#actually just in general how are these horses trained to pull chariots even if they are from chb | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

blueeyesspitfire · 3 years

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Another One

Someone asked when (and maybe, subconsciously, why) I decided to add another dog (Atlas!) to the team. While it might not seem like it, especially not to the average pet-owner, I have always been extremely strategic when increasing my numbers. I always tell non-mushers: comparatively, I actually have a very small team! It has also taken me more than ten years to get to ten dogs, so I consider my expansion pretty slow.

To answer the question, I started thinking back to how I got started in this sport (and hobby... and lifestyle). I had always wanted a Siberian Husky, but as a 20-year-old college student living in an apartment with a tiny, unfenced yard, no rescue would let me adopt one. My then-boyfriend (hi Rob) and I ended up adopting Dexter from a foster family that could tell we were more prepared than your average idiot kids. At this point, I was aware of mushing, but it was not part of my plan. I just wanted a dog that could accompany me on hikes and other outdoor adventures.

A few years later, and after volunteering for both a husky rescue and a wolf/wolfdog rescue, I finally had the credentials for husky ownership. I still had a hard time finding the right dog through adoption organizations, so I ended up looking into reputable breeders. One of them invited me to the Pine Barrens to attend a training meetup and "see the dogs in action". I was intrigued; this was New Jersey, where our winters weren’t known for their snow. It was also autumn, so there definitely wasn't snow on the ground. This is where it all began.

I met folks with only a few dogs and some with over a dozen. They used bikes, scooters, and non-motorized carts that looked like a mix between a shopping cart and a horse chariot. I started biking with Dexter and I was even able to hook him up with some borrowed dogs to see what true dog propulsion felt like. I was hooked before I even had my husky.

Denali was my first true sled dog and she paved the way for us. I started biking with her and Dexter, but I knew I wanted to get a third to pull a cart and, eventually, a sled. I adopted Knox six months after Denali came home. I remember everyone being shocked at this point. Three dogs? Wild.

For a time, the trio met my needs. I started a new job that required me to go into NYC a few times a week. I hung out with friends a lot. I traveled often. We mushed, too, but it wasn't all encompassing. Then Dexter started slowing down a bit. After all, he wasn't really built to keep up with two athletic young huskies. I started thinking about an eventual replacement for him. Denali's littermate, Mia, was due to have a litter, and I was quick to jump on the opportunity. Willow joined us in 2015, and shortly thereafter, I made my first "mistake".

When Willow was old enough to join the team, I kept Dexter on the line, since we were doing short and relatively easy runs that he could still handle. I was surprised to see him get a sort of second wind once he had a consistent running partner. In fact, the entire team seemed to do better in pairs. Eventually I had the girls leading with the boys in wheel, and Dex lasted through the whole season. And I realized, shit, I want to run a team of four.

Dexter's second wind was short lived, which I expected, and it wasn't long before I started thinking about another dog to take his place (for real this time). So a year after Willow, I added Blitz to the team. Ok, good, great, I should have been satisfied at this point, right? I wanted a team of four and I had it. Except there was a thought creeping in the back of my mind, almost since the beginning of this whole crazy journey. A friend had told me that you probably want at least six dogs to carry a passenger. I also really liked the idea of having leaders, team dogs, and wheel dogs. So I got to work.

I secured a fully remote job and found myself easing into a life more centered around mushing. Hubble joined the pack in 2017, a year after Blitz, and right before I moved to California. I thought, hell, let's make five work and see what comes next.

In 2018 I moved back to the Northeast, and finally had the space and setup to complete the six pack. Laika joined us in early 2019 and the following season was my first time competing in 6-dog classes. So now, certainly, I should be all set—right? Except...

Except it had taken me so long to build my six dog team that my oldest, Denali and Knox, were starting to show their age. Knox, a rescue with less than ideal structure, was having trouble keeping up with the younger dogs. Denali could still hold her own, but she seemed to be getting bored with the repetitive training we do at home. If I wanted to keep this whole thing going, I knew I had to start thinking about filling their places on the line.

