Yet another epic Facebook fail, this time over Przewalski's horses

So, editing one’s own comments goes against Facebook community standards. I was correcting my typos, which were partially Facebook’s fault. I was responding to someone’s comment and then went back to clarify the difference between a purebred Przewalski's wild horse and the modern horse and possible crossbreeds or, to be hyper-correct, hybrids.

I added, “The Przewalski's horse is stocky, short, and pot-bellied in comparison to its domestic cousins. It has a spiky mane like a zebra. All Przewalski's horses have a light belly and darker back, with a dark stripe on the back from the withers to the base of the tail. They also have more chromosomes,…” etc. 

Just as I added the clincher, a hybrid Przewalski's horse and modern horse results in a horse with a floppy mane—a DNA indicator, like donkey ears on a mule—Facebook shut me down. Understand that I am dyslexic, or as they say these days, neurodivergent, so I struggle to write clear, nuanced sentences. Writing does not come easy, I have to work at it. I edit everything early and often

Could someone please explain to me how this editing process could possibly go against community standards? Other than Facebook is allergic to facts versus fiction. I was not over-posting or spamming or over-sharing. I certainly wasn’t being obnoxious or belligerent. I was correcting and clarifying one comment. I am allergic to typos. So, yes, I do fix them whenever I spot them. Well, bollocks I say, because I can. I will not be dumbed down to the lowest common denominator of unintelligent comments. and I will not let the sleeping typos lie.

For some peculiar reason Facebook constantly changes what I write— especially after I post a comment —so I have to edit my comments early and often. Gaslight much? I am beginning to suspect that Facebook AI bots are anti-intellectual, because it puts me in jail every time I am on a scholarly bent. No name-calling, not being derogatory, merely facts— Sometimes with supporting links. This time it was about horses.

The last time I most memorably was thrown in Facebook jail was for posting a photograph of Einstein‘s messy desk on the anniversary of the day he died. Facebook, of course claimed it was going against community standards, and that it was pornography. The only real pornography I could see was the formula written on the blackboard: some segue of e = MC2.

 It looks like I can post status updates on my own page, and like posts, but that’s about it. See you in a week. Be very, very bad, all of you. Be obstreperous. Edit and change your posts early and often. Down with the fasciestest regime. stet.

Oh, and for the record, I document everything—because I can.

Rich Strike wins the 148th Kentucky Derby with 80 to 1 odds

Whenever I drive to Berkeley to teach kids poetry, I always drive the back way past Golden Gate Fields, just so I can see the jockeys breezing, or exercising their horses. That brief moment seeing them through the slatted fence makes for a good start to my day. At a memorial service for a friend, Maria Perrin, who died of an unexpected heart attack, the Marin Rod and Gun Club bar, was the last place I expected to encounter a glimpse of horses. We caught the tail-end broadcast of an amazing Kentucky Derby win for a last minute scratch entry horse with a longshot 80 to 1 odds to win—2nd longest odds in Derby history. And win, he did, with a deft series of maneuvers, as Rich Strike, a horse with a big heart, went from dead last out the starting gate, trailing at the tail end of the pack, to the middle of the melee where he was caught in a dangerous bottleneck traffic jam which  sometimes results in massive pile-ups. The jockey, Sonny Leon, threaded the needle when a tiny hole opened in the pack, and he deftly wove right through the tangle, and then he went on the OUTSIDE to pass on a curve, when most jockeys would’ve hugged the rail for maximum advantage. Outside means you lose valuable seconds off your racing time. Inside curve on the rail always has the winner’s advantage. Then, Rich Strike hit an extra high gear no one knew he even had, and rode for the win on the rail. Wow! Great horse, great riding, great jockey, indeed. This overhead drone shot really shows it all. And to think he was a $30,000 quick claim maiden race horse from Camulet Farms up against multimillion dollar horses. I bet they’re sorry for selling him off.  First claimed horse ever to win the Kentucky Derby! The historic Run for the Roses only allows 20 horses to compete on the field, Rich Strike was the 21st entry, rotten luck, but at the very last minute another horse dropped out—or was scratched—just as they were getting ready to leave. Quick change of plans. Time to don the racing silks. Kind of like the cinderfella stories with California Chrome, Seabiscuit, and Secretariat. The underdog won. But that’s horseracing for you. The owner definitely struck it rich with Rich Strike. Rich Strike is a fairytale horse sired by Keen Ice out of Smart Strike, whose bloodlines go back to Native Dancer (whose ggg-grandsire was Man o' War!) on both sides—aka the Gray Ghost, one of the most accomplished Thoroughbreds in racing history.  Up next, the Preakness, and maybe even the Triple Crown. However you want to say it, he’s got a big heart, and he’s in the money.

YouTube

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• Our Chromie's Wing and a Prayer to win the Belmont...
• California Chrome, a Cinderfella Horse
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  A horse & his best friend, his groom, Jerry Riley.

  
  

A BLT for the horse

One afternoon I was eating a rare treat, a bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich—something I had recently discovered. My old horse Chiquita, who was grazing on the grass around the front of the house, was so used to sharing snacks with me that she reached over and snatched my sandwich right out of my hand, and gobbled it up. I was stunned as I had barely taken a bite. When she hit a strip of bacon, she was surprised and began nodding her head for all she was worth, because I don’t think she’d ever experienced bacon, or any meat, before in her life. But it was salty and she liked that. See, it all began innocently enough. We used to collect day-old bread from Bordenave and Lombardi bakeries and feed it to the animals. So she thought anything that resembled a loaf of French bread was for her. She looked like Winston Churchill in the war-room with a cigar in his mouth, as she tilted her head sideways, and got a dreamy look in her eyes, whenever she ate those loaves of French bread. Her sidekick, Winky the cat, was standing on his hind legs, wanting in on the action, got a piece of bacon for his efforts.

