There have been so many books written about horses that in offering a new one I feel that an explanation, if not an apology, is due. And I am embarrassed as to how to frame the explanation without seeming to reflect on the books previously given to the public. Nothing could be further from my desire. Most of these previous books have been devoted to special kinds or types of horses without any effort to cover a very broad field. Some others have been frankly partizan with the avowed purpose of proving that this type or that was the only one that was worth serious consideration. All these are interesting, but valuable chiefly to the careful student bent on going into the subject of horse breeding and horse training in all of its branches. To do this an ordinary reader would have to study half a hundred books with the danger of becoming confused in the multiplicity of theories and conflicting statements and with the final result of knowing as little in the end as in the beginning. In this modest little volume I have endeavored briefly to show how the horses in America have been developed and have come to be what they are to-day. If I have succeeded even partly in my purpose I will have my ample reward; if I fail, my book will end on a few dusty library shelves along with hundreds of others on kindred subjects.

There is a peculiar characteristic of most writers on the horse. Let a man be ever so fair in his ordinary business and social life, he is apt, when he becomes interested in horses, to throw away his judicial attitude and change into an advocate who sees only one side. When his interest in that one side carries him to the length of writing, the tendency is to be so partizan that he is even discourteous to others who do not agree with him. This queer disposition to wrangle and dispute is due, no doubt, to the fact that horse breeding is not yet by any means an exact science, and the data, guiding even those who exercise the greatest care and intelligence, is not trustworthy. We do not know with certainty how any of the great types has been produced, for the beginnings of all of them are covered up by fictions, based on traditions not recorded, but handed down from generation to generation, or on fictions that have been manufactured with ingenious mendacity. All this is a pity, but there is no help for it now. What we can do is to tell what is true, show what has been demonstrated by known achievements and go on working in the material that we have at hand, so that we may assist in increasing the great property value that this country has in its horses.

That property value is immense. In the beginning of 1905, the Agricultural Department estimated that the (taxable) value of the horses in the United States was $1,200,310,020, and of mules $251,840,378, or a total of $1,452,150,398. This is only about eight per cent less than the aggregate value of the cows, beef cattle, sheep and hogs in the whole country. Merely, therefore, from an economic standpoint this question of preserving and increasing the value of horses is one of prime importance. At this particular time it is a question not only of increasing, but even of preserving, this value, for new agencies are coming into competition with horses for many purposes and are being substituted for horses in many others. The automobiles and the electric tramways are not merely passing fads. They have come to stay until substituted by something else which has not yet swum into our ken. The common horses will soon be obsolete except on our farms, and even on the farms they ought to be given up, for, notwithstanding all the great breeding establishments in the various states, by far the greater number of the horses are bred on the farms at present. That should always be the case; but it may not be so when the time comes that is rapidly approaching and a common horse will have next to no value at all. Farmers more than others need to realize that only such horses should be bred that will have a value for other than strictly farm work, for a farmer should be able to sell his surplus stock with a fair profit. If farmers have not the foresight to anticipate the inevitable, then they will have to accept the loss that will surely ensue.

Every breeder whether farmer, amateur or professional, should breed to a type. Any other method is merely a haphazard waste of time and money. When I say breed to a type, I mean always a reproducing type. There are several such in this country, a few of which belong to us, though most of them are of foreign origin. The Thoroughbred is English, the Percheron is French, the Hackney is English, the Orlof is Russian, the Clydesdale is English, the Morgan is American, the Denmark is American, the Clay-Arabian is American, and the standard bred trotter a kind of “go-as-you-please” mongrel; nevertheless he is considered by many the noblest achievement of intelligent American horse breeding. When any one goes in for horse breeding on either a small or a large scale, whether with one mare or with one hundred mares, he should, in selecting mates, always strive for a definite type in the foal. If intelligence and correct information be guided by experience the results are apt to be pleasantly satisfactory.

The first cardinal principle of horse breeding was formulated in England a century and a half ago in the expression: “Like begets like.” This rule has been followed in the creation and maintenance of all the great horse types in the civilized world, and singularly enough all of them, both great and small in size, have descended from Arab and Barb stock. This concise rule of breeding, “Like begets like,” has been misunderstood by some who did not take a sufficiently comprehensive view of it. This likeness does not refer merely to one thing; not to blood alone, nor to conformation, nor to performance; but to blood and to conformation and performance, but most of all to blood. Where blood lines, as to likeness, are disregarded, and conformation and performance are alone considered, the result is sure to be a lot of mongrels, some of them, it is true, of most surpassing excellence, but as a general thing, quite incapable of reproducing themselves with any reasonable certainty.

The great danger always in breeding horses and other domestic animals with the idea of improving a type or a family, is that mongrels may be produced. A mongrel is an animal that results from the union of dissimilar and heterogeneous blood. An improved and established reproducing type has hitherto been, and probably always will be, the result of the mingling of similar and homogeneous blood, crossed and recrossed until the similar becomes consanguineous. The Arab and Barb, I have said, are the foundation in blood of all the great types from the Percheron to the Thoroughbred. To be sure, other and dissimilar blood was used in the beginning of the making of all the types, but there was such crossing and recrossing, such grading up by a selection of mates, that the blood became similar, and the rule: “Like begets like,” being constantly followed a type becomes established.

When a type has been established and is of unquestioned value to the world, it should be preserved most carefully. The French, the Russians, the Germans and the Austrians do this by means of Governmental breeding farms. The English accomplish the same result by reason of the custom of primogeniture and entailed estates. Continuity in breeding is essential to its complete success. In this country when a breeder dies, his collection of horses is usually dispersed by sale to settle his estate. Considering our lack of Governmental assistance we have done amazingly well to become the greatest horse-producing country in the world. Our greatness, however, is mainly due to the vastness of our area, the fertility of our soil and consequent cheapness of pasturage, and to the high average intelligence of the American people. We have not exercised the scientific intelligence in breeding that some European people have done. So as breeders we have not a great deal to be proud of. We have done better as to quantity than quality. But we can do better, and I am sure that we will, for the time is hard upon us when the four-year-old horse that is not worth $300 in the market will not be worth his keep.

There is, however, an important public aspect to this question of improving and maintaining the breed of horses. Without good horses for cavalry the efficiency of an army is very much crippled. When our Civil War broke out horseback riding in the North had as an exercise for pleasure been generally given up, and nine-tenths of the men who went into the service on the Union side could not ride. On the other hand, at least seven-tenths of those who went into the Confederate army could ride. Moreover, the North had a scant supply of horses fit for cavalry, while in many States of the South such animals were abundant. Here we had on one side the material for a quickly-made cavalry, and on the other side practically no material either in horses or men for such a branch of the army. Critics of the war attribute the early successes of the South to the superiority of the cavalry. The Northern side was obliged to wait for nearly two years before that arm of the service was equal to that of the South. Thus, this distressful war was probably continued for more than a year longer than it would have been had the two sides in the beginning been equally supplied with riders and riding horses. And in the Japanese-Russian War, now in progress, the Japanese are hampered dreadfully by their lack of cavalry. They have beaten the Russians time and again only to let the Russians get away because of the Japanese inability, from lack of horses and horsemen, to cut off the line of retreat. It is a most distressingly expensive thing to be without horses in time of war; unless proper horses are abundant in time of peace, and the people who own them use them under the saddle, when war comes there is a scarcity of men who know how to ride. Good material for cavalry in horses and men is an excellent national investment.

In addition to my chapters on the breeding of various types I have added several others on the keeping, handling and using of horses so that if an owner have only this one book, he may be able to have at least a little useful information of many sorts and kinds.