So, later on in 2019, I found Sagan and Hopper to join the pack. I wanted to "try out" some Alaskan Huskies (mixed breeds specifically bred for mushing, not to adhere to a specific standard) and their lines synced up nicely with my existing dogs. Hopper is even half related to my existing crew, so I knew he’d fit well.

If you're keeping count, this brought me to nine dogs: one fully retired, two semi-retired, and six active team members. At this point in the journey, I'd been saying that my limit was ten. Mainly, I'm constrained by vehicle space: the dog van fits eight crates, two of which are big enough to be doubled up in. The dog truck has eight boxes with two dogs fitting in the cab. So, ten is possible, but was it really necessary?

When the pandemic first hit, and I knew I wouldn't be traveling for awhile, the thought of raising a pup crossed my mind. Then came the chaos of the Denali/Willow fights and my broken thumb, which quickly squashed the idea of adding more dogs to the mix. I didn't think about it again until the fall, when some exciting litters were planned, and my favorite breeder mentioned plans of moving to Alaska. I was training for my first mid-distance race with the 6-dog team. I knew I had room for one more, but I wasn't sure I had the justification for it.

Then Blitz had a seizure. This rocked me to my core and I'm still dealing with the shockwaves of PTSD it caused. Blitz has since been 100% fine and we've figured out a schedule that ensures his blood sugar levels stay in a safe range. All the races we were aiming for ended up canceled due to Covid, but I'm not sure we would've been ready to run them given how slow we got back on track with training.

Most "real" mushers have a larger pool of dogs than those they run in races. Many train an A team and a B team, or run larger strings than necessary for the class they intend to compete in. Then, when race day comes, they select the dogs who are running their best. If a dog gets a sore paw, or is more sensitive to warm temperatures, or refuses to eat, or just generally isn't enthusiastic, they can get "benched" without impacting the team's race. It felt like a gamble to train all season for some big (to me) races, only to have the possibility of being at a disadvantage (with a 5-dog team, if one dog couldn't run—most 6-dog classes allow as few as five) or not able to compete at all (if two couldn't run).

A seventh, active team member adds a bit of buffer, so I can more confidently chase after my goals. And yes, I also made the same mistake of running the semi-retirees with their yearling replacements. An 8-dog team is awesome to behold, but I didn't let myself get too comfortable with it. That's not to say things won't change as my goals and situation changes. If you couldn't tell, that's been the theme of this whole wild ride.

To conclude, I guess I should more specifically answer "why Atlas?", since he's the pup I chose. Atlas comes from some of my very favorite lines. Knowing that his breeder, Jaye, will be leaving the area to compete in Iditarod 2022 (go Jaye!!), I figured this might be my last opportunity for a pup from Sibersong. And of course, I’m still grounded from travel for several more months, making now an ideal time for puppy raising.

So, there you have it. A very long-winded explanation that nobody really asked for, but I hope it gives you some insight behind the decisions I've made.

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elstine-harboson · 6 years

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How about some more history on cavalry. Pros/cons, costs to maintain, uses and formations, the whole nine yards. I'm a tad disappointed I don't see more people play them.

Man, I can’t tell if it’s the coffee or the question that has me so jittery.

So what I want to start out with is how absurd Calvary initially was. What a lot of people do not understand is that evolution is a thing - we have selectively bred horses much like we have with dogs; initially horses were tiny - though I don’t know the details of their size I’d estimate like, pony size basically. It was not fathomable for people to think “I should ride this thing into battle!”

That’s why you see chariots being such a big thing in ancient times and not simply calvary which would be cheaper and easier to maintain. Horses were strong and large enough to pull chariots using the power of the wheel, but not strong enough to carry a human directly on its back at full speed for long periods of time - and especially not with the orchestra composed by a battlefield.

