NATURE presents the compelling story of a remarkable denizen of the West in Cloud: Wild Stallion of the Rockies.

America’s wild horses lead an exhilarating but perilous existence. The climate can be brutal, mountain lions and other predators stalk the young, and their dependence on public grazing lands for sustenance often puts them in competition with livestock interests. In some places where these magnificent animals roam, it is not unusual for a wild horse to fall victim to an illegal horse shooter.

Against this backdrop, NATURE presents Cloud’s story. Filmed in the mountains of Montana, this poignant, engrossing chronicle focuses on an extraordinary stallion, whose life has been recorded since his birth in the wild in 1995 by Emmy-winning filmmaker Ginger Kathrens.

Get the latest news on Cloud and his band in Ginger Kathrens’s Cloud Blog.

To order a copy of Cloud: Wild Stallion of the Rockies, visit the NATURE Shop.

Online content for Cloud: Wild Stallion of the Rockies was originally posted November 2001.

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The Cloud Foundation
http://www.thecloudfoundation.org/
The Cloud Foundation is dedicated to preventing the extinction of Cloud’s herd through education and public involvement.

Taurus Productions
http://www.taurusproductions.net/index.html
Learn more about Ginger Kathrens’ work.

BLM: National Wild Horse and Burro Program
http://www.wildhorseandburro.blm.gov/
Learn more about the Bureau of Land Management’s wild horse program and find out how you can adopt a wild horse.

Front Range Equine Rescue
http://www.wildhorseandburro.blm.gov/
Dedicated to rescuing mistreated and malnourished horses, FRER adopts and rehabilitates horses, eventually finding loving, responsible families for horses that desperately need care.

Montana
http://visitmt.com/
A complete online guide to outdoor adventure, as well as things to do and see while in Big Sky Country.

Project Equus
http://www.projectequus.org/
Read articles, petitions, poems, and information on horse protection written by people dedicated to keeping horses healthy and happy.

Wild Horse & Burro Freedom Alliance
http://www.savewildhorses.org/
The WHBFA aims to protect America’s wild horses and burros.

Wild Horses in Montana and the Dakotas
http://www.kbrhorse.net/whb/blmdak.html
Explore Pryor Mountain, Cloud’s home, and learn about the BLM’s efforts in the region.

Books:

Dines, Lisa. The American Mustang Guidebook. Willow Creek Press, 2001.

Edwards, Elwyn Hartley. Wild Horses of the World. New York: Hylas Publishing, 2003.

Jackson, Jaime. The Natural Horse: Foundations for Natural Horsemanship. Star Ridge Publishing, 1997.

Kathrens, Ginger. Cloud’s Legacy: The Wild Stallion Returns. California: Bow Tie Press, 2004.

Preston, Charles R. and Clymer, Frances B. Unbroken Spirit: The Wild Horse in the American Landscape. University of Washington Press, 1999.

Ryden, Hope. Mustangs: A Return to the Wild. Mountain Press Publishing Company, 1985.

Why does the government conduct roundups that affect Cloud and his family as well as countless other wild horses? What’s at stake for the mustangs of Montana and other Western states and what happens to the animals auctioned off? Use the guide below to find out more about this longstanding controversy.

How did the roundups get started?

For decades, wild horses that came too close to cattle or sheep on public grazing lands were targets for capture or slaughter. Airplanes or cars were used to round up horses that got in the way of domestic livestock. Water holes were contaminated with poison to kill them off. Outraged by the gratuitous destruction of the horses, Nevada resident Velma Johnston (known as “Wild Horse Annie”) launched a national campaign to encourage states and the federal government to protect the wild horse as a symbol of the American West. In 1971, Congress responded, passing the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act that authorized only agents of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to gather the horses as part of their work in preserving federal lands

Why not just let the horses run free?

Some animal activists think they should run free. They argue that the West’s wild horses, which number roughly 47,000, are greatly outnumbered by privately owned cattle and sheep that also graze on public lands. They portray the Bureau of Land Management as a special interest group for ranchers.

Needless to say, the BLM disagrees. According to the bureau, the roundups, known as “gathers,” are used to keep herds from multiplying beyond a sustainable population. State BLM offices estimate that wild horses repopulate at the rate of roughly 18 percent per year. Apart from the mountain lion and black bear, wild horses have few natural predators. The BLM claims that without their intervention, wild horses would die from starvation or dehydration as they compete for limited range and water resources with other wild animals and livestock. Drought, disease, and fire are also cited as justifications for a roundup.

