THE HORSE IN HISTORY

THE KNIGHT, DEATH AND THE DEVIL
From an engraving by Albert Dürer

BY

BASIL TOZER

AUTHOR OF
“PRACTICAL HINTS ON RIDING TO HOUNDS” ETC.

WITH TWENTY-FIVE ILLUSTRATIONS

METHUEN & CO.
36 ESSEX STREET W.C.
LONDON

First Published in 1908

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AFTER directly helping on the progress ofthe world and the development of civilisationalmost from the time when, according toNehring's interesting studies, the wild and primitivehorses of the great Drift began to exhibitdistinct differences in make, shape and individualcharacteristics, the horse has reached the limitof its tether.

For with the dawn of the twentieth century,and the sudden innovation of horseless traffic,any further influence that it might have exercisedupon the advancement of the human race comesrapidly to a close.

That the horse's reign is over—though it issincerely to be hoped that horses will be with usstill for many years—the statistics issued recentlyby our Board of Agriculture in a measure prove.For in those statistics it is stated that the numberof horses in the United Kingdom decreased duringlast year alone by no less than 12,312, and laterstatistics show that the decrease still continues.

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In the following pages, therefore, the writer hasstriven to trace the progress of the horse fromvery early times down to the present day mainlyfrom the standpoint of the effect its developmenthad upon the advancement of the human race.For this reason though a selected number ofthe most famous horses that lived in the centuriesbefore Christ, and between the time of Christand the period of the Norman Conquest, andthat have lived within the last nine centuries,have been mentioned, the horses of romanceand mythology have for the most part beenpassed over.

Every effort has been made to obtain informationthat is strictly accurate, a task of no smalldifficulty owing to the mass of contradictoryevidence with which the writer has found himselfconfronted in the course of his researches. Tothe best of his ability he has winnowed theactual facts from the mass of fiction that he hascome upon in the writings of some of the earlierhistorians, and to some extent in records, manuscriptsand private letters of more recent timesto which he has had access.

B. J. T.

Boodle's Club, 1908.

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CONTENTS