoon: Western Producers Prairie Books, 1986), 118. 2 The magnificent display of armour at the Royal Palace in Madrid, Spain, shows how the equine metal covering matched the shape of a horse’s shoulder and rump, as well as the animal’s head. The armour therefore indicates the width of chest, size of rump, and shape of head of the horse wearing the protection. When the armour is seen mounted on equine statues, it is obvious that it did not fit heavy draft horses. 3 See, for example, Illustrated London News, 24 November 1917, front page. 4 Two articles on the subject which look at the problem from the point of view of the development of technology are: R.E. Ankli, ‘Horses vs. Tractors on the Corn Belt,’ Agricultural History 54 (1980): 134–48; and G.P.A. Mon and D.A. Kirsch, ‘Technologies in Tension: Horses, Electric Trucks, and the Motorization of American Cities, 1900–1925,’ Technology and Culture 42 (2001): 489–518. 5 D. Goodhall, A History of Horse Breeding (London: Robert Hall, 1977), 183. 6 See, for example, R.F. Moore-Colyer, ‘Aspects of the Trade in British Pedigree Draught Horses with the United States and Canada, c. 1850–1900,’ Agricultural History Review 48 (2000): 54, 55; F.L.M. Thompson, ‘Nineteenth-Century Horse Sense,’ Economic History Review, 2nd series, 19 (1976): 60. 7 See, for example, Marquess of Anglesey, A History of the British Cavalry, 1816– 1919, volume 4 (London: Leo Cooper, 1986), 287, 294. Chapter One: Modern Purebred Breeding 1 N. Russell, Like Engend’ring Like: Heredity and Animal Breeding in Early Modern England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 2–4.

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Notes to pages 4–8

2 D. Goodall, A History of Horse Breeding (London: Robert Hall, 1977), 33; T. Grandin, ed., Genetics and the Behaviour of Domestic Animals (London: Academic Press, 1998), 20–38, 48. 3 J. Clutton-Brock, A Natural History of Domesticated Animals, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 40. 4 V. Orel and R.J. Wood, ‘Scientific Animal Breeding in Moravia before and after the Discovery of Mendel’s Theory,’ Quarterly Review of Biology 75 (2000): 151; V. Orel, ‘The Spectre of Inbreeding in the Early Investigation of Heredity,’ History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences (HPLS) 19 (1997): 321. 5 V. Orel and R.J. Wood, ‘Early Development in Artificial Selection as a Background to Mendel’s Research,’ HPLS 3 (1981): 151. 6 Russell, Like Engend’ring Like, 104. 7 R.J. Wood and V. Orel, Genetic Prehistory in Selective Breeding: A Prelude to Mendel (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 72. 8 M.E. Derry, Bred for Perfection: Shorthorn Cattle, Collies, and Arabian Horses since 1800 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003), 4–5. 9 Wood and Orel, Genetic Prehistory in Selective Breeding, 72. 10 See Keith Thomas, Man and the Natural World: Changing Attitudes in England, 1500–1800 (London: Allen Lane, 1983); Wood and Orel, Genetic Prehistory in Selective Breeding, 38. 11 For more on eighteenth-century crop and animal husbandry, see G. Fussell, ‘Animal Husbandry in Eighteenth-Century England,’ Agricultural History Review (AHR) 11 (1937): 96–116, and ‘Crop Husbandry in EighteenthCentury England,’ AHR 15 (1941): 202–16 and 16 (1942): 41–63. See also Wood and Orel, Genetic Prehistory in Selective Breeding. 12 For more on agricultural developments generally between 1700 and 1900, see J.V. Beckett, The Agricultural Revolution (Oxford: Blackwell, 1990); J. Thirsk, gen. ed., Cambridge Agrarian History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967–91), vol. 6: G. Mingay, The Agrarian History of England and Wales, 1700–1850 (1967); vol. 8: E.H. Wetham, The Agrarian History of England and Wales, 1914–38 (1978); and M. Overton, Agricultural Revolution in England: The Transformation of the Agrarian Economy, 1500–1850 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996). 13 See R. Perren, The Meat Trade in Britain, 1840–1914 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978). 14 R. Trow-Smith, A History of British Livestock Husbandry, 1700–1900 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1959). 15 See Wood and Orel, Genetic Prehistory in Selective Breeding, 82. 16 Derry, Bred for Perfection, 4. 17 Wood and Orel, Genetic Prehistory in Selective Breeding, 89.

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18 E. Heath-Agnew, A History of Hereford Cattle and Their Breeders (London: Duckworth, 1983), 34. 19 A. Sanders, Short-Horn Cattle: A Series of Historical Sketches, Memoirs and Records of the Breed and Its Development in the United States and Canada (Chicago: Sanders, 1900), 31, 34–5, 37–9, 44; see also S. Wright, ‘Mendelian Analysis of the Pure Bred Breeds of Livestock. Part 2: The Duchess Family of Shorthorns as Bred by Thomas Bates,’ Journal of Heredity (J of H) 14 (1923): 405. 20 Quoted in B. Glass, O. Temkin, and W.L. Straus Jr, eds., Forerunners of Darwin, 1745–1859 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1951), 75. 21 R.J. Wood, ‘Robert Bakewell, Pioneer Animal Breeder, and His Influence on Charles Darwin,’ Folia Mendelianna 8 (1973): 239. See also C. Darwin, On the Origin of Species (London: John Murray, 1859), 12–40. 22 Darwin, Origin of Species, 12–40. 23 M. Ruse, ‘Charles Darwin and Artificial Selection,’ Journal of the History of Ideas 36 (1975): 344, 347. 24 Wood and Orel, Genetic Prehistory in Selective Breeding, 215, 237. 25 V. Orel, ‘Selection Practice and Theory of Heredity in Moravia before Mendel,’ Folia Mendelianna 12 (1977): 180, 185, 187, 191–2, 194, 195. 26 Sanders, Short-Horn Cattle, 75. 27 See Wright, ‘Mendelian Analysis of the Pure Bred Breeds of Livestock, Part 2,’ 405–22; Sanders, Short-Horn Cattle, 81–5. 28 J. Lush, ‘Notes on Animal Breeding,’ unpublished manuscript, 1933, chapter 3. 29 H. Ritvo, The Animal Estate (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987), 61. 30 Proceedings of the Fourth Meeting of the American Shorthorn Association, 1876, 22. 31 Wood and Orel, Genetic Prehistory in Selective Breeding, 264. 32 Charles Darwin, The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998; reprint of the 1883 edition, originally published in 1868), 1: 447. 33 Darwin, On the Origin of Species, 13. 34 Farmer’s Advocate, January 1876, 13. 35 Farming, February 1896, 337. 36 Wood and Orel, Genetic Prehistory in Selective Breeding, 215, 222, 247, 237–8. 37 L.C. Dunn, A Short History of Genetics: The Development of Some of the Main Lines of Thought, 1864–1939 (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1965), 18–19. 38 B. Kimmelman, ‘The American Breeders’ Association: Genetics and Eugenics in an Agricultural Context, 1903–1913,’ Social Studies of Science 13 (1983): 163–204. 39 American Breeders’ Magazine 3 (1912): 271.

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Notes to pages 15–20

40 D.F. Jones, Genetics in Plant and Animal Improvement (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1925), 486, 487. 41 W. Provine, Sewell Wright and Evolutionary Biology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986), 36–7, 43, 54, 135, 141, 159. See also W.E. Castle, ‘Some Biological Principles of Animal Breeding,’ American Breeders’ Magazine 3 (1912): 270–83. 42 W.E. Castle, Heredity in Relation to Evolution and Animal Breeding (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1911), 151. 43 Provine, Sewell Wright and Evolutionary Biology, 146–56. 44 See S. Wright, ‘Mendelian Analysis of the Pure Breeds of Livestock, Part 1: The Measurement of Inbreeding and Relationship,’ J of H 14 (1923): 339– 48, and ‘Mendelian Analysis of the Pure Bred Breeds of Livestock, Part 2.’ 45 Provine, Sewell Wright and Evolutionary Biology, 140. 46 Ritvo, The Animal Estate, 302, and his Platypus and the Mermaid and Other Figments of the Classifying Imagination (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997), 120. 47 P. Mazumdar, Eugenics, Human Genetics and Human Failings: The Eugenics Society, Its Sources and Critics in Britain (London: Routledge, 1992), 3, 15, 58–9. 48 P. Bowler, The Non-Darwinian Revolution: Reinterpreting a Historical Myth (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988), 108, 112–13, 169. 49 Mazumdar, Eugenics, Human Genetics and Human Failings, 58–9, 71. 50 Angus McLaren, Our Own Master Race: Eugenics in Canada, 1885–1945 (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1990), 16, 17. 51 See, for example, O.A.C. Review, December 1913, 138–42, and ‘Eugenics on the Farm,’ J of H 7 (1916): 47. 52 Bowler, Non-Darwinian Revolution, 169. 53 See Ritvo, The Platypus and the Mermaid, 69. 54 See, for example, W.E. Castle, ‘Biological and Social Consequences of RaceCrossing,’ J of H 15 (1924): 363–9. 55 The compulsion to divide the purebreds into substructures known as ‘families’ or ‘tribes’ has also been seen as breeder attempts to adopt zoological classification. See Ritvo, The Platypus and the Mermaid, 75–84. 56 Derry, Bred for Perfection, 30. 57 W.E. Castle, Heredity in Relation to Evolution and Animal Breeding (New York: D. Appleton, 1911), 151. 58 W. Houseman, The Improved Shorthorn: Notes and Reflections upon Some Facts in Shorthorn History, with Remarks upon Certain Principles of Breeding (London: Ridgeway, 1876), 9. 59 Farmer’s Advocate, July 1880, 164.

Notes to pages 20–31 253 60 M.E. Derry, Ontario’s Cattle Kingdom: Purebred Breeders and Their World (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2001), 25–39. 61 Provine, Sewell Wright and Evolutionary Biology, 146. 62 J.L. Lush, ‘Genetics and Animal Breeding,’ in Genetics in the 20th Century, ed. L.C. Dunn (New York: Macmillan, 1951), 496–9. 63 See D.J. Futuyma, Evolutionary Biology, 3rd ed. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988), 17–30. 64 For more on the international commercial and purebred cattle industry, see Derry, Ontario’s Cattle Kingdom. 65 Canada, Parliament, Sessional Paper (SP, Canada) 8, 1877, 137. 66 Canada Census, 1901, vol. 2, xxxiii. 67 See, for example, SP 8, Canada, 1877, 137–8; SP 10, Canada, 1880, 132–5; SP 11, Canada, 1882, 196; SP 14, Canada, 1884, 166–75. 68 SP 14, Canada, 1884, 167. 69 J.L. Lush, Animal Breeding Plans (Ames, Iowa: Collegiate Press, 1937), 24. 70 E. Whetham, ‘The Trade in Pedigree Livestock, 1850–1910,’ AHR, 27 (1979): 47–50; A. Fraser, Animal Husbandry Heresies (London: Crosby Lockwood & Son, 1960), 35; M. Lerner and H. Donald, Modern Development in Animal Breeding (London and New York: Academic Press, 1966), 156; Lush, Animal Breeding Plans, 26; Whetham, The Agrarian History of England and Wales, 1914–38, 7. 71 See J.A. Mendelsohn, ‘“Like All That Lives”: Biology, Medicine and Bacteria in the Age of Pasteur and Koch,’ HPLS 24 (2002): 3, 4–5; and P.M.H. Mazumdar, Species and Specificity: An Interpretation of the History of Immunology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995). Chapter Two: The Light Horse 1 H.B. Barclay, The Role of the Horse in Human Culture (London: J.A. Allen, 1980), 339. 2 J. Clutton-Brock, A Natural History of Domesticated Animals (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 100. 3 J. Clutton-Brock, A Natural History of Domesticated Animals, 108–9; J. CluttonBrock, Horse Power: Horse and Donkey in Human Societies (London: Natural History Museum Publications, 1992), 61. 4 Barclay, The Role of the Horse in Human Culture, 339. 5 D. Goodhall, A History of Horse Breeding (London: Robert Hall, 1977), 145, 146, 149. 6 C. Gladitz, Horse Breeding in the Medieval World (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1997).

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Notes to pages 31–8

7 R. Trow-Smith, A History of British Livestock Husbandry, 1700–1900 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1959), 159–60. 8 Goodall, A History of Horse Breeding, 33; T. Grandin, ed., Genetics and the Behaviour of Domestic Animals (London: Academic Press, 1998), 218. 9 N. Russell, Like Engend’ring Like: Heredity and Animal Breeding in Early Modern England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 97. 10 B. Tozer, The Horse in History (London: Methuen, 1908), 203–4. 11 Russell, Like Engend’ring Like, 98–9, 104. 12 Breeder’s Gazette, 19 January 1882, 186. 13 Russell, Like Engend’ring Like, 98–9, 104. 14 R. Archer, C. Pearson, and C. Covey, The Crabbet Arabian Stud, Its History and Influence (Northleach, UK: Alexander Heriot, 1978) 35. See also Lady Wentworth (Judith Blunt Lytton), Thoroughbred Racing Stock (New York: Charles Scriber’s Sons, 1938). 15 See, for example, Breeder’s Gazette, 26 October 1882, 538. 16 R.L. Jones, ‘The Old French-Canadian Horse: Its History in Canada and the United States,’ Canadian Historical Review (CHR) 28 (1947): 125–55. 17 Breeder’s Gazette, 5 January 1882, 135. 18 Jones, ‘The Old French-Canadian Horse’; Breeder’s Gazette, 26 October 1882, 538. 19 Ontario Agricultural Commission (OAC), Report 1880, I: 439–49. 20 Breeder’s Gazette, 5 January 1882, 135. 21 See, for example, ibid., 12 January 1882, 159. 22 OAC, Report, 1880, I: 444, 446. 23 Ibid., 444. 24 Ibid., 464. 25 Breeder’s Gazette, 10 June 1915, 1128. 26 Ibid., 22 May 1912, 1197. 27 For statistics, see ibid., 23 March 1882, 424. 28 Ibid., 9 March 1882, 368. 29 Ibid., 12 January 1882, 158, 160; 19 January 1882, 182–3. 30 M.W. Harper, Breeding of Farm Animals (New York: Orange Judd Company, 1920), 138. 31 Ibid., 139. 32 G.M. Rommel, ‘Market Classes of Horses,’ in Bureau of Animal Industry, United States Department of Agriculture, Report, 1901, 448. 33 Breeder’s Gazette, 20 April 1882, 537–8. 34 Ibid., 12 January 1882, 162. 35 Ibid., 16 March 1882, 395. 36 Ibid., 8 April 1896, 272.

