Again, agreed.
But (off the top of my not-very-knowledgeable head):
Pugs
Bulldogs
Frenchies
Pekingese
Showring Fashion seems to disregard physical function.
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I canât even see the dogâŠIâm too distracted by the 1904 womanâs awesome hairdo!
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Commenting on thoroughbreds only:
Considering conformation alone, I think the thoroughbred has been incredibly consistent over the past few centuries. The horse in the first picture was a âheavy weight thoroughbred type.â That horse was heavy for now, heavy for then.
Look at old TB photos; if you take out the peopleâs clothes, vehicles, etc. it can be hard to tell if you are looking at a photo from yesterday or 100+ years ago.
What has changed is how we use and care for horses.
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But my point is that Iâm not sure it has anything to do with the show ring. Look at the dog above - that has the most apple-headed head Iâve ever seen. Although, the photo is King Edward VII of Great Britainâs wife Queen AlexandraâŠmaybe it was a show dog. But certainly, any show would not resemble shows we see now.
So the âfashionâ of disregarding physical function may be centuries old.
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Thatâs an interesting thought. Bring able to fix it can work against us, too. How many people fix a mare enough to get her sound enough to breed? Back then, would it have been option? Also, AI allows stallions to breed many more mares, which reduces genetic diversity.
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Thanks for the data. We have a GSD. Heâs the second one from the same breeder. Lots of good working stock. His back doesnât slope quite as much as some. Our first one stayed sound and had an excellent temperament. We use our GSDs for sheep herding so we need soundness and good minds.
we have a few different things going here.
For starters, the poorly conformed, broken down horses did not generally get to stick around in the pasture for decades.
And they also seldom make it to the breeding shed (you know what I mean)
We do however understand genetics and bio-mechanics better now and know how to analyze the offspring much better, although breeding remains a crapshoot.
We also have easier access to better breeding stock.
the ugly side of the medallion, the show ring, or shall I say limited application show demand breeding.
The halter-bred horses where, as somebody commented in regard to Arabians there might not even be a saddle on the farm at all. at the track.
Grotesquely strung out horses, deep dished faces, postlegged beefcow QHsâŠ
TBs have the other problem, the industry breeds for a fast sale. The races aim at a quick turnover. Too many horses go to the breeding shed after injury, and the big names never had to prove longevity. Seeing that all the important horses are 3 and younger, the races are all short.
It narrows the breeding balance of sprinter and miler down in favor of the former.
TBs and Arabians have been used as refiners forever.
(although it took the breeders a while to catch on that the Barb mares were as important in the development of the TB as the stallions)
And of course horsemanship
Horses were a necessity up until the 50s to most but the affluent, the motorization of everyday life brought the horse nearly to extinction!
A lot of the old bloodlines were lost, particularly of the heavier types. Only with the onset of leisure time and discretionary funds did the horse industry come into existence.
Since then the country roots have more and more withered and fewer people can instinctively deal with horses. We also anthropomorph animals and the way we deal with them.
Some is fine, some harmful. âLoved to deathâ is a thing, with dogs and cats as well.
And while we âknowâ a lot more, we also donât.
we fall for so many bad gurus.
And we have too much information, especially about things that can go bad.
So we try to play it super safe.
So, no, the horses were not better back then.
Just quite different, and we learned (LOL, I am not that old) to ride the horse vs breed one to fit the fashion.
I used to admire the US showjumpers of the 80s, they had such a quiet, refined style.
Now they are see-sawing with the best of them.
Horsemanship has definitely suffered over the last decades.
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The peak of urban horse population was in the 1890s after trains arrived but before autos. Mares were kept to breed and geldings sent to be cart horses with an average working life of about 7 years.
There were so many kinds of horses, judging from old documents. There are gorgeous working cow horses, and then there are photos of cowboys on ewe necked and jug headed little things. Flash saddle and carriage horses for the wealthy, and really fugly light draft and mules on remote farms.
Most people did not ride in the 19th century in North America or Britain. Most people were poor, and walked or might have taken horse drawn trams. If a farm had work horses rather than oxes or mules they would likely pull the family in a cart.
Riding was more common and widespread among men at least in the beef cattle ranches in North America but that was a small percent of population though a big part of the myth of those times.
So I donât think horsemanship was wide spread. If you read 19th century novels people walk, or take cabs or trams, or trains. If they are wealthy they could keep a carriage but certainly not drive it themselves. Driving a smart trap was a cool dude thing to do if you could afford it, and when characters fox hunt its noteworthy as a plot point (Trollope is fun).
Now the grooms and coachmen back then, I bet they knew what they were doing. The owners, not so much.
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My mentor did show me two different lab heads. One is correct according to the standard, and one wins in the show ring. Totally different.
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I donât knowâŠcan we really say horses werenât tougher back then and with better feet? How many were ridden really HARD? Especially on longer trips? People would ride their backyard horses 20 miles or have them pull farm carts for that distance to buy supplies or sell farm goods. I have a journal from relatives during the Depression and they described how hard their mules and horses worked. Horses were everywhere for a long time and people thought nothing of riding horses for weeks on end. Would our modern coddled mounts stand up to cavalry duty? Both my grandfathers rode for weeks on hunting trips in the mountains. it was common back then. Much more common back then. I have a lot of respect for endurance horses, but I think they are pretty specialized now. Every horse in the old days was expected to ride as long as a modern trained endurance horse.
