The Eighty-Dollar Champion - Elizabeth Letts [13]
In the 1920s, ’30s, and ’40s, as mechanization increased, domestic consumption of horses continued to plummet. The number of civilian buyers declined, so that by 1940 the U.S. Army became the largest single purchaser of horses. At that time, the army paid about two hundred dollars for a well-bred gelding, or about one-fifth of the price of a new automobile.
Remount stallions were dispersed throughout the country and bred to “certified mares”—broodmares who had been deemed healthy and suitable to participate in the program. The stud fee was a mere ten dollars and the product of these matings belonged to the owner of the mare, with the understanding that the army would have the first opportunity to bid. As the market for workhorses declined with each progressive decade, large-scale western horse-breeding operations were funded largely by sales to the army.
But the Second World War, the first fully mechanized war, was the end of the line for the army’s role in horse breeding. The army procured tens of thousands of horses in 1940 and 1941, stockpiling them in the remount stations. Only times had changed. Battles could now be fought without horses, and by 1942 and 1943 the army was already dismounting its units and selling off the excess horses. After the war, in 1948, the army’s Remount Program was disbanded. The remount stallions, bred specifically to be the best of their type, were distributed across the country and put into private hands, their services now available to the casual or backyard breeder.
The general quality of American horses was greatly improved by the Remount Program, but remount stallions were not the only reason for this. Throughout the nineteenth century, while exporting remount horses to Europe, farmers had also been importing the great European draft breeds—Percherons, Belgians, and shires—to develop the American workhorse. The great draft horses were also crossbred, producing offspring that were lighter than their giant forebears, easier to manage, and less expensive to feed and keep. Thus, the typical grade horse—one without a pedigree or a specific breed, the kind that might have shown up at the auction in New Holland in the 1950s—might have had strong and gallant bloodlines hidden beneath its plain exterior. It might have carried the blood of draft horses bred for strength to cultivate fields, of thoroughbreds honed for speed to win at racecourses, and of warrior horses prized for their sturdy physiques and gentle, courageous temperaments.
By the time Harry bought Snowman, in 1956, time had erased the exact details of the horse’s birthplace and parentage. No one remembered the big gray gelding with the harness scars and the peaceful look in his eye. No one emerged later to claim credit for him. Most likely, he’d been bred and born and suckled down a country lane somewhere, in a big white Amish barn, on the straw-filled bed of a foaling stall. What happened after that is pure speculation.
On Amish farms as elsewhere, horses stay with their mothers as sucklings until they are about six months old. At that age, a foal is weaned. Separated from their broodmares, weanlings are still small and relatively easy to handle. A weanling learns to be handled by people—first growing accustomed to a person’s touch, next to a halter, and, eventually, to a bridle and bit.
Yearlings are generally put out to pasture with other agemates, and spend that second year at freedom and play. But when a horse turns two, his training for a life of work begins. Amish handlers first train a horse to voice commands: ho for stop, easy for slow down, and break to change pace.
Once a horse understands the commands, he is broken to harness—first to the yoke around the neck, then to the bridle and reins, and last to the harness shafts. Each step takes patience, as the handler teaches the horse to accept the equipment without putting up a fight. After that, the training starts in earnest. The farmer follows behind the horse, on a twelve-foot line,