Notes to pages 38–44 255 37 Ibid., 2 November 1898, 422–3. 38 This was the year of the famous horse Dan Patch, who was illustrated in both American and Canadian farm journals many times. 39 Farmer’s Advocate, September 1889, 239. 40 Ibid., 15 December 1903, 1129. 41 Ibid., 4 April, 1907, 573. 42 Ibid., March 1892, 92; 29 March 1906, 493; 21 January 1915, 77. 43 O.A.C. Review, December 1893, 17. The journal of the Ontario Agricultural College. 44 Breeder’s Gazette, 30 October 1895, 317. 45 Ibid., 14 August 1895, 106. 46 Ibid., 6 November 1895, 337. 47 Ibid., 17 November 1897, 366. 48 Ibid., 29 July 1896, 73–4. 49 Ibid., 1 July 1896, 9. 50 Ibid., 29 July 1896, 73–4. 51 Farmer’s Advocate, 18 April 1899, 616. 52 Breeder’s Gazette, 1 June 1898, 498. 53 Ibid., 25 June 1902, 1305. 54 Farmer’s Advocate, 1 September 1903, 775. 55 Ibid., 5 September, 1903, 888. 56 Ibid., 20 October 1903, 1024. 57 Ibid., 19 April 1906, 634. 58 Breeder’s Gazette, 4 September 1907, 418. 59 Farmer’s Advocate, 31 March 1910, 540. 60 Ibid., 14 December 1911, 2060. 61 Ibid., 10 March 1910, 398. 62 Breeder’s Gazette, 26 November 1902, 1049. 63 Ibid., 13 August 1902, 263. 64 Ibid., 3 September 1902, 397. 65 Ibid., 24 August 1904, 291. 66 Ibid. 67 Ibid. 68 Ibid., 14 September 1904, 421. 69 Ibid., 28 September 1904, 530. 70 Ibid., 5 October 1904, 582. 71 Ibid., 26 November 1902, 1049. 72 Ibid., 17 August 1904, 251. 73 Ibid., 12 October 1904, 637. 74 Ibid., 21 November 1906, 1079.

256 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89

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Notes to pages 44–9

Ibid., 11 September 1907, 466. Ibid., 30 December 1908, 1347. O.A.C. Review, January 1905, 220. Farmer’s Advocate, 26 June 1906, 1025. Ibid., 16 August 1906, 1281. Ibid., 12 October 1912, 1449. Ibid., 8 March 1917, 415. See, for example, Breeder’s Gazette, 26 March 1909, 1217; 19 October 1910, 799. Ibid., 24 May 1911, 1289. Ibid., 22 July 1915, 124. Ibid. Ibid., 29 July 1915, 159. Farm and Dairy, 1 June 1916, 568. Ibid., 6 December 1917, 1310. F.L.M. Thompson, ‘Nineteenth-Century Horse Sense,’ Economic History Review, 2nd series, 19 (1976): 64, 66, 77; Royal Commission on Horse Breeding, Third Report, Minutes of Evidence, 1890, 138. Barclay, The Role of the Horse in Human Culture, 339; Grandin, ed., Genetics and the Behaviour of Domestic Animals, 206. Barclay, The Role of the Horse in Human Culture, 339.

Chapter Three: The Heavy Horse 1 Industry also seemed to encourage light horses to become distinctly lighter. Better roads probably played a role here, too. The desire for lighter carriage horses, or roadsters, had resulted in North America in the Standardbred and in Britain both in the decline of the Cleveland Bay and the rise of the light, high-stepping Hackney. Horse dealers and traders claimed that the robust Cleveland Bay had all but disappeared in Britain by the 1870s because no one wanted them. See United Kingdom, Report from the Select Committee of the House of Lords on Horses; Together with the Proceedings of the Committee, Minutes of Evidence, and Appendix, 1873, 86, 93. 2 P.R. Edwards, ‘The Horse Trade of the Midlands in the Seventeenth Century,’ Agricultural History Review (AHR) 27 (1979): 92–4. 3 K. Chivers, The Shire Horse: A History of the Breed, the Society and the Men (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1976), 64–5. 4 Breeder’s Gazette, 23 February 1882, 292. 5 E. Baird, The Clydesdale Horse (London: P.T. Batsford, 1982), 20–1, 26, 27–30. 6 Breeder’s Gazette, 10 August 1882, 213.

Notes to pages 50–7

257

7 R. Trow-Smith, A History of British Livestock Husbandry, 1700–1900 (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1959), 159–60. 8 Chivers, The Shire Horse, 65, 82. 9 R.F. Moore-Colyer, ‘Aspects of the Trade in British Pedigree Draught Horses with the United States and Canada, c.1850–1900,’ AHR 48 (2000): 44. 10 Grant MacEwan, Heavy Horses: Highlights of Their History (Saskatoon: Western Producer Prairie Books, 1986), 42, 45. 11 G.M. Rommel, ‘The Army Remount Problem,’ U.S. Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Animal Industry, Report, 1910, 106–7. 12 Breeder’s Gazette, 1 January 1890, 11. 13 Ibid., 15 June 1882, 745. 14 Ontario Agricultural Commission, Report, 1880, 1: 438, 464; 5: 66, 85. 15 Ontario, Legislative Assembly, Sessional Paper (SP, Ontario), 3, 1883, appendix F, 15–16; Breeder’s Gazette, 15 June 1882, 745. 16 Farmer’s Advocate, December 1889, 380. 17 Moore-Colyer, ‘Aspects of the Trade in British Pedigree Draught Horses,’ 43–6. 18 United Kingdom, ‘Minutes of Evidence taken before the Departmental Committee appointed to enquire and Report as the British Trade in Live Stock with the Colonies and Other Countries,’ 1912, Cd. 6032, 138, 153. 19 SP 26, Ontario, 1897–8, 125; Baird, The Clydesdale Horse, 38; Moore-Colyer, ‘Aspects of the Trade in British Pedigree Draught Horses,’ 47–8. 20 MacEwan, Heavy Horses, 15. 21 Farmer’s Advocate, December 1889, 380. 22 ‘Minutes of Evidence,’ 1912, Cd. 6032, 153, 154; Moore-Colyer, ‘Aspects of the Trade in British Pedigree Draught Horses,’ 54. 23 Breeder’s Gazette, 14 December 1882, 743. 24 Ibid., 23 November 1882, 662. 25 Ibid., 29 March 1883, 400. 26 Ibid., 1 February 1883, 142–3. 27 Baird, The Clydesdale Horse, 35, 37. 28 Breeder’s Gazette, 11 October 1883, 497. 29 Ibid., 6 September 1883, 303. 30 Ibid., 10 August 1882, 213. 31 Ibid., 11 October 1883, 497. 32 Ibid., 6 August 1885, 200. 33 Ibid., 27 August 1885, 305. 34 Ibid., 2 January 1889, 13; emphasis in original. 35 Baird, The Clydesdale Horse, 29, 30. 36 R.F. Moore-Colyer, ‘Aspects of Horse Breeding and the Supply of Horses in Victorian Britain,’ AHR 43 (1995): 52.

258

Notes to pages 57–63

37 Canadian Live-Stock and Farm Journal, February 1895, 55. 38 Breeder’s Gazette, 22 January 1885, 135. 39 MacEwan, Heavy Horses, 17; Farmer’s Advocate, February 1890, 39; The Canadian Draught Horse Stud Book, volume 1 (Toronto: Hunter, Rose & Co., 1889), np. 40 MacEwan, Heavy Horses, 17; Farmer’s Advocate, February 1890, 39; The Canadian Draught Horse Stud Book, volume 1, np. 41 Breeder’s Gazette, 1 August 1888, 108. 42 MacEwan, Heavy Horses, 17; Farmer’s Advocate, February 1890, 39; The Canadian Draught Horse Stud Book, volume 1, np. 43 The Canadian Draught Horse Stud Book, volume 1, np. 44 Breeders of other cross-bred types also established recording systems to help trade interests. In February 1889 the Canada Coach Horse Breeders’ Society, also near Goderich, began papering horses not eligible for registry elsewhere – namely, animals resulting from crosses of Thoroughbred, Standardbred, Cleveland Bay, and/or English Coach. See Canadian Live-Stock and Farm Journal, March 1889, 60. 45 Canadian Live-Stock and Farm Journal, February 1888, 44; April 1888, 101. 46 Ibid., May 1890, 186. 47 Ibid., February 1888, 44. 48 Ibid., April 1888, 101. 49 Breeder’s Gazette, 27 June 1888, 642; emphasis in original. 50 Ibid., 15 August 1888, 155–6. 51 Ibid., 154. 52 Ibid., 1 August 1888, 108. 53 Ibid., 17 February 1892, 131. 54 Farmer’s Advocate, October 1889, 308. 55 Breeder’s Gazette, 16 July 1890, 41. 56 Ibid., 1 April 1891, 257. 57 Ibid., 8 April 1891, 280. 58 Ibid., 6 May 1891, 359. 59 Farmer’s Advocate, July 1891, 247. 60 Breeder’s Gazette, 17 February 1892, 129. 61 Ibid., 2 March 1892, 172–3. 62 Ibid., 173. 63 Ibid., 9 March 1892, 192–3. 64 Ibid., 192. 65 Ibid., 16 March 1892, 210. 66 Ibid., 23 March 1892, 230. 67 Ibid., 11 May 1892, 275–6.

Notes to pages 63–8 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82

83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102

259

Ibid., 375–6. SP 12, Ontario, 1892, 5. Breeder’s Gazette, 24 October 1894, 279. Ibid. See, for example, Farmer’s Advocate, 8 April 1915, 514. Ibid., June 1891, np. Ibid., December 1890, 396; emphasis in original. Ibid. SP 26, Ontario, 1897, 10. Farmer’s Advocate, July 1892. SP 39, Ontario, 1894, 7. SP 20, Ontario, 1895, 7. SP 28, Ontario, 1896, 63. Breeder’s Gazette, 4 December 1895, 415. SP 25, Ontario, 1898, 120; SP 28, Ontario, 1899, 160–1; SP 72, Ontario, 1899–1900, 47, 49–50; SP 24, Ontario, 1903, 54, 63; SP 24, Ontario, 1905, 55. SP 28, Ontario, 1899, 165; SP 24, Ontario, 1905, 60, 68–9. SP 27, Ontario, 1896, 147. SP 27, Ontario, 1897, 150. SP 27, Ontario, 1897, 149. SP 27, Ontario, 1897, 151. Breeder’s Gazette, 29 November 1899, 681. Ibid., 6 December 1899, 717. SP 73, Ontario 1899–1900, 47, 49; SP 24, Ontario, 1905, 55, 58–9. SP 24, Ontario, 1904, 45, 52. SP 24, Ontario, 1905, 60. Canada, Parliament of Canada, Sessional Paper (SP, Canada), 15c, 1912, 306–7. Farmer’s Advocate, 20 April 1900, 217. Farming World for Farmers and Stockmen, 7 May 1901, 943. Ibid., 15 January 1901, 476. This trend is indicated in Canada Census, 1901, 2: 252–3, and Canada Census, 1911, 4: 417. Farming World and Canadian Farm and Home, 1 March 1906, 181. See also SP 23, Ontario, 1906, 219. Farmer’s Advocate, September 1883, 273. Ibid., 15 December 1903, 1125. Ibid., May 1887, 133. Moore-Colyer, ‘Aspects of the Trade in British Pedigree Draught Horses,’

260

103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135

Notes to pages 69–75

47, 52; see also ‘The Belgian Horse,’ O.A.C. Review, November 1918, 81–4; Farmer’s Advocate, May 1887, 133; November 1887, 332; June 1890, 173; 30 January 1913, 168. Breeder’s Gazette, 29 March 1884, 843. Ibid., 16 October 1884, 577; 15 December 1887, 954. Ibid., 1 December 1887, 870. Ibid., 1 August 1894, 75. Farmer’s Advocate, November 1887, 332. Ibid., 30 January 1913, 168. ‘Minutes of Evidence,’ 138. Breeder’s Gazette, 16 March 1882, 377. MacEwan, Heavy Horses, 42–3, 50–2; Farmer’s Advocate, 7 November, 1918, 1788; Breeder’s Gazette, 5 March 1885, 357. Breeder’s Gazette, 27 April 1882, 565. Ibid., 8 November 1883, 640. Ibid., 18 October 1883, 530. A. Sanders, A History of the Percheron Horse (Chicago: Breeder’s Gazette Print, 1917), 45, 71, 72–4. D. Goodall, A History of Horse Breeding (London: Robert Hall, 1977), 179. Breeder’s Gazette, 12 February 1885, 239. Ibid., 25 June 1885, 971. Ibid., 28 March 1888, 317. Ibid., 19 November 1885, 813. Ibid., 11 March 1886, 347–8. Ibid., 10 March 1887, 381; 8 December 1887, 909–10; 28 March 1888, 317; 21 August 1889, 180. Ibid., 4 January 1888, 13–14. Ibid., 11 January 1888, 38. Ibid., 13 June 1888, 572. Ibid., 17 November 1887, 795. Sanders, A History of the Percheron Horse, 388–9; Breeder’s Gazette, 7 January 1903, 18. Breeder’s Gazette, 21 January 1903, 121; 28 January 1903, 173. Ibid., 11 February 1902, 271; 20 May 1903, 974. Ibid., 27 May 1903, 1024. Ibid., 10 June 1903, 1127. Ibid., 1 July 1903, 18. Sanders, A History of the Percheron Horse, 390. Breeder’s Gazette, 20 July 1904; 27 July 1904, 138. Ibid., 8 March 1905, 477.

Notes to pages 76–81 261 136 Ibid., 9 December 1908, 1150. 137 Sanders, A History of the Percheron Horse, 391. 138 See M.E. Derry, Bred for Perfection: Shorthorn Cattle, Collies, and Arabian Horses Since 1800 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003), 17–47. 139 It should be noted in passing that pedigree/tariff problems affected the international trade in purebred light horses as well. In 1910, for example, Canadian and American breeders of Hackney horses became reluctant to import from Britain because ‘a large percentage of those imported last year would not record in Canada’ or the United States. Americans and Canadians jointly tried to make British breeders modify standards to bring them more in line with North American ones, but apparently made little progress. See Farmer’s Advocate, 29 December 1910, 2075. 140 O.A.C. Review, January 1905, 218. Emphasis in original. 141 See, for example, Farmer’s Advocate, 23 March 1905, 419; W.J. Kennedy, ‘Selecting and Judging Horses for Market and Breeding Purposes,’ United States, Department of Agriculture, Yearbook, 1902, 455–68. 142 Canada Census, 1921, 4: 61. 143 Ibid., 63. 144 Ibid. Chapter Four: The Farmer’s Horse 1 Interview with J.C. Brunet, a breeder of the horses, 20 November 1998. 2 See R.L. Jones, ‘The Old French-Canadian Horse: Its History in Canada and the United States,’ Canadian Historical Review (CHR) 28 (1947): 125–55; L. Scanlan, Little Horse of Iron (Toronto: Random House, 2001); J.G. Rutherford, ‘The French Canadian Horse: Report and Evidence for the Select Standing Committee on Agriculture and Colonization,’ Ottawa, 1909. 3 Jones, ‘The Old French-Canadian Horse,’ 125. 4 Farmer’s Advocate, July 1890, 205. 5 Ibid., August 1890, 238–9. 6 Breeder’s Gazette, 29 November 1883, 752–3. 7 Jones, ‘The Old French-Canadian Horse,’ 145. 8 Breeder’s Gazette, 10 June 1915, 1128. 9 Ontario Agricultural Commission, Report 1: 434–5. 10 Breeder’s Gazette, 23 February 1882, 311. 11 Farmer’s Advocate, 1 November 1905, 809. 12 Ibid., 23 January 1919, 115. 13 Ibid.

