AMBLERS THROUGH TIME

I have not said much about the horses or horsemanship of the Far East in this series because its history and archaeological record are so huge they deserve a series of their own. China, along with Japan, Korea, Nepal and Mongolia continue to this day to breed lateral-gaited horses. This image, of a pacing horse being trained on a long rein, is from a stone lintel over the door of a Han Dynasty tomb in Shangxi Province that has been dated to about 150 A.D.

The Chinese obtained their first ambling riding horses and fast pacers by trade with the Persians, their neighbors to the west.

A British woman goes sidesaddle upon an ambling Thoroughbred.

The horse wears a double bridle and the rider carries the rod upright like a scepter in the right hand (see “A Great American Horseman” EQUUS 504). From a set of gentleman’s buttons dated to 1755 (courtesy, British Museum).

A photograph from about 1900 of Sable Island Prince, an Old Canadian stallion that became a founder of the Sable Island feral-horse population. The Old Canadian is the direct descendant of Bretonnais ambler-gallopers first imported to Canada in the late 17th century. This sort of horse, which could trot as well as amble, is ancestral, in turn, to the Canadian Pacer as well as the Morgan.