The Wild Horse and Burro Freedom Alliance, however, points out that wild horses have diversified grazing habits and usually only briefly enter cattle-grazing areas for water. They note that even after massive roundups of mustangs, grazing areas are not necessarily improved for cattle.

How are roundups carried out?

Since 1976, the BLM has used helicopters. Flying at low altitudes, bureau agents drive the herds for miles to an area where they are then loaded onto trucks headed for a holding center. Agents may bring in an entire herd and then winnow out adoptable horses or take in a band out of an entire herd. Depending on its size, a roundup can last for several days or several weeks.

The bureau maintains that helicopters are the most humane way of driving these wild animals across plain and mountain ridge to the centers, but animal activists disagree. The Fund for Animals argues that the sound of the helicopters can spark panic in wild horse herds and place undue stress on the animals — particularly in late winter or during droughts. Of particular concern are mares that are pregnant during the roundups. Foals, unaccustomed to running long distances, can also suffer various limb injuries that make them unsuitable for adoption.

Once at the holding area, wild horse specialists separate the animals according to sex and age. Mares with foals are kept apart. The bureau states that it makes “every effort” to reunite mares with lost foals. Agents then decide which horses are eligible for adoption, which go into a federal rest home, and which are returned to the range.

How many horses does the BLM roundup each year?

Totals and the frequency of the roundups vary according to the target area. Local BLM officers decide upon the figure based on periodic studies meant to indicate how many horses can co-exist with native wildlife and domestic livestock and still have adequate access to water and fodder. Some horse advocates question this practice and argue that the 1971 act and a subsequent 1992 regulation does not empower the Bureau of Land Management with decision-making powers about the removal of wild horses. They claim that only the Secretary of the Interior can make binding decisions on wild horse removal strategies. In fiscal 2003, the BLM removed 10,091 horses from public ranges.

Where Cloud lives, in Montana’s Pryor Mountains, 6 to 12 stallions were captured in late September 2003 to keep the herd at 140-150 animals, according to the Casper STAR-TRIBUNE. Roundups in this part of Montana occur once every 3 years.

How does the BLM choose what horse to keep or not?

In theory, it’s a question of what characteristics — sex, age, genetic stock — the BLM’s local wild horse specialist thinks will best help a herd maintain its “appropriate management level” or AML. An AML is a target population for a herd that guarantees that there will be adequate vegetation and water for livestock and other wildlife without undue stress on the environment. In some locations, these criteria are determined with the help of wild horse advocates.

Horses under five years old are sent to a facility where they are vaccinated, wormed, and freezemarked (branded with an iron chilled in liquid nitrogen) before being offered for adoption.

Horses that are over 10 years old are defined as ready for retirement and are transferred to government-run long-term holding centers to receive permanent care. Horses between the ages of 5 and 9 are returned to the range. The bureau says that “under normal circumstances,” unadoptable horses are returned to the range.

How are wild horse adoptions managed?

In 2003, about 6,185 wild horses were adopted, according to the BLM. Adoption fees are usually established by competitive bids at an auction — the minimum price is $125, the average is $185. Any person who can pay the fee, is at least 18 years old, has no prior conviction for inhumane treatment of animals, and can demonstrate to BLM inspectors that the horse will be adequately cared for within the U.S. is eligible to adopt a horse. Individuals can adopt up to 4 wild horses per year. Candidates to adopt a horse must sign a statement that says that they will not sell the horse to a slaughterhouse, for use in a rodeo, or for any commercial purpose.

Adoptions, however, may not continue for long. In November 2003, the BLM announced that rising costs may force the program to end. Instead, horses would be kept in holding centers that are cheaper to run. It costs $445 per horse per year to keep a wild horse in a holding center, while arranging for the adoption of a single horse can run as high as $1,400, the Reno GAZETTE-JOURNAL reported.

Is there any other way to control wild horse populations other than auctions?

BLM officers also use the fertility control agent PZP (porcine zonae pellucidae), a vaccine derived from pig cells. Captured mares can be injected at close range, or a dart gun can be used for those who are still free. The vaccine is effective 90 percent of the time and, according to a 2001 study by the UC Davis Center for Equine Health, does not produce any side effects in the horses. PZP, however, requires two injections, which can make using it on an entire herd a logistical challenge. The vaccine lasts for two years.

In Montana, where CLOUD’S LEGACY was filmed, a fertility control program has been in effect since 2001. Yearlings and two-year-old mares are vaccinated every year with PZP to prevent pregnancies. In 2003, the Montana BLM began to vaccinate mares that are 14 years old or older. The office says its long-term goal is to vaccinate these animals for the rest of their lives and argues that the vaccine improves their physical condition by reducing the chances of pregnancies at an age when they are less suited to give birth.