262 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46

Notes to pages 81–8

Ibid., 25 September 1913, 1672. Ibid., January 1883, 5. Ibid., October 1887, 300. Ibid., November 1884, 334. Farming World and Canadian Farm and Home, 15 April 1905, 297. Farmer’s Advocate, 6 May 1920, 871; 9 December 1920, 2100. Ibid., March 1875, 43; November 1875, 208. Select Special Committee of the House of Commons to Inquire on Agricultural Conditions, Preceedings, 1924, 1: 834, 835. Quoted in the Farmer’s Advocate, 23 May 1913, 942. Farmer’s Advocate, January 1883, 5. See G.M. Rommel, ‘Market Classes of Horses,’ United States Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Animal Industry, Report, 1901, 441–56. W.J. Kennedy, ‘Selecting and Judging Horses for Market and Breeding Purposes,’ United States, Department of Agriculture, Yearbook, 1902, 455–68. The Farming World for Stockmen and Farmers, 22 April 1902, 415–21. Farmer’s Advocate, August 1873, 126; Breeder’s Gazette, 31 May 1883, 702. Breeder’s Gazette, 5 March 1885, 360. Ontario Agricultural Commission, Report, 1: 456; Farmer’s Advocate, 15 March 1901, 186. United Kingdom, Report from the Select Committee of the House of Lords on Horses; Together with the Proceedings of the Committee, Minutes of Evidence, and Appendix, 1873, 86; A. Dent, Cleveland Bay Horses (London: J.A. Allen, 1978), 55, 57; Ontario Agricultural Commission, Report, 1880, 1: 456. Farmer’s Advocate, November 1875, 208. Breeder’s Gazette, 5 March 1883, 360. Ontario Agricultural Commission, Report, 1: 434–5. Ibid., 464. Breeder’s Gazette, 23 February 1882, 311. Farmer’s Advocate, October 1877, 23. Ibid., May 1887, 133. Ibid., November 1884, 334. Ibid., November 1886, 332. Ibid., May 1885, 136. Ibid., December 1886, 355. Ibid., March 1891, 27. Ibid., 15 March 1906, 398–9. Ibid., February 1878, 41. Breeder’s Gazette, 27 April 1882, 565; 31 August 1882, 301. Farmer’s Advocate, March 1887, 434.

Notes to pages 88–94 263 47 Ibid., 15 March 1906, 398–9. 48 See, for example, the ad for a Maxwell Mower, Farmer’s Advocate, 7 December 1905, 1751, where a team of high-stepping Hackneys with docked tails are doing field work. 49 Breeder’s Gazette, 12 April 1883, 475. 50 Ibid., 27 January 1892, 72–3. 51 Ibid., 10 February 1892, 110. 52 Ibid., 16 March 1892, 211. 53 Ibid., 15 June 1892, 480–1. 54 Ibid., 6 July 1892, 10; 27 July 1892, 59. 55 Ibid., 17 July 1895, 43. 56 Ibid., 10 April 1895, 234. 57 Ibid., 28 August 1895, 138. 58 Ibid., 29 January 1896, 74. 59 Ibid., 26 February 1896, 153. 60 Ibid., 26 August 1896, 137. 61 Farming World and Canadian Farm and Home, 1 June 1904, 421. 62 Farmer’s Advocate, 15 March 1906, 398–9. 63 Ibid., 1 May 1913, 814. 64 Ibid., 30 January 1913, 168. 65 Ibid., 18 July 1912, 1278. 66 Ibid., August 1873, 126; March 1875, 43; November 1875, 208; February 1876, 21; November, 1880, 259; Ontario Agricultural Commission, Report, 1880, 1: 464; 5: 66. 67 Breeder’s Gazette, 5 March 1885, 360. 68 Ibid., 31 August 1882, 301; 29 November 1883, 752–3. 69 Ibid., 14 March 1888, 265. 70 Ibid., 23 December 1891, 477. 71 Farmer’s Advocate, March 1892, 92. 72 Ibid., 17 August 1906, 1147. 73 Ibid., 25 July 1906, 1181. 74 Ibid., 8 December 1910, 1924–5. 75 Ibid., 29 April 1915, 713. 76 Breeder’s Gazette, 21 August 1907, 329. 77 Ibid., 6 May 1915, 902. 78 Allan Bogue, The Farm on the North Talbot Road (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2001), 88–9. 79 Farmer’s Advocate, March 1891, 87. 80 Ibid., 1 May, 1897, 199. 81 See, for example, ibid., March 1891, 86.

264

Notes to pages 95–103

82 Ontario, Legislative Assembly, Sessional Paper (SP, Ontario), 5, 1870–1, 210. 83 SP 8, Ontario, 1890, 209. 84 SP 5, Ontario, 1869, 204; Farmer’s Advocate, 1 September 1902, 627; 22 December 1909, 1762–3. 85 See, for example, SP 5, Ontario, 1869, 204; SP 5, Ontario, 1870–1, 6, 10, 18, 27, 54, 61. 86 See G.M. Rommel, ‘Market Classes of Horses,’ United States Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Animal Industry, Report, 1901, 441–56. 87 Breeder’s Gazette, 15 April 1891, 299. 88 Farmer’s Advocate, 23 May 1913, 942. 89 Ibid., 27 June 1912, 1164. 90 Ibid., 9 December 1920, 2100. 91 Ibid., 29 April 1915, 713. 92 Farm and Dairy, 5 December 1918, 1326. 93 Farmer’s Advocate, 18 December 1919, 2099. 94 Farm and Dairy, 5 December 1918, 1326. 95 Farmer’s Advocate, 24 October 1918, 1707. 96 Ibid., 23 January 1919, 113. 97 Ibid., 29 May 1919, 1058. 98 Ibid., 5 June 1919, 1091. 99 Belgians had made inroads in the heavy horse world by this time. They competed with Percherons, because Belgians lacked the hairy legs of the Clyde. Chapter Five: Finding Horses for the British Army 1 J.M. Brereton, The Horse in War (London: Newton Abbot, 1976), 71, 90. 2 R.F. Moore-Colyer, ‘Aspects of Horse Breeding and the Supply of Horses to Victorian Britain,’ Agricultural History Review (AHR) 43 (1995): 49; United Kingdom, Parliament, Report from the Select Committee of the House of Lords on Horses; Together with the Proceedings of the Committee, Minutes of Evidence, and Appendix, 1873, 17. 3 Report from the Select Committee, 16, 29. 4 Ibid., 29, 98. 5 Moore-Colyer, ‘Aspects of Horse Breeding,’ 57. 6 See, for example, R.F. Moore-Colyer, ‘Aspects of the Trade in British Draught Pedigree Horses with the United States and Canada, c. 1850–1920,’ AHR 48 (2000): 47; M.F.L. Thompson, ‘Nineteenth-Century Horse Sense,’ Economic History Review, 2nd series, 19 (1976): 60; Marquis of Anglesey, A History of the British Calvary, 1816–1919, volume 4: 1899–1913 (London: Leo

Notes to pages 103–11

7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38

265

Cooper, 1986), 281; Report from the Select Committee, 31; United Kingdom, Parliament, Report of the Royal Commission on Horse Breeding, 1888, iv. Report from the Select Committee, iii. Ibid., iv. Ibid., 335. Ibid., 66. Ibid., 71. Ibid., iv, v, 15, 37, 38, 48, 90. Ibid., 88, 89, 98, 100. Ibid., 39. Ibid., 30. Ibid., 96, 98, 99. Auzias-Turenne, Percherons and Normans: The Haras National Co. of Montreal (Montreal, 1891), 23, 25, 26; G.H. Quetton, On the Breeding of Horses and Other Domesticated Animals in Canada: Principally Crosses of Thoroughbreds and Large Mares (Toronto: Williamson & Co., 1891), 14. Canada, Parliament, Sessional Paper (SP, Canada), 15b, 1913, 219. Report from the Select Committee, appendix B, 336–8. M. Greely, Arabian Exodus (London: J.A. Allen, 1975), 32. Auzias-Turenne, Percherons and Normans, 26. Report from the Select Committee, appendix B, 339–30, 342, 348, 349. Ibid., 343. Ibid., 346, 347. Ibid., 339. Ibid., 342. Ibid., 58. Ibid., iv, v, 15. Ibid., 216, 217. United Kingdom, Parliament, Report of the Committee on What Steps Should be Taken in England and Wales to Secure an Adequate Supply of Horses Suitable for Military Purposes, 1915, 4; Report from the Select Committee, 58. Report from the Select Committee, 130, 133, 134. Ibid., 130. Ibid., 130, 158, 162–4. Farmer’s Advocate, December 1873, 190. Ibid., February 1876, 21; August 1876, 146; November 1876, 215; December 1876, 230–1. Ibid., February 1878, 41. SP 14, Canada, 1884, 168. Anglesey, A History of the British Calvary, 4: 295.

266

Notes to pages 112–19

39 Farmer’s Advocate, November 1886, 332, 334. 40 Canada Yearbook, 1886, 275. 41 Quetton, On the Breeding of Horses and Other Domesticated Animals in Canada, 184. 42 United Kingdom, Parliament, Proceedings of a Court of Enquiry on the Administration of the Army Remount Department since 1899, 1902, 2, 9. 43 Canadian Live-Stock and Farm Journal, June 1887, 513–14. 44 Farmer’s Advocate, October 1887, 300. 45 Canadian Live-Stock and Farm Journal, 536. 46 Anglesey, A History of the British Calvary, 4: 281. 47 Farmer’s Advocate, March 1888, 78. See also the Canadian Live-Stock and Farm Journal, April 1887, np; June 1887, 513. 48 Report of the Royal Commission on Horse Breeding, iii, iv. 49 Report of the Committee on What Steps Should be Taken in England and Wales to Secure an Adequate Supply of Horses Suitable for Military Purposes, 4, 16, 17. 50 Quoted in Farmer’s Advocate, 1 February 1901, 75–6. 51 Proceedings of a Court of Enquiry, 2, 3, 8; Moore-Colyer, ‘Aspects of Horse Breeding,’ 58, 59. 52 Proceedings of a Court of Enquiry, 8. 53 Farmer’s Advocate, February 1878, 33. 54 Moore-Colyer, ‘Aspects of Horse Breeding,’ 58. 55 Anglesey, A History of the British Calvary, 4: 281. 56 Ibid., 297, 289. 57 Ibid., 287. 58 A.T. Yarwood, Walers: Australian Horses Abroad (Melbourne: University of Melbourne Press, 1989), 15, 16, 27. 59 Illustrated London News, 28 July 1900, opposite 136. 60 United Kingdom, Parliament, Accounts and Papers [4]: Army (Militia); Army &c; Volunteers, 1902, 20, 13. 61 Marquis of Anglesey, A History of the British Cavalry, 1816–1919, volume 8: The Western Front, 1915–1918 (London: Leo Cooper, 1997), 291, 293, 299; Yarwood, Walers, 188; L. Wilkinson, ‘Glanders Medicine and Veterinary Medicine in Common Pursuit of a Contagious Disease,’ Medical History 25 (1981): 383. 62 Graphic, 9 January 1915. 63 Anglesey, A History of the British Cavalry, 8: 188, 291. 64 Farmer’s Advocate, 17 March 1910, 443. 65 Unitd Kingdom, Parliament, Report on the Administration of the Grant for the Encouragement and Improvement of Light Horse Breeding, 1913–14, 3, 4. 66 United Kingdom, Parliament, Horse Breeding: Preliminary Report on Animals

Notes to pages 120–5 267 Division as to the Administrating of the Grant for the Encouragement and Improvement of the Light Horse Breeding Industry, 1912, 12, 23. 67 Report of the Committee on What Steps Should be Taken in England and Wales to Secure an Adequate Supply of Horses Suitable for Military Purposes, 5. 68 Farmer’s Advocate, 16 November 1916, 1881. Chapter Six: American Horses and War 1 Breeder’s Gazette, 3 December 1914, 961. 2 G.M. Rommel, ‘The Army Remount Problem,’ U.S. Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Animal Industry, Report, 1910, 113–14. 3 Ibid., 106. 4 Bureau of Animal Industry, Report, 1910, 38. 5 Breeder’s Gazette, 14 May 1890, 251. 6 Ibid., 28 January 1891, 74. 7 Ibid., 21 January 1891, 53–4. 8 Ibid., 6 August 1885, 199. 9 G.M. Rommel, ‘Market Classes of Horses,’ U.S. Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Animal Industries, Report, 1901, 434–7. 10 Breeder’s Gazette, 28 April 1897, 332. 11 Ibid., 13 June 1894, 379. 12 Ibid., 22 July 1896, 57. 13 Ibid., 21 April 1897, 312. 14 Ibid., 21 April 1897, 311. 15 Ibid., 26 May 1897, 409. 16 Ibid., 11 August 1897, 85. 17 Ibid., 4 May 1898, 449–50. 18 Ibid., 21 March 1900, 378. 19 Ibid., 9 May 1900, 638. 20 Ibid., 16 May 1900, 675. 21 Ibid., 25 July 1900, 95. 22 Ibid., 11 June 1902, 1204–8. 23 Marquis of Anglesey, A History of the British Calvary, 1816–1919, volume 4: 1899–1913 (London: Leo Cooper, 1986), 307, 308, 309. 24 Ibid., 307, 308, 309. 25 Rommel, ‘The Army Remount Problem,’ 114. 26 United Kingdom, Proceedings of a Court of Enquiry on the Administration of the Army Remount Department Since 1899, 1902, 10, 43. 27 Rommel, ‘Market Classes of Horses,’ 433–56. See also Saskatchewan Department of Agriculture, Report, 1914, 75.

268

Notes to pages 125–31

28 Rommel, ‘Market Classes of Horses,’ 433–56. 29 Accounts and Papers [4]: Army (Militia); Army &c; Volunteers, 1902, 32. 30 Proceedings of a Court of Enquiry on the Administration of the Army Remount Department since 1899, 1902, 4; United States, Department of Agriculture, Yearbook, 1902, 831. 31 Farmer’s Advocate, 17 March 1910, 443. 32 Ibid., 20 February 1902, 115. 33 Department of Agriculture, Yearbook, 1902, 831. 34 Breeder’s Gazette, 2 April 1902, 751. 35 Farming World for Farmers and Stockmen, 8 April 1902, 338. 36 Breeder’s Gazette, 28 November 1906, 1148–50. 37 Ibid. 38 Ibid., 6 January 1906, 21. 39 Ibid., 2 March 1904, 416. 40 Rommel, ‘The Army Remount Problem,’ 114. 41 Breeder’s Gazette, 4 September 1907, 418. 42 Rommel, ‘The Army Remount Problem,’ 109–10. 43 Ibid., 114. 44 Ibid., 114–18. 45 Breeder’s Gazette, 1 March 1911, 563. 46 Rommel, ‘The Army Remount Problem,’ 114–18. 47 Bureau of Animal Industry, Report, 1910, 37. 48 Ibid., 34. 49 Ibid., 43. 50 Rommel, ‘The Army Remount Problem,’ 119. 51 Department of Agriculture, Yearbook, 1911, 43; M.E. Derry, Bred for Perfection: Shorthorn Cattle, Collies, and Arabian Horses Since 1800 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003), 113. 52 H.H. Reese, ‘Breeding Horses for the United States Army,’ Department of Agriculture, Yearbook, 1917, 341, 342, 345. 53 Breeder’s Gazette, 29 January 1913, 265. 54 Ibid., 29 January 1913, 265. 55 Ibid., 1 January 1913, 21. 56 Ibid., 29 January 1913, 265. 57 Ibid., 5 February 1913, 331. 58 Ibid., 5 March 1913, 595. 59 Ibid., 27 August 1913, 357–8. 60 Rommel, ‘The Army Remount Problem,’ 103–5. 61 Ibid. 62 Breeder’s Gazette, 3 September 1914, 353.