There is several ideas of where the generally modern horse originated from; some say Mongolian Region, but I believe it most likely came from the Middle East - either from Egyptian Region to the Fertile Crescent, or Persian Region or Anatolia. It is my belief with my current understanding and knowledge of history that essentially Horses were used much like mules, as pack animals. As such Horses grew more domesticated with time, and got larger and stronger to increase weight.

“But Elstine why didn’t they just use camels.”

Camels are infamous ass holes, they’re like the sand version of a llama. If a camel doesn’t want to go anywhere, it won’t go, and if you take your eyes off it, it’ll likely run away. Horses were easier to domesticate in comparison.

Anyway,

Generally speaking by the 4th Century BC, people were beginning to use light calvary, likely for raiding and scouting; reports suggest that ideally if combat became a thing calvary would dismount to fight or ride away rather than actively engaging on horseback, but that is also regional and of course not always the case. By this time Horses had been used as early as 5000BC in chariots, so Horses had a long time to grow domesticated, and get larger and stronger - in addition around the 4th century is when big innovations like stirrups and reins became relatively wide spread.

So, now there is this concept growing on tacticians, strategists, generals, kings… Horses are fast, fast is important. And bangboom, here come the calvary - literally. Horse-bound warriors became wide spread at this point, from Greece to Asia and beyond.

Now, this is more speculation, theory, etc more than anything but from my understanding and research, while calvary became a big thing the east and west developed two different methods of using the calvary. In the west is was more common to use a Hammer and Anvil tactic; which involves a strong defensive front line used to hold the enemy in place while a calvary unit pulls around to the back of the enemy, acting as a hammer as they ride into the rear - devastating moral and opening gaps in the line.

In the east things seemed to be more different, while hammer and anvil were likely used it seems calvary were generally kept to raiding, poking, and proding, or preventing flanking by engaging the enemy calvary, or attacking archers. There’s many cases I have read where the infantry engage the enemy, essentially distracting them while the calvary charge past and go raid the enemy camp or fort, or cut off supply lines. Whether this is a primary strategy of the east or not, I cannot say for certain but the majority of my reading involved these strategies more often than the Hammer and Anvil strategy.

Now that we’re in the 4th and 5th century lets zoom over to the infant Roma just getting her flag planted in the fertile lands of Italia. A lot of people are quick to point out that Rome had Calvary, which in that general area was fairly rare. There were only a handful of germanic and celtic clans that had horse riders and those were typically exclusive to raiding as horses were largerly ineffective in the large forest of Gaul and Germania.

Now the Romans had the Equites; which essentially were Nobles and these were largerly infamous for being borderline useless most of the time until further in roman history. Equites being Nobles and Wealthy, they were typically just there to serve their military duty before beginning their Political Career, in Rome a Politician was required to be a Soldier for a period during the republic. So Equites did as little as possible and generally did not risk much, and generals did not use them to avoid risking angering the Nobility and Politicians back home who likely had sons in the Equites. So, these units did scouting missions and such, and occassionally did low risk flanking or chasing down routed enemies.

This remained the case for quite some time and calvary for several hundreds of years generally stayed the same with a few exceptions throughout the world. Generally it was light calvary, for a long time. With advances in armor however we began to see heavy calvary beginning to form, most calvary were made of Nobility if Wealthy individuals no matter what part of the world - and thus as Nobility grew wealthier and armor advances went forward you began to see heavier armored soldiers and even armored horses and camels, with specialized weaponry for calvary such as lances and smaller bows (I believe composite bows or recurve bows? I can’t recall.) to make calvary more devastating while risking less due to armor.

So now you begin to really see wrecking ball calvary with more formations designed for charging and breaking lines, rather than relying on infantry people were beginning to rely on calvary.

