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The Tack Room - A City of Horses

You can take the girl out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the girl. I have brought the country to the city with a hot stable, the sweet smell of straw and molasses, and horse ownership in a concrete forest. This is horses in Sydney’s CBD, so welcome to The Tack Room...

The Tack Room

Retiring from Orble

August 2nd 2007 04:07

All good things come to an end I guess. I'd like to add this little post to say I will no longer be writing The Tack Room any longer. I have enjoyed my experiences with Orble very much, the discipline of writing regularly, the fun in writing about horses at my will! And thank you to all my fellow Orble writers who have visited, commented and voted. You guys are a wonderful set-up, and I wish you all very well with your blogs.

The Tack Room, unfortunatey, could not come with me but is bound up in Orble terms and conditions. So, I imagine that it will become available for any writer to claim it. Whoever volunteers, be nice!

For anyone who would like to continue reading about horses, you might visit my website at The Horse Company www.thehorseco.com where the subject is the same as here only much more elaborate.

So to all and sunder, a very good luck and a very big thank you to the Orble team for their impressive customer service and the opportunity to enjoy The Tack Room so much....

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Man O' War - America's Measure of Greatness

May 8th 2007 03:19

"There never lived a horse that was more horse than he that afternoon. He was so beautiful that it almost made you cry, and so full of fire he made you thank your God that you could come close to him. No horse ever lived who could have beaten him that afternoon."

Man O' War exercising at Saratoga

...So said assistant starter Roy Dickinson on August 2nd of 1920 when Man O’ War went to the post for the Travers Stakes at Saratoga. And so said all of America.

But like so many thoroughbred legends before him and since, no one was saying anything about Man O’ War when he went to the auction block in 1918. He passed from the hands of the Major Belmont stable that day to those of Samuel Doyle Riddle for as little as $5000 and only hindsight can snigger at that – no price is a bargain until a horse triples it in winnings and several times over. But it was comparatively cheap, fellow Fair Plays colts were knocked down that day for $13,600 and $14,000. But Man O’ War didn’t see the auction block again. He flew the colours of the Riddle stable throughout his racing career, and throughout the rest of his life.

The Fair Play colt out of Mahubah was a carefully executed horse from the beginning. His breeding was a calculated equation in 1916 that involved the pedigree of the monstrous Hastings on his sire’s line and the impressionable Rock Sand on his dam’s side. So from the onset, this chestnut colt was imposing. Man O’ War raced as a 2YO and a 3YO. From 21 starts he lost only once in a race that (accurately documented) he could never have won. Remember, these were the days when stewards relied on only the information that their eyes fed them. Foul play was rampant, as it was that day.

It’s quite a record – 20 wins from 21 starts. Records suggest that Man O’ War was never extended and always returned to scale with plenty in reserve. Indeed, wire photos were not quite a common appearance on tracks so the ease with which the horse is suggested to have won with is questionable depending on the mouth it comes from, but the race stats are not. Typically the Fair Play colt won by at least a length and under weight, and those were as ugly as they were ineffective. Man O’ War conceded huge weights to his rivals, good horses like Upset, John P. Griers and Wildair who in another era would have been champions but against him they were also-rans.

The exception was Sir Barton. This horse, the first ever winner of the Triple Crown, was a champion. He met Man O’ War in a match race at Kenilworth Park, Windsor, Canada on October 12, 1920. Both Riddle and Commander Ross, owner of Sir Barton, admitted the race had been a disappointment. There was no contest. Man O’ War never conceded the lead and won by seven lengths.

Riddle retired his horse to stud immediately after the Kenilworth match and left the racing world with bated breath about his progeny and the ever-lingering debate on whether Man O’ War was the best horse in the world. His offspring were successful in moderation in the way that Northern Dancer’s were not. But those that were very successful were champions (1937 Triple Crown winner War Admiral for example). And so that left just the discussion about whether he was the greatest horse in the world…

Before Man O’ War lay the trails of dust from US horses Colin, Sir Barton. In England, Eclipse had laid his legacy out before all to come. In Australia there had been Carbine. There was little doubt he at least equalled the calibre of these horses, most likely he exceeded it. But of the horses that came after him? Phar Lap in Australia’s thirties, Citation and Seabiscuit in the forties, then Secretariat, and Seattle Slew, Cigar in the mid nineties, and not a racing soul would question the integrity of them.

