Pony History

The History of the Horse is mostly stolen from ponies. As a keen pony man, I would like our history back. Chariots were pulled by ponies, because "horses" didn't exist. I doubt Bucephalus, Alexander the Great's "horse" would have been allowed into a "horse" class today. Admittedly the definition of "horse" and "pony" is pretty fluid. I believe there is an attempt to jack the size limit up to 15hh. Encyclopaedia Brittanica, 9th Edition 1881, says a pony "must be less than 52" (13hh) from the ground to the top of the withers; else he is a Galloway." And a cob "should not exceed 14.1hh".

Man's relationship with "horses" started at least 50,000 years ago, and what fulfils the modern definition of a horse, probably arrived 2,500 years ago. So 95% of so called "horse" history is actually about ponies and should be described as such.

Another fallacy is to equate "horse" history with riding. For the first 45,000 years man ate them. Traditional dress for horse activities must be the dinner jacket. Then from 3,000 BC to today he drove them in chariots. So Kikulli the Mittanian horse trainer, was actually a chariot pony trainer, a very different thing. For over 2,500 years the pony and chariot held the world land speed record.

The rideable horse, which in modern eyes would still probably be classed as a pony, appeared sometime around 750BC. By 500BC the Achaemenid empire was teaching its young aristocrats to "ride, shoot straight and tell the truth", but they still used chariots for the reason ignored by most historians, fun.

Shamshi-Addu (1813-1781 BC), a contemporary of Hammurabi of Babylon and ruler of Ashur, installed his son Yasmah-Addu as ruler of Mari, and then spent his time writing letters criticising his son as an ineffective administrator who wasted too much time with women and driving round in fast chariots. This establishes two simple facts, that parents will always moan about the modern generation's behaviour, and that the chariot was great fun, which is why it lasted so long

Even the most cursory glance at the activities of the ruling classes show that they will contain one of three elements. Glorifying themselves, putting others down and having fun. The first two provide magnificent buildings and huge piles of corpses, the third divides into sex and drugs and rock and roll, historically listed as wine women and song, and the other factor is speed. The chariot was the ultimate sports car, fast, flashy and fun.

The military importance of the chariot was assessed by those who enjoyed driving them, and surprisingly they decided the chariot was good. It could have been if it had been used intelligently, but charging along in a group was more fun. But the military use was vital. Wives, then as now, took a dim view of blowing next years harvest on a toy. Saying "but it's for war, darling" was a legitimate reason.

The final historical fallacy, is to see horsemanship as a rural, upper middle class pastime. Chariots were urban. You don't buy a sportscar to impress farm labourers, you buy it to impress your rivals and show your status, and you do that in cities where the people are. The genesis of the chariot, mirrors that of the city, and occurred in the same place, the Land between the Rivers, Mesopotamia where civilisation first flourished, and where the chariot was the first and probably only, Iraqui weapon of mass destruction.

Once the rideable horse was big enough to beat the chariot on speed, Horse, as opposed to Pony, history started. Horses increased in size and weight gradually until the agricultural and Industrial revolutions. The agricultural revolution provided the surplus produce to keep animals over winter, and the Industrial revolution demanded high speed communication. The day of the horse had arrived. John Palmer's revolutionary Post Carriage system of 1787 massively increased communication speed, allied with Telford and Macadam's roads, Obadiah Elliot's elliptic springs of 1804 and all the other developements, the Carriage became the Broadband of its day, though probably carrying less pornography.

The mines, building sites, canals, docks and city streets were stuffed with ponies and horses, pulling vans, working machinery, shifting goods, hauling barges, coal tubs, packing lead ore and slate, horses and ponies were everywhere. Where there were most people, and most work, there were most ponies and horses: in the cities. Where you find white van man today, he was 150 years ago, swearing at you, scratching your paintwork, doing illegal u-turns and keeping the wheels of industry moving, because he was, and is the wheels of industry.

The horse has had his day in the limelight, but on that day, he was a working animal, doing a working class job, with working class people. The horse and pony have a working class urban heritage that is being destroyed by being forgotten. We have preserved 100% of the upper class equestrian traditions, polo, carraige driving, hunting etc while forgetting and destroying the skills of the working class horsemen and women.

Rickerby Park in Carlisle is a memorial to all those who died in the Great War, and has a large sign saying no horses allowed. Once a year they allow the upperclass traditions to be commemorated at a Horse show, for the rest of the time they forget those millions of animals that have suffered and died on our battlefields hauling in food and munitions and hauling out the dead and injured, since wars began.