When the Rocky Mountain Horse® originated in the United States in the late 1800's in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains of eastern Kentucky, there was no comprehension of the need to document anything about them. Therefore the history of this horse from 1890 to the late 1900's has little or no documentation. The inhabitants of this region were unaware that their utility horses might someday become the foundation of a special breed. In fact, the existence of these horses was mostly a secret for many years to all but the locals. Few facts can be proven beyond the shadow of doubt since everyone who personally witnessed the breed's beginnings in the 1800's is now deceased. Only a verbal history passed down from generation to generation exists, so all that can be recorded are the stories remembered by living descendants of those witnesses.
A horse was a necessity, had to be versatile and had to earn its keep by working hard daily. Even so, the families of this poor area could not afford the upkeep, so their horses received no special care, and had to withstand the harsh winters in Kentucky with minimal shelter. They were fed a kind of rough silage and some ate the bark off trees when they were hungry. Only the horses that survived these extreme conditions lived to reproduce their kind.
The traditional belief is that around 1890, a young, gaited colt appeared in eastern Kentucky that was the foundation to a line of horses that has been treasured in the area ever since. He was called "the Rocky Mountain Horse" by the local Appalachian people because of the area he had come from. Little is known about this foundation stallion, but the oral history indicates that he was chocolate-colored with a flaxen mane and tail, and that he possessed a superior gait.
This stallion was out-crossed to the local Appalachian saddle mares in this relatively small geographical area but the basic characteristics of this strong genetic line continue. A medium-sized horse of gentle temperament with an easy ambling four beat gait that made it the horse of choice on the farms and rugged foothills of the Appalachians was created. This versatile horse had natural endurance, could plow, work cattle, be ridden, or drive the buggy. Because of the gait, they could cover a greater distance without tiring. For these reasons the breed was preserved and this prized line of horses gradually increased in numbers. Today it is known as the Rocky Mountain Horse® and is used as a pleasure horse, for trail or endurance riding, and as a show horse, is rapidly gaining popularity because of their unique way of moving in the ring. The calm nature is ideally suited for working around cattle and for 4-H projects.
In Spout Springs, Kentucky, Sam Tuttle was the most prominent breeder of Rocky Mountain Horses for nearly 75 years and is considered to be the person most responsible for the survival of the breed. He used these horses for many years in the 1960's to haul inexperienced people over rough and rugged trails in Natural Bridge State Park. His favorite stallion, Old Tobe, was also his primary breeding stallion and sired foals until the age of 34, and lived to age 37. He had the perfect sure-footed gait and a calm, gentle temperament and was the one that carried the young, the old, or the unsure over the mountain trails for 10 years without faltering, even though he was a breeding stallion. Everyone who rode the stallion fell in love with him and his offspring were always in demand. He passed on his gait, disposition, and other great qualities to his offspring but one outstanding trait passed on was longevity, and many of his offspring are still breeding in their late twenties and early thirties. It has also been said that his offspring followed in his perfectly-timed footsteps. Many of the present Rocky Mountain Horses® can trace back to Old Tobe.
When roads improved and new means of travel were created, gaited horse populations in the United States started to decline. One exception was the less-developed area of the Appalachian Mountains where gaited horses were still necessary for travel where there were no roads, and so breeding continued. Even through the hard times of the Depression and World War II years, Sam Tuttle kept a sizable herd of thirty to forty horses on his farm. In the 1950s, when the horse populations in general were rapidly declining due to tractors and farm machinery available, breeders still bought their mares to Old Tobe from several different states and he was always in demand for stud service.
It became obvious that a haphazard and unorganized maintenance of this breed could eventually result in its loss and so a systematic preservation of the characteristics of the Rocky Mountain Horse® was necessary. So, from 1980 through 1985, Rea Swan of Lexington, Kentucky, diligently worked on locating the few remaining breeders who were interested in preserving this unique strain. In total, 26 people, representing only 33 horses, attended the first meeting in May 1986 in Winchester, Kentucky to form the Rocky Mountain Horse Association' (RMHA) for the explicit purpose of preserving, promoting, breeding, and developing the Rocky Mountain Horse®. The breed has since been issued a Registration Certification mark by the U.S. Patent Office and only those horses registered by the RMHA may be called a Rocky Mountain Horse®. Of all the "mountain horse" breed registries, the first breed-specific registry to be formed was the RMHA and there are now over 12,000 registered Rocky Mountain Horses®.
