I have a daughter who is animal crazy, so when we were looking at a special summer activity, we looked at things to do with animals. Unfortunately, the local vets and shelters require volunteers to be eighteen for liability reasons so that was out. And then I realized that there is a stable nearby who does camps all summer long.

When I asked her about it, she was over the moon. Not just to ride horses but to care for the horses. Feeding and brushing and whatever else they get to do. As the time gets closer, she’s getting more excited.

Is it sad that I almost wish I could go with her?

Now, back to the livery . . . take a close look at the picture below. Can you guess what’s missing?

Women. You’ll find nary a one. That’s because the livery stable was a man’s domain. Females flocked to dry good stores, dress shops, milliners, and drug emporiums but avoided the masculine hub known as the livery. Why? Mostly because of the smell. And the likelihood of stepping in something no lady would want clinging to the sole of her shoe or staining the hem of her skirt.

For a man, however, this was the western version of an English gentleman’s club. A masculine sanctuary, a place to pass the time discussing crops or swapping stories by the potbellied stove. So what if the air was a bit gamey? A little manure never hurt anyone. The only nags were out back in the corral, and they didn’t seem to mind if a fella was of a mind to spit his tobacco juice on the floor or wipe his nose on his sleeve.

But the livery was more than a gathering place for men who wanted to escape their womenfolk for a time. It was a place of business. The liveryman kept prime horseflesh on hand for harness or riding, maintained a respectable selection of carriages and wagons for rent, pitched hay, tallied accounts, and even dealt with colicky critters when the need arose. Travelers stopped by to board their mounts or rent a saddle horse for the day. Young swains coughed up hard-earned coin to impress their gals with romantic country drives in a rented rig. The livery supplied an essential service to the townsfolk.

As I researched livery stables for my debut novel, I came across a fabulous find in one of our local library’s genealogical collections—a transcribed log book from a livery in Bonham, Texas dating back to 1885. Not only did I learn what prices were charged, I also gained insight into the types of services offered. Here is a sampling:

• Horse rental per day – $0.50
• Horse and buggy rental – $1.00
• Carriage and team – $2.00
• Carriage and driver – $4.00
• Buggy to depot – $1.00
• Horse to pasture – $0.50
• Feed – $0.25
• Bucket of oats – $0.50
• Stall rental – $1.50
• Stall plus hay – $2.50
• One month board on horse – $10.00
• Currying horse – $0.10
• Saddling horse – $0.25
• Repairs on carriage – $0.50 to $1.50 or higher depending on extent of repair needed
• Fee for lost horse blanket – $0.75 for regular blanket, $2.00 for double blanket

In addition to accepting cash for payment, this log book also chronicled a variety of barter offerings. Customers were known to pay in corn or cords of wood. One fellow who had accrued a rather large debt paid with a big black sow.

If a man had no goods to offer, he might pay in services like hauling hay in from area farms, working the nightshift at the stable, working as a carriage driver, or painting the livery.

Yet as the 19th century faded into the 20th, and the horse no longer held sway as the primary mode of transportation, what happened to all these livery stables? Did they simply fade away into the yore of yesteryear? Some may have. But many enterprising livery owners adapted successfully to the times and converted their stables and wagon yards into garages for the newfangled horseless carriages that dominated the streets.

So the next time you take you car to the shop, try to picture the mechanic with a handlebar mustache, hat, and boots. Who knows, maybe one of his great-great-grandfathers owned your town livery.

He’s a little fireball who loves people, loves carrots (the pieces have to be really small; think baby carrot broken into three or four pieces), loves to play with his toys, and is learning how to wear a lead as well as a small saddlebag on his back. The sanctuary’s ultimate goal is to get him and Mamma adoptable. 

Since I’m just a wanna-be, I thought I’d check into just what goes on with a newborn foal. 

Jasper likely stood up within an hour of birth to start nursing and probably fell over many times until he figured out just what legs are and what he was supposed to do with them. These days, his rump is higher than his forelegs, a natural progression of growth. 

