Talk:Morgan horse/Archive 1

Types

Types: I know there is one official breed standard. But in truth, the breed has diverged a bit in type. A park horse type would be no good for eventing, dressage, or show jumping (and there are Morgans that do well in these disciplines), just as the classic type would not be a good park horse. I think this is important information to mention. Just like the Quarter Horse: it has a racing type and a stock type, but there aren't two breed standards for it (that I know of, at least). Not trying to say one type if better than the other, just that they exist.

New Image?

Hi. I'm not sure why the new image is a better image than the one that was there before. It doesn't show the horse as well, contains extra text that obscures the image, and it's unclear where it comes from (did you make it? did it come from someplace else?). In general I'd like to suggest that the previous image was better suited to an encylopedia style format. Jessamyn 02:48, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Links to individual farms are inappropriate

Hi, given the literally 1000s of Morgan Horse farms, it is inappropriate to link any individual farms.

I wold tend to agree, it's much simpler to link to professional organizations and let them link to individual farms. There is one breeder who has replaced the article image with one essentially anouncing a new colt she has for sale which I removed and replaced with a more generic (though admittedly not as catching) image. I'll try to do some revisions of the Extended links section in the future. Jessamyn (talk) 16:03, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

We need a better picture!

Hi there,

I am the breeder who added the new picture. We need something more attractive than what is there now, for sure! My posting the picture was an attempt at that. I do not care if all references to my farm are removed from the picture- just please get something more attractive up here to represent our breed! Thanks, mimimorgan

hi mimimorgan, I think that would be a great idea. If you have any more casual photos around, I think they'd be appropriate. I'll look through some sources I have here as well. i agree, this picture isn't the best. Jessamyn (talk) 00:44, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

I added the picture back

...minus the photo credit to me or the horse's names in the jpg info. I am interested how you knew that the colt was for sale at all since that info was not included with the original picture info? There was no link to my farm website or anything.

There is a link to your farm website in the External links section. The image you included is the main image on your website [1]. I've resized the image for now, but will try to find an image that does not represent a particular breeder. Even though I see there is no obvious link, it's still a less than perfect way of solving the image problem and the lossiness of the picture makes it not the best choice for a long term illustration for the article since it doesn't reproduce well at high resolution. Jessamyn (talk) 11:19, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

I understand that you are attempting to make the article conform to Wiki stylistic conventions, but it still seems rather presumptuous of you to 'take over' the Morgan horse topic when there are actual owners and breeders attempting to correct your mistakes. Have you ever even SEEN a Morgan in the flesh?!

I'm not sure if this comment is referring to my changes or the re-adding of the photo originally. I'm trying to make the article encyclopedic, have a good illustration of the breed, and a photo that reproduces well at large sizes. I added some topical information to the article at one time, but nothing besides some factual local information. I usually work on Vermont topics for Wikipedia. It's important that Wikipedia articles not be promotional vehicles for specific breeders or owners and this was my concern with the image that was being used as it was originally captioned. There was a great image used previously, another mother and foal image, but it was removed because of possible copyright violations. You can sign your comments using four tildes like this ~~~~ and if you're logged in it will sign your name after your comment. If you start your response with a colon, it will indent your reply so it is more obvious who or what you are replying to. Jessamyn (talk) 01:56, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Hi Jessamyn,

The image is the same one used on my website AT THE MOMENT; however I change the website every month or so, so it won't be the main image there for long :-) I am not sure why the image wouldn't reproduce well as it was taken at the highest resolution on my camera. Mimimorgan

Pictures needed?

Hi, thanks for all your hard work on this Morgan Horse page. The Morgan breed is such an important one and I'm very happy that wikipedia has such an extensive article about these magnificent horses. I'm posting this message in response to the discussion over pictures. I have many pictures of my Morgan who is one of only two (that I'm aware of) Morgans to ever compete at the Advanced level of eventing - the highest there is. Many photos were taken by my family so copyrighting isn't an issue. I have standing pictures as well as ones of him in action, and the size of the obstacles certainly demonstrates the breed's amazing versatility. He and I are both retired now too, so there are no issues of self-promotion and credits wouldn't be necessary. My only interest is in people being able to realize how truly wonderful these horses are, and I'm happy to offer my photos if they would help at all. I don't have a website or anything, thought there may still be a photo of him posted on the American Morgan Horse website. I do have a scanner, so please let me know if I can help and how to send or post pictures.

Pictures

Only a suggestion, but especially considering the emphasis placed on the versatility of the morgan breed, I think it would be great to have several pictures for all of the different "types" of Morgans. I think in this case a picture speaks a thousand words.

Such as a world champion:

in-Hand Horse, lippit (for the classic type), english horse, western horse, hunter horse, eventing horse, etc. (I probably missed something important!)

What do you think?

Pictures and PLEASE SIGN YOUR POSTS!!!

