40 Fun Facts About Morgan Horse

Every Morgan horse traces back to one stallion, foaled in 1789, originally known by which name?

Figure was later renamed Justin Morgan after his best-known owner, and the whole breed ended up carrying the man's name too.

Which US president rode Justin Morgan's famous stallion as a parade mount in Montpelier, Vermont, in 1817?

James Monroe rode him when the stallion was about 28, an age many horses never reach, let alone on parade.

Justin Morgan's hard-working stallion lived to 32 before dying in 1821 from which cause?

A kick from another horse wounded his flank out at pasture, and the injury was left untreated.

Which author of Misty of Chincoteague also wrote the children's novel Justin Morgan Had a Horse?

Marguerite Henry published the story in 1945, and it was a runner-up for the next year's top American prize for children's books.

Which film studio adapted the children's novel Justin Morgan Had a Horse for the screen in 1972?

Disney aired the film on its television anthology series, The Wonderful World of Disney.

Which New England poet wrote The Runaway, about a young Morgan colt alarmed by falling snow?

Robert Frost has the poem's speaker watch the colt, left out in a mountain pasture in winter, shy away from the snowfall.

Which Confederate general's Civil War mount was a small chestnut gelding often described as a Morgan?

Stonewall Jackson was riding the horse, named Little Sorrel, when he was shot at Chancellorsville; it outlived him by two decades and died at 36.

Rienzi, a war horse of Morgan descent later renamed Winchester, carried which Union general in the Civil War?

Philip Sheridan named the horse after Rienzi, Mississippi, where his men had skirmished, and rode him for the rest of the conflict.

Like most ponies, Morgans are known as easy keepers, a stable phrase meaning which of these?

They thrive on less feed than most breeds, so owners have to watch a Morgan's weight: too much grain or sweet feed soon leads to obesity.

By the traditional account, how did Vermont's Justin Morgan come to own his famous stallion in 1792?

As a debt payment, Morgan took the three-year-old colt home to Randolph, and within a few years the stallion was known simply as the Justin Morgan horse.

Besides keeping horses, Vermont's Justin Morgan was respected in the 1790s for which other talent?

Composing hymns put his work into the tunebooks of the 1790s, and several of his tunes are still printed in the shape-note songbook The Sacred Harp.

Which public office did Justin Morgan, owner of the first Morgan horse, hold in Randolph, Vermont?

Town clerk was his post in Randolph, where he died in 1798, years before his small stallion made the family name famous.

Which Morgan stallion, born in 1833, was a grandson of the breed's founder and sire of the champion trotter Ethan Allen?

Black Hawk covered more than 1,700 mares at stud in Vermont, and every Morgan alive today traces back to him several times over.

Morgan trotter Ethan Allen, a star of Currier and Ives prints, was also the model for a popular kind of which object?

Weathervane makers copied the trotting stallion, and after his death his skeleton went on show in a Kansas museum.

A Morgan mare named Maggie Marshall was the mother of the foundation sire of which gaited American breed?

Tennessee Walker breeders trace the breed to her son, foaled in 1886, who had failed as a trotter because he insisted on pacing.

Shepherd F. Knapp, a Morgan trotter exported to England in the 1860s, influenced the breeding of which British horse?

Hackney breeders valued his trotting ability, and the breed is now known as an elegant, high-stepping carriage horse.

Morgans were among the foundation stock of which American breed that now dominates harness racing?

Standardbred horses take their name from a time standard: early breeding stock had to trot a mile in under two and a half minutes.

The Morab, first bred in the late nineteenth century as a carriage horse, crosses the Morgan with which other breed?

Arabian blood was added to give a finer carriage horse that was still sturdy enough for moderate farm work.

Justin Morgan's stallion stood about 14 of which horseman's unit, a measure standardised at four inches?

Hands are measured to the top of the withers, and at about 14 the founding Morgan would count as pony-sized today.

Morgan enthusiasts have long claimed which cavalry horse, famed for surviving Custer's Last Stand in 1876?