Hopefully nursing started within two hours and he found Mama’s milk by instinct. He needed the colostrum she provided. 

At the rescue, his temperature would have been checked often; normally just one degree higher than an adult, and blood  samples are closely monitored. 

For the first few weeks, he followed right next to his mama before getting bolder. I was told his mama, due to the trauma of capture, didn’t produce as much milk as she would have in less stressful times, so Jasper started in on “mature” food sooner than he likely would have. Nonetheless, his intake is closely monitored, as too much rich food in a foal causes “founder”, an ailment similar to gout. But Jasper’s grazing instincts have always been good. 

He and mama spend time now in the round turnout, which is carefully tended and free from rocks and sand. Because he’s still learning, his natural grazing instincts would have him chewing on such stuff, too.  Although he and his mother have a nice-sized stall,  he needs plenty of room to run and play like any kid. He has a jump-ball , the big rubber ball with a handle on it, that he loves. 

Oh, and he has managed to nibble on Mama’s mane a little bit. It’s great entertainment for him. He also likes such things as traffic cones.  And as yucky as this sounds, apparently the foal has needed to chomp a little bit on mama’s manure…his gut has no bacteria  naturally to break down food. 

The two lovely ladies in charge of him have already started halter-breaking, and he’s quite a champ. In a foal, halter breaking starts at about one month because he needs to have strong-enough neck muscles. Walking him helps wear him out and gets him used to people. 

Jasper will be vaccinated and weaned between four and six months. And by now, his hooves have hardened enough to be picked clean and brushed. 

I hope you enjoyed meeting this little sweetheart.

 (Thanks to this website for some cool foal info.) http://www.diamondcequestriancenter.com/foalcare.html

This native horse of Argentina descends from the horses of the Iberian conquest. When parties went to explore and conquer South America, horses were shipped to the river Plate from Iberia, and as in all the Spanish and Portuguese conquests, they brought the toughest, hardiest horses they could. Conditions were tough on such voyages with insufficient food and water. Many horses died or were unable to regain health. Whether it was the primitive characteristics that cropped out under the wild conditions in the New World, or whether some of the shipments were of rather primitive Iberian horses in the first place, fact is that until fairly recently, the Argentine Criollo and the Criollo in general, bore a considerable resemblance to the ancient Sorraia wild horse of Portugal and Spain (zebro, or encebro).

During long campaigns with Indians, many horses escaped or were turned loose. Also after destruction of Buenos Aires by Indians, many horses were driven into the wild. Natural selection resulted in physical hardiness and the survivors became the progenitors of the Argentine Criollo breed.

The Criollo horse is still the choice of the South American cowboys, the best-known of which is Argentina’s gaucho. On cattle drives or gathers, the Criollos are usually ridden for a week, then returned to pasture and substituted by new ones. All along, the native grass is their only feed. Horses on the ranches are not necessarily registered Criollos, in fact, they seldomly are. The registered Criollo horse has become too valuable to be exposed to the dangers and hardships of many ranches, but those horses used for ranch work are still criollos in the original sense of the word. It is a bit confusing that the breed carries the name of a horse that, traditionally, was not a breed, but a wild or semi-wild horse without a pedigree. Now the pedigreed horses carry that same name: Criollo. In that respect, too, the situation is similar to that of the mustangs of North America, where mustang also described a wild-living horse without a pedigree, but registries exist that use the term to describe their registered animals.

Just like from the work of the North American cowboy, several events resp. contests have derived from the South American herdsmen’s work, some are similar to those in North America, some are quite unique. The Criollo horse excels in all of them.

Criollos of Central and South America were the basis for several specialized breeds, such as the different Paso breeds, or the Mangalargas of Brazil. If you’ve never seen a Paso in motion before, it’s a real treat. I never got to ride one but my sister did, and she said it was like gliding on a magic carpet.

