THE HORSE: IT HAS carried us, pulled for us, fought wars for us, and now, with its utilitarian value much diminished, it gives us sport.

Until about 100 years ago, our training of the horse was a means to very practical ends: to plough a field or pull a carriage, to round up cattle or charge into battle. Yet for millennia—since 15,000 B.C. and the time of the rock paintings of Lascaux, in the Dordogne, France—the horse has also represented nobility, strength, courage and beauty.

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