Links to horse posts. Blogger keeps removing the link

Other horsey bits. The new and improved Blogger keeps removing the link and pasting in a link to blogger# dashboard every single time I try and fix a link or add a post, so this is a placeholder.

Becky Dart: Born to Run

Connemara pony origins

On the ambling gait of horses

Kiger mustangs carry rare Iberian Sorraia mtDNA

The jockey's baton
B/G Sandwich Shops plate, or the tale of Ralph Moody
Eating the Wind
Helgar the Horrible

Letter to Sigrun in Iceland (Helgar the Horrible)
Mexico Journal: Aug. 19, San Juan Chamula on horseback
The Little Shits
Shetlandish Escape Artists
Shetland foal, H.M.S. Salt
Horse Chestnuts
Horses in Heaven
Sitting Deep

While Reading Essays by Robert Hass
There is so Much We Save from Childhood

• BLUE RIBBON SPECIAL

FIRST SWIM
NEW MOWN HAY, 

RAISED BY HORSES, 

ODE TO STEPHANIE,...
AFTER THE SOLSTICE, MACHU PICCHU
STOLEN RIDE
WILD HORSES IN THE RAIN

LATE HOUSEWARMING POEM TO WM.T.WILEY
HORSES RUNNING THROUGH THE STREETS OF ZENIA AT NIGHT

BLUE RIBBON SPECIAL

BLUE RIBBON SPECIAL

Once I entered a gymkhana race
where a dollar bill was firmly placed
between my thigh and my horse.
I was riding bareback, of course,
so it was a snap and every pace
that the judges put me through,

no matter how tough it got,
that dollar bill stuck to me like glue.

They begrudgingly gave me the blue,

but I would rather have won the pot.

11/4/21

Terri Glass workshop

In a different dream (art, redux)

This was the desk portion of an old oak school chair desk, it was on my cousins’ porch in Nicasio, but someone drove a pickup right through the porch 4th of July, 2019, destroying it and the front of the house, and this is what I salvaged of the chair. 

This was the entire piece. The back of the chair too. I also had the rungs too, but they got separated from the rest. I repurposed it with chalkboard paint and pastel. I gave it a dream of a lake and a mountain. When my cousin moved everything out of the house for repairs, this piece got damaged along the way, the chalk image brushed off, so I reapplied it, but now it’s a different dream. Since the peace no longer exists with its other parts, is it a new piece or an old piece?

I offered back of the chair with the horses on it to Geoffrey Davis but he never replied. What is significant about the Paleolithic horses is that they were pacers, most horses trot diagonally but amblers, or pacers move both legs on the same side.  The only other horses that do that naturally are Neolithic horses, such as the Icelandic ponies (which have some Irish lineage) and the archaic horses of the British Isles including the Kerry bog pony, Dartmoor, and the Exmoor pony. The extinct tarpan would be related. Can’t use the word breed, here as it predates the concept. I wrote more on Kiger mustang pacers here.

I made this Angel assemblage from the rest of the old oak chair, and other detritus from the yard. it lived outside the Nicasio house like a guardian angel until the contractors finally came to repair the house last year. Now it solely exists as a photograph. It rests on a piece of sheetrock from the 1940s. It was one of the walls that was smashed in. When the contractors discovered that it was made with asbestos, the entire house got tagged and bagged for hazardous substances. The beginning of the end of the Nicasio house.

I write in order to learn—what I am currently interested in—and I never know what will catch fire. Suspect my dyslexia has a lot to do with my eclectic interests. But I must admit anything to do with horses has my unabiding attention—weird ideas come to me and then I follow them. See where they will lead. Most of these convoluted essays stem from Facebook comments. I write one thing, and then discover something related, and so on. And then it won’t let go of me. I am possessed once I am in the throes of writing  Most people just roll their eyes at this stuff.

Few folks know that Petaluma was once the hotbed of racing trotters. I think the famous stallion Kenilworth was a trotter. Not sure if he was a pacer. That information is hard to track down unless there’s an action photo. There were also famous trotting/pacing thoroughbreds, not just Standardbreds, and I remember reading that one famous racehorse who was a pacer, can’t remember who I have to go look that up. Like Healdsburg’s Black Ruby, the world’s fastest mule at the trot. So the larger question begs, was she a trotter or a pacer? Inquiring minds want to know.

Connemara pony origins

Cúchulainns’s pony, Liath Macha, was a grey. Connemara pony—Wiki

A well-meaning writer friend who leads New Age spiritual anim cara style trips to Ireland, invoking its mythical misty past, posted a story on Facebook about how the Vikings brought the Connemara pony to Ireland. Well, you can bet your bottom dollar that got my goat, er, pony. I mean he has something like 4000 followers who dote on his every word. Perhaps seeking damage control, I posted this comment on his page:

Contrary to what Wikipedia says, the Connemara pony is native to Ireland, it was not brought to Ireland by the Vikings. I can’t even begin to fathom how that notion came about. There were already plenty of fine horses in Ireland. And because Ireland was a cattle culture from the Bronze Age, right up to the Viking invasions, horses too were very much part of the cultural landscape.