Notes to pages 131–5 269 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102

Ibid., 17 September 1914, 441. Ibid., 20 May 1915, 996. Ibid., 15 October 1914, 647. Ibid., 18 March 1915, 565. Ibid., 18 February 1915, 333. Ibid., 11 February 1915, 274. Ibid., 25 March 1915, 616. Ibid., 6 May 1915, 902. Ibid., 1 July 1915, 16. Ibid., 19 August 1915, 268. Ibid., 3 June 1915, 1084. Ibid., 8 April 1915, 714; 22 April 1915, 814, 814. Ibid., 16 December 1915, 1112. Ibid., 20 May 1915, 996. Ibid., 15 July 1915, 85. Ibid., 29 July 1915, 159. Ibid., 21 October 1915, 723. Ibid., 16 December 1915, 1141. Ibid., 1120. Ibid., 13 April 1916, 826. Ibid., 22 June 1916, 1294–5. Ibid., 10 August 1916, 201. Ibid., 9 November 1916, 887; 22 February 1917, 390. Ibid., 26 April 1917, 875. Ibid., 3 May 1917, 923. Ibid., 3 May 1917, 924. Ibid., 17 May 1917, 1018; 31 May 1917, 1120. Ibid., 7 June 1917, 1161; 14 June 1917, 1201; 21 June 1917, 1241. Ibid., 21 June 1917, 1242. Ibid., 19 July 1917, 82; 26 July 1917, 113. Ibid., 21 June 1917, 1242. Ibid., 9 August 1917, 176. Ibid., 16 August 1917, 211. Ibid., 30 August 1917, 283; 27 September 1917, 498. Ibid., 6 September 1917, 318. Ibid., 25 October 1917, 735; 10 January 1918, 63. Ibid., 15 November 1917, 891. Ibid., 22 November 1917, 937; 13 December 1917, 1079. Ibid., 25 April 1918, 865. Ibid., 7 February 1918, 258.

270 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121

Notes to pages 135–43

Ibid., 2 January 1919, 15. Ibid. Ibid., 9 January 1919, 66. Ibid., 23 January 1919, 169. Ibid., 5 September 1918, 338. Ibid., 27 February 1919, 468. Ibid., 2 January 1919, 15. Ibid., 11 October 1883, 496–7. Ibid., 31 July 1884, 162. Ibid., 10 January 1894, 28. Ibid., 5 July 1905, 17. Derry, Bred for Perfection, 111, 112, 113. G.H. Conn, The Arabian Horse in America (New York: A.S. Barnes, 1972), 195, 198. W.R. Brown, The Horse of the Desert (1929; New York: Macmillan, 1947), 178; Conn, The Arabian Horse in America, 192. Brown, The Horse of the Desert, 178. The Graphic, 9 January 1915, 46. Brown, The Horse of the Desert, 171; Breeder’s Gazette, 31 January 1918, 205. H.H. Reese, The Kellogg Arabians: Their Background and Influence (Alhambra, CA: Borden Publishing, 1958), 25, 65. Derry, Bred for Perfection, 115.

Chapter Seven: Canada’s Equine War Effort 1 Ontario, Legislative Assembly, Sessional Paper (SP, Ontario), 4, 1904, 183–4. 2 J.G. Rutherford, ‘The Breeding in Canada of Horses for Army Use,’ Ottawa, 1909, 5. 3 Farmer’s Advocate, 5 March 1901, 147. 4 Ibid., 5 May 1900, 256; 15 June 1900, 349. 5 United Kingdom, Proceedings of a Court of Enquiry on the Administration of the Army Remount Department since 1899, 1902, 42. 6 Ibid., 43. 7 Farmer’s Advocate, 1 June 1901, 359. 8 The point that farmers generally saw the remount market as a way to dispose of unusable horses had been brought up by British horsemen to the House of Lord’s Select Committee on Horses as early as 1873. 9 Farmer’s Advocate, 6 January 1902, 9. 10 Ibid., 5 March 1901, 39.

Notes to pages 143–50 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46

271

Ibid., 20 March 1901, 208. Ibid., 1 February 1901, 75; 5 March 1901, 147. Ibid., 23 October, 1900, 214; 15 January 1901, 49. Ibid., 5 June 1901, 336. Marquis of Anglesey, A History of the British Calvary, 1816–1919, volume 4: 1899–1913 (London: Leo Cooper, 1986), 297, 289. B.A. Reid, Our Little Army in the Field: The Canadians in South Africa (St Catharines, ON: Vanwell Publishing, 1996), 27, 170, 161, 162. ‘The Breeding of Remounts,’ SP 23, Ontario, 1904, 188. Farming World and Canadian Farm and Home, 1 May 1905, 334. Farmer’s Advocate, 9 March 1905, 330. Rutherford, ‘The Breeding in Canada of Horses,’ 5–9. Canada, Parliament, Sessional Paper (SP, Canada), 15b, 1913, 378. Ibid., 330. SP 15, Canada, 1913, 20; SP 15b, Canada, 1913, 224–5. Saskatchewan, Department of Agriculture, Report, 1914, 74–7. Farmer’s Advocate, 27 August 1914, 1519. Ibid., 10 September 1914, 1615. Ibid., 29 October 1914, 1867. Ibid., 10 December 1914, 2091. Ibid., 10 December 1914, 2092. Ibid., 31 December 1914, 2239. Ibid., 18 October 1917, 1619; 13 December 1917, 1924. Ibid., 10 December 1914, 2091. Ibid., 11 March 1915, 390. Canada, House of Commons, Debates, 18 March 1915, 1230. Ibid., 1231. Ibid., 1233. Farmer’s Advocate, 16 December 1915, 1999. Canada, Yearbook, 1921, 485. Marquess of Anglesey, A History of the British Cavalry, 1816–1919, volume 8: The Western Front, 1915–1918 (London: Leo Cooper, 1997), 300. SP 10a, Canada, 1916, 115. Farmer’s Advocate, 18 January 1916, 43. Ibid., 30 December 1915, 2082. House of Commons, Debates, 6 April 1915, 2097. Ibid., 2098. Ibid., 2099. Note to the author from Professor R.C. Brown, University of Toronto, 4 January 2004.

272 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76

77 78 79 80 81

Notes to pages 150–5

Farmer’s Advocate, 16 December 1915, 1999. House of Commons, Debates, 6 April 1915, 2099. Ibid., 2101, 2102, 2103. Ibid., 2101. Farmer’s Advocate, 1 April 1915, 531; 12 August 1915, 1271; Farm and Dairy, 15 April 1915, 347, 365; 22 April 1915, 378. Farmer’s Advocate, 15 April 1915, 626. Ibid., 26 August 1915, 1345. Ibid., 15 April 1915, 626. Ibid., 1 April 1915, 531. Ibid., 17 June 1915, 985. Farm and Dairy, 1 July 1915, 591, 594. Saskatchewan Department of Agriculture, Report, 1916, 54. Alberta, Department of Agriculture, Report, 1915, 49. Manitoba, Department of Agriculture, Report, 1915, 94. Farm and Dairy, 1 July 1915, 591, 594. Ibid., 15 July 1915, 634; 19 August 1915, 723. Ibid., 15 July 1915, 634. SP 231, Canada, 1916, 8; SP 10a, Canada, 1916, 105, 22. Farmer’s Advocate, 16 December 1915, 1999. Ibid. Ibid., 30 December 1915, 2082; 20 January 1916, 79. Ibid., 20 January 1916, 79. Ibid., 23 March 1916, 600. Ibid., 25 May 1916, 912. SP 10b, Canada, 1921, 1066–7; SP 10a, Canada, 1916, 22. Alberta, Department of Agriculture, Report, 1916, 63; 1917, 61; 1918, 66. Manitoba, Department of Agriculture, Report, 1917, 16. Farmer’s Advocate, 18 October 1917, 1619. SP 10b, Canada, 1921, 1076–7. Alberta, Department of Agriculture, Report, 1916, 63; Saskatchewan, Department of Agriculture, Report, 1918, 46; Manitoba, Department of Agriculture, Report, 1918, 18. Alberta, Department of Agriculture, Report, 1918, 66; 1919, 15. Farmer’s Advocate, 9 January 1919, 43. SP 10b, Canada, 1921, 1066–7; SP 10, Canada, 1921, 7; SP 10a, Canada, 1916, 188; SP 10c, Canada, 1916, 66. Canada Census, 1921, volume 4, 63. Anglesey, A History of the British Cavalry, 1816–1919, 8: 290, 291, 292, 294, 299.

Notes to pages 160–5 273 Chapter Eight: Understanding Heredity 1 United Kingdom, Report from the Select Committee of the House of Lords on Horses; Together with the Proceedings of the Committee, Minutes of Evidence, and Appendix, 1873, 216, 217. 2 Breeder’s Gazette, 16 August 1883, 210. 3 Report from the Select Committee, 216, 217. 4 Breeder’s Gazette, 26 October 1886, 645. 5 Ibid., 15 December, 1887, 945. 6 United Kingdom, Third Report of the Royal Commission on Horse Breeding, 1890, 3, 4, 46–7, 89–91, 109, 111. 7 Breeder’s Gazette, 5 June, 1889, 602. 8 N.B. Hayes, Keeping Livestock Healthy (Vermont: Storey Communications, 1978), 291–3. 9 Interview with Dr Ray J. Geor, Ontario Veterinary College, University of Guelph, 11 February 2004. 10 Hayes, Keeping Livestock Healthy, 291–3. 11 Ibid., 296. 12 Geor, interview. 13 See United States, Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Animal Industry, Report, 1908, 336. 14 Geor, interview. 15 Ibid. 16 Third Report of the Royal Commission on Horse Breeding, 8. 17 Breeder’s Gazette, 4 April, 1888, 340. 18 Ibid., 5 June 1889, 602. 19 Third Report of the Royal Commission on Horse Breeding, 19. 20 Ibid., 35. 21 Ibid., 8. 22 P.J. Bowler, The Eclipse of Darwinism: Anti-Darwinian Evolutionary Theories in the Decades around 1900 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982), 59, 66, 75. 23 Scholars studying evolutionary theory in relation to Darwinism and neoLamarckism have tended to focus on the attitudes of scientists and academics to the problem: natural historians, biologists, geologists. The testimony in the 1890 report of the Horse Commission allows us to learn more about the way people who witnessed transmission of animal characteristics – veterinarians and horse breeders – used aspects of either Darwinism or Lamarckism to explain generational change. See, for example, P.J. Bowler, The Non-Darwinian Revolution: Reinterpreting a Historical Myth (Baltimore:

274

24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53

Notes to pages 166–72

Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988); W.B. Provine, The Origins of Theoretical Population Genetics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971); and E. Mayr and W.B. Provine, The Evolutionary Synthesis: Perspectives on the Unification of Biology (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1980). Third Report of the Royal Commission on Horse Breeding, 46. Ibid., 19. Ibid., 35, 40. Ibid., 33. Ibid., 45. Ibid., 26, 30. Ibid., 35, 39, 57. Ibid., 20, 25, 26, 41. Ibid., 21, 29, 30, 54. Ibid., 34. Ibid., 44, 34. Ibid., 53, 54, 57. Ibid., 31. Ibid., 59. Ibid., 32. Ibid., 44, 34. Ibid., 21. Ibid., 27, 31, 41. Ibid., 59. Ibid., 59. Ibid., 21, 40, 42. Ibid., 31. Ibid., 36. Geor, interview. Third Report of the Royal Commission on Horse Breeding, 1890, 109. Ibid., 89. Ibid., 135. Geor, interview. Breeder’s Gazette, 10 July, 1895, 27. Ibid., 12 April 1905, 728–9.

Chapter Nine: Producing Better Horses in the United States 1 United Kingdom, A Bill to Regulate the Use of Stallions for Stud Purposes in Ireland [Bill 151], 1913. 2 United Kingdom, A Bill to Regulate the Use of Stallions for Stud Purposes [Bill 13 – Horse Breeding Act], 1918.

Notes to pages 173–80

275

3 United Kingdom, Report from the Select Committee of the House of Lords on Horses; Together with the Proceedings of the Committee, Minutes of Evidence, and Appendix, 1873, v. 4 Ibid. 5 Ibid., 28. 6 Ibid., 23 May 1888, 521–2. 7 Ibid., 26 March 1885, 478. 8 Ibid., 21 March 1888, 290. 9 Ibid., 11 April 1888, 369. 10 Ibid., 23 May 1888, 521–2. 11 Ibid., 10 February 1887, 216. 12 Ibid., 18 April 1888, 394–5. 13 Ibid., 30 May 1888, 546–7. 14 Ibid., 6 June 1888, 572. 15 Ibid., 18 October 1893, 266. 16 Ibid., 20 January 1897, 53. 17 R.A. Cave, ‘State Legislation Regulating the Standing of Stallions and Jacks for Public Service,’ United States, Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Animal Industry, Report, 1908, 335. 18 Breeder’s Gazette, 10 May 1905, 915; 17 May 1905, 959; 31 May 1905, 1050; 7 June 1905, 1094; 9 August 1905, 230, 27 September 1905, 581. 19 Ibid., 23 March 1904, 566–7. 20 Ibid., 20 December 1905, 1309. 21 Ibid., 17 June 1903, 1173. 22 C.C. Glenn, ‘Stallion Legislation and the Horse-Breeding Industry,’ United States, Department of Agriculture, Yearbook, 1916, 289–90. 23 Farming World and Canadian Farm and Home, 1 February 1907, 99, 100. 24 Cave, ‘State Legislation Regulating the Standing of Stallions and Jacks for Public Service,’ 336. 25 Farming World and Canadian Farm and Home, 1 February 1907, 99, 100. 26 Breeder’s Gazette, 5 September 1906, 413–14. 27 Ibid., 1 March 1905, 422. 28 Ibid., 29 March 1906, 681. 29 Ibid., 11 April 1906, 788. 30 Ibid., 23 March 1910, 751. 31 Ibid., 5 March 1914, 529. 32 Cave, ‘State Legislation Regulating the Standing of Stallions and Jacks for Public Service,’ 344. 33 Breeder’s Gazette, 24 August 1910, 309. 34 Farmer’s Advocate, 7 February 1907, 200; Cave, ‘State Legislation Regulating the Standing of Stallions and Jacks for Public Service,’ 338–43.

