The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1912-01-30
he White Horse

courage, the endurance OF the bay, TO
i whom he was rarely equal either in
battle or on the march.
/ But there was a place coming,
| though not then in sight, in.which the
white horse was destined to achieve
marked distinction. and to be OF great
service to the civilized world In the
time of Darium tHydaskisl was
/ the only occupation of the horse, and
/ the chief occupation of man. But at
! the close of the seventh century, A.
D., the fields of domestic industry had
beer for six hundred years partially
] open to the horse. Meantime the de-
mand for big war horse. in the
] ninth century, to carry the heavily
armed and armored knights vi the
great empire of the Franks in the
! wars of Charlemague and his success
sors. had been supplied by interbreed.
ing the Spanish and Morocco bays,
the continental Observation-Disclosures 10
France, Germany and the Neither
lands-with the whites of the ricl,
valleys of the Po,- to which the white
had been imported soon after the
Asiatic conquests of Alexander the
Great, and in which he had grown te
immense proportions during the mid
die ages, on the monastery farms of
Lombardy.
In this composition the blood
of the white horse was strongly
dominant, and, hence, the prevailing
color of what We may call the Car
lovingian war horse was grey. This
knights of the Red Cross, and won
great renown during the crusade,
against the best of the Saracenic
bays; but it was to his weight more
than to his action or his speed that
his achievements around Jersualem
We're due. From the time of Charlie
magne to the reign of Queen Elizabeth
he was most zealously propagated
throughout Europe. but more especi-
ally in France. Belgium, French
Flanders. England and Scotland, and
many of the names of cities and
duchies in those countries-as Brus-
sells, from "broisel'' "a BROOD and
Argyle, from 'aer-gael,' "tfe breeding
stud of the Gael'-have significance
! that carries us back to the most ac-
! tive period of horse breeding known
] to the entire history of our present
] neighbors across the Atlantic.
I All this was for war. But the time
for great change was at hand. The
invention of gun powder, and the in
/ PRODUCTION of cannon displaced the
! ponderous, mail clad destrier with the
1 lighter more active bay, and the form
er, gracefully retiring to the field of
! peaceful industry, became the pro-
/ genitor of all the different tribes of
heavy draft horses in the world.
Now, though the white horse was
Il dominant in the original composition
\ of the Carlovingian charger, the blood
of the Continental black gained con-
troll of the coat in Flanders, while the
blood OF the bay did the same thing
| in Belgium. Thus, by the twelfth CEN
tury we find greys, blacks and bays,
1 all of the same origin, in all parts of
! Europe. But still, historically speak
| ing, tie white is the real fountain
head of the whole family And when
the cannon relegated all the varieties,
| about the close of the sixteenth cen
/ fury, to the industrial field, they set
/ tied down under the varied provincial
i names of Shire, Clydesdale, Suffolk
Punch. etc, in Britain, and Boulon-
4 nais, Norman, Ardennais, Breton,
4 Percheron, Belgian. Fleming, etc, in
y France, Flanders and Belgium And
for years several of these varieties
have been heavily imported to Ameri
ca-some OF them under false names
as We may hereafter show.
i Granger, Mo, Jan. 81.