In October 1986, people who were concerned with keeping the breed alive came from 7 different counties to the first open meeting of the RMHA and 30 horses that met breed standards were registered that day, for a starting total of 63 horses. But for the next few years, members had the daunting task of locating and determining which horses qualified for registration as foundation stock. After locating a horse that qualified, the process for determining and recording its lineage was a difficult task due to the lack of prior documentation of parentage, so it was a bit like putting the pieces of a puzzle together. But after talking to enough people, much of the missing information was found and the RMHA was able to fill in the rest of the pieces. Today, any vague or unsubstantiated information about lineage is denoted by the letters “STBB", on the registration papers, which stands for "said to be by", and in 1989, the books were closed for registrations of foundation stock to preserving the traits of the breed by limiting further unknown lineage. The Rocky Mountain Horse is one of the few American breeds that require certification before breeding to produce offspring eligible for registration and it is a unique concept used for culling undesirable traits before they get into the gene pool.
The Rocky Mountain Horse® is from 14.2 to 16 hands high, but the only exception to this is for mares that can be certified at a minimum of 14 hands under certain conditions. The breed comes in only solid colors, but facial markings are acceptable if not excessive, and there cannot be any white above the knee or hock. The horse must have a natural ambling four beat gait, either a single foot or a rack, with no evidence of pacing. When the Rocky Mountain Horse® moves, you can count 4 distinct hoofbeats which produce a cadence of equal rhythm in this order: left rear, left front, right rear, right front. This gait is naturally present from birth and does not require training aids or action devices. Each individual horse has its own speed and can travel at 7-20 miles per hour.
The Rocky Mountain Horse® is known for its gentleness and its ease of handling and training. It is a wonderful surefooted and comfortable riding horse with a strong heart and natural endurance.
About Crystal Eikanger
Crystal Eikanger is a freelance writer, web designer, video editor and voice talent working as Ei-Kan Productions on www.rentacoder.com as well as other freelance sites. www.HorseClicks.com is a popular website filled with classifieds of horses for sale, horse trailers, tack, and horse related properties.
Friday, April 30, 2010
The Kentucky Appalachian Bred Rocky Mountain Horse®
Sunday, April 25, 2010
That High Perch You're On Might Be a Percheron - the French Draft Horse
The Percheron is a very ancient breed of French draft horse that many people are familiar with, though perhaps not by name. These gigantic horses can't help but be noticed, and are often used for novelty carriage rides, and there's usually a few in harness at state and county fairs. They have also appeared in advertisements and company logos in the United States many times.
The breed derives its name from the Perche Valley of the Le Perche province in northwest France, 50 miles southwest of Paris; a region long famed for its horses. From the earliest known times the people of Le Perche have been producers of horses, but not often buyers of them, so in terms of breeding stock, they are an isolated equine population.
However, the mysterious origins of the Percheron have been lost over time because the breed pre-dates documented pedigrees and organized breeding in Europe by several centuries. Some believe the Percheron descends from the original horses that were found in France during the Ice Age. Others say that the breed is closely related to the French Boulonnais draft horses that were used in the Roman invasion of Brittany.
Another theory is that the breed is from Abd el Rahman's Arab stallions or from some of the horses that were used by the invading Moors during the battle of Poitiers that were eventually divided among the victorious French forces. What is known is that twice in the history of the breed, native mares of the Le Perche region were mated with Arab stallions first during the 8th century and later during the Middle Ages, when historical records show that Percherons were used as military horses. By the time of the crusades, the Percheron was widely recognized as outstanding for size and soundness, as well as for beauty and style.
By the 17th century, these horses produced in Le Perche had a widespread reputation that put them in demand for a number of heavy duty uses. After the invention of gunpowder, heavy warhorses were no longer needed. The Percheron then became the choice for pulling heavy French stagecoaches called diligences and became known as diligence horses. With the invention of the railroad, Percherons switched from stagecoach driving to farm duty and other heavy labor.