Lets skip ahead a bit to the now crumbling Roman Empire, you have the Huns who are infamous for their calvary, specifically their horse archers - and these lighter calvary are able to generally outrun the heavier calvary, and also flank around infantry that kinda forgot about light calvary since it was not nearly as big as it used to be. So like the Greeks before them, you have these stiff roman formations that find it hard to adapt to these quick, long range calvary that typically soften up the infantry, lowering their moral and exhausting them, and then you’d have a hunnic calvary charge to route them, following up with chasing down the survivors.

So Rome is over expanded, it can’t seem to train the Legions to fight between the infantry focused Germans to the Light Calvary focused Huns, to the Eastern Heavy Calvary, and it’s losing a lot of manpower. But a biiiig thing is that Rome is taking in Germanic and Celtic Mercenaries, teaching them warfare - including calvary. Now that Rome is falling apart, these German and Celtic Generals return home with new strategies and tactics, with knowledge of Rome’s forts, military strategies, their weak spots, and a general idea where the Legions are stationed and who are leading them.

We all know what happens next; Western Rome rips open and is swallowed up by hundreds of years of Germanic and Celtic suppression.

The Franks are a big name, primarly because they have a lasting country named after them - you might know it, France. But the Frankish King during Rome’s fall was actually allied to Rome, so the King had an idea about Roman Calvary and such. Which is important for the future.

So, West Rome is gone, Frankia is soldified and expanded. I could talk all day about Frankia and the other formes German and Celtic Kingdoms, but not today.

The idea of calvary sticks around and involves, armor gets better, weapons get better and the world enters into an arms race of weapons vs armor. Making weapons that can break armor and making armor that can resist weapons and still be able to move. Calvary is now such a big necessity in Europe and other parts of the world that large portions of infantry are now Pikemen, who have specialised weapons designed to destroy any charge calvary. Some Pikes even had hooks designed to snag calvary and pull them off their horses.

Now, I bet you can see the ages moving along. You got pikes, and you got calvary with most battles being about who’s calvary can outflanks who’s pikeman; but ideally armies would just avoid each other and siege down keeps and forts instead because combat was largerly a matter of luck, where the battle was, and who was leading - much less risk in starving our castles.

Now you get the great equaliser; gunpowder weapons.

Rifles, mortars, grenades, pistols, cannons, even primitive missiles.

Now a new arm race comes about because now you have a weapon that requires next to no training, so a peasant can shoot and killed a heavily armored Knight who has trained half his life to be a Knight and has spent a small fortune for his gear and horse.

(Note, rifles started off slow due to terrible accuracy, misfires, and malfunctions. By the time Europeans really began the era of pike and shot, rifles could pierce through plate armor, or at least kill/hurt a horse depending on the range, angle, and quality of armor.)

So now armor is forced to change and adapt, Knights began to use only helmets and thick chestplates where it was common to be shot. Maximizing their defences over their vitals rather than their limbs as death via rifle became more common than death via sword. It becomes a new game of min/maxing. Being as fast as possible with the most defense to get around the Pikes and get to the Rifleman. Very devastating warfare.

Now it was either Sweden or Prussia, I can’t recall which exaclty but one of the two actually introduced rifleman incorporated into the Pike Squares; making it nearly impossible to take out the rifleman unless with your own rifleman or cannons; but this meant you’d have to get in range of the enemy rifles to be able to shoot them - and you couldnt have infantryman of Pikes in front unless their was a hill, and you wanted to risk you infantrymen getting ripped to shreds from ideal rifle ranges…. But if you don’t put any infantry up there to guard your rifleman, they are exposed to calvary.

So calvary went from Heavy Chariots to Light Calvary, to Heavy Calvary, to Light Calvary, to Heavy Calvary again, and finally light calvary. By the 1800s and early 1900s, calvary rarely had armor, and were typically only ever used as they were originally intended; raiding, scouting, low risk flanking.

Fun fact, Poland actually used Calvary against Nazi Germany in World War 2; the last mass Calvary Charge.

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