The Connemara pony’s genetic ancestry is derived from an ancient source that predates the arrival of the Vikings. In fact, they carry a northern late glacial European mDNA C1 gene cluster shared with Exmoor, Shetland, Fjord, Icelandic, and Scottish Highland ponies—which “suggests a common late glacial or postglacial origin for these pony breeds.” 1. DNA studies were conducted on “five British-Irish native pony populations... Carneddau (Welsh)... Connemara ponies (native to Ireland) and Highland ponies (native to Scotland).” 2. And  they discovered that “The Highland and Connemara matrilines were more closely related than to the Welsh ponies.” Meaning they probably did travel back and forth across the Irish Sea.

We know, at least according to the Irish epics, that native aboriginal Bronze Age British and Irish ponies were theoretically being raced in two-wheeled chariots as early as 400 BC. Icelandic ponies, related to what is called the early Celtic horse—specifically the Kerry Bog pony, Ireland’s oldest breed—probably contributed to the Icelandic pony gene pool too, as Dublin was the main port of call to Iceland, not Norway.) The ambling, or toelting gene present in 8th c. British horses and Icelandic horses, but NOT in Scandinavian horses—strongly suggests that Icelandic horse ancestry included ponies from Shetland and the British Isles.

Sometimes articles cite the Andalusian horse as an ancestor breed that contributing to the Connemara bloodlines. The problem with that theory is that the Andalusian horse carries a completely different gene cluster, D1. The DNA isn’t there. So how does this work? Magical thinking? During the 1970s Connemara ponies were crossbred with warmbloods to “improve the breed” as a sport horse.

But to be fair, “In the 12th Century, Spanish (Iberian) stallions were imported and used to breed with small (Welsh) mountain mares.” 2. in Wales, to create the bigger Powys, and Hackney pony (British). So it’s remotely possible some of that hot Iberian bloodline eventually found its way into the Connemara pony bloodlines, but, here’s the rub, the appropriate DNA cluster simply isn’t there. Besides, the 12th c. is no longer considered to be the Viking era, the Norman era, maybe.

This story may be the source of the Andalusian bloodline theory. “The Connemara Pony's origins go back some 2,500 years to the time when Celtic warriors brought their dun-colored ponies onto the island of Ireland and used them to draw war chariots and carts along the beaches and river plains of their newfound home. The history is obscure, yet the Connemara Pony is considered Ireland's only native breed. Mythology tells us that the tribes of western Ireland were mounted. Legend has it that when the Spanish Armada sank off the Connemara coast in the 16th Century, the horses swam to shore and bred with the native ponies running wild in the mountains.” 3.

But anything linking an Armada ancestry theory is always suspect. Legend, and not fact. Repeat something often enough, and it becomes “true.” Like with today’s politics. Ditto that with the Viking story. Also, why would Vikings even need to bring horses to Ireland, it would be like bringing coals to Newcastle. (I actually had to explain that idiom to someone who had never heard of Newcastle before. It’s a good thing I didn’t have to explain First Footing. But I digress.)

During the 1700s, Arabian blood was introduced to many Forest, or northern/cold horse breeds. That’s how we got the thoroughbred. But according to conservation genetics of endangered horse breeds, the native pony breeds show far less less foreign genetic influence than the large horses—probably because they weren’t considered valuable. Their diminutive size protected their gene pool. But no matter what, the native mare always carries essence of the bloodline. Blood will out.

Anyway, silence was his loud reply.

On the ambling gait of horses

About 20 to 30 breeds of modern horses carry what is referred to as a "gatekeeper" gene which produces gaited pacers, or amblers—a trait highly prized during the Middle Ages. The jennet and palfrey were considered prized amblers, noted for their smooth rides. Good for traveling long distances.

 

Medieval ambling palfrey. Folio 8r of an Apocalypse. British Museum—Wiki

If you've ever ridden a horse any distance at spanking diagonal-legged trot, it's a jarring staccato of a ride that's murder on the spine and the innards. The smooth ambling, or pacing gait, where one foot never leaves the ground, overstepping, and/or front and back legs moving, not diagonally, but laterally as one unit on each side, like the four-beat walk, but much faster—softens the blow, so to speak. 

Ambling is like having a horse with good shocks and extra speed gears. Think four on the floor, plus two or three extra overdrive gears in car terms. Most horses have three or four gaits: the four-beat walk, the two-beat jog and the faster trot (some horses are unclear on the idea of jog, other can't grok the idea of canter), the three-beat rocking horse canter, and the faster gallop where all four feet leave the ground. Amblers have one or two more gaits similar to a lateral trot. 

Amblers will rarely canter or gallop. Their gallop gear is wonky. Helgar, the Icelandic pony we rode, would begrudgingly gallop, and he preferred trotting to tölting. It was like riding a jackhammer on a knifeblade. But when he tölted, it was like riding on clouds. 

Not all amblers will naturally amble—some need tune-ups. But you can't train a non-ambling horse to amble. Amblers make up for a lack of a working galloping gear (in Icelandic terms), by tölting, or when they really burn rubber with the faster lugskeið or flying paces which is full blast tölting at 30 mph. That's almost as fast as a thoroughbred racehorse. But Icelandic ponies are not the only gaited horses, there are many old or isolated breeds that retain this archaic gene. Where did it come from?

(See Edward Muybridge's photo animated gif of a flying pacer).

During the Middle Ages, there was no such thing as the idea of a modern “breed” though hominids have been cross-breeding plants and animals for eons; selective inbreeding for specific dominant genetic traits is a modern concept. In the past, body “type” was used as a genetic breeding criteria. The Old English word breed comes from bredan which means to "bring young to birth." Not terribly enlightening or specific. The definition of the word breed has changed considerably since the Middle Ages.