Comanche has often been called a Morgan or part Morgan, but US Army records point instead to mustang lineage.

Miners made use of sturdy Morgan horses during which nineteenth-century scramble for mineral wealth?

California Gold Rush miners valued the same speed and endurance in harness that had made Morgans popular coach horses.

Which arm of the federal government set up the US Morgan Horse Farm in Vermont in 1907 to improve the breed?

Department of Agriculture breeders ran the farm until 1951, when it passed to the University of Vermont, which still raises Morgans there.

Which Middlebury publisher gave his farm to the federal Morgan program and compiled the first Morgan Horse Register?

Joseph Battell was Vermont's largest individual landowner when he died in 1915, and he left his mountain forests in trust to be kept wild.

The American Morgan Horse Association moved its offices in 2020 from Vermont to a horse park in which state?

Kentucky is home to the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington, where the registry is one of some 30 horse organisations based on the grounds.

Where has the Grand National and World Championship Morgan Horse Show been held each October since 1975?

Oklahoma City took over the October show from Detroit, and more than 1,000 Morgans now compete there each year.

Morgans were the first American breed to represent the United States at world level in which equestrian sport?

Pairs driving puts two horses in harness to one carriage, work that suits a breed first prized as a fast, tireless coach horse.

Justin Morgan's founding stallion wore which coat colour, still one of the three most common in the breed?

Bay means a brown body with a dark mane, tail and lower legs, and only chestnut and solid dark coats are as common among Morgans.

Which spotted pattern, common in pinto horses of other breeds, has not been noted in Morgans?

Tobiano is missing from the breed, although three other pinto patterns are recognised and Morgans may be registered in any colour.

Which Morgan bloodline family is considered the purest, with no outcrosses to other breeds in the twentieth century?

Lippitt Morgans descend from the herd of Robert Lippitt Knight, a breeder devoted to preserving the old-time Vermont strain.

Justin Morgan Had a Horse was named a runner-up in 1946 for which American children's book award?

Newbery Medal runners-up were later renamed Honor Books, so the tale of the small Vermont stallion now counts as a Newbery Honor winner.

In the novel Justin Morgan Had a Horse, the founding Morgan stallion is called by which nickname?

Little Bub is the book's name for the real stallion, whose life the author reworked as fiction for young readers.

The Morgan registry names which extinct breed, linked to Rhode Island, as the only American horse older than the Morgan?

Narragansett Pacer horses, once owned by George Washington, died out by the late 1800s, leaving the Morgan as the oldest American breed still alive.

Justin Morgan's stallion is believed to have been leased in 1795, for $15 a year, to do which job?

Clearing land was only one of his jobs: later owners used the small stallion for logging, hauling freight, racing and breeding.

In 1804, Justin Morgan's stallion won which kind of contest at a tavern in St. Johnsbury, Vermont?

A pulling bee went his way when the stallion was about 15, after years of farm work and logging.

When Justin Morgan moved his family north to Vermont in 1788, what was Vermont's political status?

An independent republic for 14 years, Vermont joined the United States only in 1791, the year before Morgan acquired his famous colt.

The Morgan registry accepts foals born by embryo transfer but refuses to register which kind of horse?

A clone is barred, and so is any half-Morgan: both parents must be registered Morgans.

One theory about Justin Morgan's stallion, often called a Dutch horse, gives him ancestors of which breed from Holland?

Friesian horses came to North America with Dutch settlers, though the stallion's true pedigree has never been settled.

Which English riding style, built to show off a high-stepping trot, counts the Morgan among its main show breeds?

Saddle seat rules send Morgans into the ring with a full natural mane and tail: braids, ribbons and false tails are all banned.

The Morgan Horse Club, forerunner of today's breed registry, was founded in 1909 at which kind of Vermont event?

A state fair brought the breed's admirers together, and in 1971 their club was renamed the American Morgan Horse Association.

Which artist illustrated the 1945 children's novel Justin Morgan Had a Horse and many later horse stories by its author?

Wesley Dennis won the job because the author went looking for the finest horse artist she could find, and the two made many more books together.