THE WORLD'S MOST IMPORTANT HORSE BREED
Now extinct in its pure form, the Hobby is the foundation for the Thoroughbred, Quarter Horse and many other modern breeds.
Now extinct in its pure form, the Hobby is the foundation for the Thoroughbred, Quarter Horse and many other modern breeds.
Mention the term “hobby horse” to anybody under the age of 90 and they are likely to think of an antique wooden rocking horse or the spring-loaded plastic “Wonder Horse” they rode as a toddler. Because the Hobby became extinct in pure form about 200 years ago, few people realize that it is an actual horse breed.
I In fact, by far and away, the Ho Hobby is the most important and i influential horse breed ever to h have existed. The Hobby can lay th this claim because it became the mare (distaff) bloodline upon which the Th Thoroughbred was founded and later h helped in the same way to found the A American Quarter Horse, now the world’s most popular and numerous breed. Moreover, it was largely upon Hobby mares that the Morgan was established, and the Morgan and all the many breeds derivative of it are thus also “Hob’s children.”
The Hobby was highly popular and approved of in its day---and its day was a very long one, for its roots go back more than 3,000 years. The Hobby originated as the result of mankind’s first large-scale effort at outcrossing, and its history is a fascinating one. The purpose of this series is to help you become familiar with the characteristics of modern breeds, yet their stories cannot rightly be told without first gaining an appreciation for the conformation, gaits, athletic ability and temperament of the Hobby.
In the first installment of this series (“The Origin of Horse Breeds,” EQUUS 439) I presented carefully researched maps showing the geographic areas occupied by the subspecies of Equus caballus at the period immediately preceding domestication. The maps show that the horse species had adapted naturally over time to areas with different climate and terrain. Most widespread mammal species show this tendency to differentiate, thus forming morphologically distinct subspecies.
With the beginning of domestication, people began to influence which mares a given stallion would cover. In nature, there was probably always a low frequency of matings of individuals belonging to subspecies with abutting territories, and historically it is quite likely that in certain areas---especially the trans-Caucasus that lies between the Black and Caspian Seas, and along the Rhine-Rhone boundary in western Europe---there was both natural and manmade introgression between different horse subspecies.
All such matings involved nothing more complicated or unusual than that a stallion should go---or be ridden---to the desired herd of mares. This obviously limits the size of the area in which any given stallion could have influence. Long-distance equine transport had to wait until people learned how to build large, sturdy ships that could carry horses. With the first cargo ships to ply the Mediterranean came the greatest revolution that has ever occurred in horse breeding: stallions from the eastern Mediterranean were brought more than 2,000 miles westward---a journey they would never have accomplished without human
aid---to cover mares in Iberia, France, England and Ireland (belonging to the “blue” subspecies). In conformation as well as in way of going the eastern and western horses were quite different, but among the hybrids produced were some very superior individuals. Local people quickly noticed this and in every area they occurred, bred them on.