The Criollo horse became only really known beyond its homeland through the famous ride by Swiss Aim Tschiffely with two Criollos from Buenos Aires to New York City. The two horses, Mancha and Gato, were 15 and 16 years of age, respectively, when he set out. He was received by the U.S. president in Washington when he arrived there three years later, after approx. 13,500 miles that took him, among other hardships, over the over 18,000 feet high Condor Pass in Bolivia. That both, Mancha and Gato, afterwards lived to be over 40 years of age is further testimony to the extraordinary toughness and vitality of the Criollo horse.
In some ways, I learned that the Criollo is practically a symbol for the strength and resilience of the Argentine people.

HONEYMOON WITH THE RANCHER is out now from Harlequin Romance.

*info provided by http://www.horseshowcentral.com/horse_breeds/criollo_horse/421/1

First of all, none of the actors owned their horses – at least not while the show was filming.  They weren’t owned by the studio either.  They were owned by Fat Jones Stables, an operation that had a long history – all the way back to 1912! –  of providing horses to movie and television productions.

Because Bonanza was the first TV Western to be filmed in color, the mounts for the Cartwright family were chosen with an eye to how they would stand out in this new medium.  But each actor also had considerable input into the selection of his horse.

Let’s take the horses in the order of their rider’s family position:

Ben Cartwright:  His horse was named Buck, logical since he was a Buckskin.  The horse was 12 years old at the start of the series, weighed in at about 1100 pounds and stood a little over 15 hands tall.   It was said that Lorne Greene did not care much for horses, but when the series ended its 14 year run, he purchased Buck from the stable because he was concerned with what might happen to the animal otherwise.  That same year, Lorne turned around and donated Buck to a therapeutic riding facility that worked with mentally and physically challenged children and youth.  Buck spent his remaining years there and by all accounts was a big hit.  Buck lived to the ripe old age of 45.

Adam Cartwright:  Adam’s horse in the show was named Scout.  But Scout was not the original horse selected for the role.  In fact the first two horses, Candy and Beauty, both proved to be fractious in front of the cameras and had to be sent back to the stables as not right for the part.  When Scout was brought in, he proved to be not only well behaved but a good match for actor Pernell Roberts.  Scout was a gelded 7/8 thoroughbred who weighed in at 1100 pounds.  Roberts rode Scout for three seasons.  Near the close of that third season, Scout and Dan Blocker’s horse  got mired in the mud during filming, causing an accident.  Whether related to the accident or not, within a month Scout was acting up, tossing his head around and generally refusing to behave during filming as he had before.  By the start of the fourth season, Scout had been sent back to the stables and replaced with a horse that was almost identical in appearance.  The only difference was that the new horse had four white socks as opposed to the three sported by the original Scout.

Hoss Cartwright:  I had trouble finding much information on Chub, the horse Dan Blocker rode.  Chub was a half quarter horse, half horoughbred horse who was selected not only for his temperament but for his ability to carry a man of Dan Blocker’s imposing size.  Chub stood 15.3 hands tall and weighed a sturdy 1250 pounds.  The horse’s most distinctive feature was the crooked blaze down his face.   Chub remained with the series during its entire run and outlived Blocker.

Joe Cartwright:  Michael Landon selected a Paint named Tomahawk to be his mount on the show.  The horse’s ‘character name’ was Cochise.  Standing 15.3 hands tall and weighing in at 1150 pounds, it was second in size only to Hoss’s mount.  Tomahawk was with the show for more than five seasons.  During the sixth season tragedy struck in a truly terrible incident.  A demented intruder broke into the Fat Jones Stables and stabbed several of the horses, among them Tomahawk.  The vet was able to save some of the victims but several of the injured animals had to be euthanized, including Tomahawk.  Landon was both saddened and outraged by what happened and offered a sizable reward for the capture of the responsible party, but the perpetrator was never identified.  In subsequent episodes a number of Paints were used to play the role of Joe’s horse Cochise.

So there you have it – some trivia about the four horses who carried the Cartwrights.  Did any of this surprise you?  Do you have any particular memories of the show and did you have a favorite from among the animals?