Livingston, Phil and Roberts, Ed. War Horse: Mounting the Cavalry with America’s Finest Horses. , Albany, TX: Bright Sky Press, 2003. ISBN 1-931721-21-1, $34.95, Cloth.

Phil Livingston, horse editor of the Western Livestock Journal, editor of the Paint Horse Journal, writer and lifelong horseman, and Ed Roberts, 26 year executive secretary of the American Paint Horse Association and lifelong horse and cattleman, have written an all-encompassing history of the United States Army’s remount breeding program. Between the two of them they have also written books on youth horsemanship, team penning and equestrian history, and articles too numerous to mention. Both also first caught “the horse bug” as children from watching cavalry troopers on maneuvers. While neither is an academic historian, it would be difficult to find a combination better qualified to write this book.

The remount breeding program was only in existence from 1908 to 1949. Before that the army was forever short of quality horses, and relied on large-scale horse traders, the used car salesmen of their day, to supply mounts, paying them a set price for each horse. That arrangement was never satisfactory because it was in the traders’ best interest to supply the worst quality horses that the army would buy in order to make the largest profit for themselves. Livingston and Roberts combed old cavalry records, which this reviewer can attest are surprisingly difficult to navigate and rarely well organized, to show how and why the military finally determined to get into the horse breeding business.

The authors then dive into the meat of their study—how the remount program improved the American light horse. They are able, as horsemen, to look not only at endless reports of military officers saying that the program worked, but also to look at photos and records of actual horses and analyze for themselves and their readers the results of the program. They can look at photos of early cavalry mounts and point out their short pasterns, straight shoulders and shallow hindquarters and explain why these faults made them undesirable army mounts and how they would limit the horses’ usability. And then they look at later photos of army-bred horses and show improved shoulder and hindquarter angles, longer and better angled pasterns and explain how those factors make the horses much more athletic and sound. They can bring the military history to light in ways that make any horseman nod in agreement.

The general plan of the remount program was to purchase high quality stallions—primarily thoroughbred, but also Arabian, Morgan, standardbred and saddlebred—and lease them to breeders throughout the country for nominal fees to be bred to civilian mares. The offspring of the stallions were the property of the breeders, but the government had first choice of purchasing them at fair market value when they had a need. Since the role of the horse in the military was on the wane by the time the government finally began addressing its horse supply problem, vast numbers of the foals remained in civilian hands. The authors show how this is the way the program helped shaped the quarter horse, the paint horse, the appaloosa, the palomino, and so on. They do extensive pedigree research to illustrate the vast impact of the remount stallions in top performing horses of many breeds and in many performance disciplines.

This is an invaluable reference book, with multiple indexes to help readers find exactly what information and which horses they are looking for. It also includes a timeline of military horse use, a five page glossary of terms and multiple appendices. While the book is well documented in a manner that academic historians will find extremely useful, it is geared toward the general reader, who will find it easily accessible. It addresses a critical period in the history of the cavalry, thoroughbreds, quarter horses, Arabians, eventing, show jumping, polo and endurance racing, and any number of other breeds and disciplines. On top of that, it is well written, extensively illustrated and thoroughly engrossing. War Horse deserves a place on the bookshelf of anyone interested in the history of the horse in America.

Elizabeth Redkey (John H. Daniels Fellow, 2008)
Siena College, Loudonville, New York

Posted 11/10/2009

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