Cumberland Island horses look a lot like Banker horses but are usually a little larger. And they have long, “scooper”- like toes . . . all the better for galloping over the island’s deep sand dunes.
Donkey Down Under
This knock-kneed fellow has made quite an impression on his country-mates.
On March 29, 2008, the folks at Australia’s Willowdale Donkey Stud farm witnessed a rare event: a jenny named Fantasy had twins, only the fourth such pair known to survive anywhere in the world. According to Willowdale’s owner, Barbara Bracken, “Equines don’t carry twins. They either abort both at six months or give birth to one live and one stillborn.”
These babies (named Donegan and Lonegan) both made it, but Lonegan was severely knock-kneed. It had been so crowded inside his mother’s womb that his legs never developed properly. He had trouble walking, and the disability put extra strain on his shoulders and back.
Aussies to the Rescue
Historically, such disabled animals were euthanized because they made poor workers. But Bracken wasn’t willing to give up on Lonegan. She took him to veterinary specialists who said they could fix the foal’s legs, but it would be costly . . . thousands of dollars. So she set up a Web site and contacted local news stations. Before long, Lonegan’s story was front-page news, and people from all over Australia were sending money to support his treatment.
Today, the little donkey walks around in casts used to straighten and strengthen his front legs. He’ll need at least three more years of treatment, Bracken says, including surgery to insert pins into his knees to keep them straight. But thanks to the support of his countrymen, more than $30,000 in donations will pay for his care.
A Horse of a Different Stripe
•No two zebras have exactly the same stripes. (Their stripes are as distinct as human fingerprints.)
•The stripes are also a form of camouflage. In the wild, lions are a zebra’s main predator, and since lions are color blind, a zebra standing in tall grass or a herd moving together, especially at dawn and dusk, is hard for a lion to see clearly.
•Many zebras can run up to 40 mph.
•Average zebra life span: 28 years.
•Are they black with white stripes, or with with black stripes? The common thinking is that zebras are white with black stripes because the stripes usually end at their bellies and the insides of their legs (which are all white).
•Zebra foals can walk just 20 minutes after they’re born.
•A zebra’s eyesight at night is about as good as a cat’s or an owl’s.
Horse Power of a Different Kind
For centuries, cultures around the world have sworn by these sometimes-contradictory horse superstitions.
Protection and Good Luck
•Everyone knows it’s bad luck to walk under a ladder, but you can also avoid the bad if you keep your fingers crossed until you have seen three horses.
•If you break a mirror in the house or spill salt in the kitchen, any ensuing misfortune can be averted if you lead a horse through the house.
•Horse brasses (decorative harness plaques) protect a horse from witches and humans from the evil eye.
•For protection from witches, wear a black stallion’s tail hair on your wrist.
Curses and Cures
•If a horse neighs at your door, you will get sick.
•To cure warts, circle them in horse hair.
•Eat hair from a horse’s forelock to cure worms.
•Inhale a horse’s breath to cure whooping cough, or put three hairs from a donkey’s shoulder into a muslin bag and wear it around your neck. (This also cures measles.)
Color
•Seeing one white horse is bad luck—unless you are with your lover, in which case, it is good luck.
•Seeing two white horses together will bring you good luck. (Whether you’re with a lover or not.)
•Seeing a piebald horse is also good luck—unless you first see his tail up, which means you will have bad luck instead.
•In England and Germany, dreaming of a white horse is considered a death omen.
•We know meeting a white horse can be lucky or unlucky, but there are protocols to follow in either case—spit and make a wish (lucky), or cross your fingers until you see a dog (unlucky).
•Seeing a gray horse on the way to a church is considered good luck for a bride and groom. Gray horses are supposed to be lucky in general—except in Wales, where they are omens of death.
Hodgepodge
•Don’t change your horse’s name; it’s bad luck.
•If a pregnant woman sees a donkey, her child will grow up to be wise and well behaved.
•If you see a white dog, remain silent until you see a white horse.
•The deeper a horse dips his nostrils while drinking, the better sire he will be.
Przewalski’s Horses
Introducing . . . the only horse breed never to be domesticated.
Przewalski horses, called the taki (“spirit”) in Mongolian—are native to Central Asia. The horses got their modern name from Nikolai Przewalski, a Russian explorer who visited Mongolia in the mid-19th century and found two herds near the Gobi Desert.
What Makes Them Different?
Przewalskis are small—they weigh between 450 and 750 pounds and typically stand 12 to 14 hands tall. A dark stripe, called an “eel stripe,” runs down their backs. Przewalskis also have unusually sharp hooves that they use to defend themselves and to dig up water from the rocky ground in the grassy deserts and treeless steppes of western Mongolia. And, interestingly, they they have 66 chromosomes, rather than the 64 other horse breeds have.
