Remounts

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Couvi
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REMOUNTS: BREEDING, PURCHASE, ISSUE AND TRAINING

MAJ C. L. Scott, Q. M. C., The Field Artillery Journal, Sep-Oct 1928, pp. 467-80

https://sill-www.army.mil/firesbulletin ... dition.pdf


The subject of this article is the Post WWI breeding of Army horses. It is long, and somewhat slow to load, but provides interesting insights on the breeding of Army horses at remount stations and by mares owned by private individuals.
“The object of the Army Horse Breeding Plan is, primarily, to produce within the United States and foreign possessions a large number of good horses which will be available for use in emergency and, secondarily, to mount the Army in peace time.”
“Such places are denominated “breeding centers.””
Ownership of Offspring

“The offspring of mares are the property of the owners of the mares and can be disposed of in any manner and at any time that the owners see fit. The Government will take no option or lien on them. In order, however, to encourage breeding and establish a horse market in each breeding center, the Government, whenever horses are required to be purchased for the Army, will inspect and buy such offspring in each center as needed, provided that they come up to Army requirements.”
Joseph Sullivan
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Its popular wisdom that the Army breeding program did a great deal to improve horseflesh in America. Some Q-Horse breeders certainly think so. I have no reason to doubt it, but am fairly ignorant. If anyone knows of a good history that shows the studs and their bloodlines and some of their known get, I'd be very interested to read it.

There is also a persistent story that the Army brought LIpazzoner and Arab stock and possibly Trakehner as well back from Europe after WW2, but I, not seen any detail about that either. Of t=course, there is the rather uncertain story of First Frost, said to be Hirohito's horse and displayed here as such -- but lots of questions there.

Does anybody know, and also know the disposition of those animals in a now-mechanized America?
selewis
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Yes, Joe. There is an excellent, fairly new, book on this subject: "The Perfect Horse", By Elizabeth Letts. She chronicles the events of the rescue of the Spanish Riding School horses in Vienna- and other breeds, mostly TBs, scattered at studs throughout axis held territories- by a few members of the 2nd cavalry and German horse lovers at the close of WW II.

She not only sets the record straight regarding Patton's participation in the scheme- little more than a nod, but an important one- but also lays out the history of the German breeding program under Gustav Rau, the '36 Olympic games, Podhajsky's flight from Vienna, on the last train out, with his famous charges only to be sidelined in Dresden on the fateful night of the allied raid. Out of the frying pan and into the fire. Imagine spending the night above ground there- near the rail lines! -with a few grooms and a score of nervous horses.

She then follows the story of those horses that were brought to the states as spoils of war in 1946. There were several hundred, as I recall, but I will dig out the book this evening and get you some of the details.

Letts' previous book "Eighty Dollar Champion" tells the story, in particular, of the famous show jumper Snowman, and more generally the horse scene on the eastern circuit, especially Long Island, in the fifties and sixties- the world of Littauer, Wright, Steinkraus et al. -Also excellent and as thoroughly researched and well written as "The Perfect Horse".

Sandy
Joseph Sullivan
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Interesting. I thik my wife has or had that book. Does it follow the disposition of the horses once brought here?
selewis
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"



Hi, Joe. Sorry for the delayed response. I got to reading the book again last night and-I'd forgotten how good it is- couldn't stop turning pages. I can't begin to trace or adequately summarize the many threads that make up the fabric of Letts' story. It would take a whole book and she has already done that admirably well. But, yes indeed she does follow their fates, particularly those of two Polish Arabians.

Roughly, it covers the years from the end of WW I through the 1960's. The actual rescue takes up about a third of the text, I guess. The rest is dedicated to background and aftermath. There is an extensive bibliography, end notes, and a welcome epilogue that traces the lives of the principal characters ,human and equine, after the events described in the main text. It is a bit surprising that it has never been discussed here because it touches so many subjects of interest to our members: horse breeding and stud management, cavalry and artillery branches during the inter war years, the importance of horses to the German army, mechanization and the thinking that pushed and resisted it, and much more.




Per Letts: two shipments totaling 231 horse came into the hands of the Remount Service. The first shipment comprised 151 mares foals and stallions: Lipizzaner, TBs, Arabians,"and a single cossack horse " October 1, 1945

Initially they were boarded at the Aleshire Army Remount Depot in Front Royal Virginia. where the horses were first seen by the public on April 7, 1946. "Certainly, there would have been many prospective buyers for many of the rescued horses among the well-heeled crowd assembled to see them on parade, but these refugees were not for sale. They remained the property of the United States Army. In April 1946, Colonel Hamilton's Remount Service was still operating five major horse-breeding stations in addition to the one in Front Royal. Now Hamilton's plan was to disperse the horses among the different depots. Only the Thoroughbreds would remain at Front Royal."