During the agricultural revolution of the 18th c., farmer Robert Bakewell of Leicestershire, England, methodically bred superior sheep (Lincoln Longwool), Dishley Longhorn cattle (double the weight of other cattle), and strong workhorses (the Black Cart horse, ancestor of the Shire), by inbreeding livestock for specific traits via artificial selection vs. letting nature take its course, to strengthen and enhance certain traits. His animal husbandry experiments influenced the thinking of Charles Darwin in Origin of Species.

The Celtic horse/pony, with ancient Celtiberian origins, was a probable ancestral carrier of the ambling gene; still present in the surviving indigenous wild horses of Iberia, the Sorraia (a scrawny Guadalquivir marsh horse dubbed Marismeño by Columbus), and other rare breeds including the Garrano, Gallego, Asturcón, Pottok and Losino. (I use the word Iberia loosely vs. Spain and Portugal as the Iberian horses, whose shared ambling DNA traits predate the foundation of those political entities.)

These Iberian wild horses were also the probable ambling ancestors of all the New World gaited horse breeds including the Florida Cracker, Missouri fox trotter (the ambling gait was called the fox trot), Saddlebred, Standardbred, Tennessee Walking Horse, and the Puerto Rican Paso Fino—and the myriad related Latin American ambling breeds. 

In the British Isles, the ambling gene was carried by the extinct Irish hobby, (foundation bloodline of the Connemara pony and the thoroughbred); the Dartmoor, Exmoor, Fell, Highland, and Shetland (but not the Fjord horse), all carry the ambling gene. 

During the early 19th c. like the beleaguered Kerry Bog pony, the tiny Faroe Island pony, a distinct breed related to the Shetland, and the Icelandic pony, was extensively exported to the UK, used as troglodyte pit ponies to haul coal—never to see the light again. The need for pit ponies was so great that almost none were left in the Faroes. 

The term, Irish hobby/hoby has an interesting linguistic lineage, hobin/obann in early Irish, or hobynis in early Scots (the preferred ride of Robert the Bruce), came from the French haubini and morphed into hobbeye; which is cognate with palfrey (Latin, paraveredus, a courier horse, from the Gaulish vorēdos. The German Zelter, or ambler is cognate with Icelandic, tölt.)

And one amang, an Iyrysch man, (he's referring to a hobelar)

Uppone his hoby swyftly ran... —John Barbour, The Brus, 1375

Sweyn Forkbeard on a dappled palfrey.  Life of King Edward the Confessor, 13th c. Wiki

Oddly, two indigenous horse breeds in Northwest India—those weird-cross-eared horses of Marwari or Malani from the Jodhpur region of Rajasthan, and the Kathiawari, a desert war horse of the Gujarat, both have genetic ties to the Mongolian horse (not a pacer), and they are also gaited. Which considerably widens the origin of the ambling gene pool. Northern India, Iberia, Ireland, Iceland.

The native Northern European horses, including the Dartmoor and Exmoor ponies along with the Kerry Bog pony (all have a genetic link to Mongolian horses) are considered to be among the most ancient of breeds, possibly even Neolithic breeds, dating back to the Pleistocene era, along with the Sorraia and Garrano of Iberia, and all carry that gatekeeper gene. Convergent evolution? I think not.

Sadly most nations nearly slaughtered their ancient horse breeds, considering them superfluous and obsolete—especially after WWI, once the combustion engine was developed. Many countries actively slaughtered those horses carrying this rare ancient gene, for dogfood, or for eating the very grass their valuable blooded livestock needed. Those persecuted feral horses that escaped to the fens and bogs of Europe managed to survive, keeping the rare genetic pool alive, but just barely. Once a population gets too low, a genetic bottleneck occurs—which means lost gene variations.

Now here's the mystery: the recessive gatekeeper ambling gene DMRT3 is NOT present in most modern horse breeds, including the venerable Norwegian Fjord Horse breed (which throws a huge spanner into the notion that Icelandic horses and the nearly extinct Faroe ponies (related to the Icelandic horse) are solely descended from fjord horses. (I cannot fathom a chonky fjord draft horse tölting, let alone, traveling to Iceland on a tiny wooden Viking ship).

Pict on an ambling pony, with his carnyx. Bullien Stone, 9th c. Wiki

And yes, you read that right, the Irish Celts inhabited the Faroe Islands as well as Iceland long before the Vikings—and the only reason why the Icelandic pony is called a horse, is that there's no word for pony in Icelandic. Besides, all those island horses were diminutive. Think of Shetlands.

Nor is the recessive pacing gene present in the ancient Przewalski’s horse species. So where did it come from? Mongol horses? Tarpans? Who's on First? Since the ancestor of horses were once a New World species... nah.

The Mongol horse, an archaic breed and foundation stock for all Asian horses, including the Outer Mongolian Tuvan horse, has the most genetic variability of any horse, vs. the extreme bottlenecked Przewalski's horse, a distinctly separate species with extra chromosomes, saved from extinction because of ten horses found in European zoos. (The Botai horse of Kazakhstan may have been a Przewalski's horse, or a hybrid, but it's the earliest reference we have to domestication of the horse— if you consider eating them a form of domestication.)