In the early 19th century, the government in France established a stud at Le Pin for developing mounts for the French army. In 1823, a horse named Jean Le Blanc was foaled in Le Perche and all of today's modern Percheron bloodlines trace directly to this stallion.
Percherons were first imported to the United States in 1839 with thousands more imported during the last half of the 19th century. The Percheron is especially well suited to the U.S. because it can handle a wide variety of weather conditions and it quickly became the most popular horse of both the American farmer and the teamster who moved freight and cargo on the nation's streets. The Percheron was such a popular horse that by 1930, the census showed that there were three times as many registered Percherons as the other draft breeds, Shire, Belgian, and Clydesdale, combined.
When horses were replaced by cars, this led to a decline in demand for draft horses and then following World War II, this ancient horse was almost lost when the invention of the modern farm tractor nearly made the breed extinct. The low point came in 1954 when just 85 head were recorded. Fortunately the Percheron was rescued by a handful of farmers, including many Amish; along with fans abroad and in France; all of whom were dedicated to the preservation of the breed and managed to keep it alive through the next twenty years of the draft horse depression.
The 1960's saw a resurgence in the draft horse business as Americans rediscovered its usefulness. Percherons are now back on small farms and are also working in forests as logging animals that can take out a few trees without ruining the rest in the smaller woodlots. They can work on terrain where even the most modern tractors and four-wheel-drive vehicles fail and can work in mud and snow better than man-made machines.
Today, Percherons are used primarily as show horses, and they are sometimes seen pulling carriages for big city tourism and used for recreational driving such as hayrides, sleigh rides and parades, often in teams of dappled gray or black. They are still widely used for farm work in France and some parts of rural Europe.
Old paintings and crude drawings from the Middle Ages traditionally show that the Percheron has been a breed of mostly gray horses. The French knight is almost always shown on a grey or white horse of considerable substance for that time. Nowadays, Percherons are generally black or gray, but there are also chestnut, sorrel, bay, roan, and other colors possible. Some registries only accept those black and gray, though chestnut, and bay are acceptable for registration in the US if accompanied by a DNA test confirming parentage. Some horses have white markings on the head and feet, but excessive white is undesirable.
Like other draft horses, the Percheron has a very compact, muscular build which is designed to generate a lot of power. These horses have very heavily muscled hindquarters and short backs which is the best combination for power. They also have long, thick necks, and blocky heads with wide-set full prominent eyes. The strong jaw and refined ears suggests Arabian ancestry. Their tails tend to be clipped for farm work, but when allowed to grow, they are long, wavy, and surprisingly silky. Stallions should have ruggedness about the head and mares should have a feminine look.
Lately, modern show Percherons have been bred for a longer, thinner neck, a longer back, and longer, smoother-looking muscles. However, these types of Percherons are used mainly as show horses and not for the really heavy work of their predecessors. They are shown in competition hitching and halter classes at many state and county fairs across the United States. Percherons can be ridden and some have even been trained into fine jumpers.
Percherons range in height from 15 to 19 hands high, most are between 16-2 and 17-3 hands high. Weight ranges from an average of 1,900 pounds up to 2,600 pounds. One of the tallest horses recorded was a Percheron named Dr Le Gear, born in 1902, that was 21.1 hands high (7 feet) and weighed just over 3,000 pounds. In spite of their size, their life-span is over 25 years.
Just as with other draft horse breeds, the Percheron has a very pleasing disposition; gentle, amiable, friendly and curious around young children. The breed is proud, alert, intelligent, easily trained and willing to work. They will stand patiently without being tethered and can tolerate boring conditions and inexperienced handlers well.
The Percheron is very versatile and adaptable breed. These horses also have incredible endurance, and they are remarkably agile and surefooted for a draft breed. Their imposing size demands the respect of all who view them. Yes, it is a high perch you are on if you are riding a Percheron.
About Crystal Eikanger
Crystal Eikanger is a freelance writer, web designer, video editor and voice talent working as Ei-Kan Productions on www.rentacoder.com as well as other freelance sites. www.HorseClicks.com is a popular website filled with classifieds of horses for sale, horse trailers, tack, and horse related properties.