Those TBs were eventually sold at auction when the Department of Agriculture took over the Remount Service's properties in 1948; but because the Jockey Club refused to recognize all but four pedigrees, they went cheap and their genes for the most part never made it into the registered blood stock in this country. "In November of that year [1948], the Army Equestrian Team made their final public appearance at the National Horse Show in Madison Square Garden. When members of the Dutch team spotted a couple of their own horses in the American stables the army handed them back to their rightful owners.. Meanwhile cavalry veterans were offered a chance to purchase army horses at a discount. Quite a few took advantage of the offer to buy strings of horses and establish riding academies."

Letts' narrative most closely follows the thread of two Arabians, Witez and Lotnik, from their foaling in Poland in the 30's to the end of their lives here in the states. They were shipped from Virginia to the Army Remount Depot in Pomona, California, formerly the Kellogg ranch, where they enjoyed a few years of local celebrity but the plot thickens. " Witez had lived through the bombings of wartime, but now, in his formerly peaceful home, a new sort of battle ensued. The former Kellogg ranch had turned into the center of a storm of controversy, pitting horse lovers and animal rights activists against bean counters in Washington. As soon as the Department of Agriculture assumed control of the Pomona Remount Depot, their staff began a ruthless process of selection, culling the Arabian herd. Many of the able-bodied animals were sold off. Older mares and stallions, in good health but past their prime for breeding, were targeted for euthanasia. Only the cream of the crop remained.

"Arabian horse lovers, horrified by this callous treatment, started rescue operations, determined to save as many of the beautiful horses as possible. Sometimes they succeeded."

..."Other horses were not so lucky. Jadaan, [Rudolph] Valentino's horse, was euthanized, his skeleton donated to the school of veterinary medicine at the University of California, Davis, his hide promised (but never delivered) to the Cody Museum in Wyoming. Kellogg, by then eighty-eight years old and blind, was reported to be heartbroken by this turn of events. He had donated the ranch "with no strings attached", believing the horse-breeding operation would continue in perpetuity. With each passing day, the horse group shrank- some sold, others put down, and some lucky ones given homes by kind hearted fans. As long as the ranch remained in the army's hands, there had been great reluctance to sell off the rescued horses- a public relations disaster for the army as well as a sentimental one- but with the changing of the guard, the bureaucrats in the Agriculture Department had no such scruples. Lotnik, once the pearl of Hostau, was sold to a local horseman to be used as a pleasure horse.

"By the fall of 1948, only the most valuable horses in the Kellogg stables remained. Among these was Witez. In October 1948, even these horses- the most valuable of all- were to be sold off in a closed-bid auction, until this announcement faced a prompt and noisy backlash. …Hoping to tamp down the controversy, the Department of Agriculture changed tack." The horses were shipped to Fort Reno where they were quietly auctioned off in the spring of '49.

Lotnik, after a spell of neglect, was recognized by the former head of the Pomona Remount Service and rescued again. He lived out his life, a successful sire, in Scottsdale, Arizona. Witez also lived to produce valuable get at the Calarabia horse ranch in Calabasas, California.

There is one dangling thread I'm left wondering about, though I doubt that it can be tied up at this late date: what happened to the "single cossack horse" and what was he doing mingling with that august company? Highly recommended and I look forward to a discussion of it here at the forum.

"The Perfect Horse" Elizabeth Letts, 1916, Random House
Joseph Sullivan
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Sandy, that stirs some old memories. I am not quite sure but seem to recall that a number of very fine purebred Arabs wound up in a Dept. of the Interior pack string. They were bought out of that and, again if memory serves, became part of the foundation stock for a very well-regarded strain. I'll have to check. However, those would not have been Polish or had Polish blood. Rather, they, were the progeny of earlier importations of Desert stock. In the Arab world, these distinctions are kept for reasons of breeding and promotion, and also because there are questions about the blood purity of the Polish stock (but nonetheless, there are some superb Polish Arabs, and others who are just fine and hardy animals including my 38-yr old gelding).

Interestingly, the so-called Russian Arabs are mostly the result of theft from the great Polish stud farms. The actual "Russian" stock had been imported shortly before the revolution by two aristocrats, Sherbotoov and Strogonov. They were killed and the horses were slaughtered and eaten. Then the Soviet Union decided to get back into Arab breeding so they stocked their Tersk stud farm from Poland, with supplemental purchases from elsewhere including the Blunt's Crabbet Farm in England.
Pat Holscher
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selewis wrote: Fri Sep 20, 2019 10:34 am Yes, Joe. There is an excellent, fairly new, book on this subject: "The Perfect Horse", By Elizabeth Letts. She chronicles the events of the rescue of the Spanish Riding School horses in Vienna- and other breeds, mostly TBs, scattered at studs throughout axis held territories- by a few members of the 2nd cavalry and German horse lovers at the close of WW II.

Thanks for the book reference. I'll look for that.
Philip S
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The book "War Horse, Mounting the Cavalry with America's Finest Horses" by Phil Livingston and Ed Roberts has pedigrees of Remount bred Stallions and Mares.
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