When the Old Horsemen Also Were Old Farmers

The other day, while out feeding the horses at the appointed evening hour, I got to thinking about a horse-world influence that's all but gone these days. It's the one that came from the old farmers and stockmen in my grandfather's generation--people born around 1900 or thereabouts, and who bridged the eras between the horse as utilitarian workmate, and the horse as recreational indulgence.

They knew things about animal husbandry, firsthand, that are lost on so many horse owners of today, who see their horses as pets instead of livestock. Things like:

* How stock thrives best when fed at regular, consistent times. Grandpa, for instance, milked cows in addition to raising horses. He milked those cows at the same times every day, twice a day, and fed them (and his horses) with the same regularity. He would no more have thought of making the horses wait for dinner "until he got around to it," than he'd have milked his cows at 9 p.m. instead of 4. His milk cows were always at the peak of health, and his horses looked magnificent, too. Not a coincidence.

* How you can't expect the best results from your stock if you skimp on how you feed them. I used to ride along to the creamery with Grandpa when he went there to sell his cream, and understood, even as a child, that there was a direct correlation between what you put into the cow, and what she produced in return. Same thing with the horses. When an old farmer like Grandpa sized up someone's horse and pronounced it "poor-looking," there was an element of "tsk-tsk" to the statement. Poor was as poor was fed by the person doing the feeding.

* How you couldn't expect regular, consistent behavior from an animal if you didn't create a regular, consistent routine to establish it. In Grandpa's day, horses worked the fields six days a week, and were habituated to doing their jobs. Which is why they could be relied upon when they were harnessed or saddled to go to work. They weren't expected to be perfect partners one day a week (or once a month), after spending the rest of their time doing whatever they pleased, as pasture ornaments.

* Why there's a practical reason for balanced, correct-legged conformation--a reason that has nothing to do with winning prizes at the end of a lead rope. As far as Grandpa and his ilk were concerned, it made about as much sense to pour feed into a long-backed, crooked-legged horse or cow as it did to keep making payments on a tractor that spent more time in the repair shop than out in the fields. There was just no point in having something that wasn't going to hold up.

I know...it's a different century now, and horses play different roles than they did when my grandfather was young. But I cherish what I learned about horses from following him around the farm, and can't help but wish that more of his old-farmer knowledge were more widely practiced today.