The registered Morgan
Late 19th and early 20th century efforts to document the ancestry of the Morgan type shaped how the breed evolved.
Late 19th and early 20th century efforts to document the ancestry of the Morgan type shaped how the breed evolved.
In 1894, Col. Joseph Battell authored Volume 1 of The Morgan Horse and Register. A wealthy philanthropist, Battell was unquestionably crucial in rescuing the Morgan horse from oblivion, which by his day was in danger of extinction through dispersion and admixture. Battell not only created the first Morgan horse registry but donated a 400-acre farm that became a major center of Morgan breeding, first by the U.S. government and after 1951 by the University of Vermont.
At least in part because of Battell’s efforts, the Morgan horse grew to become the most popular “light” breed of horse in America through the late 19th century and into the early decades of the 20th. Because farmers living in different areas tried mares of several different types, including Canadian trotters and pacers, Standardbreds and Thoroughbreds, the Morgan horse evolved during this period and acquired certain features, which are still characteristic of it. Here’s how the Morgan was described in a history of the breed published in 1857 by William Henry Herbert:
“[Morgans] rarely if ever exceed 15:2 hands and ... a hand lower, up to 15 hands, is nearer their standard. They are not, I think, particularly closely ribbed up and many are inclined to be swaybacked. Their hindquarters are generally powerful, and their legs and feet good. There is an evident family resemblance in their forehands, their necks and crests being [characteristically] lofty but erect, [the turnover being] without much curvature. The neck is apt to be thick [at the throatlatch]…. the manes and tails of these horses are almost invariably coarse, as well as heavy and abundant, and [usually with] a strong wave, or even curl to the hair.
“The qualities to which they pretend are neat style, good trotting action, great honesty, great quickness and sprightliness of movement---apart from extraordinary speed, which is not insisted upon as a characteristic of the breed, although some have possessed it---and considerable powers of endurance.”
I would add one other point to this description of the Morgan: very commonly, the facial profile is undulating, with a low point between or just below the eyes, rising to a bump just above the level of the nostrils. This is evident in old photos of at least some Morgans and became more common with time. The source of this change from the straight profile that Linsley and Herbert describe may be laid at the feet of several Thoroughbreds who were widely used on Morgan mares before the Civil War---Imported Messenger 1780, his son Mambrino 1806, and the group of great stallions descended from *Diomed 1777---Sir Archy 1805, American Eclipse 1814, Boston 1833, and Lexington 1850. All of these horses trace multiple times to the Godolphin “Arabian,” who certainly did have this kind of head. As I showed in last month’s installment, it’s likely that Figure, the original “Justin Morgan,” was a fairly close-up descendant of the Godolphin horse as well. Repeated crosses to the Godolphin horse appear to have brought the trait out and established it.
Just as this group of Thoroughbreds is the likely source of the undulating facial profile, the Canadian is the source of the waviness or even curliness of the mane and tail hairs, which is still almost universal in Morgan horses. As I showed in a preceding article (“Horses of the American Colonies,” EQUUS 468), the U.S.– Canadian border was quite porous at most periods between 1750 and 1890, so that Canadian horses could be found in most Northern states, and a certain number of Morgans also ended up in Canada. The two breeds are similar, as noted by Herbert:
“All these points [above described for the Morgan horse] are [also] those of the Canadian or Norman horse. Indeed I should say that any judge of horseflesh ... would at once pronounce many [Morgans to be] Canadians. [And in those cases where the hair is straight and the general conformation more angular, as with Figure’s grandson Black Hawk], we know that the horse has a large fraction of Thoroughbred; i.e., the dam of Black Hawk was a … halfbred English mare. In all which instances, I submit that it is preposterous to refer the qualities of these animals to the very remote strain [supposedly coming from Figure] rather than to the recent pure strains, of the highest quality, of the dams.” Recent genetic studies have confirmed the close relationship of the Morgan to the Canadian, as well as to the American Saddlebred, American Standardbred and Tennessee Walking Horse.
THE FIRST “PAPERED” HORSES
An hour spent with Battell’s book brings one fact forcefully home: The man was fascinated by Thoroughbred horses. As a result, he bestowed upon many of the horses raced in colonial Virginia, North Carolina and Maryland, which he researched through old newspaper advertisements, a “purebred” parentage that most of them never actually had. Battell did not intend to write false history; his reasoning was merely driven by enthusiasm---so that to him, a possibility readily became a likelihood, and then a near-certainty. This dovetailed with his strong desire to legitimize the Morgan horse, and in the 19th century, there was no better way to do this than to adduce Arabian or Thoroughbred ancestry. Battell wrote seeking to persuade the reader that the Morgan had, if not a claim equal to the Thoroughbred’s, still a strong claim, to pedigree and thus to “purity of blood.”
Battell also worked to legitimize the Morgan by creating a registry for it. He was preceded in this idea not only by the Jockey Club registry, but registries for the Standardbred and the American Saddlebred---not to mention the British Kennel Club registry for dogs. Nonetheless, registration and “papers” were still a new concept. In the 19th century, ordinary people neither expected nor required paper documentation on horses they purchased; they bought and sold entirely on the basis of features they could see in the particular horse at hand and their offspring. If the horse had a racing or trotting record, that was considered important also.
What really brought breed registries into common use was the beginning of “shows” in the modern sense. Horse shows and dog shows both came along in the mid-19th century after a model which developed at American county fairs. What at first began as a horse mart came to involve the friendly bestowing of ribbons, much as still goes on for everything from canned peaches to prize hogs every summer at 4H-affiliated county fairs across the country. Horses that judges had pinned with premiums were brought out to show off their ribbons to the crowd in the grandstand between harness-racing heats, an idea that not only added to the fun and interest but tended to increase sales. Gradually, this “show of horses” became a “horse show.”
Registries first appeared in the 1850s as an adjunct to shows, so that the parentage of premium horses could be certified. In the first volume of his Morgan Horse and Register, Battell records the parentage of about a thousand of Figure’s descendants, including them on the basis of only two rules, (1) that
the horse or mare in question be “meritorious” and attested or proven to be a sire-line descendant of Figure “having at least 1/64th of his blood”; or (2) the product of a mating between two horses meeting the first criterion.
This looks very straightforward on paper, but there is a hidden caveat that derives from Battell’s own background and biases. For a dozen years before publishing his registry, he traveled up and down the Ohio Valley, from New England to Alabama and from Maryland to Illinois, searching for horses of Morgan type and interviewing the people who bred, owned and used them. The selection of horses was thus not done by a rule book or by a committee, but by one man---Joseph Battell---who alone decided, by examining the animals, which ones were likely to be Morgan. If Battell had not selected the particular horses he did, we would not be able to say---in hindsight---that Figure was their common ancestor and the “foundation sire” of the breed.
In the main, I won’t say I disagree with Battell, for I also like and value the stamp of horse that he tended to pick; and given that it was Battell’s registry, he had every right to include any animal he chose. On only one point do I differ: Being an ex-military man, Battell carried a strong prejudice against ambling horses---a prejudice that was standard among 19th century cavalrymen of all developed nations, and one which is still standard among the Olympic disciplines. Thus, if Battell had encountered the most beautiful stallion, redolent of Morgan type, but who showed the least tendency to amble, he would not register it. And there were many such, as we shall see in upcoming articles that explore the links between the Morgan and the many gaited breeds of the Americas.