I love morgan horses. Not especially the new-fangled high steppin types, with small bodies and frantic minds, but the older confederate breeds, of solid bone and tremendous sense of balance, purpose, and pride. They are proud and willful beings with great athletic talent. Justin Morgan had a horse that stood out statistically. Until then, horses ability to pull and ability to run fast followed a standard correlation curve. The more a horse could pull, the slower it ran; the faster a horse could run, the less it could pull. Those were the facts until Justin Morgan’s horse came along and shattered the curve. He could pull way more than his speed would predict; and he could run way faster than his pulling strenght would predict. The rest is history.
Morgan horses were the backbone of the confederate army and the western cavalry. They weren’t no cowpony. I have two morgans. Bob, a 33 year old and Dawn, who is 5 years old. This weekend my morgans and me were playing around in the paddock. Someone had a camera (thanks Audrey, for the pics):
Dawn hops over the wall. Bob prepares for a lift-off.
The Horses at Alderlore Present 