276 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59

Notes to pages 181–8

Breeder’s Gazette, 30 March 1910, 811. Ibid., 4 January 1911, 23. Ibid., 18 January 1911, 148. Ibid., 13 February 1913, 596. Ibid., 1 February 1911, 280. Ibid., 8 February 1911, 352. Ibid., 19 April 1911, 1004. Ibid., 15 February 1911, 425. Ibid., 12 April 1911, 946. Ibid., 19 April 1911, 1004. Ibid., 13 February 1913, 469. Ibid., 12 April 1911, 946. Ibid., 16 April 1913, 957. Ibid., 22 February 1911, 497. Glenn, ‘Stallion Legislation and the Horse-Breeding Industry,’ 290, 296. Breeder’s Gazette, 2 March 1916, 495. Glenn, ‘Stallion Legislation and the Horse-Breeding Industry,’ 298. Breeder’s Gazette, 2 March 1916, 495. Glenn, ‘Stallion Legislation and the Horse-Breeding Industry,’ 288. Breeder’s Gazette, 2 March 1916, 496. Ibid., 23 March 1916, 672. Ibid., 4 May 1916, 976. Ibid., 18 May 1916, 1069. Ibid., 15 June 1916, 1253. Ibid., 29 June 1916, 1332.

Chapter Ten: The Canadian Experience in Horse Regulation 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

Ontario Agricultural Commission, Report, 1880, 5: 69. Farmer’s Advocate, August 1891, 286. Farming, 14 February 1899, 434. Ibid., 18 April 1899, 622. Farmer’s Advocate, 1 March 1900, 120; 9 June, 1904, 814. Ontario, Legislative Assembly, Sessional Paper (SP, Ontario), 24, 1900, 37–8. Ibid., 39. Canada, Parliament, Sessional Paper (SP, Canada), 15b, 1913, 381. Breeder’s Gazette, 21 November 1906, 1072–3. Saskatchewan, Department of Agriculture, Report, 1919, 240. SP 15b, Canada, 1913, 381–2. Farmer’s Advocate, 15 March 1901, 187. Ibid., 184.

Notes to pages 188–96 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33

34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51

277

Department of Agriculture, Report, 1919, 240. Breeder’s Gazette, 25 May 1904, 1000. Farming World and Canadian Farm and Home, 15 June 1905, 453. Farmer’s Advocate, 31 January 1907, 166. Ibid., 4 January 1906, 6; Farming World and Canadian Farm and Home, 1 February 1905, 86. Farming World and Canadian Farm and Home, 15 January 1904, 53, 54. Ibid. SP 24, Ontario, 1904, 75. Ibid., 45. Ibid., 1903, 54. Ibid., 54, 63. SP 15b, Canada, 1913, 395. Ibid. Ibid., 395–6. Farmer’s Advocate, 28 January 1904, 122. Ibid., 14 January 1904, 49. Ibid., 18 January 1906, 79. Ibid., 27 April 1905, 623. Ibid., 29 March 1906, 493; SP 39, Ontario, 1914, 65. Farming World and Canadian Farm and Home, 15 November 1906, 789. See also SP 65, Ontario, 1907, for ‘Report of the Special Investigation on Horse Breeding, 1906.’ Canadian Dairyman and Farming World, 19 February 1908, 12. Farming World and Canadian Farm and Home, 15 November 1906, 789. Canadian Dairyman and Farming World, 19 February 1908, 12. Farming World and Canadian Farm and Home, 1 December 1906, 819. Farmer’s Advocate, 1 November 1906, 1692. Ibid., 6 December 1906, 1888. Ibid., 20 December 1906, 2020, 2021. Ibid., 2020. Ibid., 27 December 1906, 2057. Ibid., 10 January 1907, 43. Farming World and Canadian Farm and Home, 15 March 1907, 254. Farmer’s Advocate, 31 January 1907, 163. Ibid., 7 February 1907, 200. SP 39, Ontario, 1914, 65. SP 22, Ontario, 1909, 170–5. Ibid., 180–4. Canadian Dairyman and Farming World, 19 February 1908, 6. Farm and Dairy, 1 April 1909, 2.

278 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80

Notes to pages 197–206

SP 22, Ontario, 1909, 167. SP 39, Ontario, 1914, 70. Farmer’s Advocate, 23 March 1911, 510. SP 39, Ontario, 1914, 65, 66. Farmer’s Advocate, 4 July 1912, 1206. Ibid., 12 September 1912, 1607. Farm and Dairy, 23 March 1911, 2. Ibid., 2 May 1911, 504. Farmer’s Advocate, 28 January 1913, 123. Ibid., 8 January 1914, 43. Ibid., 43, 50; 22 January 1914, 132. Ibid., 29 January 1914, 175, 176. Ibid., 8 January 1914, 43, 50. Ibid., 22 January 1914, 132. Ibid., 29 January 1914, 175, 176. Ibid., 19 November 1914, 1975. Ibid., 22 January 1914, 132. ‘Stallion Enrolment,’ Agricultural Gazette, volume 1, 1914, 221. SP 39, Ontario, 1915, 5. Ibid., 13. Farmer’s Advocate, 23 April 1914, 811; SP 39, Ontario, 1915, 5; Breeder’s Gazette, 24 December 1914, 1145. Farmer’s Advocate, 4 March 1915, 337. Ibid., 2 November 1916, 1799. Ibid., 1 August 1918, 1265. Ibid., 18 July 1912, 1279. Farm and Dairy, 15 August 1918, 887. Agricultural Gazette, volume 7, 1920, 413, 490. Ibid., volume 1, 1914, 187. Ibid., volume 6, 1919, 1057.

Chapter Eleven: Aspects of a Pervasive Horse Culture in Society 1 Auzias-Turenne, Percherons and Normans: The Haras National Co. of Montreal (Montreal: n.p., 1891), 7. 2 Breeder’s Gazette, 18 June 1890, 561. 3 The Company of the Haras National: Importers ad Breeders of French Coach, Percheron and Arabian Horses, Catalogue for 1889–90 (Montreal: Gazette Printing, 1889), 3, 4, 9, 10. 4 G.H. Quetton, On the Breeding of Horses and Other Domesticated Animals in

Notes to pages 206–13

5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38

279

Canada: Principally Crosses of Thoroughbred and Large Mares (Toronto: Williamson & Co., 1891), 14, 19. Farmer’s Advocate, 1 February 1901, 75. Ibid., 31 March 1909, 458; J.F. Ryan, The Canadian National Bureau of Breeding, Limited (Montreal, 1909). Ryan, The Canadian National Bureau of Breeding, Limited, 32. Canada, Parliament, Sessional Paper (SP, Canada), 15b, 1913, 316. SP 15b, Canada, 1913, 316. Ibid. See ads in Breeder’s Gazette over the period. For example, 5 February 1885, 214; 1 September 1887, 367. Breeder’s Gazette, 28 February 1889, 237. Ibid., 17 December 1902, 1232. Ibid. Ibid., 14 February 1900, 203–4. Ibid., 17 December 1902, 1232. Ibid., 25 March 1891, 237. Ibid., 17 December 1902, 1232. Ibid., 24 January 1900, 108; 31 January 1900, 139–40. Ibid., 17 January 1900, 77. Ibid., 24 January 1900, 108; 21 February 1900, 234. Ibid., 14 February 1900, 203–4. Ibid., 5 August 1903, 207. United Kingdom, ‘Minutes Taken in Evidence before the Departmental Committee Appointed to Enquire and Report as the British Trade in Live Stock with the Colonies and Other Countries,’ 1912, Cd. 6032, 153, 154. Canadian Live-Stock and Farm Journal, June 1895, 123. Ibid. Farming World and Canadian Farm and Home, 1 February 1906, np. Farming World for Farmers and Stockmen, 1 April 1903, 158. Farmer’s Advocate, 5 November 1901, 789. Farming World for Farmers and Stockmen, 16 February 1903, 39. Ibid., 1 April 1903, 158. Ibid. Farming World and Canadian Farm and Home, 15 March 1904, 213. Ibid. 1 October 1906; Farmer’s Advocate, 4 October 1906, 1556. Farming World and Canadian Farm and Home, 15 March 1907, 254. Farm and Dairy & Rural Home, 13 February 1913, np. Ibid. Ibid., 27 March 1913, np.

280

Notes to pages 214–21

39 Ibid., 15 May 1913, np. 40 Breeder’s Gazette, 21 August 1907, 331. 41 See, for example, J. Swabe, Animals, Disease and Human Society (London: Routledge, 1999), 72, 75. 42 C.F. Mullett, ‘The Cattle Distemper in Mid-Eighteenth-Century England,’ Agricultural History (AH) 20 (1946): 133–65; R. Dorwart, ‘Cattle Disease (Rinderpest?): Prevention and Cure in Brandenburg, 1665–1732,’ AH 33 (1959): 79–85; L. Wilkinson, ‘Glanders Medicine and Veterinary Medicine in Common Pursuit of a Contagious Disease,’ Medical History (MH) 25 (1981): 363–84; L. Wilkinson, ‘Rinderpest and Mainstream Infectious Disease Concepts in the Eighteenth Century,’ MH 28 (1984): 129–50; Swabe, Animals, Disease and Human Society, 88–9. 43 Wilkinson, ‘Glanders Medicine and Veterinary Medicine,’ 370. 44 Swabe, Animals, Disease and Human Society, 93. 45 Ibid., 92–3, 94. 46 M.E. Derry, ‘Attempts to Understand the Cattle Plague of 1865,’ Victorian Studies Association, Ontario Newsletter no. 54 (1994): 8–13; S.A. Hall, ‘The Cattle Plague of 1865,’ MH 6 (1962): 45–58; A.B. Erickson, ‘The Cattle Plague in England, 1865–1867,’ AH 35 (1961): 94–103; Swabe, Animals, Disease and Human Society, 97–100, 104, 109, 112. 47 Swabe, Animals, Disease and Human Society, 80. 48 Wilkinson, ‘Glanders Medicine and Veterinary Medicine,’ 364, 365, 372. 49 Ibid., 363, 364, 365, 372–80. 50 Breeder’s Gazette, 21 June 1883, 801. 51 SP 15b, Canada, 1913, 117. 52 Wilkinson, ‘Glanders Medicine and Veterinary Medicine,’ 364, 382, 383; Breeder’s Gazette, 6 May 1903, 879. 53 SP 15b, Canada, 1913, 7, 115, 116. 54 Wilkinson, ‘Glanders Medicine and Veterinary Medicine,’ 384. 55 Marquess of Anglesey, A History of the British Cavalry, 1816 to 1919, volume 4 (London: Leo Cooper, 1986), 334–5. 56 Ibid., 292, 319, 320, 332, 336, 337. 57 Quoted ibid., 349. 58 Marquess of Anglesey, A History of the British Cavalry, 1816–1919, volume 8 (London: Leo Cooper, 1997), 298, 299, 301. 59 L. Wortley, Lucy Kemp-Welsh: The Spirit of the Horse (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Antique Collector’s Club, 1996), 129, 130–1. 60 Farmer’s Advocate, 5 May 1910, 760. 61 R.F. Moore-Colyer, ‘Aspects of the Trade in British Pedigree Draught Horses

Notes to pages 222–43

62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77

281

with the United States and Canada, c. 1850–1920,’ Agricultural History Review 48 (2000): 54. Graphic, 9 January 1915, 46–7. Breeder’s Gazette, 16 December 1915, 1134c. Graphic, 9 January 1915, 46–7. Breeder’s Gazette, 5 July 1917, 11. Ibid., 16 December 1915, 1120. Anna Sewell, Black Beauty (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 104. See Introduction by P. Hollindale, ibid. Sewell, Black Beauty, 182. S. Chitty, The Woman Who Wrote Black Beauty: A Life of Anna Sewell (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1971), 229–35. Sewell, Black Beauty, 33. Wortley, Lucy Kemp-Welsh, 15–16. Ibid., 109, 110. Ibid. 180. Sir Alfred Munnings, An Artist’s Life (London: Museum Press Limited, 1950), 14. Ibid. 300. See Stanley Booth, Sir Alfred Munnings, 1878–1959 (London: Sotheby Parke Bernet Publications, 1978).

Conclusion 1 For more on the history of the Arabian, breeding strategies applied to it, and the nature of markets for this horse, see M.E. Derry, Bred for Perfection: Shorthorn Cattle, Collies, and Arabian Horses since 1800 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003). 2 See http://www.usef.org/content/equestrianSports/breeds/ nationalShowHorse.php, http://www.imh.org/imh/bw/natshow.html, accessed 17 November 2004; Arabian Horse World (AHW), February 1983, 352. 3 AHW, February 1983, 352; April 1983, 406; June 1983, 541; June 1985, 98–9; August 1985, 96–107; September 1985, 333. 4 For some general information on the Trakehner, the Hanoverian, and the Dutch Warmblood, see http://www.nawpn.org, http://web.kwpn.nl, http:// www.winsomestables.com/history.htm, http://www.dutchharnesshorses.nl/ Main1.php?S=TheBreed&SC=2&F=1&C=1&FC=5&., http://web.kwpn.nl/ html/newsletter, http://white_arabian.tripod.com/dutchwarmblood.html,

282

5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

Notes to pages 243–7

http://imh.org/imh/bw/trak/html, http://www.imh.org/imh/bw/ hanov.html, http://www.imh.org/imh/bw/dwarm.html, accessed 17 November 2004. http://web.kwpn.nl, http://www.winsomestables.com/history.htm, accessed 17 November 2004. http://www.renaihorseregistry.com/message.asp, accessed 17 November 2004. AHW, May 2003, 236–7. http://www.renaihorseregistry.com/message.asp, accessed 17 November 2004. http://www.renaihorseregistry.com, accessed 17 November 2004; AHW, February 2003, 348–51. AHW, July 2003, 89–96; November 2003, 144, 147. AHW, April 2003, 178–9; May 2003, 6, 16; July 2003, 76–7. AHW, March 2003, 352. See, for example, AHW, January 2003, 162, 377; February 2003, 369. AHW, January 2003, 204–5. AHW, January 2003, 6. AHW, February 2003, 16. AHW, July 2003, 16, 312.