It is surmised that some wild Mongol horses still exist alongside their more domesticated kin. They are all considered feral or semi-feral, somewhat like the American mustang. But, not all Mongol horses are one homogenous breed; there is the desert horse with big feet, the agile mountain horse, and the Steppe horse—which is used for racing. Has anyone looked at the other Mongol horses for that primitive ambling gene? 

There is some conjecture that the ambling gene might have been inherited from the Eurasian Tarpan, thought to be the original wild horse, Equus ferus ferus. There were two subspecies of tarpan, the forest, and the steppe horse. The Eurasian forest tarpan was the probable ancestor of the European horse of the Pleistocene era, made famous by the paintings on the cave walls of Las Caux, and Altamira. 

Herodotus described pale (dun?) wild steppe horses in what is now the Ukraine in the 5th c. BC. Sadly, the last tarpan, a diminutive grullo with a full falling mane (not a standing mohawk like the Przewalski's horse), and primitive markings, including a dorsal stripe and shoulder stripes, died in a Russian zoo in 1909. The last wild tarpans had been extirpated between 1875 and 1890. And "the last free-ranging mare was accidentally killed during an attempt at capture." (Wiki)

The name "tarpan" or "tarpani" derives from a Turkic language name meaning "wild horse". The Tatars and the Cossacks distinguished the wild horse from the feral horse; the latter was called Takja or Muzin. ... Most studies have been based on two preserved specimens but research has not positively linked the tarpan to Pleistocene or Holocene-era animals.—Wiki

Primitive wild horses still roamed free in Europe and Russia until the 16th century. There were captive wild horses in Russian and Polish zoos ca. 1750s, that were "small and strong, with robust limbs, a large thick head," small eyes, pinned ears, a shaggy dun, or mouse-colored coats with a light belly (primitive pangaré markings), "short dark manes and tails, and a beard." Their whinny was more like a donkey bray. And "They were also absolutely untameable." (Wiki) And no, they weren't wild asses, the European wild ass went extinct during the Pleistocene. 

It seems that the tarpan and Przewalski's horse shared the untameable gene, along with the equally vicious Syrian onager of the Middle East. (Untameable is the main difference between wild and domestic animals—and why zebras can't be domesticated).

So, it's possible the forest tarpan may have carried that ambling gene, but at this point, it's all pure conjecture.

According to Wiki:

In 2012, a DNAstudy found that horses from several gaited and harness racing breeds carried a mutation on the gene DMRT3, which controls the spinal neurological circuits related to limb movement and motion. In 2014, that mutation was found to originate in a single ancestor to all gaited horses....Ambling was described as early as the Hittite writings of Kikkuli. (Kikkuli was a Hurrian charioteer and "master horse trainer of the land of Mitanni.")

Unfortunately the Wiki article does not expand upon that single ancestor to all gaited horses.* But Kikkuli, that master horse trainer, who recorded the presence of amblers on his training regime treatise inscribed on cuneiform tablets. 

Kunga draft hybrids, 'Standard of Ur' mosaic, 3rd m BC, British Museum

While everyone else in the Middle East were using hybrid kunga asses to pull cumbersome war carts, the Hittite charioteers with their superior (Kabarda or Circassian?) war horses, quickly supplanted the kungas, and forged an empire that included Turkey, Syria, Lebanon and Northern Iraq. 

The ousted kunga asses were a hybrid between the large Syrian onagers (among the fastest of land mammals—at 40mph, they could easily outrun horses) that were bred with more tractable donkeys. (The hybrid kungas predated the horse-donkey hybrid mule by 1500 years. Imagine what could've happened to warfare advantage if horses and onagers had been crossed). 

So the perhaps the ambling gene arose somewhere in the Middle East. Back to the homeland of the Tarpan. The last known Syrian onager was shot in 1927 in Jordan, and the last captive onager died in a Vienna zoo that same year.

And here's an aside: it seems that ambling, a trait duly noted by the Hittites, would go a long way in ameliorating the origin of those odd amblers of northwestern India. From the Middle East to Iberia is an easy enough connection to understand, but to the bogs of Ireland? I guess we will never know the gene's origin, or why certain isolated horse populations retained the gene, despite the meteoric rise of the modern horse. But we're glad they did.

The oldest known horse sculpture found in the Vogelherd cave, Germany, was carved ca. 32,000 years ago. —Wiki

Kiger mustangs carry rare Iberian Sorraia mtDNA

A chalk drawing on a broken school desk I made for an art show.

Someone posted on Facebook a photo of dun-colored Kiger mustangs, a horse that carries a rare mtDNA recessive dun-color gene from Iberia, and I fell down the Google rabbithole. I noted the phenotype was similar to the endangered Iberian horses related to the Gallego, and Sorraia breeds. The Southeastern Oregon Kiger mustangs were originally flagged as being unusual because of their dun coloring. Instead of shooting the mustangs for dogfood, someone thought to sequence their mDNA. So, being a horse of a different color literally saved a rare genetic pool from extinction.

BLM photo of dun Kiger mustangs in southeastern Oregon

The BLM photos of the Kiger mustangs made me think of the autochthonous, or Neolithic CeltIberian Sorraia (closely related to the Marismeño) horse, also with rare mtDNA markers. Coat coloration was the clue. Horses that are dun colored (a bay, or chestnut dilution gene), or grey-dun grullo (an even rarer black dilution gene—neither roan, nor grey) not only carry a primitive recessive coloration gene, they often have dark faces and points with pangaré markings, body mottling, zebra-striped legs, and dorsal stripes—a primitive dun horse trait similar to those tarpan-like horses represented in paleolithic cave paintings. Their manes and tails are often bi-colored with white guard hairs and black upright manes like that of the feral Polish Konik horse, and the Heck. The wild Przewalski's horse has a solid black upright mane and tail.

