The American Saddle Horse was born from the need to meet the challenges of developing a raw and rugged nation. As the breed evolved there was no ideal or design in the minds of the horse producers, they simply wanted the best animals which would meet the tests that would confront them.
The first horses brought to the Eastern Seaboard of North America were natural gaited animals. Galloways or Hobbies, which had fallen from favour in England in the early 1600's. British royalty had accepted the developing Thoroughbred breed.
These animals were utilitarian, up to that time perhaps the best all-purpose animals developed in an age when the art and science of animal husbandry had its beginnings.
In Canada, the French brought over Norman French horses, quite similar to the British imports in gait and appearance.
Colonists in Virginia and New England, especially Rhode Island, practiced selective breeding of these horses, trying to attain more size and endurance, while retaining the easy riding gait. The result was a horse known as the Narragansett Pacer, highly prized, and named for his prominence around Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island. The Virginia horses were virtually identical but slightly smaller.
These horses were immensely popular with the colonists and inevitably found their way to Canada. When crossed with the Norman French horse the result was the Canadian Pacer.
English Thoroughbreds, developed from Arabians brought to England, came to America in profusion after the first recorded importation in 1706. When crossed with the so-called native mares, by that time Galloways and Hobbies had been virtually extinct in England for 100 years; the results were excellent. The horses were larger and prettier and still had easy gaits.
As these horses became prevalent, Narragansetts were shipped to the West Indies by the thousands for use on sugar plantations and finally disappeared from North America. A so-called new breed, the Paso Fino from Jamaica, Puerto Rico, and other islands, is perhaps descended from the Narragansett Pacer of long ago.
By the time of the American Revolution, a new breed of horse was being recognised. In 1776, Silas Dean, an American diplomat in Paris, wrote to a committee of Congress, "I wish I had here, one of your best Saddle Horses of the American or Rhode Island breed - a present of that kind would be money well laid out with a certain personage." It is thought he wanted the horse as a gift for Marie Antoinette. He believed this horse to be the best in the world.

It was during the Revolutionary War that legend says a Thoroughbred stallion was stolen from a British officer. When the war ended in the birth of the United States, this horse sired a mutant, a completely unique animal, Justin Morgan, in Massachusetts. He was to have a great impact on development of the American Saddle Horse.
Americans began the westward movement and a good all-purpose horse was a necessity to the frontiersmen. In the east, the highway system was rapidly improving and because of post-Revolutionary prejudice against anything British, harness horses found favour over Thoroughbreds. The hardy Morgans from New England, especially Vermont, achieved great heights of popularity as trotters, but the lack of roads in the wilderness created a large demand for saddle horses and the new American type fit the bill.
Virginians and Carolinians were among the first settlers in Kentucky and after the early day to day struggle for survival, they implemented horse breeding programs.
These hardy souls were good husbandrymen and innovators. They brought Morgans and Canadian Pacers to improve their stock. Flat racing became again legitimate and the importation of Thoroughbreds from the Mother Country regained its former popularity.
The sport of harness racing was having a heyday in the east, and it was found that the offspring of Messenger, a Thoroughbred imported in 1788, were successful trotters.
For everyday usage under saddle, in front of the plow. and hitched to the farm wagon, the American horse was still superior, In Virginia and Kentucky, the horse fair, where horses were traded and sold, judged in competition, and raced, was fast becoming a most popular recreational activity. This was the forerunner of the horse show. The basis of selection of the winners was utilitarian, but the standards also included beauty and style. American horses accompanied Kentuckians to Missouri and again the horse show was a popular form of entertainment.

In 1832 the Thoroughbred, Hedgford, was imported to New York and subsequently found his way to Kentucky. By that time the American Saddle Horse was a distinct and popular breed, but little record of his ancestry was being kept. This is not surprising as the sophisticated British only began their Thoroughbred Stud Book in 1803.
Denmark, a son of Hedgford, was foaled in Kentucky in 1839. After Denmark was put at stud, he was mated to the Stevenson Mare, a daughter of Cockspur. The Cockspurs, Copperbottoms, Tom Hals, and others were Canadian Pacer stock. The foal of 1851 from the Stevenson Mare and Denmark was a jet black youngster called Gaines Denmark. He attained great prominence as a "stock horse", (breeding stallion), and his get were highly prized.