Animal-rights activists have extended a cautious welcome to PZP. The Fund for Animals argues that the vaccine is more humane than roundups, but cautions that it should not be used to delay pregnancies in young mares.

What happens to horses that are deemed not suitable for auction?

They are either returned to the range or placed in five long-term, government-run holding facilities in Kansas and Oklahoma. Stallions are gelded and pastured separately from mares. Even here, however, horses can be adopted. Postings on state BLM Web sites often feature the photos of horses up for adoption that have been placed in permanent care. Sick, elderly horses can undergo euthanasia at three centers. Privately run wild horse sanctuaries are another alternative.

Are wild horses endangered animals?

Officially, no. Currently, the bureau estimates that there are some 45,000 horses in the wild, about half of them in Nevada. By comparison, a century ago, some 2 million horses roamed the Western ranges. The BLM puts the optimal number of horses on the Western ranges at 25,000. Worried by the large costs of the adoption program (which takes up nearly a third of the annual BLM wild horse budget of $11.6 million), the BLM wants to reduce the number of wild horses on the Western ranges by half and is also reconsidering its adoption program. Equine population experts worry that reducing the number of horses in the wild could lead to a loss of genetic diversity and, ultimately, the eventual extinction of this living legend.

Several years ago, I received a telephone call from the popular host of the PBS WILD AMERICA series, Marty Stouffer. He had a documentary film assignment in mind for me. “I want to make a film about mustangs,” Marty explained. “Interested in shooting it for me?” I immediately said yes. I hadn’t had a horse since I was a teenager, but Marty thought I knew a lot about horses. I was excited but worried. In my experience, horses just stood around in fields and grazed. How could I make an interesting TV show about that? I was completely ignorant about the complex and fascinating world of wild horses.

Raven

In March 1994, I stood in the chill of pre-dawn on a red desert hilltop ready to start filming. The desert lay at the base of flat-topped mountains the Crow Indians call the Arrowheads, a wilderness home for black bears, mountain lions, bighorn sheep, mule deer, golden eagles, coyotes, and about 175 wild horses

I held my breath as six wild horses wandered from behind a hill and into a sea of blue green sage. I focused my 600mm lens on a newborn foal, with a huge diamond-shaped star, trotting to keep up with his pale buckskin mother. A grulla mare, her black yearling son, and a striking palomino filly followed. Some distance away was the stallion — black as night with a white snip on the end of his aquiline nose. When I stood up and bent back over the camera, the stallion saw me and pranced forward, shaking his head in agitation.

He stared, snorted, and wheeled. In perfect synchrony, his family ran away with the stallion galloping in the rear to protect his family from the deadly silhouette on the hill. It was a moment I will never forget. Even then, I felt a deep connection to the black stallion. I later learned his name was Raven.

After the reaction of Raven’s band to me and my camera, I believed I would need to film from a blind. So, when the snow melted, I navigated the miserable road to sub-alpine meadows atop the mountain. I stationed myself on a cliff above a water hole. Nestled between boulders, I felt confident my camera and I were virtually invisible.

Within minutes, a golden dun stallion named Shaman approached. As his large band drank, the stallion jerked his head into the air, sniffed and looked up. I did not blink. Suddenly, he snorted explosively and the entire band raced away, leaving me alone in my cliff blind. That worked well, I told myself, surveying a horseless meadow. Not only could wild horses see any movement, they could smell any danger. I needed to rethink my strategy.

Over the next few days as I sat in frustration, Raven and his family appeared. Day after day, they seemed to find me rather than the other way around. I began waving at them — something told me to be quietly conspicuous. I watched to see the direction they were traveling and set up my camera ahead of them. Over time they paid me the highest compliment a wild animal can pay a wildlife filmmaker: they ignored me.

By now there were three foals in Raven’s band, the one I named Diamond (who was turning into a blue roan), a solid grulla, and a strawberry roan colt with a huge star. In September, the two younger brothers died in a Bureau of Land Management roundup. It was a tragic loss for Raven’s family and a shocking end to an idyllic summer for me. The following spring, nothing could keep me from returning to see if Raven’s family could recover from their horrible loss.

Cloud

It was late May. I was intently filming a three-year-old stallion trying to breed his father’s newly acquired mare. When the older stallion returned, his son innocently clacked his teeth like a foal, as if to say “Don’t hurt me, I’m little.” Young stallions are usually ousted from their bands at two to avoid in-breeding, and this three-year-old was pushing his luck.