Many equines appearing in prehistoric cave paintings such as in Chauvet cave are dun, and several closely related species in the genus Equus show dun characteristics. These include the Przewalski's horse...and an extinct subspecies of horse, the tarpan. —Wiki

Chauvet, Ardèche, France, 31 000 BP —Wiki

Contrary to popular belief, Spanish and Portuguese explorers didn't ship their prized Baroque Andalusian horses to the New World. Instead, they sent primitive native horses on long ocean voyages that lasted two months or more. Hardy and resistant, unlike the valuable blooded horses preferred by the nobility, those diminutive horses captured from the fens and marshes of Portugal, were practically breathatarians, and  could survive the harshest of conditions, and subsist on little food or water.

Paleolithic artwork in Lascaux II, note the horse is pacing, not trotting—Wiki

Because the native ponies weren't valued as blood animals, they also nearly became extinct in both the New and Old Worlds via neglect and distain. The Sorraia was once hunted for food, and the Exmoor ponies of Britain was used for target practice during WWII, they were a source of illegal meat in the cities. During the 1970s, the BLM was infamous for slaughtering entire herds of mustangs for dogfood. And their nearest ancestor, the native American wild horse was probably also hunted to extinction during the Ice Age.

The jockey's baton

Whenever I find myself getting longwinded on Facebook, I save my rambling comments because they're always potential fodder for a blogpost. Lawd knows people make a dubious career of writing about less titillating drivel.

Trouble is, my Facebook comments are stacking up fast and furious, never to be transcribed to my blog because I'm lazy, and because that would require even more work to whip them into shape. A beginning, middle and end. You know, a framework? Not to mention polishing the dubious merit of the content. 

The fun part is how I find myself writing about absurd things I would never otherwise dream of as appropriate fodder—like the judicious use of jockey's batons on horse’s butts in races, for example.

(See this ABC video: A jockey knocked from his mount mid-race manages to leap back in the saddle—to win the race at the last second.)

Well, that Kiwi horseracing video brought out all the bleeding hearts who perceived the race as a perfect exemplar of animal cruelty. They whinged, whined, and condemned every jockey within a 3-million-mile radius, for using a riding baton, so, naturally I wrote back:

A jockey perched atop a horse has zero leg contact with the horse at all. Only reins and his riding crop. At that speed, voice commands are useless. He can't use his legs to communicate. The popping sound of the riding crop, or baton, is often his only form of communication with the horse. And there are so many variables. Also, a jockey may not be familiar with his mount, and effective communication is needed.

A riding crop is also used as a communication tool—to move right, left, change leads, etc. Even buggy whips are not used to whip a horse, they're used for steering, and for the noise factor]. If a horse doesn’t want to run, it won't run. They can be real headcases. You can't make a horse win a race by whipping it. The horse has to want to win. Seabiscuit is a case in point. It's a partnership.

One Facebook reader, Luke Broadbent liked my point and wrote: "Thank God someone knows what they are talking about!" Well, you know that only spurred me on. Wait. The subject was riding crops. These spurs were made for jangling....

Another reader took umbrage at my statement, and said," I call BS on "using the crop properly". She said, "My horses preformed beautifully on voice commands and hand cues. Never had to touch her with anything. We did barrels."

Well since the bullshit was flying fast and furious anyway, I asked Kristina, "Do you sit deep in a western saddle when barrel racing? Do your legs touch the horse's sides, do you use leg or hand commands? Do you ride an unfamiliar horse for each race? I sure used leg commands when I barrel raced. A jockey has no leg contact at all. He's up there on top like a human fly. With only reins and crop. At that speed, trust me, voice commands are useless."

Someone else with a modicum of common sense piped in: "Why would you use a crop barrel racing? Your analogy makes no sense." And Mike Childers, who rode a mount called Charlie Horse to victory at Churchill Downs, said to her, "I don't remember you winning the Kentucky Derby." I had to laugh. 

Another commenter needed a serious horse anatomy lesson. I said: Jockeys don't whip the horse in the flank, or belly, that would be near impossible (and illegal) to do, no matter how long the crop was. Besides, a jockey is sanctioned for improper usage of the baton. The racing industry is well regulated.

Using the baton is allowed on young horses everywhere—even in Norway, where the crop has been otherwise banned for use on older racehorses who are a little more track savvy. And two-year olds do need that abrupt form of communication—especially on the turns—to prevent pile-ups. They're dumb as fenceposts. Sometimes they even think they're fenceposts. I didn't even mention the horses' quirky personalities and running styles...or that most are stud colts with plenty attitude.

But even mature racehorses horses aren't always savvy judges when it comes to making split-second decisions: hugging the rail, threading the needle, or getting out of a tight knot of hoses packed in on the turn.That's where the jockey comes in. One misstep, and they all go down, ass over tea kettle—with dire consequences.

Jockeys have to read the track and the situation, often astride an unfamiliar horse. It's a high speed strategies game. Enter the riding crop. Think of it as a turn signal. And a good jockey can save the life of his horse.

 Most people envision the whip as something used to inflict maximum pain for corporal punishment, like a cat-o-none-tails‚ not to be confused with the House Whip. Dressage whips, a true whip, are strictly used for signaling, and hunting whips aren't even used on the horse, but for opening gates. A riding crop, or baton, made of fiberglass, has a flat leather tongue, or keeper. The baton stings if used wrong, but it's more about the POP factor. There are two flat leather padded parts at the end that snap together, like a quirt. It's more like a loud hand clap.

