Back in the late 1700’s the colonists came across a horse breed that combined the English horses with the Chickasaw breed, which was a descendent of the Arabia and Barb, brought into the southeast United States by the Spanish Conquistadors. What they had was a small, sturdy horse that was quick and nimble and showed signs of superior intelligence and a willingness to work. As flat land horse racing became popular, this fast animal, achieving speeds of up to 55 miles per hour over short distances soon dominated the quarter mile track and was aptly named the quarter miler, or quarter horse. As the quarter horse breed continued to gain popularity, its gentle nature led it to be used as a riding horse and due to its strength was soon performing other work on many of the early farms. The breed seemed to have a natural instinct for working around cattle as well. When the settlers began surging west in the 1800’s, the quarter horse breed was the horse of choice of the early cowboys, being used for cattle round-up due to their speed and agile maneuverability and quickly became the horses that cowboys counted on for their daily duties on cattle ranches. |
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