The Horse Of America

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On October 20, 1923, at Belmont Park in New York, Kentucky Derby champion Zev toed the starting line alongside Epsom Derby winner Papyrus, the top colt from England, to compete for a $100,000 purse. Years of Progressive reform efforts had nearly eliminated horse racing in the United States only a decade earlier. But for weeks leading up to the match race that would be officially dubbed the "International," unprecedented levels of newspaper coverage helped accelerate American horse racing's return from the brink of extinction. In this book, James C. Nicholson explores the convergent professional lives of the major players involved in the Horse Race of the Century, including Zev's oil-tycoon owner Harry Sinclair, and exposes the central role of politics, money, and ballyhoo in the Jazz Age resurgence of the sport of kings. Zev was an apt national mascot in an era marked by a humming industrial economy, great coziness between government and business interests, and reliance on national mythology as a bulwark against what seemed to be rapid social, cultural, and economic changes. Reflecting some of the contradiction and incongruity of the Roaring Twenties, Americans rallied around the horse that was, in the words of his owner, "racing for America," even as that owner was reported to have been engaged in a scheme to defraud the United States of millions of barrels of publicly owned oil. Racing for America provides a parabolic account of a nation struggling to reconcile its traditional values with the complexity of a new era in which the US had become a global superpower trending toward oligarchy, and the world's greatest consumer of commercialized spectacle.

Beginning with a brief history of the breed, this book offers detailed advice on locating and selecting a horse, as well as stabling, feeding, grooming, and otherwise taking responsible care of the animal. Also explained are the American Quarter Horse's many uses: from informal trial riding to barrel racing, cutting, and reining; from Western horsemanship to show jumping, dressage, and racing. The American Quarter Horse is the indispensable guide for anyone interested in owning and riding America's favorite horse.

The rescue of the last diving horse in America and the inspiring story of how horse and animal rescuer were each profoundly transformed by the other—from the award-winning animal rescuer of retired racing greyhounds and author of the best-selling Adopting the Racing Greyhound It was the signature of Atlantic City’s Steel Pier in the golden age of “America’s Favorite Playground”: Doc Carver’s High Diving Horses. Beginning in 1929, four times a day, seven days a week, a trained horse wearing only a harness ran up a ramp, a diving girl in a bathing suit and helmet jumped onto its mighty bare back, and together they sailed forty feet through the air, plung­ing, to thunderous applause, into a ten-foot-deep tank of water. Decades later, after cries of animal abuse and chang­ing times, the act was shuttered, and in May 1980, the last Atlantic City Steel Pier diving horse was placed on the auction block in Indian Mills, New Jersey. The au­thor, who had seen the act as a child and had been haunted by it, was now working with Cleveland Amory, the founding father of the modern animal protection movement, and she was, at the last minute, sent on a rescue mission: bidding for the horse everyone had come to buy, some for the slaughterhouse (they dropped out when the bidding exceeded his weight). The author’s winning bid: $2,600—and Gamal, gleaming-coated, majestic, commanding, was hers; she who knew almost nothing about horses was now the owner of the last div­ing horse in America. Cynthia Branigan tells the magical, transformative story of how horse and new owner (who is trying to sort out her own life, feeling somewhat lost herself and in need of rescuing) come to know each other, educate each other, and teach each other important lessons of living and loving. She writes of providing a new home for Gamal, a farm with plentiful fields of rich, grazing pasture; of how Gamal, at age twenty-six, blossoms in his new circumstances; and of the special bond that slowly grows and deepens between them, as Gamal tests the author and grows to trust her, and as she grows to rely upon him as friend, confidant, teacher. She writes of her search for Gamal’s past: moved from barn to barn, from barrel racer to rodeo horse, and ending up on the Steel Pier; how his resilience and dig­nity throughout those years give deep meaning to his life; and how in understanding this, the author is freed from her own past, which had been filled with doubts and fears and darkness. Branigan writes of the history of diving horses and of how rescuing and caring for Gamal led to her saving other animals—burros, llamas, and goats—first as company for Gamal and then finding homes for them all; and, finally, saving a ten-year-old retired greyhound called King—despondent, nearly broken in spirit—who, running free in the fields with Gamal, comes back to his happy self and opens up for the author a whole new surprising but purposeful world. A captivating tale of the power of animals and the love that can heal the heart and restore the soul.

Documents the life story of a record-breaking champion horse whose disabilities nearly caused his euthanasia at birth, in an account that also describes the contributions of his shopkeeper owner and alcoholic driver. 50,000 first printing.

In the chapters which follow, many historical questions regarding the origin of horses in the United States, are treated at such length as their relative importance seems to demand, embracing the different families that have contributed to the building up of the breed of trotters; and the question of how the trotting horse is bred is carefully considered in the light of all past experiences and brought down to the close of 1896.

Galloping Across America shows how Mustangs, Arabians, Palominos, Morgans, and other kinds of horses played a central role in the development of the United States as a nation. From transportation within cities -- the omnibus, fire wagons, delivery of goods -- to mail delivery from coast to coast to tilling soil and herding cattle, Martin Sandler shows how essential the horse was for the survival of four million citizens stretched across 800,000 square miles. As roads improved, stagecoaches became popular for crossing the country. Covered wagons delivered pioneers into the western regions for homesteading. And Native American culture changed significantly as wealth and social standing within tribes began to be measured by the number of horses each man owned. Galloping Across America is a fascinating look at the horse-powered development of America up through the rodeos and mounted police of today. Filled with the spirit of adventure, competition, and restlessness central to the American character, the Transportation in America series reveals how the horse, trolley, ship, railroad, automobile, and airplane transformed the country. Each volume is richly illustrated with photographs, paintings, drawings, posters, timetables, sheet music covers, and original documents -- many of which have never been published before -- and includes fascinating sidebars on the colorful characters and technology behind the transport.