FRONT MATTER

EDITORIAL NOTE

NEWS SECTION

OPINION ESSAY

Doom and Salvation: The Genetic Turn in Medicine, Genetic Variant Testing, and Equine Muscle Disease

Christian Gundermann

Abstract 

This article analyzes the impact of the genetic turn in medicine on the horse worlds, whether breeding, training, management, buying, or selling. More specifically, it traces the dynamics around a genetic technology start-up company, Equiseq, which developed a genomics-based test for the controversial equine myopathies known as PSSM2, MFM or MIM, its contentious science, its marketing strategies, its clashes with academic veterinary science, and the social media forces employed to amplify its reach. The author suggests that the characteristics of this phenomenon illustrate the “broken science” of our historical moment and closes with a reflection on the uses of bioenergetics.  

ARTICLES 

The Image of the Horse from its Origin to its Transformation in the Bronze Age of Eastern Europe / Western Asia

P. F. Kuznetsov 

Abstract 

The article presents a comparative analysis of the image of the horse in art from the Palaeolithic to the beginning of the Late Bronze Age in the cultures of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. Initially, horses were depicted as ideal game animals. In the fifth millennium BC, this tradition changed. At the turn of the third-second millennia BC, the domestic horse became the main sacrificial animal. Three successive traditions of horse depiction are distinguished: the first is game animals; the second is wild horses; the third is ideal swift horses. We can observe the transformation of the image of the horse from the Palaeolithic ideal game animal to the central sacrificial object of the Late Bronze Age. At the same time, in ornamental casting the horse is represented as the compositional dominant element.  

Bronze Figurines of Domestic Horses in Central Ciscaucasian Burials of the Second Quarter-Middle of the Third Millennium BC

Alexey A. Kovalev   

Abstract 

To date, data has been published on three cases of finds of images of domestic horses in third millennium BC. sites of the steppe zone of Eastern Europe: miniature bronze figurines in two burials under the burial mounds (kurgans) near Kislovodsk and one burial under the burial mound not far from Cherkessk. Evidence that all of them represent domestic animals is the long hanging mane, combed into separate strands. These figurines in at least two of the three cases were part of a special ritual set of pendants, analogies to which were found, among other things, in the catacomb burials of the Stavropol Region (Bolshoy Ipatovsky kurgan, burial 168) and the Seversky Donets basin (Ivano-Daryevka, kurgan No.1, burial No.6). These and other analogies for the burial goods allow us to date the ritual sets with “little horses” to the second quarter — mid–third millennium BC. Thus, these are the oldest images of domestic horses of the Bronze Age in Eastern Europe and Western Asia. The bronze figurines in question date to the “bottleneck” period of intensive selection, including inbreeding, which resulted in the emergence of modern domestic horses (genetic group DOM2). This may point to the Central Ciscaucasia as the formation zone of the modern domestic horse lineage before its explosive spread across Eurasia beginning around 2200 BC.

“Bellies close to the ground”: Some Observations on Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Visual Representations of Racehorses

Miriam A. Bibby 

Abstract

There is a general perception that artists attempting to paint horses in movement, particularly running-horses or racehorses, did not (and could not, until the arrival of photography) understand the sequence of footfalls during the equine gait known as the gallop. This resulted in inaccurate, if evocative, images of horses with forelegs and hindlegs stretched out in an artistic convention known as the “flying gallop.” Further, the horses are usually shown suspended with all four feet off the ground, a sequence in the gallop that was long-disputed until Eadweard Muybridge’s famous photographic images showed that a moment of suspension existed during gallop, albeit not with the legs stretched out like a rocking horse. This paper argues that rather than indicating ignorance of how horses moved, the artistic convention of the flying gallop was, by the seventeenth century, employed as an intentional formula calculated to show the ideal qualities of the running-horse, or racehorse. It was a formula with ancient parallels.

Richard Ten Broeck and the “American Invasion” of England, 1856-1887

Gary A. O’Dell

Abstract 

Richard Ten Broeck (1810-1892) was the first American to bring Thoroughbred horses across the Atlantic to compete against their British counterparts. Ten Broeck was a former riverboat gambler who became the majority owner of the most important American race course, the Metairie track in New Orleans. After falling out with his partners at Metairie, in summer 1856 he brought three of America’s best horses to Newmarket, Lecomte, Pryor, and Prioress, to fulfil a long-cherished dream of American turfmen. He was befriended by Admiral Henry J. Rous and invited into British social circles. His horses performed poorly at first, and both Lecompte and Pryor died unexpectedly in autumn 1857. Ten Broeck’s fortunes sharply reversed when Prioress captured the prestigious Cesarewitch in October, and, with backing from wealthy American turfmen, new importations of American horses during 1859-60 produced victories in many English races. The horse Starke became the star of his stable, winning several important stakes races during 1859 and taking the Goodwood Cup in 1861. Ten Broeck continued to race horses successfully in England until returning to the United States in 1867. He came back to England in 1878 as part of the second “American invasion” of horsemen, instigated by Milton H. Sanford and Pierre Lorillard, and became advisor to James R. Keene in 1880. Purchasing horses in England, Ten Broeck raced unsuccessfully until 1887, having dissipated a fortune in profligate living. Although his importations to Britain removed several important bloodlines from America, this was balanced by Thoroughbreds exported from Britain, notably Eclipse, Phaeton, Barbarity, and Australian.

Yakutian Horse as an Asset for Sustainable Tourism in Yakutia

Anastasija Ropa 

Abstract 

The Yakutian horse is an invaluable cultural and economic asset for the indigenous people of Yakutia. In recent decades, it has been contributing to the local economy not solely in its traditional agricultural role, but also in serving as a tourist attraction. The aim of this study is to explore the current use of the Yakutian horse in the tourism industry and to assess the contribution of the horse to sustainable tourism in Sakha (Yakutia). The research methods include the study of scientific literature tourism in Yakutia, as well as literature on the Yakutian horse, its origin, and its cultural significance; in the practical part, the offer of horse tourism in Yakutia is explored, analysing the sustainability and ecological provisions within the range of activities offered for tourists.

BOOK REVIEWS

David Chaffetz, Raiders, Rulers and Traders: The Horse and the Rise of Empires

Reviewed by Rena Maguire

Ben Parsons, Introducing Medieval Animal Names

Reviewed by Anastasija Ropa

Emma Louise Herbert-Davies, The Warhorse in England 1272-1327

Reviewed by David S. Bachrach

Gary O’Dell, Reinventing the American Thoroughbred. The Arabian Adventures of Alexander Keene Richards

Reviewed by Anastasija Ropa

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS