ROMANTIC HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN QUARTER HORSE PART 1

ROMANTIC HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN QUARTER HORSE PART 1

The history of the American Quarter Horse understandably starts in the American cattle country of Texas in 1843, with the birth of a descendant of the great Thoroughbred, Sir Archy, called Steel Dust.

Cowboys who drove Longhorns up the Texas trails soon discovered the remarkable progeny of this superb stallion, which became known as the “Steeldusts”. These horses were heavy muscled, had small ears, a big jaw, were remarkably intelligent, and had unequalled speed up to a quarter of a mile. Steel Dust and his progeny were responsible for the founding and spreading popularity of the new breed, later to become known as the American Quarter Horse.

But the origin of the Quarter Horse starts in Colonial America, when the early Americans raced English horses, which they used on farms during the week, in their free time.

The Colonial farmers from the Carolinas and Virginia soon discovered a faster pony, bred by the Chickasaw Indians, which they acquired from the early Spanish explorers and colonists. These ponies  were descendents of a cross of the North African stock, following the invasion of Spain by the Moors, starting in 710. Cortez rode on these ponies during the Spanish conquest of Mexico, as did Coronado when he searched for the golden cities of the American Southwest.

By crossing these Spanish Barbs with the Colonists’ English stock even since 1611, the colonists developed “the Celebrated American Quarter Running Horse”, the “Quarter” referring to a quarter of a mile, the distance of a race often run in small towns in Colonial America.

Simultaneously a stallion, the Godolphin Arabian, was imported into England in 1728. He was one of the foundation sires of the modern Thoroughbred (the other two being the Darley Arabian and the Burley Turk), which revolutionized English racing.

Intrigued by these four-mile racing horses, John Randolph imported a grandson of the Godolphin Arabian called Janus, in 1752. Janus, when crossed with Colonial mares of Chickasaw ancestry, produced the prototype of the American Quarter Horse. The offspring of Janus and the American stock had tremendous speed over short distances, and they passed this trait on to consecutive generations. These horses were compact, strong and powerful horses.

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