Then out of the corner of my eye, I saw a flash of white in the forest. Seconds later, Raven’s palomino mare broke out of the trees with her newborn and led him right past my camera. The colt was just hours old and he tottered to keep up with his mother. He was unlike any foal on the Arrowheads, for he was nearly white. The band was on an uphill trek and I followed. Within a half-hour, they arrived at a snowbank under dense trees. This was their water source until water holes on the mountaintop melted. The colt sniffed the cold whiteness and collapsed in a heap in the shade. As I watched him breathe I counted his ribs. I had never seen a newborn foal. Were they all this fragile? I named the colt Cloud and prayed he would live.

Two weeks later, the frail colt had blossomed, displaying the boldness that would become his trademark. His two sisters were several months older than Cloud, and targets for his teasing, especially when they were sleeping. He would nibble on their manes and pull their ears. He galloped around circular stands of firs like it was his own personal racecourse. Round and round he flew, seeming never to tire.

When Raven thought his little fillies had wandered too far from the band, he gently reprimanded them by snaking them home, laying his ears back and lowering his head. Cloud mimicked his father and, when a little filly came to visit, he laid his ears flat, dipped his head low and chased her away. Everything he did that summer led me to conclude, “One day you will become a great band stallion like your father.”

When summer ended, so did my filming for WILD AMERICA.

Return to the Arrowheads

For nearly two years I filmed throughout the world. But I was haunted by Raven, Cloud, and the family. They had captured my imagination and my heart.

Fortunately I was hired to produce another film that included wild horses, so I returned to the Arrowheads. I was better prepared this time. I had learned that their communication, so subtle one moment and broad the next, was reminiscent of wolves. Each family member had a place in the hierarchy of the band. Parental discipline was clear, consistent, and fair. And the ritual encounters of the stallions were unforgettable. From a distance their high-pitched shrieks echoed through the forests and canyons.

Cloud was celebrating his second birthday on the day I returned to the Arrowheads. I found that Raven had kicked both him and his brother Diamond out of the band. Finding them would prove to be a challenge, for bachelors roam unpredictably and for long distances.

Using binoculars, I surveyed the vast ridges of Tillet where Cloud was born, and across a deep, impassable canyon to Sykes Ridge with its hundreds of rippling fingers and shallow canyons. A white horse! It had to be Cloud. Five hours later, I was on Sykes. Cloud looked up and I waved. Remember me? I was relieved when he went back to playing with a dun bachelor, spinning and nipping at the smaller stallion’s legs. What a beauty. His coat gleamed and his body was well-developed for only a two-year-old.

Over the summer he interacted with the other bachelors on the mountain, running across flower-strewn meadows, dashing just close enough to the family bands to rile the band stallions. Like a gang of rowdy teenage boys, bachelors are freedom personified.

In the fall, another roundup shattered the tranquility of the Arrowheads. Of the bachelors captured, only Cloud was released, because of his unusual color. I searched everywhere for him over the next two months. When the snow began falling, I lost hope of finding him and feared he might be dead.

In the spring I returned to the mountain, not knowing what I might find. If Cloud were alive, he would surely follow the green grass to the top of the mountain. While I was filming a band of horses running to water, I spotted bachelors racing over the hill and Cloud was right in the middle of them. He was alive!

As a four-year-old, Cloud made an unusual decision. He began to dog one of the toughest band stallions on the mountain, Mateo, a burley bay in his prime and built like a sumo wrestler. Never mind that most stallions are at least six when they attempt to start a family. Cloud’s strategy: follow as closely as he dared and get the shorter stallion to chase him. He would eventually wear the bay down and steal his mares. The game lasted all summer. In the end, it was Cloud who wore out, and went lame.

He joined a group of bachelors living far outside the horse range. He went into winter thin, lame and listless. This time, I thought he might be gone forever.

But Cloud appeared the next spring as a five-year-old, and he had changed. He was lean, mean, and determined to start his own family. He fought the powerful blue roan stallion Plenty Coups for his mares. Cloud’s strategy was the same. During one grueling chase, Plenty Coups made a misstep. The stallion hobbled to a halt, licking the blood running down his leg. Then he continued to give chase — on three legs. Days later, when fog sealed the mountain in a gray shroud, I returned home to Colorado, not knowing the outcome of their epic struggle.