Przewalskis are hard to capture, but in the early 1900s, a few people caught about 100 and imported them to Europe. Only 53 survived the journey, and just 13 of those thrived in captivity. All of the nearly 1,500 Przewalskis in captivity today trace their family trees to one of those 13.
To the Rescue!
Life after the races can be deadly for horses, but some rescue groups are trying to change that.
Ferdinand’s story was the stuff of legend. Before the 1986 Kentucky Derby, the three-year-old chestnut Thoroughbred was a 17–1 long shot. His win defied expectations and set records: the oldest jockey ever to win the contest (Bill Shoemaker, age 54) and largest purse at that time ever paid out to the winner ($609,500). Ferdinand went on to place second in the Preakness and third in the Belmont Stakes that year. And in 1987, he was named Horse of the Year after the Breeders’ Cup Classic.
But Ferdinand’s story took a tragic turn after that. When he was retired from racing in 1989, he was sent to stud, but his offspring never proved to be as fast or skilled on the racetrack as he was. So in the mid-1990s, he was shipped off to Japan, where breeders again tried to put him up for stud. No luck. Finally, in 2002, the Kentucky Derby winner was sent to a Japanese slaughterhouse.
The Ugly Side
Ferdinand wasn’t the only one. Roughly 100,000 American horses are sold to slaughterhouses overseas every year, and about 15,000 of those are Thoroughbreds. The situation used to be even worse. It wasn’t until 2007 that the U.S. Department of Agriculture stopped inspecting horse meat. Because inspection is required for any meat processing done in the United States, that decision put an end to the country’s three horse-meat processing plants (one in Illinois and two in Texas). But even though slaughterhouses in the United States have shut down, it’s still an easy trip over the border into Mexico or Canada, where thousands of horses are killed for meat every year.
Each horse sold to a slaughterhouse brings up to $500, but it costs about $5,000 a year to feed, shelter, and care for a horse. And even though some horses, like Ferdinand, earn big payouts in their day, many owners decide that the horses will cost more than they’re worth. So, given the choice of paying to put a horse down, paying for it to live out its natural life, or earning a little cash by getting rid of the animal, many owners choose the latter. And because of that trend, rescue organ
izations all over the United States are stepping in and trying to change owners’ minds about how to handle horses that don’t fit the standard definition of high performers.
On the Mend
Dozens of these groups exist around the country. Some are dedicated especially to Thoroughbreds; others will take in any breed. But they all share similar goals: to end the slaughter of American horses and to give all the animals good homes where they can live out their days.
The horse lovers who run the rescue groups pride themselves on giving the horses as simple and carefree a life as possible. They reintroduce the animals to living among herds, where they don’t have to race or do heavy work. Many horses arrive with injuries sustained during their racing days, and some even have to go through detox to flush out steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs in their systems.
Adoption Service
One of the largest Thoroughbred rescuers is CANTER, a free Michigan-based service established in 1997 that helps to match needy horses with nonracing people who want them. Jo Anne Normile had her own racehorses, whom she turned into eventing horses when the animals’ track careers were finished. At the track, Normile and her husband met many trainers and owners who wanted to sell their former racehorses rather than send them to slaughterhouses. So the Normiles started CANTER. There are now offices in six other states, and the group gives support and advice to both sellers and owners.
CANTER and other groups usually operate at full capacity all year, but they’re still only able to help a small percentage of the total number of needy horses and rely mostly on outside donations to continue their operations. But as the plight of unwanted horses becomes better known, additional resources become available, making the obstacles a little less intimidating.
The Almighty Stirrup?
According to one historian, the stirrup had far-reaching historical consequences. (We’re not so sure.)
With the exception of standing in the saddle at a full gallop, it’s possible to do almost everything on horseback without stirrups that a rider can do with them (even post)—it’s just more difficult. Some of the greatest cavalries in history rode without stirrups, and Alexander the Great conquered most of the world without them. But given that the rung serves as a step for mounting, a footrest during long rides, and an added means of control and stability, it’s no wonder that once stirrups caught on, few horsemen wanted to ride without them.
A Step Up
Officially, stirrups were invented in China in the 4th century AD, though some archaeologists offer evidence that the Assyrians used them much earlier, around 850 BC. Stirrups came to eastern Europe in the 7th century AD by way of invading tribes and immediately caught on with people there because they made most aspects of horseback riding so much easier.
One 20th-century historian, though, argued that stirrups were much more than just a convenience. In 1962, Lynn White Jr. went so far as to claim they were among the most historically important inventions of all time. White wrote, “Few inventions have been so simple as the stirrup, but few have had so catalytic an influence on history.”
A Feudal Invention?
