SPRINT SPEED AND “EASY GAITS”
The Irish Hobby---and all the “circle” of related breeds mentioned in this article---were valued in antiquity for two useful characteristics: sprint speed and ambling or “easy” gaits. The genes for sprint speed undoubtedly were contributed by mares of the western (“blue”) subspecies, while the genes for ambling came in through the eastern (“red”) subspecies. The best crossbred individuals
exhibited both. Explosive speed suited them for the ancient style of cavalry warfare, of which the game of polo---invented 2,500 years ago in Lydia---is both an imitation and a training-ground. A knack for ambling at the same time made them comfortable mounts for travel and much easier to collect than any trotter or “hack.” Throughout antiquity and right up until their extinction in Europe two centuries ago, ambling horses were more highly valued---more expensive---than trotters.
It is important to remember that the technique of posting to the trot---which
made long-distance travel on a trotter tolerable---was not invented until the 18th century, and trotting carriage horses did not come into wide use in Europe until paved roads became extensive, also at that time.
Over the centuries there were, of course, numerous waves of importation from east to west, and also some from west to east. The earliest wave, discussed in this article, brought eastern (“red”) stallions to western (“blue”) mares. However, it also brought eastern stallions into areas where horses had not previously existed---the most important of these being the importations of the Etruscans who occupied northern Italy. Etruscan
The technique of posting to the trot–which made long-distance travel on a trotter tolerable–was not invented until the 18th century.
artwork clearly shows that their horses had the “dry,” rather leggy conformation characteristic of the Anatolian or Turkmene strain.
Even today, there are two strains of Turkmene horse, the ordinary trotting strain and a “royal” strain that ambles. It was horses of this type that were taken to Tuscany, and it is not difficult to find contemporary Etruscan artwork showing horses pacing or ambling. From 1100 B.C. onward they were also taken to Iberia, Brittany, Cornwall, Wales and Ireland.
Although the genes for ambling appear to come from the east, the western breeds resulting from outcross proved to be more popular and desirable. Thus, during the height of the Roman
Empire from the first century B.C. to the third century A.D., Hobbies and Hobby-related horses went from the western provinces back eastward to Carthage and Rome. There they were re-blended with Turkmenes, a cross that produced a bit taller and very flashy ambler (see the Turkmene stallions Adorandus and Crinitus in “Roman Racing Hobbies,” page 48, as well as the Samnite ambler from Pompeii, page 46).
The long lineage of Irish kings and chieftains who came into possession of Hobbies bred them specifically for short-course or quarter-mile racing. These became a highly valuable export commodity, and Hobbies sold to the Romans were the fastest and most popular horses seen in the famous chariot races at the Coliseum in Rome. A thousand years later, during the Italian Renaissance, the racing Obino was still being bred. Today, handsome and easy-gaited descendants of the Obino survive in the mountainous Italian backcountry and on offshore islands (“Cousins to the Hobby,” page 50).
The picture galleries that accompany this article will allow you to visualize the Hobby and related breeds that were once much more common in Europe. Our study of the Hobby will enable us to open the history books to the important chapter on the Thoroughbred with much greater insight. As pointed out in our previous series of articles on the Arabian, recent DNA studies have shown that the Asil horse of the Bedouin breeders of Syria, southern Turkey and Egypt has nothing to do with the ancestry of the Thoroughbred. Rather, it is to a second east-west outcross similar to the one that created the Hobby but much later in time that we have to look for Thoroughbred origins. In our next installment we’ll begin with the efforts of English kings to create a horse that could “carry speed over a distance of ground,” a feat that even the best Hobbies could not perform.