WAR Horses: US Army Remount Stallions... ?Sport Horse Qualities???

[vineyridge]

bringing this up because I’m currently reading General Chamberlin’s Training Hunters, Jumpers and Hacks. The book is illustrated, and there is a photo of a TB stallion named High Line who is held up as an “excellent type of sire for hunters (eventers) and jumpers”. I looked him up on Pedigreequery, and he was definitely a Remount stallion. All of his get have the first name Reno, and some of the mares to whom he was bred have that prefix also.

Fort Reno in Oklahoma was one of the major Remount stations.
http://digital.library.okstate.edu/encyclopedia/entries/F/FO037.html

I found this 1911 army report on “the Remount Problem”. It’s fascinating. It gives a description of military related horse breeding in different European countries at the time, including Germany, France, the Austro Hungarian Empire, and Italy. Apparently GB did not make it a practice to breed cavalry horses, but imported them from its possessions and from the US. What it has to say about horses in the United states is very interesting, and it even has photos of the types of horse that the cavalry was buying for remounts at the time. It seems to have been just before WWI that the cavalry started breeding its own.
http://www.archive.org/stream/armyremountprobl00rommrich/armyremountprobl00rommrich_djvu.txt

[Tamara_in_TN]

got it, read it many times… a wonderful exposition of the era…morgans,cleveland bays,arabs,some saddlebreds,mostly TBs however and war “prizes” some of which were sent back home to Europe…

but honestly the TB race stallions were the biggest contributors to the stallion bases(donated by “civic minded” owners;) in well advertised “donations”)…

theirs were hard lives on the stations where most were killed aft 5-8 years of use and fed to the men on the posts or the Army K9 programs on post once killed

fascinating read and worth the cash…

Tamara

[QUOTE=mitma;5528296]
Viney, thanks so much!!! I really appreciate your information and will await any further pearls! :winkgrin:

Fortunately, I did find a book online (still have to order it) that looks promising: :yes:

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/War-Horse/Phil-Livingston/e/9781931721219

And, I have a lead on some equine pedigree researchers that may have a good perspective…

Thanks again!

Martha[/QUOTE]

[Kwill]

I liked this paragraph from the Remount Problem book … things haven’t changed much, have they?

Lack of system in breeding methods.

The remount system as at present established is also incomplete in that it provides no means whereby the breeding of horses of the proper type can be encouraged. Everyone knows the innate fascination for the average mare owner to see how many different experiments he may make in mating. He may own a good, useful type of mare, and he will breed to Standard- bred, draft, pony, saddle, and Thoroughbred stallions, hit or miss, and not hesitate to try a jack to see what that will bring.

The Army buyers will doubtless do all in their power to advise mare owners how to breed, but their advice can only carry such weight as more or less acquaintance between the owner and the officer may effect. The only way to get anywhere in breeding is to be systematic, to adopt a policy and stick to it. The man who is always talking about crossing is usually the man who has more mongrels than his neighbors. The man who can cross successfully is the able breeder who needs no advice or assistance and who breeds horses far above the Army standard.

They detail earlier they want a bay horse, 15hh or so, and no more than 1050 lbs, with good movement and conformation.

Also of interest:

Shortly after the presentation of the army horse-breeding plan to Congress, Mr. August Belmont, of New York, offered the Government the use of two of his best-known Thoroughbred stallions, Henry of Navarre and Octagon, to be used to encourage the breeding of army remounts. These horses stood during the season of 1911 at Front Royal, Va., and were available for public service on the terms outlined in the Government’s plan. About 50 mares were bred, and
options were taken on the colts at $150 each at 3 years of age. The agreements were so drawn that the Government would waive its option on horses promising to mature over 16 hands. Half-breds over 16 hands in Virginia furnish the most of the high-class hunters from that section, and a concession on that point was deemed desirable.

Mares bred were required to be straight-gaited trotters without faulty conformation, such as curby hocks, and free from the following hereditary unsoundnesses : * Bone spavin, ringbone, sidebone, heaves, stringhalt, roaring, periodic ophthalmia, lameness of any kind, and blindness, partial or complete.

[coloredcowhorse]

You might want to check with public relations at Fort Riley, Kansas, home to the US Cavalry for years. There may well be large resources there or they may know of where to look.