In Britain, a maximum of five strokes can be used during the last furlong or from the final obstacle, or seven strokes total. Improper or excess usage gets jockeys sanctioned, or even banned from racing. Apparently there's a groundswell to ban using the bat at all—not because it's inhumane, but because it looks bad, and the betting public is what feeds horse racing. A PR nightmare.

Also, appearances can be deceiving. It may have looked like American Pharoah's jockey Victor Espinoza, was beating the stuffing out of his mount at the 2015 Kentucky Derby, his arm was whirring like a helicopter. But post-race analysis showed that he was hitting the horse's saddle towel. The Blood-Horse writer Steve Haskin, who condems whip overuse, said that Espinoza "did a lot of waving with the whip" and may not have actually hit the horse as many times as it seemed." Espinoza did not use his whip at all in the Preakness, and the horse still won.

 Triple Crown winner, American Pharoah, first horse to win Grand Slam

So, because of all this controversy, of course I had to Google the pros and cons of using the riding baton. Oh, how kinky! No, wait, I mean, it looks like the jockeys are striking back against Australia’s animal rights activists, literally. I found an article on the proper usage of the bat, with a jockey spanking a reporter's hands to demonstrate how it didn't hurt. I kid you not. So of course I had to post that link. Now, to kick back and wait for the uproar to commence.

Aren't you glad you asked? And today, because I wrote a comment about jockeys, I was flagged with a Facebook ad for a job as a wagering assistant at Golden Gate Fields. Coinciodence? I think not. Now Facebook is spying on the content of my comments as well? Maybe I need to flog Facebook. With a cat-o-nine-tails. Kinky!

RAISED BY HORSES

 RAISED BY HORSES

I was a wild child, raised by horses. 

I chewed on grass sweet at the knuckle 

and nibbled upon molasses oats. 

I pawed at the ground and whinnied

collecting my gait at the canter 

and hand-gallop. A pencil for snaffle bit 

a belt for surcingle, and ribbons for reins.

We believed we were circus ponies 

we pranced to invisible music 

and we bowed to an invisible crowd.

5/10/18

B/G Sandwich Shops plate, or the tale of Ralph Moody who wrote Come On Seabiscuit!

To coin, or resurrect a word, I'm a nostalgist, I prefer old, used things to the shiny and new. Chipped crockery lives out its last days on my shelves, and when it finally breaks, it lives a second life mounted on my wooden fence outside the kitchen window—not a wall of shame, but an honored spot for venerable service rendered.

I have an old B/G Sandwich Shop plate from San Francisco. I knew it was old but I had no idea that it dated back to the Depression era, or that B/G Sandwich Shop ushered in the era of counter lunch sandwiches. My plate is from the ancestor of the lunch counter sandwich and apple pie with a mug of java joe era. Move over Subway. And fast food.

B/Gs motto was "A meal a minute" "A National Institution," "Purely American," and "A place for nice food."And they served it up in 40 cities across the nation. Nobody knows how many B/Gs there were, LA had six, Chicago had at least ten, and Milwaukee had two shops. What began as a toasted sandwich joint in 1926, expanded into hundreds of railroad car styled diners in 40 cities. By the end of the 1960s early 1970s, most had disappeared. Enter the era of McDonald's.

Mad donkeys

Someone posted photos of donkeys wearing floral headbands, they looked so angelic. But looks can be deceiving.

My donkey Joshua was one of the mean ones who didn't like kids. She plotted all forms of nefarious revenge for riding her. One time I was feeding her a carrot and she latched onto my finger, knowing it was my finger, and then ground away, and sawed her jaw back and forth, hell-bent on severing my finger. I had to pound on her somewhat hollow head in order to get my finger back.

Josh was plain old mean to the bone. She didn't like kids, and I was stuck with her because no one else could, or would ride her. Or get past her teeth. Born under the mean tree. She taught me to be wily. She'd dump me in the most awful of places. Ditches, briar patches, thistles. 

She'd bloat, would wait for the cinch to loosen up, hit a gallop (she was otherwise lazy and dawdled), then slam on the breaks at a strategic spot. She even broke my arm (but I never knew it until I was in an accident in 1997, as I hid all wounds from my granny....) 

There are many sour donkeys out there. I love Jim Dodge's descriptions of Ol' Pissgums in Not Fade Away. Our neighbors had tall grey donkeys who were sweet. More like Irish donkeys. I wonder if it was the particular breed that was so ornery? Josh was the smaller brown Spanish type. She had the Latin temperament down cold.

 I'd rather take my clever, scheming Shetlands (who kept me up nights) any day. Luckily Joshua's lame daughter Nay-nay was sweet. My horses were sweeter yet. I understand there are sweet donkeys out there...but Josh was not of that tribe. 

One of the few times Josh was a good donkey was when we were part of a Christmas pageant in Marin City. We began at the top of the hill, and there I was, Joseph, decked out in white sheets (al la KKK) leading Josh down the hill with my friend Step as Mary on her back.... (everything hinges on the location location location...I knew something was off, but I didn't know what.)

I do wonder if the type of donkey has something to do with their temperament. When I was young, I thought there was only one breed, I was astounded to discover there were many breeds of donkeys. I suspect Josh was a Spanish donkey, the donkey breed of the American West, and of prospectors. She came from Clear Lake, and lived a very long time...

A photo of my friend Steph and Nay-nay, caught diving through the fence. (She got stuck...) Sadly, I don't have a photo of Josh.