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Oh gosh and the roads were really bad back then. They mentioned that in their journals. Mud and ruts so deep that the horses had to pull hard to get them out.
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I donât think horses have changed that much, certainly not your garden variety types. Just like humans havenât changed, just our occupations. Iâll bet most sound horses today could get fit enough to be ridden for many weeks on end. Just like most sound people could get fit enough to ride many weeks on end. Remember, unless they wanted to haul their own stuff, those riders made sure their horses got what they needed.
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I see âwestern chunkâ type horses all the time. Reminds me of the cobs across the pond, but really, those horses in that picture look like what you get when you cross a small draft with a working ranch horse.
We still have big beautiful TBs. I agree that one is possibly a crossbred. I actually think the TBs of now are better than the TBs of yesteryear, in terms of type, bone, and movement.
As with anything, when you breed towards a type, the gene pool tends to narrow and certain unknown or recessive things inadvertently get paired in with the âtypeâ.
P.S here is a pretty modern TB - plenty of bone, big feet, and chunk.
P.S Sorry for your loss.
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There was an old shop down the street from where I grew up that was called Jimmyâs News Stand, and among other things, the owner (Jimmy, I presume) had tons of back copies of Arabian Horse World from the 1960âs. He knew I loved horses (This was the 80âs and I was probably 8 years old?) and would send them home with me and my brother. I would devour every picture in those magazines and would practice drawing the horses. They were so beautiful. I always loved Fadjur and Bask.
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Those âWestern Chunksâ are mega cute and are probably paint x draft. I am seeing a lot of Irish Cobs listed for sale now on the West Coast as all-around western horses/family horses⊠same idea, but I guess with more hair?
I am in a couple of throwback horse photo FB groups and one thing I think about is that itâs only the nicest horses and riders who are photographed, published in books, and later circulated on the internet. Iâm sure there were lots of terribly put-together, terribly treated horses back in the day - but no one was making a book of photos of run-down cart horses in 1915 or people at their first show in 1960! I do have some photos of my great-great grandfather, who was a rancher, with his horses in the 1920s. The horses look like very standard issue grade/QH types, nothing fancy at all, but Iâm sure they were extremely useful, tough and sound.
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Have you ever read the standard? The description for head is an entire paragraph. I would find it hard to believe that a breeder could point out a show dog with a head that wins but isnât correct according to the standard. http://images.akc.org/pdf/breeds/standards/LabradorRetriever.pdf
To be honest - it sounds a bit like a grumpy field breeder that thinks their dogs should win in the show ring too. I get it - I own a sporting breed, and despite the breed clubâs efforts to keep the breed from splitting between field and show, there are certainly some lines that are field OR show, but not both. But it doesnât necessarily mean that the field bred dogs are correct either. My breed is rampant with really horrible examples of field-bred dogs that arenât even close to the standard.
The nice thing about horses is that while some people own only model/conformation/halter-bred horses, they are too big and too expensive for most people to own one that canât be ridden. So I think compared to dogs there are fewer examples of horse breeds or breeding lines that are really just for show. Except maybe minis. I have a AMHA mini and the person I got her from said that she no longer is a member of that organization because of the trend toward lighter-bred, useless minis. My mini is nearly 30 and sheâs stout and strong. But a lot of minis are very delicate and couldnât be used for anything, certainly not driving.
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Thank you. She was a neat lady.
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Friends and I commented just yesterday, watching an unaffiliated 80cm event, that the standard of horses was very high, even at that lowly level. It is increasingly rare in the UK to see a really disastrous horse in terms of conformation though I recall some from when I was very small. There is more equine expertise available, maybe not from lifelong horse people and stockmen but now from trained experts with apprenticeships and degrees. The really malformed horses tend to end up as rescue cases.
Horses also live longer and have useful lives to a greater age. When I was a child, a horse over 14-15 yo was deemed to be aged and 18 absolutely past it. In the past they had a hard working life, less vet knowledge, less knowledge about nutrition, or biomechanics, or dental care. Now top horses are winning dressage and show jumping in their late teens. National hunt horses are jump racing at 12-13 and then go on to second careers. This has consequences though. Unfortunately elderly horses in poor condition is now a big welfare issue in the UK. People donât want to put their beloved pets to sleep.
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I recently tracked down a copy of a wonderful old book from the 70s I loved as an 80s child. There are photos and prices of some girlsâ 4H horses.
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This is always a hot topic in the draft horse world. Draft horses, perhaps more than any other breeds have changed A LOT. The exception in North America/UK is the very rare Suffolk Punch. In general draft horses today are much taller and much lighter in bone. And no, they absolutely would not hold up to the usage of 100 plus years ago. They are bred to be faster, âhitchierâ (flashy) and definitely are not heavily tested in regular work. They are NOT bad horses, but they are very different.
Stolen off Facebook: Shire of early 20th century
Shire of today, a very good stallion from a good program
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