By this time other States, Ohio, Indiana, Tennessee and Illinois, in addition to Kentucky and Missouri were producing fine Saddle Horses. In 1856, St Louis, the largest city west of the Mississippi, held its first great fair which featured the nation's first major horse show.
The American Saddle Horse gained fame as a breed during the Civil War, 1861-1865. Saddlebreds served as the mounts of many famous generals; Lee on Traveller, Grant on Cincinnati, Sherman rode Lexington, and Stonewall Jackson's mount was Little Sorrel. The three aforementioned horses were American type with close Thoroughbred crosses, and the latter was of pacing stock.
The Confederate commands of Generals John Hunt Morgan and Nathan Bedford Forrest were mounted almost exclusively on American Saddlebreds, and these horses performed legendary feats of endurance during the war. Morgan's men had two stallions that would achieve greater fame on the list of original foundation sires of the breed, Gaines Denmark and John Dillard.
Although perhaps not as fleet of foot as the Thoroughbreds preferred by many units of Federal cavalry, the American Saddlebreds proved to be far superior war horses. They were less flighty under fire, much less prone to break down (the replacement rate in the Union cavalry in the first year of the war exceeded 100 percent); and they were more substantial and could easily knock a lighter Thoroughbred off his feet in the clash of a cavalry charge.
Because most Confederate horses were privately owned, General Grant's magnanimous order at Lee's surrender, which allowed the men to keep their horses, perhaps saved the breed from extinction.

After the war, the St Louis fair was revived in 1866. It soon became almost an obsession with horse breeders to win at St Louis. The blood of Morgans, Thoroughbreds, Canadian Pacers, Bellfounder (a high stepping Hackney coach horse brought from England in 1822), and Hambeltonian (the result of Messenger-Bellfounder cross foaled in 1849 and became the foundation sire of the modern Standardbred), was intermingled with the American Horse, producing a better animal.
All of these developing breeds has their day in competition at St Louis, but in the 1870’s the Denmarks became dominant.
In 1891, responding to an editorial by Colonel Ian B. Nall in the Farmers Home Journal, Louisville, Ky., a group of breeders met there and formed the National Saddle Horse Breeders Association and a Saddle Horse Register. It was the first horse registry in the United States.
Twenty-six men from 11 states were elected officers and directors, and a list of 14 foundation sires of the breed was compiled. The first president was General John B. Castleman, Louisville. At the stockholders meeting of 1899, the name American Saddle Horse Breeders Association was unanimously adopted.
After much deliberation at the meeting of 1908, Denmark, through his son Gaines Denmark, to which over 60 percent of the horses in the first stud books trace, was given the technical designation Foundation Sire. He is referred to as Denmark F.S.

Despite the fact that during this period of time the American Saddle Horse was still very much a using animal, the rivalry among breeders at horse shows and especially state pride between Kentucky and Missouri, was intense. Gifted horsemen began making a living at training show horses and horse shows were prominent in community affairs.
A coal black stallion that was to make a great contribution in giving even greater status to shows and the breed, burst onto the show scene at St Louis in 1893. Rex McDonald, a spindly three-year-old, defeated his own sire Rex Denmark in the class for saddle stallions, launching a show career that spanned 12 years.
He was beaten on but three occasions and was practically barred from competition because exhibitors of other horses refused to show their horses against him. Rex McDonald was idolised by the public and visited by Presidents of the US.
In Kentucky in 1900, a colt of trotting blood, going back to Justin Morgan and Messenger, was foaled. Bourbon King was sold as a youngster to A.G. Jones & Sons, North Middletown, Ky., and was a sensation as a five-gaited show stallion. He was retired to stud at an early age after winning the grand championship at the Kentucky State Fair as a three-year-old.
Living to the ripe old age of 30, Bourbon King became the great progenitor of the Chief Family of Saddle Horses. When the Denmarks and the Chiefs were crossed, the resulting offspring were today’s modern American Saddlebred.

Despite many notable exceptions, the trend for this remarkable animal became the show ring. He was dubbed “peacock of the show ring”, which he undoubtedly is, but this is used by detractors of the American Saddle Horse to indicate he is good for little else.
People who knew and loved Saddlebreds knew this was wrong, but little was done about it until 1957, when Miss Irene Zane, formerly manager of Sunnyslope Farm, Scott City, Kans., one of the great show stables of the nation, founded the American Saddlebred Pleasure Horse Association.
While most admirers of the Saddlebred love the beautiful show horses, they are now seeking to re-establish his worth as a pleasure and using animal. After all, that is how the breed was developed.

Other breeds, notably the Tennessee Walking Horse, which evolved essentially from Saddlebreds and Standardbreds, Morgans, and Arabians try to emulate them in the show ring, but none can compare.
On the other hand, American Saddlebreds have been successful jumpers, cow horses, and if conditioned and trained properly, they are capable of almost any task they are asked to perform. A rodeo cowboy once said he dreaded climbing aboard a bronc that looked as if he were all or part Saddlebred, because he knew he knew the animal would be a hard bucker.
American Saddlebreds have spread around the world and are sometimes more appreciated in foreign lands than here at home, but the image is changing and the knowledge of one of man’s greatest creations, “The Horse America Made”, is growing.

design © Silvia Kutle 2002