Note on Sources

The most important primary sources used in researching this book were British, American, and Canadian government documents and various journals. British government documents not only revealed the horse situation in that country but also provided a great deal of information on the general European equine world. The most important are Accounts and Papers [4]: Army (Militia), Army &c., Volunteers (1902); Proceedings of a Court of Enquiry on the Administration of the Army Remount Since 1899 (1902); Report of the Committee on What Steps Should Be Taken in England and Wales to Secure an Adequate Supply of Horses Suitable for Military Purposes (1915); Horse Breeding: Bills to Regulate the Use of Stallions for Stud Purposes (1918); Horse Breeding: Preliminary Report of the Animals Division as to the Administration of the Grant for the Encouragement and Improvement of the Light Horse Breeding Industry (1912); ‘Minutes of Evidence Taken before the Departmental Committee Appointed to Enquire and Report as the British Trade in Live Stock with the Colonies and Other Countries’ (1912), Cd. 6032; Reports of the Royal Commission on Horse Breeding (1888–1911). Of these, the 1890 report is by far the most significant. It contains much information on the state of knowledge regarding heredity. The Report from the Select Committee of the House of Lords on Horses; Together with the Proceedings of the Committee, Minutes of Evidence, and Appendix (1873) provides detailed descriptions of the workings of the British horse industry and outlines approaches in European countries to horse breeding. The Report on the Administration of the Grant for the Encouragement and Improvement of Light Horse Breeding (1913–14) reveals late attempts in Britain to encourage saddle-horse breeding when technology, because of the internal combustion engine, had made these animals obsolete. Significant American government sources are the Reports of the Bureau of Animal Industries; Reports of the United States Department of Agriculture (reports of various state departments of agricultural are also helpful, if for no

284

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other reason than that they echo what appeared in the federal papers); and Yearbooks of the Department of Agriculture of the United States (which address a number of interesting questions over the years). These sources provide general information on the American horse industry, outline the historical background to such issues as the remount, and give the official point of view on such subjects as stallion legislation (farm journals reveal more general opinions of the people). Useful Canadian government sources are the Sessional Papers of the Canadian Parliament (which contain reports of the Department of Agriculture) and the Ontario Legislature. The Sessional Papers of Canada yield much information on horse health in particular and the general equine industry in the country. Ontario reports are especially helpful because they contain discussions that took place at meetings of various breed associations, so clearly present the points of view of the purebred breeders. The five-volume report of the Ontario Agricultural Commission of 1880 reveals the early nineteenthcentury eastern North American horse world. Government reports on agriculture of other provinces add a further regional dimension to the way the Canadian horse industry functioned, clarifying, for example, the trade of remounts. See also Sessional Paper 65, Ontario Legislature, 1907, ‘Report of the Special Investigation on Horse Breeding in Ontario, 1906.’ The Agricultural Gazette of Canada provides material, often from census sources, on international affairs, as do Canada Yearbooks. Journals in the three countries provided invaluable information. The British Illustrated London News, Gentleman’s Magazine, and Graphic indicate general social reactions to various events in the equine world in Europe and in wartime generally. The American Breeders’ Magazine (which became the Journal of Heredity), published in the United States, describes many contemporary attitudes to the developing science of genetics and is particularly interesting when compared to the 1890 report of the British Horse Commission. Numerous articles in this journal illustrate also the close connections between eugenics and genetics before 1920. One of the most important American farm journals for the history of livestock is the Breeder’s Gazette, published in Chicago. This journal gives a national perspective, even though it arose in the heartland of livestock country in the United States in the late nineteenth century (it began publishing in 1882). We cannot study animal breeding properly in the United States, and attitudes of breeders, without reference to it. The editor wrote numerous books as well on the history of various farm animal breeds, including one on the Percheron horse. He knew the stock well and most of the early breeders too. The more recent specialized journal, the Arabian Horse World, also provided useful material for this book. I looked at two more generalized farm journals in Canada. Probably the more important is the Farmer’s Advocate, published in both

Note on Sources 285 eastern and western Canada, but originating in London, Ontario, as early as 1867. The other journal is really an amalgamation of journals that collapsed into each other and therefore came out in various names: Canadian Live-Stock and Farm Journal (1886–95); Farm and Dairy and Rural Home (1908–18); Farming (1895–1900); Farming World and Canadian Farm and Home (1903–7); and Farming World, for Farmers and Stockmen (1900–2). There are literally thousands of books and articles devoted to horse breeds and to horses more generally. I did not find most of what I looked at in this area particularly useful, at least for my purposes. The ones I consulted include E. Baird, The Clydesdale Horse (London: P.T. Batsford, 1982); K. Chivers, The Shire Horse: A History of the Breed, the Society and the Men (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1976); A. Dent, Cleveland Bay Horses (London: J.A. Allen, 1978); H.T. Helm, American Roadsters and Trotting Horses (Chicago: Rand, McNally & Co., 1878); G. Langlier, ‘The French Canadian Horse’, Bulletin 95 (Regular Series), (Ottawa: Department of Agriculture, 1920); G. MacEwan, Heavy Horses: Highlights of Their History (Saskatoon: Western Producer Prairie Books, 1986); J.G. Rutherford, ‘The French Canadian Horse: Report and Evidence for the Select Standing Committee on Agriculture and Colonization’ (Ottawa, 1909); A. Sanders, A History of the Percheron Horse (Chicago: Breeder’s Gazette Print, 1917); L. Scanlan, Little Horse of Iron (Toronto: Random House, 2001); Lady Wentworth (Judith Blunt Lytton), The Authentic Arabian Horse (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1945), Horses in the Making (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1951), and Thoroughbred Racing Stock (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1938); and A.T. Yarwood, Walers: Australian Horses Abroad (Melbourne: University of Melbourne Press, 1989). For horses more generally, see the following publications: Auzias-Turenne. Percherons and Normans: The Haras National Co. of Montreal (Montreal, 1891); The Canadian Draught Horse Stud Book, volume 1 (Toronto: Hunter, Rose & Co., 1889); W.R. Brown, The Horse of the Desert (1929; New York: Macmillan, 1947); The Canadian National Bureau of Breeding, Limited, by John F. Ryan (Montreal: n.p., 1909); The Company of the Haras National: Importers and Breeders of French Coach, Percheron and Arabian Horses, Catalogue for 1889–90 (Montreal: Gazette Printing Company, 1889); J.D. Duchene, Horse Breeding in Canada (Quebec: n.p., 1903); H.Q. St George, On the Breeding of Horses and Other Domesticated Animals in Canada: Principally Crosses of Thoroughbreds and Large Mares (Toronto: Williamson & Co., 1891); B. Tozer, The Horse in History (London: Methuen & Co., 1908); E.A. Trowbridge, ‘Purebred Live Stock and the Average Farm,’ Circular 63, University of Missouri, Agricultural Extension Service (December 1918). For primary sources that relate to genetics and breeding generally, see E.B. Babcock and R.E. Clausen, Genetics in Relation to Agriculture (New York: McGraw-

286

Note on Sources

Hill Book, 1918); W.E. Castle, Heredity in Relation to Evolution and Animal Breeding (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1911); Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species (London: John Murray, 1859), and The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication, foreword by Harriet Ritvo (1868; Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998); M.H. Harper, Breeding of Farm Animals (New York: Orange Judd Company, 1920); D.F. Jones, Genetics in Plant and Animal Improvement (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1925); J. Lush, Animal Breeding Plans (Ames: Collegiate Press, 1937), and ‘Genetics and Animal Breeding,’ in Genetics in the 20th Century, edited by L.C. Dunn, 493–525 (New York: Macmillan Company, 1951); J.G. Rutherford, ‘Horse Breeding and the Rearing of Colts,’ Bulletin 14 (Ottawa: Department of Agriculture, 1911); J.H. Sanders, The Breeds of Live Stock, and the Principles of Heredity (Chicago: J.H. Sanders Publishing Company, 1887); T. Shaw, Animal Breeding (Chicago: Orange Judd Company, 1901), and The Study of Breeds (Chicago: Orange Judd Company, 1900); S. Wright, ‘Mendelian Analysis of the Pure Breeds of Livestock. Part 1: The Measurement of Inbreeding and Relationship,’ Journal of Heredity 14 1923): 339–48, and ‘Mendelian Analysis of the Pure Bred Breeds of Livestock, Part 2: The Duchess Family of Shorthorns as Bred by Thomas Bates,’ Journal of Heredity 14 (1923): 405–22. Secondary sources, both books and articles, added dimensions to the story that emerged from the primary source material. I note first some good sources on heredity and biology, and, though I list many book titles below, they are all useful in putting the horse story into a larger perspective of the general scientific world of biology. These sources include P.J. Bowler, The Eclipse of Darwinism: Anti-Darwinism Evolutionary Theories in the Decades around 1900 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983), The Non-Darwinian Revolution: Reinterpreting a Historical Myth (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988), and The History of an Idea (Berkeley: University of California, 1984); W. Coleman and C. Limoges, eds., Studies in the History of Biology (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979); L.C. Dunn, A Short History of Genetics: The Development of Some of the Main Lines of Thought, 1864–1939 (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1965); S. Freeman and J.C. Herron, Evolutionary Analysis (New York: Prentice Hall, 1998); I.T. Frolov, Philosophy and History of Genetics: The Inquiry and the Debates (London: Macdonald, 1991); D.F. Futuyma, Evolutionary Biology, 3rd edition (Sunderland, Mass: Sinauer Associates, 1998); B. Glass, O. Temkin, and W.L. Straus Jr, eds., Forerunners of Darwin, 1745–1859 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1951); E. Mayr and W.B. Provine, The Evolutionary Synthesis: Perspectives on the Unification of Biology (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1980); P.M.H. Mazumdar, Eugenics, Human Genetics and Human Failings: The Eugenics Society, Its Sources and Critics in Britain (London: Routledge, 1992), and Species and Specificity: An Interpretation of the History of Immunology (Cambridge: Cambridge Univer-

Note on Sources 287 sity Press, 1995); S.M. Persell, Neo-Lamarckism and the Evolution Controversy in France, 1870–1920 (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1999); W.B. Provine, The Origins of Theoretical Population Genetics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971), and Sewell Wright and Evolutionary Biology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986). Numerous excellent articles, too many list, on heredity and biology in relation to animal breeding can be found in the following journals: Agricultural History; Agricultural History Review; Biologist; Folia Mendelianna (especially valuable for Mendel and his relationship to animal breeding in the early nineteenth century); History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences; History of Science; Journal of the History of Ideas; Quarterly Review of Biology; and Science and Technology. The many articles by either V. Orel or R.J. Wood (or the two combined) found in Folia Mendelianna, Quarterly Review of Biology, and History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences are particularly significant in relation to my story because they interconnect the work of Mendel, Darwin, and Bakewell, an important concern when we want to identify what was science and what, ultimately, was culture in approaches to horse breeding. With respect to Bakewell, see as well H.C. Pawson, Robert Bakewell: Pioneer Livestock Breeder (London: Crosby Lockwood, 1957), the only full biography of the man. The recent article by David Wykes, ‘Robert Bakewell (1725–1795) of Dishley: Farmer and Livestock Improver,’ Agricultural History Review 52 (2004): 38–55, adds to that biography. Any story of purebred breeding and its relationship to biology provides historical background to modern attempts at controlling intellectual property in living things. To see how this story of horse breeding fits into that larger and enormously important topic, it is well worth looking at M. Rothschild and S. Newman, eds., Intellectual Property Rights in Animal Breeding and Genetics (New York: CABI Publishing, 2002) (see, in particular, Daniel Kevles, ‘The Advent of Animal Patents: Innovation and Controversy in the Engineering and Ownership of Life’); and Harriet Ritvo, ‘Possessing Mother Nature: Genetic Capital in Eighteen-Century Britain,’ in Early Modern Conceptions of Capital, edited by J. Brewer and S. Staves (London: Routledge, 1995). For horses and war, the most important source by far is The Marquess of Anglesey, A History of the British Cavalry, 1816–1919, volume 4: 1899–1913 (London: Leo Cooper, 1986), and A History of the British Cavalry, 1816–1919, volume 8: The Western Front, 1915–1918 (London: Leo Cooper, 1997). See also H.B. Barclay, The Role of the Horse in Man’s Culture (London: J.A. Allen, 1980); and J.M. Brereton, The Horse in War (London: Newton Abbot, 1996). B.A. Reid, Our Little Army in the Field: The Canadians in South Africa, 1899–1902 (St Catharines, ON: Vanwell Publishing, 1996), proved to be of considerable value in understanding Canada’s equine efforts in the Boer War. There is surprisingly little written with

288

Note on Sources

a focus on horses themselves in warfare. The life of cavalry men in relation to horses has received attention, but not much exists on horse types or where they originated. For horse and general animal historical culture as well as breeding see S. Chitty, The Woman Who Wrote Black Beauty: A Life of Anna Sewell (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1971); M.E. Derry, Bred for Perfection: Shorthorn Cattle, Collies, and Arabian Horses since 1800 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003); A. Fraser, Animal Husbandry Heresies (London: Crosby Lockwood & Son, 1960); C. Gladitz, Horse Breeding in the Medieval World (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1997); D.M. Goodall, A History of Horse Breeding (London: Robert Hall, 1977); M. Huggins, Flat Racing and British Society, 1790–1914 (London: Frank Cass, 2000), and ‘Thoroughbred Breeding in the North and East Ridings of Yorkshire in the Nineteenth Century,’ Agricultural History Review 42 ((1994): 115–25); B. Kimmelman, ‘The American Breeders’ Association: Genetics and Eugenics in an Agricultural Context, 1903–1913,’ Social Studies of Science 13 (1983): 163–204; M. Lerner and H. Donald, Modern Developments in Animal Breeding (London and New York: Academic Press, 1966); R. Longrigg, The History of Horse Racing (London: Macmillan, 1972); H. Ritvo, The Animal Estate (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987), The English and Other Creatures in the Victorian Age (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987), and The Platypus and the Mermaid and Other Figments of the Classifying Imagination (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997); N. Russell, Like Engend’ring Like: Heredity and Animal Breeding in Early Modern England (Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press, 1986); K. Thomas, Man and the Natural World: Changing Attitudes in England, 1500–1800 (London: Allen Lane, 1983); F.M.L. Thompson, English Landed Society in the Nineteenth Century (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1963); J.A. Thompson, History of Livestock Raising in the United States, 1607–1860 (Washington: Bureau of Agricultural Economics, 1942); R. Trow-Smith, A History of British Livestock Husbandry, 1700–1900 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1959); W. Vamplew, The Turf (London: Allen Lane, 1976); and L. Wortley, Lucy Kemp-Welsh, 1869–1958: The Spirit of the Horse (Woodbridge, UK: Antique Collectors’ Club, 1996). Particularly significant is the book by R.J. Wood and V. Orel, Genetic Prehistory in Selective Breeding: A Prelude to Mendel (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001). For horses and domestication, see J. Clutton-Brock, Domesticated Animals from Earliest Times (Heinemann: British Museum, 1981), A Natural History of Domesticated Mammals (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), Horse Power: Horse and Donkey in Human Societies (London: Natural History Museum Publications, 1992), and ‘Darwin and the Domestication of Animals,’ Biologist 29 (1982): 72–6; and T. Grandin, Genetics and Behaviour in Domestic Animals (London: Academic Press, 1998).