In 1999 The Blood-Horse published The Top 100 Racehorses of the Twentieth Century. For non-American enthusiasts the list was but a little biased. Phar Lap is one of the only international champions to make it at 22 and he actually raced on US soil. The list left out superb English runners like Nijinsky. Man O’ War, however, was rated above and far beyond every horse to step foot on American turf, with hallowed Secretariat second and Citation third.

But how justified? The age of photographic record did not, unfortunately, grace Man O’ War’s flawless career so we are not left with the same visual evidence as champions after him. But description after description of him was the same – a tall imposing horse (more than 16 hands) whose stride was 25 feet long and with a high head carriage that is apparent in the photographs that do exist. His race times were quick, usually record breaking or tying. His stats show that he won against every opponent he faced (including Upset, the one horse who defeated him), he won over all distances, in all conditions and under top weights. Significantly while Riddle did not over-race his champion, neither was the horse particularly spared in those two years of racing.

Without question then Man O’ War was the best horse of his time. And he has remained among the best until right now when we ask if he is, indeed, the best. Usually it depends on who you ask as to who is the greatest thoroughbred of all time... Decades and centuries aside though, with their usual jockeys, according weights assigned and over a mile and a quarter on a fast track, I would send Phar Lap, Man O’War and Secretariat to the post, and with them Carbine and Ruffian, and as we watched them only then would we measure each greatness. Place your bets gentleman, that would be a match made from heaven!

Author's Note:
The Blood Horse's Top 100 Thoroughbreds of the Twentieth Century is a wonderful reference to own, it suggests some of the best track racers the US has experienced and flicking through the sepia pictures is truly a horse lovers time best spent. Additionally, I have just finished reading one of the earliest bigraphies of Man O'War's life by Page Cooper and Roer L. Treat. A more comprehensive and perhaps colourful biography exists by Dorothy Ours, and that one is on order. More info on that when Ive finished it.

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Are the Faces of Fortune Changing for Horses?

April 29th 2007 16:00

Anna Sewell, author of Black Beauty

It all started with a novel that became a classic, or at least that’s what they say. Not that there weren’t good horse people in the centuries before this one but there were obvious bad ones. So when Anna Sewell released Black Beauty in 1879, she single-handed altered the fate of every horse to come.

It’s been a long time since 1879 and we’d like to think that much has changed for horses and we’d be correct. It has. It would be hard to find a team driving under the bearing rein, even harder to look the other way on an emaciated thoroughbred. Such things that would have been seen on the streets we shared with horses are now either few or behind closed doors

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The Great Horse Books

April 14th 2007 17:09

Equestrian books gather creases and dust in the lives of most riders. Like shoes you simply cannot have too many. Each delivers new evidence of your need for horses; each reiterates that your horse is your life. There are thousands of books available for each equestrian discipline across the horse world, but a rider should know what she is seeking. Jump technique or lateral work instructionals abound, as do the volumes that followed the natural horsemanship revolution.

But there are a few very special books that feed and nourish the horse tragic, so here is a select group that may parallel your life

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The Great Horses of History

December 7th 2006 15:55

The great horses of history… let me count them. Let me define what it means to be great. Let me count the Melbourne Cups, or measure the highest jump, the fastest furlong. Greater than Phar Lap? Then Phar Lap must be the measure of all great horses…

