HISTORIC HORSES

Hi-yo, Bucephalus—away! (Hm. Doesn’t have the same ring to it.)

HORSTORIES

You’ve heard of Mr. Ed and Silver (okay, lots of you younger people might not have heard of those famous TV horses), but most of you are probably familiar with famous racehorses like Secretariat, Seabiscuit, Phar Lap, and American Pharoah, and with famous fictional horses like Black Beauty (from the 1877 novel of the same name by Anna Sewell); Rocinante (Don Quixote’s horse in the novel by Miguel de Cervantes), and Shadowfax (the stallion of the wizard Gandalf from J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings). Well, let’s see how many of you are familiar with these famous horses from history. (Bonus: You can use this to quiz your friends on their historic horse knowledge!)

BUCEPHALUS

The huge black stallion and “warhorse” of ancient Greek conqueror Alexander the Great (356–323 BC). Alexander was 13 years old when he acquired Bucephalus and rode him for the next 18 years, into numerous battles and over thousands of miles during his campaigns from present-day Greece to central Asia, until the horse’s death, reportedly at the age of 30.

TRAVELLER

The gray American Saddlebred was ridden by General Robert E. Lee, commander of Confederate forces during the American Civil War. Traveller died in 1871, just a few months after Lee himself. (You can actually see what the horse looked like, because there are several photos of Lee and Traveller from the early days of photography.) Bonus fact: When Lee bought the horse in 1862, its name was Jeff Davis, named after Mississippi senator Jefferson Davis before he became president of the Confederacy. Lee renamed him Traveller.

BABIECA

Babieca belonged to Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar (c. 1043–1099), the popular Spanish folk hero better known as El Cid. According to legend, as a coming-of-age gift, El Cid’s godfather gave the young man the pick of a herd of Andalusian colts. (Andalusians are a very old breed of horses, known for their stocky, muscular bodies, and thick manes and tails.) When El Cid picked what his godfather thought was a weak horse, the godfather yelled, “Babieca!”, meaning “stupid.” El Cid stubbornly stood by his pick, and named the horse Babieca in honor of the moment. (You can see Babieca’s tomb in the cemetery of the San Pedro de Cardeña Monastery, near the city of Burgos, in north-central Spain.)

The word “mascot” comes from the French mascotte, which means “lucky charm.”

INCITATUS

The favorite horse of Roman emperor Caligula (12–41 AD). Legends involving the horse abound, including that he lived in a stable made of marble, had a manger of ivory, was fed oats mixed with flakes of gold, was made a consul in the Roman government, and that he was made a priest. (According to historians, most of the legends are untrue.)

MARENGO

The gray Arabian horse belonging to French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. Napoleon rode the horse in many famous battles, including his last, the Battle of Waterloo, after which Marengo was captured by the British and shipped to England, where he died at the ripe old age of 38. Want to see him? His skeleton still stands at the National Army Museum in London. (Minus his hooves, one of which was made into a snuff box, which resides in the Household Cavalry Museum, also in London.)

SAMPSON

The largest and heaviest horse on record. The Shire breed horse, foaled in 1846 in Toddington Mills, England, stood 21.25 hands high at the withers (the top of a horse’s shoulders). How tall is that? It’s 7 feet, 2½ inches—more than an inch taller than Shaquille O’Neal. (And that’s just at the shoulders. He was more than 9 feet tall measured to the top of his head.) Sampson’s weight was estimated at 3,360 pounds.

BURMESE

The black mare was a favorite horse of Queen Elizabeth II. She was foaled in 1962 at a Royal Canadian Mounted Police ranch in Fort Walsh, Saskatchewan, and was presented to the queen in 1969, when the RCMP took part in the Royal Windsor Horse Show. The queen rode Burmese in 18 consecutive “Trooping the Colour” ceremonies (a military ceremony performed by members of Commonwealth armies since the 17th century), from 1969 until 1986. Burmese was put out to pasture on the grounds of Windsor Castle, and died there in 1990. (In the famous photo of Queen Elizabeth and President Reagan chatting while on horseback, that’s Burmese that Her Majesty is riding.)

SERGEANT RECKLESS

A chestnut mare of the Mongolian breed, Sergeant Reckless really was a sergeant: she was given the official rank—a promotion from corporal—by the U.S. Marine Corps in 1954, after serving for nine months during the Korean War. The horse was purchased from a young Korean man in 1952, and became the packhorse for a Marine Recoilless Rifle Platoon. She carried ammunition and other vital supplies—often from supply sites to front lines by herself—during several combat operations. She was also used to carry wounded soldiers away from enemy fire and to safety. Sergeant Reckless was shipped to the United States in 1954, and was retired from service in 1960. Some of the medals she received for her Korean War service: two Purple Hearts, a Good Conduct Medal, a Presidential Unit Citation, a Korean Service Medal, and a United Nations Service Medal.

The Pentagon has five sides because it was going to be built on a five-sided piece of land. The site changed, but the building didn’t.

COMANCHE

The U.S. Army 7th Cavalry horse ridden by Captain Myles Keogh in General George Custer’s disastrous Battle of the Little Bighorn against Native American tribes, in 1876. Like Custer and most of his men, Keogh was killed in the battle, but Comanche, despite being shot several times, survived. The horse, who got his name from Captain Keogh after being wounded in an earlier battle with Comanche Indians, lived out the rest of his years at Fort Riley in Kansas, and died there in 1891, at the age of 29. Then…he was taxidermied. His stuffed remains are on display in a glass case at the University of Kansas’s Natural History Museum.

PROMETEA

And finally, one very recent historic horse: Prometea, a Haflinger horse (a small, chestnut-colored breed developed in northern Italy and Austria in the 18th century), who was born on May 28, 2003, in Cremona, Italy. What’s so special about her? She was the first cloned horse in history, having been “born” at the Laboratory of Reproductive Technology. She was carried by and birthed from the horse she was cloned from, meaning she was born from her identical twin. Five years later, Prometea made equine history again, when she gave birth to a healthy foal, making her the first cloned horse to give birth.

HORSE SENSE

“A man on a horse is spiritually, as well as physically, bigger than a man on foot.”

—John Steinbeck

“No hour of life is lost that is spent in the saddle.”

—Winston Churchill

“It’s hard to lead a cavalry charge if you think you look funny on a horse.”

—Adlai E. Stevenson II

“Horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on people.”

—W.C. Fields

Before vacuums, people placed cloths called druggets, or crumb catchers, over carpets to keep them clean.