My grandfather and dad and uncles kept our family farm in Missouri from foreclosure during the Depression by starting horses for the cavalry…assuming that those were foals from remount programs…got paid $25/head to start them. Granddad at the same time was involved in breeding Saddlebreds. Before he died they moved from the farm into town (Columbia) and we stopped there every cross country trip we made (military family)…I was in heaven…his basement was filled, really, with years and years of old TB Records. For years I sent in name suggestions trying to win a TB colt offered by Kentucky Club tobacco. Never won but got pretty good at reading pedigrees and coming up with names.

[vineyridge]

Just to make this a bit personal, but when I was a young teenager in the early 60’s in Memphis, we had foxhunters and former cavalry officers who would still go to Oklahoma to buy horses for hunting. Now I know why. They were buying from the remains of the remount system.

[Carol_Ames]

Dr. Howard, the vet?

Would the stallion have been named after dr. Howard , the vet ;)in Loudon county?

[Carol_Ames]

“Dutch”

There was also a remount "registry for owners of half Tb horses; it issued papers; one of the horses registered with this registry was “the flying Dutchman”, pretty good sport horse:yes:; he won every eventing championship from Prelim to Advanced and competed in Europe on the USET team

[Carol_Ames]

Kives’ Umber

A famous sire of jumping horses was also a remount sire. I believe.

[Sportpony]

My father was raised on a ranch in SD in the early 1900s and his father and his uncles were involved in the Remount program. I remember my father talking about the horses and one particular stallion they had from the Remount service he called a “Hambletonian”. They used him during the ‘off’ season as a buggy horse and he was bad to run … my father still had a thin white scar across the bridge of his nose and both cheekbones where the stallion had run, turned the buggy over and pitched my father into a barbed wire fence.

The mares were grade mares/ ranch mares that were simply turned out in big pastures and the stud was put out with them in the spring, brought back in the late summer. Yearlings and 2 year olds all ran together in the herds and as I recall, they were brought in as 3, 4 and 5 year olds to be green broke and sold to the Army buyers.

After WWI and before WWII, with the big demand for cavalry horses on the wane. the buyers were much more selective. It was no longer as practical to maintain the big mare herds so many of the herds were dispersed. My Dad said his uncle had a big roundup when he and his brothers were in their teens. They rounded up all of the horses that he had been running on the Sioux reservation … nearly 400 head of horses … all shipped by rail back east to be sold.

There were remount stallions in the MT region where my mother grew up as well. I learned to ride on my mother’s old cowpony mare, just an ordinary small ranch horse, but she had two fillies by (again) a Remount stud that was standing in the area … and my grandfather told me he was a ‘Hambletonian’. I rode the younger of the two from the time I graduated ‘up’ to a real working ranch horse at age 10 until I was 15 years old and bought my own ‘first’ horse.

Big Horn, WY was near where our MT ranch was located and there were a number of British ‘expatriates’ that ranched in that area, many of whom brought in blooded horses to cross on the local mares. There was (and still is) an active polo club which was established before 1900 and up until WWII several of the ranches in the area bred horses that competed in jumping and steeplechases that were held in that area. A rather odd little corner of the west because of the number of British ranchers and the early establishment of dude ranches that brought in many of the wealthy families from the East coast.

[Carol_Ames]

Jenny Camp

The famous “Jenny Camp;)”, now in the eventing hall of:cool: fame was said to have been bred through the remount program; though I have never seen a breeder listed by name:no:.

[Carol_Ames]

great thread

great thread:yes:; I love hearing about the remount program;); my first “event horse”, take a chance was by Kievs’ Umber out of a TWH mare; He was a fabulous XC horse, I hoped to do the Blue Ridge 3DE, but, it was cancelled:( just as he would/ could have done it:o.

[Carol_Ames]

another Wofordism

I then held the belief that my horse’s affection is the strongest bridle:yes:

[Carol_Ames]

Gordon Russell?

He, Gordon Russell was Jenny Camps’tb. sire; any information on him?

[Carol_Ames]

Gordon Russell

Does anyone know anything about Gordon Russell, the sire of Jenny Camp?

[vineyridge]

He was also the sire of Democrat. Since Democrat was foaled in Nebraska at the Fort Robinson remount station, one would surmise that Gordon Russell was also there.
http://www.sport-horse-breeder.com/gordon-russell.html

[summerhorse]

http://www.pedigreequery.com/dr+howard