Secretariat commands front page 11/06/1973

On the 11th June in 1973, the US champion Secretariat appeared on the cover of Time magazine. The super galloper went on that day to win the Triple Crown, setting a world record time for a mile and a half – a world record time. The horse won by 31 lengths and the effort is breathless. Is this greatness, or great enough to be a great horse? Phar Lap slashed records each time he set foot on turf. The horse’s heart set records when it was extracted from him, and his hide still sets records as the greatest draw in the Melbourne Museum. Greatness? The weight-carrying record for the Melbourne Cup was set in 1890 by Carbine who sloshed 10st5lbs through a Flemington track that was kept down by sheep! Makybe Diva – three Melbourne Cups, top weights and a mare. Greatness

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The 1949 Equestrian High Jumping Record

November 26th 2006 12:22

How is it that old records stand tallest... In 1890 Carbine set the weight carrying record for the Melbourne Cup with 10st5 and in 115 of years of racing since no horse has stepped near it. The 1930 Spring Carnival - Phar Lap picked off his opposition in each of the four top races. Nearly six miles in four days and that effort remains immortal.

Is it that old equine records carried conditions and extremities that today’s horses could not be subjected to such are the present laws protecting animals from strain? It would be hard to imagine that these records would be even attempted today, which means they may stand even taller in another 115 years

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The Feats of Many - World Records Set by Horses

November 20th 2006 12:56

In 1921 a horse called Humorist won the Derby, England’s jewel in the racing crown, and was dead three weeks later. An autopsy allegedly revealed the horse had only one lung! In America, a palomino horse grew the longest tail in the world measuring some 22 feet long while a Californian horse possessed the longest mane at an interesting 18 feet. There are very credible feats in the equine industry that span the centuries of recorded time, some completely ridiculous and others a biological wonder. The world’s tallest horse, smallest horse, oldest horse, greatest jockey - the merits roll onwards and upwards. So here is compiled a list of records that have been set in the world of horses, some still standing (literally) and others that still bewilder decades after their inauguration…

The Highest Jump

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Horse Ownership Made Illegal

November 8th 2006 14:26

A movie happened itself upon me last weekend. Children of Men tells an insightful tale of the world mid-this century where women are infertile and the degeneration of society is disastrous. Possessions are limited, luxuries a rarity and the poles between rich and poor are vast. And the underlying vacuum appears to be that humanity has made such a job of the environment that every place and every individual has become uninhabitable. Which livened up my imagination and I came to wondering about the possibilities of horse ownership ever becoming illegal..!

God forbid that I should go to any Heaven where there are no horses, R. B. Cunningham-Graham wrote to Theodore Roosevelt in 1917. Imagine then if neither heaven nor earth had them

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The Drought takes hold of Horse Ownership in Sydney

November 4th 2006 15:03

Owning a horse in the concrete jungle no longer removes the worry of drought conditions

Early in the 1990s a trend developed in urban areas of the UK that spawned the single greatest threat to environmental protection – apathy. It was called NIMBY, and it stood for “Not In My Back Yard”. It meant that rubbish tips could be elsewhere, melting icecaps could be elsewhere and disease and disaster could all be elsewhere, and ‘out of sight out of mind’ took on a whole new meaning. In Australia however something else happened. It was drought, and NIMBY is nowhere to been seen here.

This week I sat on two bales of straw I purchased staring at the two bales of Lucerne hay I had also purchased and realised that the creeping skirt of the drought was affecting me in more ways than water shortages

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The World Equestrian Games

November 2nd 2006 13:31

Capacity crowds for the WEG

It swallowed up 39.3 million euros and hosted 61 nations and 852 horses. There were 570,000 spectators and Australia didn’t even notice. How very frustrating.

And that is the thing about horses in Australia. While the equestrian elite congregated at the World Equestrian Games for the greatest two weeks of horses in the world, Australian networks frustrated horse people from coast to coast with coverage of sport we see all year. Which is interesting, because the Australian Olympic Council

Edwina Alexander jumps to 4th place

declared the games the nations’ most successful yet. An Australian earned individual eventing silver, the Australian team secured eventing bronze, and an Australian placed fourth in the individual showjumping, the latter being the big daddy of the Games and for which tickets could not be sought nor stolen months before the event

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August 2007

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May 2007