Later that summer, I rode my once-wild horse, Trace, to find Cloud. We saw Plenty Coups at a spring-fed water hole. He had lost his whole band, his mares divided among various stallions.

Only a quarter of a mile away, Trace and I located Cloud. Ironically, he was not with a Plenty Coups mare but an older grulla female named Queen. The mare had given birth to a sickly foal and when her band left, she and her yearling son stayed with the foal. Cloud found them and stood quietly by the mare’s side. When the foal died, the mare and son stayed with Cloud. And so, not in a clash of teeth and hooves but in a moment of stillness, the young stallion achieved his goal of starting his own family.

Cloud’s Legacy

Two Christmases ago at sunset I spotted a glow amongst dark junipers on a hill near the mouth of Cougar Canyon. It was my first glimpse of Cloud in winter! In March, I returned to the mouth of the canyon but Cloud was not to be found. So I hiked through the snow-choked canyon and onto the windswept ridges of Sykes. I saw a red dun with a grulla. Queen? Bachelors were dogging Cloud’s mare. If he were alive Cloud would never allow this. Once again, I was seized with fear and worry.

By early June, I had still not located Cloud. Then, near the spring-fed water hole, he appeared! He followed down the muddy slope by a blue roan mare and her yearling daughter. The mare was Sitka, Shaman’s lead mare. I couldn’t imagine Cloud taking her from the formidable stallion.

Equally startling, below the snow-fed water hole, I spotted what looked like a light-colored rock in the grass that I hadn’t seen before. I focused my long lens on the shape. It was a colt with a huge star. When the baby stood, I gasped. It had a white mane and tail. A palomino! Nearby was Plenty Coups’ black mare with Shaman. It was clear to me I was looking at Cloud’s son. Cloud had bred the black mare, perhaps in the fog after Plenty Coups was injured. Yet, the young stallion could not hold on to her.

In July, Sitka foaled and Cloud had his first foal to raise. Though not of his blood, the little grulla would become his son in every other sense of the word. I named him Flint and he would one day need every bit of toughness his name implies.

Predation was high that summer. Mountain lions preyed on nearly a third of the foals and Cloud’s light colored son was a vulnerable target. Marauding bachelors harassed Cloud’s family. A roundup separated families and a wildfire threatened to destroy all the wild horses. Through it all, Cloud survived, as bold and brave as the precocious little white colt who first captured my heart.

–Ginger Kathrens

In 1995, while filming wild horses in the mountains of Montana, Ginger Kathrens discovered a striking, almost pure white colt just hours after his birth. Kathrens named him Cloud. She feared that his distinctive coat would make him an obvious target for mountain lions; but he survived and Kathrens continued to follow him in his adventures. In Cloud: Wild Stallion of the Rockies this wild horse developed from a bumbling, unsteady colt into an adventurous, defiant youth.

In Cloud’s Legacy: The Wild Stallion Returns, Cloud is now a band stallion with a mare and her children, a yearling and a foal. Meanwhile, Cloud’s own child, which has a telltale golden coat, lives with another herd and will never know him as his father.

As the seasons pass, foals are born, brothers fight against one another for control of mates, and Cloud’s legacy grows. Threats come not only from rivals, but from government agencies struggling to manage both human and equine interests. Yet the biggest trial Cloud’s herd faces is yet to come: surviving an out-of-control wildfire that that threatens their lives and home.

Join these legendary wild horses on their adventures on NATURE’s Cloud’s Legacy: The Wild Stallion Returns.

To order a copy of Cloud’s Legacy: The Wild Stallion Returns, visit the NATURE Shop.

Online content for Cloud’s Legacy: The Wild Stallion Returns was originally posted November 2003.

Producer: Sarah Birnbaum
Associate Producer: Ronnie Godeanu
Design Director: Mohammad Riza
Writer: David Malakoff
Designers: Sabina Daley, Shannon Palmer
Graphic Art and Animation: Lenny Drozner
Acting Technical Director: G. Francisco Perin
Scientific Consultant: Gianna Scaralia

Thirteen Online is a production of Thirteen/WNET New York’s Kravis Multimedia Education Center in New York City. Ann Willmott Andersson, Director of Interactive & Broadband.

© 1999 Thirteen/WNET New York

All Rights Reserved

Television Credits

A co-production of TV Matters, Thirteen/WNET New York, and Nature Conservation Films.

Funder Credits

Funding for the TV series NATURE is made possible in part by Park Foundation. Major corporate support is provided by Canon U.S.A., Inc., Ford Motor Company, and TIAA-CREF. Additional support is provided by the nation’s public television stations.

