1964-Voice Of The Tennessee Walking Horse 1964 October Voice | Page 29

to be used to pull the plow and
for other farm purposes. The horse
riding Normans in England were
the first to use the horse for plow­
ing instead of oxen. They also
found that the war horses could
pull extremely heavy loads on
heavy wagons.
The horse played the most im­
portant role in the exploration and
development of North America.
They furnished much of the power
that was needed to build cities
and roads; they hauled freight and
passengers; they pulled the plows
with which the farmers broke the
ground for their farms. The early
planters in Kentucky raced fast
horses; mail was carried swiftly on
horseback and the Pony Express
helped in the early development
of California and the Far West.
TYPE OF HORSES
Horses are divided into five
groups, or types. They are the draft
horse, saddle horse, coach or heavy
harness horse, roadster or light
harness horse, and pony. Each
group contains various breeds de­
veloped to serve some definite pur­
pose. Approximately eight out of
every hundred horses in the Uni­
ted States are purebred. Most
horses show traces of one or more
purebred ancestors. The words
PUREBRED and THOROUGH­
BRED are often confused. A pure­
bred horse is one that is bred pure
for a certain breed. Thoroughbred,
on the other hand, is the name
given to the English horses which
are bred for racing. It does not
mean the horse belongs to a super­
ior breed. Horses of all breeds may
be purebred, but only the English
running horses are called thorough­
breds.
To distinguish between the road­
ster and saddle breeds, the various
roadster horses, such as the Stan-
dardbred and Morgan, were devel­
oped chiefly for drawing light bug­
gies and the saddle horse, such as
the Tennessee Walking Horse, were
bred for riding purposes. Coach
horses are larger than roadsters,
but smaller and swifter than draft
horses.
MORE ABOUT THE HORSE
For hundreds of years, the horse
has been the faithful servant and
OCTOBER, 1964
friend of man. Heavy horses car­
ried armor-clad knights into bat­
tle. They pulled plows and drew
wagons that once were the only
means of transportation. Horses
carried man into the hunting fields
for food or sport. They pulled stage­
coaches and covered wagons that
carried pioneers across the plains
to settle the West.
The horse has always been able
to fit itself to the place where it
lives. It can speed over the burn­
ing sands of the desert, or pull
sleighs in lands of snow and ice.
It can eat a great many different
kinds of plants. The horse is also
among the most intelligent of ani­
mals. It will respond readily to
kindness and can remember an in­
jury for a long time. Well-trained
horses can carry their riders safely
through the darkest night if they
are given a free rein. It is a known
fact that a milkman’s horse, after
making a few trips, could stop at
the customer’s house by itself.
THE BODY OF THE HORSE
The largest horse may weigh as
much as 2,300 pounds. A Shetland
pony as little as 300 pounds. The
height of a horse is measured in
hands, a hand being four inches.
Horses are measured from the
ground to the highest point of the
withers, which is the ridge between
the shoulder bones. A horse mea­
suring 61 inches tall would be 15
hands and 1 inch tall, usually writ­
ten 15-1. The tallest horses average
around 18 hands, or 72 inches,
while the shortest, such as the
Shetland Pony, may average only
3 feet. (There are always excep­
tions in either direction).
A male horse has forty teeth, the
female usually 36 teeth. It is pos­
sible to tell the age of a horse by
its teeth. There is a gap in the
horse’s teeth, between the sharp
front incisors and the rear teeth.
The bit of the bridle is placed in
this gap. The stomach of the horse
will hold about eighteen quarts of
food. The long intestines also help
the horse to store food in its body.
Their eyes are located on the sides
of their heads, permitting them to
see forward, sideward, and even a
little way backward. The pupil of
the horse’s eye is not round but
PROTOHIPPUS—Three toes—Only
large center toe touched ground—
Size of Donkey.
oval shaped. The longest part runs
crosswise, or horizontally. The
shape of the pupil cuts down the
amount a horse can see when it
is looking straight ahead. The horse
cannot see up above the level of
its eye. The pupil of the eye can
be opened up very wide, enabling
it to see better at night, or in a dim
light, than a human being can. The
ears of a horse are very flexible
and can be wiggled about in order
to hear sound. Since the horse has
a keen sense of hearing and a keen
sense of smell, it can hear or detect
strange objects by its sense of smell
before it can see them. Generally,
if the horse is allowed to sniff and
examine the object, its fear quickly
disappears. A wild horse is natur­
ally afraid of man. If grazing or
resting and it hears an unusual
sound, it immediately throws up
its head in alarm. It looks in the
direction from which the sound
came and may quickly turn and
run.
The horse has long legs which
makes it a swift runner. The foot
provides a hard surface which
does not wear down easily and les­
sens some of the shock when the
horse moves. A large foot gives
the horse better footing when it is
pulling heavy loads. The legs of a
newborn horse are very long in
proportion to its height. They grow
a little as the horse develops, but
not nearly so much as the rest of
the horse’s body. A very young
horse has such long legs that it
can run very fast from birth. This
was important when horses lived
in a wild state and often had to
flee from their enemies.
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