The ponies of North-West America are famed for their powers of
endurance, which are the more remarkable in view of their make and
shape. These animals are without doubt the descendants of stock
introduced by the Spaniards when they invaded Mexico early in the 16th
century; the offspring of these Spanish horses in course of time spread
over the whole continent.
Colonel Richard Irving Dodge remarks, in his work _Our Wild Indians_
(1882), that the horses introduced by the Spaniards must have been very
inferior in size, or the race has greatly degenerated; as compared with
the American horse, the Indian pony is very small. As the subsequent
observations of Colonel Dodge prove, these ponies, if they have lost
size have lost absolutely nothing in working qualities; they have become
adapted to their conditions of life and have probably gained in
hardiness of constitution and endurance. He writes:--
"Averaging scarcely fourteen hands in height, the Indian pony
is rather slight in build, though always having powerful
fore-quarters, good legs, short, strong back, and full barrel.
He has not the slightest appearance of 'blood,' though his
sharp, nervous ears and bright, vicious eye indicate unusual
intelligence and temper. But the amount of work he can do and
the distance he can make in a specified (long) time put him
fairly on a level with the Arabian or any other of the animal
creation.... Treated properly, the pony will wear out two
American horses, but in the hands of the Indian he is so abused
and neglected that an energetic cavalry officer will wear him
out."
The North-West American Indian, though a marvellous horseman as a "trick
rider," has apparently no idea whatever of saving his mount, whatever
the distance he has to travel. According to Colonel Dodge, who has
enjoyed many opportunities of informing himself on Indian usages, more
especially as an enemy, he will gallop his pony till it drops from sheer
exhaustion.
As showing what a good pony can do in the hands of a man who knows how
to make the most of him, Colonel Dodge states that he once tried to buy
an animal which pleased his eye, offering forty dollars for it;
whereupon the owner replied that the price was six hundred dollars.
Repeating the incident to someone who knew the pony, he was informed
that the owner had not been actuated by any boastful spirit; that he had
good reason for attaching a very high value to it. The man, it appeared,
had been employed to carry the mail bags between Chehuahua and El Paso,
nearly 300 miles apart, during a period of six months, when the roads
were closed for ordinary travel by marauding bands of Apache Indians on
the watch for white men.
He had to make the perilous journey once a week, and he performed it on
the pony, riding all night for three successive nights, and hiding by
day. The Indians, it may be added, are deterred by superstition from
risking death by night; hence an additional good reason for the express
rider's choice of time to travel. For six months the pony carried him
between ninety and a hundred miles on three consecutive nights in each
week; he went one week and returned the next in the same way. And
Colonel Dodge adds that this tax upon his powers "had not diminished the
fire and flesh of that pony."
Writing of the breed in another work, _The Hunting Grounds of the Great
West_, Colonel Dodge observes that civilisation spoils this pony;
accustomed on the ranche and prairie to pick up his own living when
turned out after a long day's work in summer, and used to
semi-starvation in winter, when stabled, shod, and fed on corn, his
character undergoes a change. He either becomes morose, ill-tempered,
hard to manage and dangerous, or he degenerates into a fat, lazy,
short-winded cob, "only fit for a baby or an octogenarian." The latter
change is the more usual. We can well understand that such would be the
result.
Colonel Dodge has no doubt but that the Indian pony is identical with
the Texan mustang or wild horse, concerning whose qualities we may take
the evidence of a contributor to the _Field_. "C. E. H." writes, in an
article on "A Texas Fair," published in 1891:--
"The native stock for endurance and soundness of constitution
cannot be surpassed. We have owned many of these animals of
from fourteen to fifteen hands, and never had an unsound one
yet. They will carry one 70 miles a day without tiring; and we
sold a horse aged 8 years ten years ago, which was lately
disposed of for only L3 less than the sum we then received for
him."
The horses raised on the plains of Uruguay, on the River Plate, have
much in common with the mustang, but retain to a greater degree the
characteristics of their remote Spanish ancestry in the small lean head
and well-turned limbs. They are somewhat higher than the mustang,
varying between 14 and 15 hands, seldom exceeding the latter height; but
the natives attach no importance to hands and inches, it being an
acknowledged fact that the smallest horses are in many instances the
best. Accustomed to run at large until between four and five years old,
these horses are sound and hardy, capable of carrying fourteen or
fifteen stone all day without tiring and able to perform hard and
continuous work on little food.