The Secret Horse Quest for the True Appaloosa

[Albion]

[QUOTE=Guilherme;7974123]
In China (and in Japan) horse ownership was difficult as arable land is scarce and horses eat a lot. The Mongols were an exception. A large part of their military success was their horses from the Steppes. Otherwise horses were not nearly as common as they would be in Europe (Northern or Southern). [/QUOTE]

Say what? Horses were a major factor in the general success of the Tang dynasty (and the Tang’s decline, when they lost access to central Asian stud farms), the Yuan (Mongols), and the Qing (Manchu), the last dynasty in China. I’m hard pressed to describe a major factor in the last 3 of 5 Chinese dynasties, which covers over a thousand years of history, “an exception” (it also ignores the fact that the Tang & prior were generally much more militaristic - which includes heavy use of horses - and there’s more of a ‘pacifist’ trend in the Song, which goes along with greater valorization of the scholar-official-literatus, not exactly Horseback Swashbuckler Extraordinaire).

[Sandy_M]

[QUOTE=RutlandH2O;7974564]
Sandy M: I believe Scott Engstrom’s belief in the Asian origins of the Appaloosa was supported by much of Francis Haines’ research. For her, the definitive proof was the DNA evidence. There are several Appaloosa families. The North American and Kyrgyzstan families had the closest genetic connection. On the contrary, she was paying great attention.

Guilherme: Scott Engstrom made a point of describing the many other breeds of horses that were crossed with spotted horses in NA. She, also, waxed poetic about the Nez Perce horses’ extremely rideable “shuffle.”[/QUOTE]

Just saying this isn’t new news. Haines’ book is 50+ years old, and I’m sure there were several years research before it was published, so it seems odd to present this as a “mystery solved” now. DNA proof confirming earlier conclusions, but hardly earth-shaking news.

FWIW, of the two Foundation bred Apps I’ve owned,only one, a linebred Toby horse, gaiited. Still, since in the U.S. you’re dealing with a breed recovered from near destruction, the dilution was unavoidable and things like the “Indian shuffle” are rare in the "modern " Appaloosa. My Toby horse was foaled in 1963 and his pedigree was only traceable for six generations.

[RutlandH2O]

I neglected to mention that while in Kyrgyzstan, when Scott Engstrom described the Indian Shuffle, she used local Appies to illustrate the gait.

Who suggested this was “earth-shaking news?”

[Sandy_M]

[QUOTE=RutlandH2O;7977343]
I neglected to mention that while in Kyrgyzstan, when Scott Engstrom described the Indian Shuffle, she used local Appies to illustrate the gait.

Who suggested this was “earth-shaking news?”[/QUOTE]

When an entire television program touts the “discovery,” sounds to me like they’re making a big deal of it.

As far as gaiting goes, I’m just saying that you’re unlikely to find the Indian Shuffle in a horse that’s 50% or more QH, as (sadly) so many modern US-bred Appaloosas are. Frankly, I detest the ApHC and only belong because I must in order to qualify for USDF All Breeds. It’s registry that seems bent on destroying the breed it supposedly promotes. As a semi-serious joke, every year when I renew my membership, I ask if they will lower the fee and NOT send me the Appaloosa Journal. I usually toss it straight in the recycle bin: I don’t need to look at solid, non-characteristic QHs masquerading as “Appaloosas.”

[Caol_Ila]

Finally got around to watching this. Bad science and lazy history, but good TV.

Did anyone else notice that the horse who “Indian shuffled” towards the end looked like it was in fact doing a four beat canter? My draft cross has a winning four beat canter when you don’t engage her hind end. Does that mean she’s part pure Appy? No… it’s just a crap canter. Not knowing what an Indian shuffle looks like, I asked the internet. It looks a lot like the flat walk or tolt or similar gaits from other gaited breeds, not a horrendously unengaged canter.

[Sandy_M]

[QUOTE=Caol Ila;7980883]
Finally got around to watching this. Bad science and lazy history, but good TV.

Did anyone else notice that the horse who “Indian shuffled” towards the end looked like it was in fact doing a four beat canter? My draft cross has a winning four beat canter when you don’t engage her hind end. Does that mean she’s part pure Appy? No… it’s just a crap canter. Not knowing what an Indian shuffle looks like, I asked the internet. It looks a lot like the flat walk or tolt or similar gaits from other gaited breeds, not a horrendously unengaged canter.[/QUOTE]

My Toby-line Appy gaited (sometimes), and his “gait” was basically a single-foot. Don’t know if that is a true “Indian shuffle” but certainly closer than a four-beat canter.

[Sunflower]

I (unfortunately) have not been able to view this documentary. I have read reviews that indicate a positive DNA link was made between the American Appaloosa breed and the horses in Kyrgyzstan. Other than that, no detailed information seems to be available on WHAT DNA or what it revealed. I am wondering if there is any more information available about the DNA link the documentary says was found.

[laiqalasse]

I’m watching the doc now and Scott is absolutely rubbing me the wrong way. I understand what she’s trying to do, but she does absolutely come off as sort of a typical white westerner. She keeps saying “there’s an Appaloosa” while talking about the horses actually in Kyrgyzstan. and wanted to give the really nice black and white spotted one an “Indian” name and her Kyrgyz guide suggested “a Kyrgyz name”. And questioning the Kyrgyz guide about getting altitude sickness going over the mountains… I don’t know. Rubbing me wrong. She wants to prove where the horses actually came from without actually respecting it at all.

[Leather]

The Russian Fox-Farm Experiment where they seemed to develop changes in coat color (among other changes) when selected for temperament was featured on a NOVA special on dogs so is familiar to a lot of people, but it may not be quite as straightforward as it has seemed.

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/russian-foxes-tameness-domestication

The impressively long silver fox experiment, ongoing at the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Cytology and Genetics in Novosibirsk since 1960, didn’t seek to breed foxes that looked so different from their wild counterparts. But several generations after geneticist Dmitry Belyaev took 130 silver foxes (Vulpes vulpes) from Soviet fur farms and began selecting for friendliness toward humans, the physical changes emerged. Floppy ears, piebald coats and other traits were known in other domesticated mammals, so the changes have since been thought of as a syndrome of traits inherently linked to the process of domestication of wild animals.

It’s no secret that the foxes weren’t truly “wild,” Karlsson says. The Soviet foxes originally came from fur farms on Prince Edward Island in Canada, with selective breeding dating back to at least the 1880s. One of Karlsson’s colleagues, on vacation on the island, stumbled across fur farm photographs from the 1920s during a visit to a local museum. Those foxes appeared tame with spotted coats — one of the same domestication traits claimed as a by-product of the Russian experiment that supposedly took generations to emerge.

“These photos dated from decades before the project had even started,” Karlsson says. The images “seemed to raise a lot of questions about exactly what had happened during the course of that project in terms of genetic changes in that population.”