2. "Brains Plus Endurance"

By Charles B. Roth

Out of the experience of more than 60 years horsemanship Experience in practically every civilized nation; out of the experience Of winning more than 400 endurance races, ranging in length from 50 To 3,000 miles; out of the experience of being named the "World's Most Expert Horseman," Frank T. Hopkins, who now lives in Long Island City, New York, proceeded to answer my question: "What is the ideal saddle Horse?"

Frank T. Hopkins began riding before he was 7. By the time he was 13 he was a full-fledged dispatch rider, carrying important messages to important army men through the Indian-ridden West. He took up horsemanship as a profession when he grew to manhood, and rode all over the world in races and exhibitions. He has lived with horses all of his life.

"The ideal saddle horse?" he repeated. "It depends. It depends upon what you want to use a horse for. I can answer your question best, I think, by telling you what kind of horses I found most desirable in my own riding. And my kind of riding required ideal horses if any riding ever did."

His kind of riding was endurance riding. Sprinting, he terms the races held today; the one-mile, two-mile, even the longer steeplechase races. To Mr. Hopkins a good race is one like the race from Galveston, Texas to Rutland, Vermont, held in 1886. He won this race. The course was one mile less than 1,800 miles in length. That is what racing means to him. And the horses he chose were horses that could make sixty miles a day for thirty days at a stretch. They had to be ideal horses to do the job, said he.

"The first quality of the ideal horse," Mr. Hopkins began," is mental power." Yes; thats more important than physical characteristics, bone, depth, conformation or any other things horsemen look for in a horse. Brains. Without them all the other qualities don't count for much.

"The ideal horse will be the horse with a level head. He is best. I tried out many horses in selecting the few I rode in important long distance races, but I always went back to the placid, level-headed animal. These high-strung beasts wouldnt do; they could not stand the grill of training. They burned themselves out during the first few days. The sensible horse, on the other hand, would work when I wanted him to, would rest and take care of himself when left alone.

"A few years ago when the Army was conducting those endurance contests, remember? Maybe you also remember that some of the finest horses, favorites to win, went to pieces after two or three days because they worried and fretted when they were put up each night in a strange stall. They werent happy unless they were at home. I believe rules for the later contests were modified so that the same route was covered each day in order to let these horses spend the night in accustomed stalls. A horse that requires coddling like this is far from ideal. He isnt sensible. A sensible horse is pretty much of an equine philosopher. He has brains enough to look out for himself.

"It might sound strange to you to have me say that I always rode stallions on my long rides. I preferred them to mares or geldings. The reason: brains. They seemed to have more sense, once you understood them and they you, than other horses."

But what about size—size, conformation, bone, breeding?

"A horses size is measured entirely by his ability," came the reply. "A horse, in other words, is no smaller than his ability and no larger. Like other horsemen, I have often remarked this rule in practical use. Horse outfits I have ridden with have had smaller horses, weighing up to 800 pounds, that could outlast many horses weighing 1,000 pounds and over. So you cant tell. As a general thing, of course, the larger the horse, within reasonable limits, the better.

For my own use the ideal horse would weigh not over 950 pounds. As to his other qualities, important points I should look for are these: First, he must be short in the back and well ribbed out to the hips, with long muscles to cover the kidneys well. Second, he must have a fairly long hip, with straight hind legs, closely linked between joints. In the shoulder he must be deep. His fore or upper arm must be well muscled. I dont want him to have too long a neck. My experience with long-necked horses is that they tire quickly, and do not last.

"In the matter of bone I differ from todays horse experts. I am told that they look for clean, thin limbs and long slim ankle-joints. But I don't. Give me the horse with strong bones and close-linked joints. He will be able to stand the pounding that I gave horses that came as near as possible to meeting the requirements I have set down, I never had bone trouble."

" Did you ever find an ideal horse?" was my next question.

"Well, not often. But I did own a few," said the old champion. "My best horse was a little stallion named Joe. I practically described him to you just then, only he wasnt so large as the ideal horse I told you about. He weighed around 800. But he was all horse.