We recommend the following Web sites for those interested in subjects presented on the program. All links are valid as of March 8, 2002.

Carousel Riding Center
http://www.carouselridingcenter.org
Learn more about Carol Wooley’s therapeutic riding center and the medal-winning horse Carousel.

American Quarter Horse — Characteristics
http://www.storeybooks.com/main/horse/horse_pages/horse_breeds/quarter_horse.html#Anchor-Breed-35882
Traits of one of the world’s most popular breeds.

American Horse Defense Fund
http://www.ahdf.org/
The AHDF’s mission is to facilitate the protection, conservation, and humane treatment of members of all Equid species.

Fossil Horses in Cyberspace
http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/natsci/vertpaleo/fhc/fhc.htm
A virtual museum exhibit developed by the Florida Museum of Natural History.

Wild Horse and Burro Internet Adoption
http://www.adoptahorse.blm.gov/
The Bureau of Land Management tells you how to adopt a wild horse.

International Society for the Protection of Mustangs and Burros
http://www.ispmb.com/
Dedicated to the preservation and protection of free-roaming wild horses and burros, nationally and internationally.

Horses and History
http://mysite.verizon.net/mmaidens
A nice review of the horse’s impact on human society from Melinda Maidens.

Print Resources

Ames, Fran. THE BIG BOOK OF HORSES: THE ILLUSTRATED GUIDE TO MORE THAN 100 OF THE WORLD’S BEST BREEDS. New York: Courage Books, 1999.

Barclay, Harold. THE ROLE OF THE HORSE IN MAN’S CULTURE. New York: J.A. Allen, 1980.

Budiansky, Stephen. THE NATURE OF HORSES. New York: Free Press, 1997.

Price, Steven D. THE AMERICAN QUARTER HORSE: AN INTRODUCTION TO SELECTION, CARE, AND ENJOYMENT. New York: The Lyons Press, 1998.

Prince, Eleanor. BASIC HORSE CARE. New York: Main Street Books, 1989.

“A dog may be a man’s best friend,” a horse breeder once said, “but history was written by the horse.”

An overstatement? Perhaps not. Since humans first domesticated horses nearly 5,000 years ago, the brainy and brawny horse has played a central role in shaping human culture. They not only enabled faster communication and travel, but also proved decisive allies in military campaigns, with mounted troops often overwhelming foot-bound infantry.

The horse was such an effective weapon, in fact, that empires from Egypt to Mexico crumbled before the onslaught of mounted enemies, who brought with them new ideas, technologies, and cultural practices. As an 18th-century historian, John Moore, once put it in the purple prose of the time: “Wherever man has left his footprint in the long ascent from barbarism, we will find the hoofprint of the horse beside it.”

Historians disagree, however, about whether the first tamed horses were used primarily for food, riding, or to pull carts — probably all three. But they do agree that by about 3,000 years ago, the horse had become a fixture of many ancient civilizations. Indeed, due to their use in war, horses quickly became associated with power and prestige, while slow-footed donkeys enjoyed a less exciting reputation.

Military horses have proven essential.

The horse’s quick feet so impressed the Persians that they put the animal to work as a communications tool. In the 5th century BC, Persian officials used mounted couriers, who would ride a short distance, then hand messages off to

Riders in Jerez, Spain, revisit another era. Rested riders, to send instructions to their far-flung colonies. The riders were instructed not to let “snow, rain, heat, nor darkness” keep them from delivering their precious cargo. Centuries later, in the 1800s, the U.S. Pony Express borrowed the same method — and motto — as its riders galloped across the new nation, delivering the messages that drew America together.

It is the lowly workhorse, however, that may have had the biggest impact on human history. Bred to haul heavy loads day in and day out, the workhorse changed the practice of farming and industry. Harvests could suddenly be transported long distances, creating trade and wealth in villages that had once had little contact with the outside world. Similarly, timber and stone could be moved to cities and towns, greatly increasing the supplies of raw materials available to shipyards, carpenters, and builders.

In an age of trucks and trains, it is hard to imagine that a trained team of draft horses once pulled as much as some locomotives. But the term “horsepower” — coined by the English engineer James Watt to measure how much work is done by an engine — suggests just how much respect these animal teams earned. Still, they proved no match for modern engines. Watt concluded, after careful experiments with workhorses, that a one-horsepower engine could pull about 50% more weight in a single day than a horse.

But even racecar owners would agree: no high-horsepower motor has anywhere near the personality — or historical importance — of a real horse.