Note on Sources 289 For veterinary medicine, I thank Dr Ray J. Geor, associate professor of biomedical sciences, Ontario Veterinary College, for his invaluable help. I would not have been able to make sense of the 1890 report of the British Horse Commission, in light of today’s knowledge, without it. See also Associates of the National Agricultural Library, 100 Years of Animal Health, 1884–1994 (Beltmore, Maryland, 1978); C.A.V. Barker and T. Crowley, One Voice: A History of the Canadian Veterinary Medical Association (Canadian Veterinary Medical Association, 1989); M.E. Derry, ‘Attempts to Understand the Cattle Plague of 1865,’ Victorian Studies Association, Ontario Newsletter, no. 54 (1994): 8–13; S.A. Hall, ‘The Cattle Plague of 1865,’ Medical History 6 (1962): 45–68; H.B. Hayes, Keeping Livestock Healthy (Pownal: Story Communications, 1985); S.D. Jones, Valuing Animals: Veterinarians and Their Patients in Modern America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002); J.A. Mendelsohn, ‘“Like All That Lives”: Biology, Medicine and Bacteria in the Age of Pasteur and Koch,’ History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 24 (2002): 3–36; J. Swabe, Animals, Disease and Human Society (London: Routledge, 1999); R.D. Thompson, The Remarkable Gamgees: A Story of Achievement (Edinburgh: Ramsey House Press, 1974); L. Wilkinson, Animals and Disease: An Introduction to the History of Comparative Medicine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), ‘Glanders Medicine and Veterinary Medicine in Common Pursuit of a Contagious Disease,’ Medical History 25 (1981): 363–84, and ‘Rinderpest and Mainstream Infectious Disease Concepts in the Eighteenth Century,’ Medical History 28 (1984): 129–50; and, finally, the excellent article by M. Worboys, ‘Germ Theories of Disease and British Medicine, 1860–1890,’ Medical History 35 (1991): 308–27. A few particularly important articles on the horse economy should be listed. They include: P.R. Edwards, ‘The Horse Trade of the Midlands in the Seventeenth Century,’ Agricultural History Review 27 (1979): 90–100; R. Moore-Colyer, ‘Aspects of the Trade in British Pedigree Draught Horses with the United States and Canada, c. 1850–1920,’ Agricultural History Review 48 (2000): 42–59, and ‘Aspects of Horse Breeding and the Supply of Horses in Victorian Britain,’ Agricultural History Review 43 (1995): 47–60; and, finally, F.M.L. Thompson, ‘Nineteenth-Century Horse Sense,’ Economic History Review, 2nd series, 19 (1976): 60–81. To round out my story, I also read various monographs and articles (mainly found in the journals Agricultural History and Agricultural History Review, but not always) on the history of agriculture in Britain, the United States, and Canada. A listing of them would not be especially informative to the reader. It is worth making the point, though, that there can be no real comprehension of animal breeding without background knowledge of the historical functioning of agriculture in the pertinent regions under discussion.

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Index

Agriculture and Arts Association of Ontario, 57–8 Alberta: horse breeding, 141, 189; horse-breeding regulations, 188, 189, 201; markets, 210; remount selling, 141, 145, 151, 152, 153, 201 Algeria, 115 Allan Company (Canadian), 110 American Association of Agricultural Colleges and Experimental Stations, 14 American Breeders’ Association: and genetics and eugenics, 14, 18, 20 American Clydesdale Association, 54–5, 61–6 American French Draft-Horse Breeders’ Association: and the Norman horse question, 70–4 American Percheron Horse Breeders’ and Importers’ Association, 75 American Percheron Horse Breeders’ Association, 75 American Red Star Relief: and horses in war, 222 American Veterinary Association, 218 André, C.C.: and genetics, 10 Anne, Queen: and Queen’s Plates, 109

Arabia, 32, 106, 116, 240 Arabian Horse Registry of America, 138 Arabian horses, 205, 207, 236; and Dutch Harness Horse (DHH) crosses and Renai horses, 244–6; horse improvement, 137, 240; purity, 32, 108, 240; as remounts and for remount breeding, 106, 107, 108, 116, 117, 137–9, 236; and Saddlebred crosses, 240, 241; Thoroughbred breeding, 31, 32, 106, 108, 116, 240 art: and animal breeding, 8, 9, 12, 19, 20; horse novels, xvi, 222, 224, 228; horse painting, xvi, 5, 221, 224–30, 231 Australia: horse regulation, 197; remount selling, 116, 141 Austria-Hungary: horse-breeding regulations and the Haras, xv, 106, 107, 119, 131, 138; and genetics, 10; remount selling, 111 Baden-Powell, Robert: and Black Beauty, 225, 229 Bakewell, Robert, 10, 11, 12, 19, 50; and animal-breeding methods, 6, 7,

292 16, 18, 159, 199; and inbreeding, 7, 8, 9, 16, 32, 34; and marketing, 7, 16; and science, 7, 9 Bates, Thomas: and Shorthorn cattle and purebred breeding, 11, 12, 16, 23 Belgian horses, 68 Belgium, 136; and remount buying, 141, 152; horse consumption, 221 biometry, 17, 18 Black Beauty, xvi, 205, 222, 223–6, 231, 239; J.M. Dent 1915 edition of, 225–6, 228 Blue Cross: and horses in war, 221, 222, 223 Blunt, Wilfrid: and British Arabians, 137, 138 J.R. Booth Co: and draft horses, 93 Borden, Robert: and the First World War, 149–50 Borden, Spencer: and American Arabians, 138 Boston (Massachusetts), 54 Boulonnais horses, 73 Bourgelat, Claude: and French veterinary schools, 215 Breeders’ Trotting Stud Book (American), 36 Britain: agriculture, 6, 8, 46, 104; horse regulation, in horse-trade rules, 104–5; – , for improvement of breeding and/or the remount, 109–10, 113–14, 116, 119–20, 160–1, 173; – , and stallion enrolment and licensing, 109, 172, 173 British Remount Commission, 153 Brno (Moravia), 10, 14 Brown, G.T.: and veterinary attitudes to heredity, 166

Index Brown, W.R.: and American Arabians, 138 Bureau of Animal Industry, United States Department of Agriculture, 15, 36, 83, 137, 139, 183, 218 Burgess, Robert: and Percherons, 75, 90 P. Burns and Company: and horse meat, 153 Bush-Brown, H.K.: and American Arabians, 137 California, 33, 139, 183 Canada: horse regulation, 57–8, 65–8, 76; – , for improvement of breeding and/or the remount, 141, 143–5, 206. See also stallion enrolment and licensing; stallion syndicates Canadian Clydesdale Association, 58–66 Canadian Draught Horse Association: and Clyde/Shire purity, 58– 64, 67–8 Canadian Live Stock Records Corporation, 67–8 Canadian National Bureau of Breeding: and remount issues in Canada, 206–7 Canadian Pacific Railway: and draft horses, 93 Canadian Remount Commission, 151 Castle, W.E.: and genetics, 15, 19 cattle: breeding, 7, 8, 10, 11–13, 19, 20, 77; trade, 21 Cavalry Endurance Ride: and the American remount, 138 Cavalry School Corps (Canada), 141 Chicago, 137

Index China, 30 Clear Grits: and horse types, 33 Cleveland Bay horses, 85, 86, 174, 256 Clydesdale Horse Society (British), 57 Clydesdale horses, xiii, 31, 48, 72, 80, 86, 87, 88, 90, 92, 93, 97, 146, 174, 184, 187, 188, 196, 234, 239, 246; and the Clyde/Shire cross, 49–64, 67–8, 76, 173, 233–4, 237; and fashion, 55, 68–9; and markets, for purebreds, 51, 54–63, 66–9, 209, 211, 233; – , for urban/industrial work, 52, 54, 92, 93, 209; and purity, 49–64, 67, 76, 173, 233–4, 237 Coates, George: and pedigree keeping, 11 cob horses: and type breeding, xii, 30, 83, 115, 123, 125, 142, 145, 227 Colling, Robert and Charles: and the breeding of Shorthorns, 8, 11, 16 Colorado, 183 Commission on Horse Breeding: and Britain’s support of horse improvement, 113, 114, 119, 155; and the 1890 report, 159–71, 172, 178, 186, 237, 238 continental (North American) trade in horses: commercial, xv, 33, 52, 53, 54, 59–64, 110, 188–90; purebred, xv, 54, 58, 59–68, 70, 76, 186, 189–90, 210–12, 229, 233, 235, 237, 258; for war, 33, 146–55, 235–6. See also Clydesdale horses, and markets; Percheron horses, and marketing; stallion syndicates

293 Darwin, Charles: and Darwinism, 19, 164–5, 167; and evolution and genetics, 9, 10, 13, 15, 17, 21, 23, 165, 169, 183 Davenport, Charles: and eugenics, 18 Davenport, Homer: and Arabian horses, 137 De Maupertuis, Pierre L.M.: and evolution, 9 Dent, H.S.: and British remount buying in Canada, 141, 142 Dick, William: and British veterinary schools, 218 domestication, xii, 3, 4, 30, 47, 101 Dominion Draught Horse Association (Canadian): and Clyde/Shire purity, 58, 61, 62, 67–8 Dominion Transport Co.: and draft horses, 93 Drew, Lawrence: and the Clyde/Shire story, 49–51, 54–7 Dutch Harness Horse (DHH), 241–4 Dutch Warmblood horses (Gelderland horses, Groningen horses), 242–3 Dutch Warmblood Stud Book of North America: and its predecessors (Dutch), 243–4 Dyke, John: and Canadian trade and immigration, 22, 111 Edinburgh, 57, 69, 218 W.C. Edwards Co.: and draft horses, 93 Egypt: and Arabian horses, 30, 106 eugenics, xiii, 17, 18, 20 evolutionary biology: and genetics, xiii, xvii, 4, 9, 13, 14, 15, 17, 20, 23–4, 164–71, 233, 252, 273; and population genetics, 17, 18, 20, 21;

294 and race constancy versus variation, xiii, xvii, 4, 9, 12, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19, 23, 159 Fanson, W.: and the Clyde/Shire cross, 58, 59–60 farm ‘chunk’ horse, 34, 79–94, 113, 132, 151, 234 Festetics, Count: and genetics, 10 Flanders, 49, 146 Flemish horses, 49, 50 France, 69, 104, 105, 115, 135, 155, 206; horse-breeding regulation and the Haras, xv, 105–6, 119, 131, 138, 173, 187; Percheron horse breeding, 70–3; remount buying, 103, 104, 124, 131, 134, 136, 141, 148, 150, 151, 152, 153 Frederick the Great: and the Haras, 107, 242; and war tactics, 101 French-Canadian horses: and remount issues, 145; and type breeding, 33, 79, 80, 196, 207 French Coach horses, 73; and farm horse breeding, 85–7 French Draft horses: and the Norman question, 70–4 Galton, Francis: and eugenics, 17 Gamgee, John: and veterinary schools, 218 genetics, xiii, xv, 185, 233; and biometry, 17, 18; and hereditary and genetics in the 1890 British Horse Commission Report, 159– 71, 186; and inbreeding, 7, 8, 11, 12, 15, 16, 24; and Mendelism, 14– 20, 234; and neo-Lamarkism, 165, 167–9, 273; and population genetics, 21, 246; and race constancy, 4,

Index 12, 13, 23–4, 32, 159; and race variation, 7, 9, 10, 14, 24, 159 German Warmblood horses, 242, 246 Germany (Prussia), 20, 115; horsebreeding regulation, xv, 106–8, 119, 138, 193, 242; remount buying, 103, 124; show judging, 245 Gilbey, Walter: and a British Haras system, 114 Goderich (Ontario), 58, 61, 64, 67 Grand Trunk Railway: and draft horses, 93 Great Northern Railway: and draft horses, 69 Greece, 30 Hackney horses: and horse breeding, 39, 63, 66, 88, 124, 144, 242, 243, 246, 256, 261 Haddington, Earl of: and horse breeding, 168 Hambletonians and trotting horse types, 36, 132 Haras National Co. (Canadian), 205, 206 Haras system of horse breeding: in Britain, 109, 114; in Canada, 205, 206; in Europe, 106, 107, 108, 119, 131, 173 Harris, Albert: and American Arabians, 138 Hitler, Adolph, 20 Holland: Dutch Warmblood horses, 242, 243; horse consumption, 221; horses, 108; remount buying, 141 Horse Breeders’ Act (Manitoba), 189 Horse Breeders’ Act (North-West Territories), 188

Index Horse Breeders’ Lien Act (NorthWest Territories), 188 Horse Conscription Act (AustriaHungary), 107 horses and art, 221, 222, 224–31 breeding in early times, 30–1, 48, 49 breeding (see genetics; pedigrees; purebred breeding), culture in breeding theory (see Thoroughbred horses; and breeding culture of); and science (see genetics; evolutionary biology); as scrub/grade, 19, 53, 56, 59–64, 78, 88, 90–1, 94, 123, 172–204, 236; and type breeding, xi, xiii, xvii, 24, 29, 31–9, 49–64, 67, 70–95, 141–6, 195–6, 233–6, 240–6, 256 breeds. See Arabians; Belgians; Boulonnais; Cleveland Bays; Clydesdales; French Canadians; French Coaches; Hackneys; Morgans; Nivernaise; Percherons; Saddlebreds; Shires; Standardbreds; Suffolk Punchs; Tennessee Walking Horses; Thoroughbreds health. See veterinary medicine horse-trading tricks, xv, 212–4, 238 and horse types/breeds. See Canadian Draught Horse Association; Clear Grits; cobs; Dominion Draught Horse Association; Dutch Harness Horses; Dutch Warmbloods; farm ‘chunk’ or general-purpose horses; French Draft horses; Narangansett Pacers; National Show Horses;

295 Norfolk Trotters; Palominos; Pintos; Renai Horses; Royal Georges; Select Clydesdale Horse Society of Scotland; St. Lawrences; Walers; Warmbloods for human consumption, 40, 42, 135, 153, 221 markets and marketing 79, 83–4, 86, 88, 92–4, 101–20, 234–8. See also continental (North American) trade in horses; remount issues; stallion enrolment and licensing; stallion syndicates; technology and horses; transatlantic trade regulation of, 57–8, 61, 62–3, 65–7, 75, 76, 104–5, 109, 172, 173, 197. See also stallion enrolment and licensing; stallion syndicates showing of, 52, 55, 68, 69, 127, 159, 161, 167, 240, 241–6 and war. See remount issues; war; veterinary medicine humanitarian movements: and horses, xvi, 214, 219–25, 231, 239 Idaho, 183 Illinois, 63, 75, 79, 173, 174, 182, 183, 217; and Illinois Board of Agriculture and French horse breeding, 70, 73, 74 Illinois License Law for Stallions, 174 India, 30; and the remount, 116, 141, 219 Indiana, 183, 184 industrialization: and horses, xii, xiii, 3, 46, 47, 49, 51, 52, 54, 88, 91, 92, 93,104, 234, 256. See also technology and horses Iowa, 42, 44, 177, 179, 183

296 Ireland, 141; horse regulation, 172; remount selling, 111 Italy: horse-breeding regulation and the Haras, xv, 106, 152, 187; remount buying, 115, 152 James I, King: and Arabians, 31 Jameson, L.S.: and South Africa, 114 Justinus, J.: and race constancy, 4 Kellogg, William K.: and American Arabians, 139 Kemp-Welsh, Lucy: and horse art, 154, 221, 225–8 Kimberley (South Africa), 114 Kitchener, Lord: and the Boer War, 114 Koninklijk Warmbloed Paardenstamboek Nederland (KWPN): Dutch registry for the Dutch Warmblood, 243 LaCroix, Gene: and Arabians and Arabian crosses, 241–6 Ladies’ Army Remount Depot in Britain, 220 Ladysmith (South Africa), 114 Lamarck, Jean Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet: and neoLamarckism, 165, 167–9, 273 Law, James: and American veterinary schools, 218 Light Horse Breeding Scheme in Britain, 119 London (England), 17, 49, 68, 84, 104, 105, 114, 115, 154, 215, 216, 217, 218, 119, 222, 224 London Omnibus Company, 104, 119 London Veterinary College, 215, 216, 218