White’s argument was complicated, but the short version goes like this: stirrups led to the advent of feudalism, the medieval political system that set up strict economic class divisions in Europe. Horses had been used in war for a long time, but according to White, the adoption of the stirrup in the 8th century made it possible for soldiers to use “shock tactics”—charging an enemy on horseback with the full weight of the animal behind the attack. This was an effective war maneuver, and it caused a shift in how armies fought: they went from relying on infantry (men on the ground) to putting more stock in their cavalries, which had the advantage. (They were faster, stronger, and more in control of the fight.)
But all these new, elite cavalry officers needed an incentive to drop everything and rush to the battlefield whenever their leaders called on them—which was pretty often because Europe was filled with warring tribes and invaders at the time. So to ensure the cavalry officers’ loyalty, the monarchs (first in France and then throughout Europe) granted them large parcels of land to lord over. And because the landowners couldn’t work all that land themselves, they needed cheap laborers (who became known as serfs) to do it. Voilà! Feudalism.
That Sounds Good, But . . .
When White published his hypothesis in 1962, it caused quite a ruckus among medieval historians who all clamored to prove or disprove his theory. Ultimately, most of them rejected his argument for two reasons:
•It’s possible to use shock tactics without stirrups. More important for this style of fighting is the saddle’s cantle: the rider can brace against it at the point of impact. The cantle was around much earlier than the stirrup—even the Romans used it. Plus, modern riders have been able to joust bareback without being unhorsed, proving that the stirrup is not essential for a successful cavalry.
•Second, the first record of Europeans using shock tactics is at the 1066 Battle of Hastings. Stirrups were around long before that, so there’s no clear evidence that the arrival of the stirrup and the use of shock tactics coincided. In fact, the only clear military advantage the stirrup provided was for mounted archers—by standing up in the stirrups, an archer could improve his aim.
In the end, White’s hypothesis seemed off-base, and most historians today believe that, even though the stirrup did provide a huge convenience for riders and cavalries, and even aided soldiers during wartime, it wasn’t the root of feudalism.
Horses of the Dunes
These horses roam wild, reject feed touched by human hands, and survive in the “Graveyard of the Atlantic”—a desolate crescent of sand dunes known as Sable Island.
Sable Island is a 20-mile-long sandbar lurking in the North Atlantic Ocean, about 100 miles off the coast of Nova Scotia. Since the 17th century, hundreds of ships and thousands of crew and passengers have met their end on Sable’s treacherous, ever-shifting shoals. Yet among that destruction lives a population of horses who have survived the elements for more than two centuries.
Some of the Sable Island horses were probably survivors of early shipwrecks. Others were transported there during fruitless attempts to colonize the island—first by Acadians from Nova Scotia and later by Americans from Boston. Thomas Hancock (brother of Declaration of Independence signer John Hancock) also brought some horses to the island during the 18th century to await shipment to the Caribbean. When he died, the horses were left to their own devices.
Marooned but Not Forgotten
In 1801, Nova Scotia’s government established a rescue station on Sable Island to help shipwreck survivors. Officials also captured some of the island’s horses and trained them for rescue operations. Whatever the weather—gales of hurricane strength, thick fog, blizzards—the horses would haul heavy rowboats across the island, tow lines through rolling seas to survivors, and transport wagonloads of people to shelters, sometimes across miles of sand dunes and through swamps.
Toward the end of the 19th century, Nova Scotia’s government started holding annual roundups on the island and shipping horses to auctions in Halifax. Many became farm and buggy horses, and some were used as polo ponies, primarily because of their stamina. All the money earned from the auctions helped to finance the rescue station.
You’re Not the Boss of Me!
As the horses became a valuable commodity, officials started trying to protect them. Winters on Sable Island were harsh and could decimate the herds, so the government built shelters and left feed out for the animals. But the horses remained independent. They weren’t interested in the man-made structures and mostly ignored them. Instead, during the winter, they huddled—rumps to the wind—against the steep dunes. The feed didn’t fare much better: the horses would defecate on it and then move elsewhere to paw through snow for familiar, but sparse, grass and weeds.
When the Nova Scotians introduced stallions from the mainland to strengthen the herd, the island stallions revo
lted. At least one mainland stallion ended up in quicksand and died. Others were injured. Men and horses could coexist on Sable Island, it seemed, but the horses didn’t take kindly to interference.
The Island They Know
Today, 200 to 300 horses live on Sable Island. Winters are still hard, but summer transforms the area—freshwater ponds appear, and grass blankets small meadows and the shallows between dunes. The shaggy horses shed their thick winter hair and forage for dietary staples: grass, sandwort, reeds, and kelp washed ashore by storms. Family herds wander among hundreds of seals, and inquisitive foals sniff at the pups.
The Sable Island horses are small. Full-grown stallions rarely weigh more than 950 pounds; mares don’t usually top 750 pounds. They are heavy-bodied and short-legged, reminiscent of Bretons, the favored horses of the early Acadians and probably the dominant bloodline.
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