Speed plus gait was an extremely desirable combination so the Romans (circa 43 AD to 410 AD) took hobby horses back to Italy for chariot races. Horses for chariot racing were bred from stock primarily from what is now Spain, Libya (northern Africa), and other areas. The training of Roman chariot racing started at age 5 and successful horses were know to race into their 20s.
As you can see by the Roman mosaics, chariot racing horses were much smaller than the horses we see in the movies. Some mosaics even depicted portraits of individual horses and their names. You can easily compare the more compact shapes of the hobby horses types versus the lighter boned horses from Spain and Africa.
So to be more historically accurate from an appearance point, some of the charioteers in Ben
Hur movies should be driving Icelandics representing the Hobby horse; and some, shorter Andalusians. Wouldn't that be a race to see?
No comments:
Post a Comment