Page 152 - Revista do Cavalo Árabe Edição Julho 2025 - Nº 84

A sport called

Endurance

You cannot help but notice the vital importance of the the relationship between man and horse. Written by William
horse throughout the course of human history. By taming Shakespeare (1564-1616) in the play King Richard III, spo-
them, man declared the accomplishment as important as the ken by King Richard III, it shows the misfortune of the King
control of fire and the invention of the wheel. The equines of England in the Battle of Bosworth in 1485. The troops of
provided more speed to human actions, in short, they mul- Count Richmond, who was trying to conquer the kingdom,
tiplied by an uncountable amount the ability of man to con- had surrounded the royal cavalry. An arrow hit Richard’s
quer nature and produce culture. horse, his favorite, and Richard was thrown to the ground.
The sagas, epics and myths that relate the conquests the The royal crown fell from his head and was caught in a bush.
human species dreamt of, ventured for and realized all had Richard screamed furiously: “A horse! A horse! My king-
the participation of the horse. No other animal is cited more dom for a horse!” He did not find another horse and he lost
in world literature than the horse. All books, philosophical, his kingdom to the Count of Richmond, who became the
religious, and moral literature from the Eastern and Western monarch Henry VII.
hemispheres portray the horse as a instrument of change, Currently mechanization and technological development
conquest and progress. have drastically reduced the space and importance of horses
Besides the horse being an important instrument in the in our society. They no longer have the same practical func-
conquests of human beings, an instinctive empathy grew be- tion; although the relationship cultivated thousands of years
tween them, to the point where many animals became as fa- ago still survives and the love and interest for horses appears
mous as their human protagonists. It is the case of the horses to be reoccurring with the human species.
like Bucephalus, of Alexander the Great in Macedonia; Inci- Practically all of the activities the horses performed up
tatus, of Caligula, nominated senator of the Roman Empire; until the Pre-Modern society were transformed into eques-
Marengo, Napoleon’s horse and many others. trian sports, preserving the emotional memories between
“A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!” Maybe man and horse, which reminds us of the original relation
this is the phrase that best demonstrates the dependence in between man and nature.

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