Donkey Wars
EARLY WARNING SYSTEM

Becky Dart: Born to Run

Me and Becky Dart ca. 1969. The fence is cribbed so I had her a while.

Once upon a time I had a sorrel mare so fast at the quarter mile, no other horse could beat her. When Becky Dart ran, it was like riding the wind, or a barrel down the rapids. She exploded with energy so fierce, it was hard to stay mounted. Of course, I rode bareback, and had thighs of steel. I was addicted to speed and she was born to run.

The thrill of riding an animal faster than any other four-legged creature on earth, save the cheetah, or antelope—neither of which you can ride—was euphoric.

My five-year-old mare came from Olema Ranch and cost $500. In those days there wasn't much readily available information on the pedigrees of horses. Most pedigree stories were passed down by word of mouth while standing at the corral gate. My aunt's friend Chuck traced her pedigree chart, the long hard way. At first, he thought her pedigree was forged, then he said that she was valuable as a broodmare, as her bloodline was that of champions. Of course I had no idea.

Becky Dart carried the same ancestry as California Chrome—right back to the Darley Arabian—they were Drinkers of the Wind. I had the fastest horse in West Marin. I rode the wind. No one could beat that horse at the quarter-mile. But at the two-mile marker, on the old Lagunitas railroad bed in Samuel P. Taylor Park, I was always left eating crow. Or dust. My competitive mare wouldn't give up until she was thoroughly winded and sobbing for breath.

I pored over that pedigree chart, the size of a coffee table, and memorized the names of her ancestors all the way back to the thoroughbred foundation sires. Her pedigree was studded with Kentucky Derby, Preakness, and Belmont Stakes winners: she had Triple Crown winners on both sides of the family tree. She was related to Man o' War, (1917-47) one of the greatest Thoroughbred racehorses of all time, through War Hug. And one jockey's name appeared again and again: the famous racing icon, Willie Shoemaker.

I remember watching Willie Shoemaker riding the legendary Candy Spots to victory at the 1963 televised Preakness. I was starstruck.

Becky Dart's great-grandfather was Three Bars (1940-1968.) Other than a wide blaze, she looked like him. Same tiny ears, dished face and teacup nose, reflecting Arabian ancestry. she even held her tail up like a flag when she ran. The mare was a bit slenderer, though. And she had scarred knees.

How the mare came to that ranch in Olema, her sire, Dart Bar, owned by Bill Cowan, was from McNeal, AZ), is a bit of a mystery. But her scarred knees suggest something went wrong and she was not racing track material. Retired from the track before she even began. But she carried the legendary names of Three Bars, and Dart Bar.

A cowboy at the Olema Ranch mentioned she wore braces as a foal, that's why her knees were bald. She was probably sold at auction to the knackers, or a claims race, and was rescued by those cowboys who ran the dude ranch. For a cripple, she sure could run. She had a palomino sister at the ranch too, also out of Dart Bar.

That spring, I put my mare in Mary Bianchi's pasture to graze on the lush grass. I checked on her after school and she was fine. But that evening, I had a hunch something was wrong and and I found her down and sweating.

Nothing should've gone wrong, but it did. She had colic, and though I walked her for 18 hours, she never got better, she'd twisted her colon—peritonitis had set in. No way to save her. She died in Edie Lehman's sand arena, where I worked as a exercise groom—after a long, and violent struggle.

I never got over watching her die like that, screaming, and rearing over backwards, to escape the pain. The vet ended it with a foot-long needle to the heart. I always meant to write about her, never quite managed to do a decent job of it. A snippet here and there. A horse like that leaves a deep sinkhole in the mind, and I had backfilled it with grief.

I worked for the Lehman's training stable, and showed their horses at gymkhanas, I collected armloads of blue and red ribbons, but I didn't want to own another horse, losing her was devastating. She was big and beautiful, there was so more of her to love. There was nothing much left of my childhood landscape. Sometimes I dream of my horses running free on the slopes of Mt. Barnabe, and wake up with an inconsolable sense of longing.

I had to wait decades for the internet cute animal memes to parade forth in order to find this page on Doc Bar...which led to this post.

My brother Guy, and a relation—who, I'm not sure.

Horses in Heaven

Someone posted a meme that all your old horses will be in Heaven. I think: Oh great, I'll be stuck keeping the Little Shits, consummate escape artists, in the pasture. Pure purgatory. I spent more time chasing after them at midnight, than I care to admit....they loved to roam. Shetland-raccoon crossbreed. I used to tie them up on a long rope to graze in spring, but they'd escape. So I hobbled their forelegs, ditto their back legs. Then I hobbled both ends. Damned if they couldn't gallop fully hobbled and trussed up like turkeys. I finally resorted to double hobbling with a cross rope between the front and back end....still they'd dink down the road on moonlit nights.

4/5/2016

VIENNA, 1992

In a rat-infested box under the bed, I found an old photograph of me looking rather tired, perhaps sneering for the camera, with two horses, who were also pretty soured, I might add, from hauling mindless tourists. The cart owner, didn't want me to touch them, not that there was any love lost between them, but our Viennese hostess, Claudia told him, she knows horses. And all I could think of was that this is what happens to dancing Lippizanners who don't make the ecole grade, they wind up plodding along as carriage and cart horses. The only sound of music they hear is the honking of car horns. But every once and a while, they hear the strains of a Viennese waltz, and they lift their ears skyward, perhaps an ancestral memory shaken loose from the fetters of time.