Red Pollard Back
February 4, 1944
For well nigh two years now the name of John (Red) Pollard has been missing from the jockey board, and if you are a racing fan, you surely must have remembered Red Pollard, the lad who rode Charles S. Howard’s mighty Seabiscuit to many great stakes victories back in 1940. [That summer] Red made a trip East on sort of a vacation.

While on this pleasure jaunt he happened over to Suffolk Downs one morning to renew some old acquaintances. A gypsy horseman whom Red knew in the old days mentioned that he had a real rough horse but couldn’t find an exercise boy to work him.

“Here, hold my coat,” said Red. “I’ll breeze him for you.” As soon as Red had gone a sixteenth of a mile he knew why the exercise boys wanted no part of his friend’s horse. As strong a boy as Red was, he couldn’t stop this horse from doing a “wing ding” over the outer rail. For many months the broken figure that was Red Pollard lay motionless in a New England hospital. Operation after operation cost him every penny he had in the world. “I must have been in somebody’s prayers,” said Red at Hialeah yesterday, “Because I’m all right again, and I’m going back to riding.”

First Woman Rider Over Jumps At National
Elizabeth Von Tress June 18, 1954
Mrs. Marian Holloway Hirst was the first woman to ride over jumps at the National Horse Show in the Old Madison Square Garden [N.Y.]. In 1897 she rode her own hunter Richmond in a jumping class only to have him fall at the last jump. Most of the audience thought she was seriously injured, but in the next class she came back to take him around the course again.

Only 17 years old, it scared the officials so badly that women were not allowed in jumping classes again until 1900. Miss Holloway, on Ben Bolt, was the first person in that class. He won the open jumping class with the fences at 5 feet 3 inches. Born in England but living in Colorado until she was 12, Mrs. Hirst rode cutting horses before she came to New Jersey and took up hunting and showing. She competed in her first horse show at the age of 14, riding as she always did, side-saddle.

Horse Events Of The Greek Olympics
Daphne Machin-Goodall May 1, 1964
The earliest form of [equestrian] competition, that of racing, albeit in chariots, is considered to have been part of funeral ceremonies. The oldest existing race course is at Stonehenge, Great Britain. A similar race course is found in Brittany [France]. Legend has it that Heracles, a Spartan demigod, was the founder of the Olympic Games.

And that the first equestrian competition took place be-tween Pelops of Phygia and Oenomaus of Elis, the former a suitor for the hand of Oenomaus’ daughter Hippodomaia. The event is portrayed by two quadrigas of well-bred horses harnessed to chariots by the sculptor of the temple of Zeus. It was, however, a Theban, Pagondas, who drove the quadriga to victory in 680 B.C., and this was the year in which the very first equestrian games were held. At first four-horse chariots were used, about two hundred years later mules were popular, and around 408 {B.C.} the handier two-horse chariot came into use.

Lewis And Clark’s Horses
L.J.L. October 25, 1974
Horses obtained through the influence of a friendly Indian woman saved the Lewis and Clark expedition from failure at one point on that historic trek across the wilderness in the early 1800s. Lewis and Clark used the Missouri River as their highway until they reached the river’s headwaters in western Montana. Pack horses were sorely needed to continue the journey, but where were they to be obtained? Sacagawea, a young Shoshone Indian woman and wife of the expedition’s interpreter, supplied the answer and assured the mission’s success. Through her efforts, the whites were able to trade for 29 pack horses, even though the Shoshones were desperately short of horses themselves.

Vaulting’s Origin And Development In The United States
Naomi Takemoto, AVA President November 9, 1984
Throughout the Middle Ages, vaulting was used as equestrian training for cavalry soldiers. The Cossacks of the Russian steppes also practiced a daredevil type of vaulting. Vaulting continued to be used in the military as equestrian training until the disbanding of most cavalries. Modern vaulting had its beginning early in this century when Germany adopted it as training for children for later equestrian pursuits. Vaulting was integrated into the riding programs of most riding clubs. Vaulting was first introduced to the United States in the late 1950s, by Elizabeth Searle and Kyra Downton, in California.

The American Stud Book Courtesy of The Jockey Club Fact Book
March 4, 1994
In the early days of the Thoroughbred, breeding records were sparse and frequently incomplete. Englishman James Weatherby, through his research and consolidation of privately kept pedigree records, published the first volume of the General Stud Book in 1791. It listed the pedigree of 367 mares, each of which could be traced to Eclipse, a direct descendant of the Darley Arabian; Matchem, a grandson of the Godolphin Arabian; and Herod, great-great-grandson of the Byerly Turk. The General Stud Book is still published in England by Weatherby and Sons, Secretary to the English Jockey Club. The first volume of The American Stud Book was published in 1873, by Col. Sanders D. Bruce, a Kentuckian who had spent a lifetime re-searching pedigrees of American Thorough-breds. Bruce produced six volumes of the register until 1896, when the project was taken over by The Jockey Club.