From very remote times England has possessed horses which her inhabitants turned to valuable account, as we find occasion to note elsewhere[1]; and the farther she advanced on the path of civilisation the wider became the field for utility open to the horse. To the necessity for adapting him to various purposes, to the carrying of armour-clad soldiery, to draught, pack work, hawking, hunting, coaching, for use in mines where ponies are required, &c., we owe the several distinct breeds which we now possess in such perfection.

In early times horses were held the most valuable of all property in Britain; we see evidence of the importance attached to them in the figures on ancient coins. The Venerable Bede states that the English first used saddle horses about the year 631, when prelates and other Church dignitaries were granted the privilege of riding. This statement needs qualification, for it is certain that riding was practised by the ancient Britons and their descendants; we shall no doubt be right in reading Bede’s assertion to refer to saddles, which were in use among the nations of Eastern Europe in the fourth century. The ancient Greek and Roman horsemen rode barebacked; but a law in the Theodosian Code, promulgated in the fifth century, by which the weight of a saddle was limited to 60 Roman lbs., proves that saddles were then in general use in the Roman Empire.

The Saxon saddle was little more than a pad; this would give no very secure seat to the rider, and therefore we cannot marvel that the art of fighting on horseback remained unknown in Britain until it was introduced by our Norman conquerors. Even after that epoch only the heavily-mailed knights fought from the saddle; for some centuries subsequently the lightly armed horsemen dismounted to go into action, leaving their horses in charge of those who remained with the baggage of the army in the rear. It would be wrong to call these troops cavalry; they employed horses only for the sake of greater mobility, and were what in modern phrase are styled mounted infantry.

Saxons and Danes brought horses of various breeds into England, primarily to carry on their warfare against the British; the most useful of these were horses of Eastern blood, which doubtless performed valuable service in improving the English breeds. The Saxon and Danish kings of necessity maintained large studs of horses for military purposes, but whether they took measures to improve them by systematic breeding history does not record.

King Alfred (871 to 899) had a Master of the Horse, named Ecquef, and the existence of such an office indicates that the Royal stables were ordered on a scale of considerable magnitude.

King Athelstan (925-940) is entitled to special mention, for it was he who passed the first of a long series of laws by which the export of horses was forbidden. Athelstan’s law assigns no reason for this step; but the only possible motive for such a law must have been to check the trade which the high qualities of English-bred horses had brought into existence. At no period of our history have we possessed more horses than would supply our requirements, and Athelstan’s prohibition of the export of horses beyond sea, unless they were sent as gifts, was undoubtedly due to a growing demand which threatened to produce scarcity. This king saw no objection to the importation of horses: he accepted several as gifts from Continental Sovereigns, and evidently attached much value to them, for in his will he made certain bequests of white horses and others which had been given him by Saxon friends.