Like most old time plains riders, Mr. Hopkins prefers the cantering horse to any other. Said he: "In long distance riding, the running horse will not last; burns himself out. The trotting horse often pounds himself to pieces, as well as his rider.

"The Arabs tell me that the trot is a cultivated gait anyway, not one of the horses natural gaits. I always preferred a horse that followed the natural gait so well liked by these great Arab horsemen: the canter or lope. I never in my life tried to gait a horse to suit my ideas. I either adapted myself to his natural gaitsor got a new horse. Usually the latter. Seems wiser to do this than to try to make the horse over to certain ideas I might have.

"So I always looked for a horse whose natural gait was a lope. Joe was one, a natural loping horse. He could lope as slowly as he could walk. And he would swing into a lope the instant I picked up the reins.

"I seldom see a true loping horse these days; I supposed he has become obsolete. The horse I am trying to describe never had but two feet off the ground at a time, the same as in walking. The running horse, on the other hand, has three feet off the ground at once, which explains why running or hand galloping is so hard on the horse."

The ability of the horse, a matter of study among horsemen from the beginning of Horsemanship, is a subject that Mr. Hopkins has thought much about. He has had to. It has been his job to.

He says that no breed, no one kind of horse has a monopoly of good qualities. In fact, he believes that there is as great a difference in horses as there is in men when it comes to endurancea view which coincides exactly with the experience of every horseman who has trained distance horses.

"There are famous endurance runners among men—middle and long-distance champions whose records stand for years. Take Nurmi, the Finn. There have been thousands of middle-distance runners, only one Nurmi. Why should endurance be limited to so few men?

"I dont know," he continued, answering his own question, "but it is. And it is the same in horseflesh. Some horses can stand more than others. Just why, we do not know. But they can. Training has something to do with it; breeding is very important; but beyond all these there is inherent ability that is one of the enigmas of life.

"Some horses can do 60 miles a day; others will wilt at 35. Yet the 35-mile horse may look better, more enduring than the 60-mile animal. You can never tell. In the annals of horsemanship, there are a few endurance records that I think will always stand."

"What," I inquired, "is the greatest distance you ever heard of a horse making in a day?"

"I have heard of 150-mile rides, 200-miles rides, but I do not believe everything I hear," said he. "For actual performance, I recollect these as outstanding: Black Elk, Sioux Chief, once rode a pony 120 miles in a day. King Stanley rode 100 miles a day for several days running. I once rode 124 miles in twenty hours. That was farthest. Whenever a man tells you of riding 150 miles or more, put it down he is either a liar or a horse-killer. I always had too much love for a good horse to ride him to exhaustion.

"I can think back and remember some remarkable endurance horses. My little Joe tops the list. Many times I rode him in long distance races. We were never beaten. My longest race on him was from Galveston, Texas to Rutland, Vermont, almost 1,800 miles. Seven years later I rode him from Kansas City to Chicago, by way of Nebraska and Wyoming, a circuitous route of 1,100 miles. Joe was a seven-year-old when I rode him to Vermont; he was an old horse of 14 when I took him to Chicago. But we won both times. He died at 15.

"Then I once had a little white mare, purchased from the Government for three silver dollars. Her I once rode 90 miles in a day, let her rest twenty-four hours, rode her back the 90 miles. Afterward I learned that she was an exceptional endurance horse, famed for her staying qualities.

"I named her White-Y. It seemed right. She was white all over, even to her eyes. As to breeding I think she was the same strain that Mark Twain wrote about in his book A HORSES TALE---half horse and half fossil. But she had what I wanted, and the fact that papers werent included in the $3 deal did not make me reject her.

"I used her for a brood mare for years afterward, and developed a strain of endurance horses that distinguished themselves. Greatest among these was a spotted stallion named Hidalgo. He traveled all over the world with me. When I went to Arabia he was along. I entered him in the longest endurance race in history: a race 3,000 miles in length. Hidalgo won. Horsemen for centuries, men who appreciated and loved fine horseflesh, these Arabs fell in love with Hidalgo.