Book Review by Norman Fine
100 Horses in History: True Stories of Horses Who Shaped Our World, Gayle Stewart, Blood Horse, LLC (2015), large format, flexible cover, illustrated, color, 168 pages, available from the author and Amazon.How insipid would be the history of man were it not for the horse. By magnifying our feeble efforts with its speed, strength, and endurance, horses have injected color and romance into our very lives and amplified man’s physical impact on the history of the world.
Pegasus Award-winning writer Gayle Stewart tells the stories of one hundred special horses, which she has organized into eight categories: Trailblazers; Movies, Music, and Timeless Tales; War; Racing; Celebrities; Heros and Heroines; Show Stars; and Legend and Lore.
Do you know about Old Billy, most likely a Cleveland Bay cross? He went to work on the river bank at the age of two or three, and worked for fifty-six years to provide the power for the hoist that loaded and unloaded heavy goods from river barges. He lived another three years in retirement before dying at the age of sixty-two.
General Ulysses S. Grant was regarded as the best horseman in his class at West Point. After the Battle of Vicksburg, Grant was summoned to visit a dying soldier who wished to give to the general “the finest horse in the world.” Thus Grant received Cincinnati—a seventeen-hand son of Lexington—who carried Grant at major engagements during the war and on to Appomattox. Cincinnati was even ridden numerous times during the last month of the war by President Abraham Lincoln, who Grant described as a “fine horseman.” And, yes, the story of General Robert E. Lee’s gray horse, Traveller, is included as well. (Traveller went in a hackamore!)
Siete Leguas, after having a bullet pass cleanly through her, galloped twenty-one miles carrying her rider, the bandit Pancho Villa, to safety. The mare earned her name after the incident, Siete Leguas meaning seven leagues (about twenty-one miles). Though she became Villa’s favorite horse, she outlived him by a good number of years!
Captain was a wee pony that worked in a Scottish coal mine dragging loads of coal, deep underground. One day on the job, while dragging the hutch in which rode his usual driver, Captain stopped, turned in the opposite direction against all the efforts of his young driver, and hustled in the opposite direction. Presently, tons and tons of debris came down from the roof behind him. With tears in his eyes, the young miner threw his arms around the neck of the pony who had save both their lives. That young miner was Harry Lauder. He left the mines and gained fame worldwide as a singer, song writer, and comedian and was nighted in 1915 by King George V.
Do you know what prompted Lady Godiva—a woman of means and modesty—to perform the act that earned her fame? She had a yearning for social justice and begged her husband, the Earl, to reduce taxes on the people of Coventry. Tired of her nagging, he promised to do so if she would ride naked through the town. He assumed she wouldn’t, but as we all know, she did! That same affair also produced a common term used to this day to describe a shameful person. Do you know what that could be?
It’s all in the book! Quick reads, both entertaining and eye-opening.
Posted February 24, 2017