Index Louis XIV, King: and the Haras, 105 Lush, Jay L.: and genetics, 20 Madrid, xii, 249 Mafeking (South Africa), 114 Manitoba: horse-breeding regulation, 188, 189, 191, 201; marketing, 210; remount selling, 152, 153 Manitoba Dray Co.: and draft horses, 93 Marshall, William: and animal breeding, 4, 8 McEachran, Duncan: and Canadian veterinary schools, 218 medicine, xv, 23, 102, 216, 217, 239 Mendel, Gregor: and genetics, 14–20, 21, 234 Mesopotamia, 30 Michigan, 183, 184 Miller, Robert: and Canadian Clydesdales, 66 Minnesota, 180, 183 Missouri, 63 Montana, 179, 183 Montreal, 33, 93, 149, 205, 206, 207, 218 Morgan horses: and breeding; 38, 79, 80, 128; and the remount, 34, 53, 79, 242 Morocco, 115 Munnings, Sir Alfred: and horse art, 147, 226, 227, 239 Napoleon I, Emperor: and war, 102, 147 Napp, C.F.: and genetics, 10, 13 Narrangansett Pacers, 33, 79 National Norman Horse Registry (American), 73, 74

Index National Show Horse Registry (American): and cross-bred registry systems, 241 National Show Horses (NSH), 241–2, 245–6 National Society of Record Associations, 182–3 National Trotting Association (American), 36 Nebraska, 183, 207 neoteny, 4 Nestler, J.K.: and genetics, 10 New England, 79 New Jersey, 183 New York, 33, 36, 44, 52, 79, 92, 183 New York City, 44, 52, 54, 92 Nightingale, Florence: and the Crimean War, 102 Nivernaise horses, 73 Norfolk Trotters, 33, 79 Norman Horse Breeders’ Association (American), 73 North Africa: Arabian horse breeding, 106 North Dakota, 183, 184 North-West Mounted Police, 141 North-West Territories (Alberta and Saskatchewan), 188, 189 Ohio, 179, 180, 184 Ohio Live Stock Association: and stallion regulation, 179–80 Oklahoma, 183 Ontario (Canada West), 96, 189; horse breeding, 34, 80, 82, 92, 95, 96, 143; horse-breeding regulations, 187, 191–201; markets, 52, 58, 60, 187, 209, 211–12; remount selling, 112, 143, 146, 151 Ontario Agricultural College, 40, 77

297 Ontario Agricultural Commission of 1880, 34, 54, 81, 187 Ontario Horse Breeders’ Association, 149; and stallion regulation, 192, 194–9 Ontario Stallion Act, 197 Ontario Stallion Enrolment Act, 197 Ontario Veterinary College, 218 Oregon, 179, 183 Our Dumb Friends’ League: and humanitarian movements, 222 Palomino horses, 246 Pearson, Karl: and biometry, 17 pedigrees, xiii, 23–4, 76–7, 94, 95, 173–4, 177, 179, 182, 184, 191, 210–12, 237, 233, 258; and cattle, 8, 11, 12; and eugenics, 17–20; as marketing tools, 76, 233, 241, 261; for Clyde/Shire crosses and show systems, 55, 56, 57, 62, 63; for Clydesdales and Shires and purity, 49, 50, 54, 55, 56–68, 77, 233; for Draught Horses and cross-bred systems, 56–68; for Dutch Harness Horses and Dutch Warmbloods and the European system, 242–4; for French Drafts and the Norman question, 70–4; for National Show Horse and cross-bred systems, 241; for Percherons and purity, 70–6, 233; for Renai horses and a combined cross-bred/European system, 244–5; for Standardbreds and performance, 36–8; for Thoroughbreds and purity, 4, 6, 32, 77; for Warmblood horses and the European system, 241–4. See also Clydesdale horses, and markets; Percheron horses, and marketing;

298 purebred breeding; stallion enrolment and licensing; stallion syndicates Pennsylvania, 180, 183 Percheron and Arabian Importing Horse Co. (American), 207 Percheron Horse Breeders’ Association (American), 75 Percheron horses, xii, 48, 69, 79, 80, 81, 87, 88, 97, 173, 174, 176, 227, 234; and French breeding methods, 70–2, 73, 74, 233; and marketing, 90, 189, 205–7, 210–11, 229, 233; and pedigree wars, 70–7, 173; and purity, 70–4, 77, 189, 210–11, 229, 233–4, 237 Percheron Registry Association (American), 76 Percheron Society of America: and its forerunners, 75, 76, 82, 94 Peter the Great, Czar: and the Haras, 106 Philadelphia, 54 Pinto horses, 246 Poland, 115 ponies, 30, 31, 123, 225, 227 premiums and British encouragement of horse breeding, 114, 119, 160, 161 purebred breeding, xiii, xv, xvii, 29, 48, 50, 54, 94, 176, 233, 237, 238, 261; and art, 19, 20, 238; and cattle and sheep, 7, 8, 10–13, 19, 77; and French attitudes to, 72–4; methodology of, 3–25, 55, 56, 76, 159. See also Clydesdale horses, and markets; pedigrees; Percheron horses, and marketing; stallion enrolment and licensing; stallion syndicates

Index Purple Cross Service: and horses in war, 222 Quartermaster Department (United States), 121, 122 Quebec: horse breeding, 79, 205, 206, 207. See also French-Canadian horses Queen’s Plates: and British encouragement for horse breeding, 109, 110, 113 Ravenhill, Colonel: and British remount buying, 112, 206 Reese, H.H.: and American Arabians, 139 Remount Board (United States), 137 Remount Department: Britain, 113, 115, 116, 142; Germany, 108; India, 116 remount issues, xi, xiii, 30, 31, 46, 101, 116, 229, 231, 234–5, 236; and the American situation, 121, 126–30, 136–9, 235–6; – , in the Boer War, 121–6, 130; – , in the Civil War, 34, 53, 121–2, 232; – , in the First World War, 131–6, 236; – , in the Spanish American War, 124; and the British situation, 110–14, 123, 141, 141–4, 206, 207, 227; – , in the Boer War, 114–20, 124–6, 130, 141–3, 235; – , in the Crimean War, 102, 224; – , in the First World War, 131–6, 144, 148, 149, 150, 215–16, 219–22, 223, 225, 227, 235–6, 237; – , in the FrancoPrussian War, 103; and the Canadian situation, 110–14, 141–5, 206, 207; – , in the Boer War, 141–4, 235; – , in the Crimean War, 141;

Index – , in the First World War, 145–54, 227, 235–6; – , in the North-West Rebellion, 141; and the European situation, 101, 105–9, 119, 242; – , in the Boer War, 124; – , in the Crimean War, 102; – , in the First World War, 131, 133, 134, 135, 136, 148, 151, 222, 223; – , in the Franco-Prussian War, 103; and the Indian Remount, 116, 141, 219; and war art, 117, 147, 154, 221, 225, 227, 228; and women, 221, 224, 225, 226; at the end of the Boer War, 116, 117; at the end of the First World War, 136, 153, 154, 155. See also technology: and horses, and war; veterinary medicine Remount Service (United States), 137, 138, 139 Renai Horse Registry (American), 244 Renai horses: and European pedigree systems, 244–5 Rhode Island, 33 Rhodes, Cecil: and South Africa, 114 Richards, A. Keene: and American Arabians, 137 Riddell, David: and the Clyde/Shire story, 49–51, 54, 55 Ritsma, Marcel: and Warmbloods, 243 Roberts, Lord: and war and Arabians, 114, 116, 117 Roosevelt, Theodore, President: and Arabians for remount, 138 Royal Army Veterinary Corps, 220 Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, 163, 164

299 Royal Georges: and breeding horses by type, 33, 34, 35, 36, 38, 144, 196 Russia, 102; horses, 30; the Haras, 106; remount buying, 124, 148 Rutherford, John: and veterinary schools, 218 Ryan, John F.: and remount issues in Canada, 206–7 Saddlebred horses, 39, 243; and Arabian crosses, 240, 241–6; and remount, 126, 127, 128, 242; and show breeding, 127 Salmon, D.E.: and American veterinary schools, 218 Sanders, A.H.: and the Breeder’s Gazette, 75 Saskatchewan: horse-breeding regulations, 188, 189, 201; markets, 153; remount sales, 145, 151, 189 Scotland, 50, 54, 55, 56, 57, 60, 64, 69, 104, 218 Sebastopol (Crimea), 102 Sebright, John: and animal breeding, 10 Select Clydesdale Horse Society of Scotland (British): and Clyde purity, 55, 56, 57, 62, 63 Sewell, Anna (author of Black Beauty), xvi, 222, 224, 225, 231, 239 Sheep Breeders’ Society of Moravia: and pre-genetics, 10, 14 sheep breeding, 6, 7, 10, 14 Sheddon Forwarding Company: and draft horses, 93 Shire Horse Society (British), 54, 69 Shire horses, xii, 31, 48–52, 76, 87, 90, 92, 93, 146, 174, 196, 233–4, 246; and Bakewell, 7, 50, 51; and fashion, 52, 68, 69; and the Shire/

300 Clyde cross and purity issues, 49–64, 67–8, 76, 173, 233–4, 237. See also Clydesdale horses, and markets Simmonds, James P.: and British veterinary schools, 218 Smith, Andrew: and Canadian veterinary schools, 218 Social Darwinism, 19, 23, 24 Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, 220, 224 South Africa, 114, 115, 116, 124, 125, 141, 143, 219, 225. See also remount issues; war South Dakota, 183 Spain, xii, 106, 136, 249 Spencer, 3rd Earl of: and animal art, 20 St Lawrences and trotting horse types, 33, 80 stallion enrolment and licensing, xv–xvi; in Australia, 197; in Britain, xv, 109, 172, 173, 238; in Canada, 186–201, 229, 237, 238; in Ireland, 172; in the United States, 172–85, 214, 215, 229, 237, 238 Stallion Owners Lien Act (Canada), 188 stallion syndicates in Canada and the United States, xv, 74, 177, 179, 184, 197, 207–12, 227, 229, 237, 238 Standardbreds and trotting blood, xiii, 35, 39, 48, 67, 81, 83, 91, 144, 174, 176, 233, 256; and as farm horses, 34, 80, 86, 94; and breeding of, 36–8; and pedigrees for, 36–8; and racing of, xiii, 36, 37, 38; as remounts, 34–5, 53, 94, 112, 123, 125, 126, 128, 132, 142, 143, 144, 145

Index Stathcona, Lord: and Canadian cavalry, 143 Stubbs, George: and horse art, 5, 227 Suffolk Punch horses, 48, 63 Switzerland: remount buying, 131 technology and horses, xiii, xiv, xvi, 29, 46, 92, 232, 234, 236, 265, 263; and bicycles, 40, 41, 42, 44, 45, 91, 123, 235; and cars, tractors, and trucks, xii, 40–6, 91, 95, 96, 123, 128, 146, 235; and electric streetcars, 40, 41, 42, 91, 119, 122–3, 235; and railways, xii, 41, 42, 52, 69, 93, 104, 235; and steamships, xii, 21, 121, 235; and war, xi, xiii, 30, 53, 69, 101, 102, 115, 119, 124, 128, 146, 235, 249 Tennessee, 179 Tennessee Walking Horse, 39 Territorial Horse Breeders’ Association: and western Canadian stallion regulation, 188 Thompson, S.D.: and the American Percheron registry, 74, 75, 90 Thornhill, A.R.: and horse breeding, 168, 169 Thoroughbred horses, xiii, 33–6, 48, 81, 82, 85, 87, 106, 108, 119, 174, 224, 233, 246; and breeding culture of, 4–7, 9, 11–12, 16–17, 19, 21, 24, 31, 32, 159, 240, 233; and inbreeding of, 4, 6, 32; and purity of, 4, 24, 31–2, 77, 159; and racing of, 5, 6, 31, 108, 227, 230; as remounts, 31, 33, 53, 112, 116, 117, 119, 128, 132, 137, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 206, 242 Tomkins, Benjamin: and cattle breeding, 8

Index

301

Toronto, 42, 58, 61, 64, 93, 149, 243 transatlantic trade, 29, 76; in cattle, 21; in commercial horses to Britain, xiii, 21, 22, 33, 110–13, 115, 121–6, 131, 141–6, 148–54, 233, 235, 236; in horses from Germany, 242; in horses from Holland, 242–4; in purebred horses from Britain, 21–3, 39, 48, 51, 52, 54, 56, 57, 63, 68, 76, 193, 206, 209, 233 261; in purebred horses from France, 69–74, 76–7, 205–7, 210, 233. See also horses, and markets and marketing Treasury Department (United States), 61, 62, 63, 75 Turkey and the Ottoman Empire, 102, 106, 130

224, 229, 231, 237, 239; and horsetrading tricks, 212–15; and glanders and comparative pathology, xvi, 178, 216–17, 218, 219, 231, 239; and rinderpest and veterinary education, 215, 216, 218, 231; and tuberculosis and comparative pathology, 217, 218; and veterinarians’ testimony re genetics/heredity in 1890 Report of the British Horse Commission, 163–4, 165–8; in Britain, 215, 216, 217, 218, 219, 220; in Canada, 217, 218, 219; in France, 215, 216, 222, 223; in India, 219; in the United States, 217, 218, 219, 224 Victoria, Queen, 102; and honouring a horse, 116, 117

United States: agriculture, 14, 15, 16; horse regulation, 61, 62–3, 65–7, 75, 76; – , for improvement of breeding and/or the remount, 126–31, 136–9, 236. See also American Clydesdale Association; Percheron Society of America; stallion enrolment and licensing; Treasury Department Utah, 180

Waler horses: and remount, 116 war: Afghan Wars, 117, 219; American Civil War, 52, 53, 121–2; Balkan War, 222; Boer War, 114, 115, 116–18, 124, 153, 154, 178, 179, 219, 220, 225, 228, 235, 237, 239; Crimean War, 102, 103, 141, 224, 235; Crusades, 30; First World War, xiii, xiv, 46, 120, 131, 136, 137, 140, 145, 147, 153, 154, 217, 219, 220, 221, 225, 227, 235, 236, 239; Franco-Prussian War, 103, 115, 235; North-West Rebellion, 141; Second World War, 139, 242; Spanish American War, 124; war art, 117, 147, 154, 221, 225, 227, 228. See also remount issues; veterinary medicine Warmblood horses (German and Dutch): and European systems of horse breeding, 241–4, 246

Vermont, 33, 34, 79, 80 Vestry, Clarke: and Warmbloods, 243 veterinary medicine, xv–xvi, 184, 199; and bearing reins, 224; and breeders’ testimony re genetics/heredity in 1890 Report of the British Horse Commission, 168–70; and education, 215–19, 239; and farriers, 215, 216, 218, 222, 224; and horse ailments, 109, 160–3, 178; and horse care, xv, xvi, 40, 201, 219–22,

302 Washington, DC, 65, 66, 134 Washington state, 183 Weatherby, James: and the General Stud Book (GSB), 6 Winnipeg, 93 Winnipeg Transfer Co.: and draft horses, 93

Index Wisconsin, 177, 178, 180, 189 Wright, Sewell: and genetics, 15, 20 Xenophon: and horse breeding, 30 Young, Arthur: and British agriculture, 7