People, you are supposed to sign your posts. Use four tildes (~) and your name automatically goes in.

That said, go to Wikipedia commons and see what kinds of pictures they have of Morgans. If it's like other horse breeds, there isn't much to choose from. The tricky thing is getting the images you want that are either in the public domain or released under a license acceptable to Wikipedia (see "Help-->Images" for explanations of all this).

My point is, please stop whining about pictures and go find some. If there aren't any good ones, go out and either take some or ask your friends or other people if they would consent to have images released to wikipedia and other sources. Then when you have them, put links to them here--or BE BOLD and just add them to the article in appropriate places!

AND sign your posts! Montanabw 23:25, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

If any of you have a digital camera you can take a picture of a nice Morgan and post it to the Commons. It's easy to do if it's your picture because you are the one who has the copyright, and you can easily do the copyright release stuff just by choosing the proper category from a pull-down menu. P0M 06:00, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Looks like someone found a nice one, the photo of the chestnut that is there now is a very nice, natural-looking Morgan, IMHO. Montanabw

Can we give up the fairy tale about his origins already?!

The story that Justin Morgan was an accidental happening of unknown parentage is not true. The family of Justin Morgan the man, and he himself, were known as horse breeders and "stallioneers", and the family owned and bred some of the close-up ancestors of Justin Morgan the horse. The small unknown stallion story came about as the result of a couple of children's fictional stories written in the 1900s. The most famous was Marguerite Henry's Justin Morgan Had A Horse. From then on, the unknown bay pony story has been repeated over and over again by adults, including later authors, as if it was the truth. For one thing, he was not small, since the various ads in the late 1700s newspapers for him at stud gave his height as being 15.2 and 15.3. He was small compared to the "Great Horses" draft breeds of England and Europe, but not compared to the other blooded horses around. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.54.2.54 (talk) 22:29, 27 January 2007 (UTC).

Well, about his size: All the listings of 15.2 or 15.3 come from advertisements by a single owner, advertising him at stud that season. Everything else gives the 14.2-14.3 size. And, even now, it's not unknown for a horse owner to stretch the truth a bit in his ads! T-bonham 08:12, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Um, yeah, my favorites are the local want ads for horses that are "15.5" LOL! Read Craigslist for fun sometime! Oh, and on the "great horse" breeds, they were a lot shorter then than they are now. (See Horses in the Middle Ages. Remember the Henry VIII decree was for horses above "15 handfuls", which isn't all that huge by modern standards, but threw English breeders into a panic. (Of course, you look at Henry VIII and can see why he wanted a big horse! LOL again!) Montanabw^(talk) 16:41, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, why don't we just come out with the truth: Figure was a miracle, a divine intervention by God, to create the perfect breed of horse.  :) T-bonham 10:27, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Oh this isn't bad, just watch the Arabian and the Andalusian and the Akhal-Teke people get into it about whose breed of horse really WAS created by God, or at least is pure from the original wild prototype first tamed by humanity! LOL! Actually, if people would just use citations and proper footnotes in the article here and just fix the problems, it would actually make the whole controversy fade, amazing how verifiable sources do that. That said, I am not the one with the time to do it right now. Too busy chasing vandals and patrolling all the somewhat useless one sentence horse breed "articles" that have been created recently. Montanabw 16:27, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Oh, yeah! I had an old Arab breeder friend (Horseman of the Year once) who you could always get excited if you said "purebred Morgan" -- he would go into a long spiel about how the Arabian was the only pure breed, that could trace its ancestry way back in history; none of the other breeds could ever be purebred. It could be real fun to set him off about this topic -- best part is that he knew we were leading him on, but he just couldn't resist! T-bonham 08:20, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I have noted that the Andalusian and Friesian people also make similar claims of purity dating to the dawn of recorded time. (I know this because the Andalusian people periodically vandalize the Arabian article, horrors that their breed has one single drop of Arabian blood, even though it was DOCUMENTED by the Carthusian monks in the 1400s and they imported about five Arabian stallions in the late 1800s!) All the old breeds claim they have the pure descendants from the original wild prototype, which, for any breed is, um, horse pucky. (I am an Arabian owner, I can say this. My history background trumps my emotional attachment!) What we DO have is documentation. They only started keeping written pedigrees and defining "breeds" as we know them today around AD 1300. They also did a great study of mDNA on Barbs and Andalusians which conclusively demonstrated that the two breeds were crossed at some point in history and each influenced the other. To that extent, the Arabian and the Andalusian CAN claim roots that far back, (and both prototypes existed without written pedigrees for probably a few hundred years prior...Arabians to around 800, and Andalusians back to at least the same period is pretty easy to document by looking at paintings of battles and such where the two distinct types of horses faced off against each other).

OTOH the Morgan can only claim roots since the time of Justin Morgan. By that standard, the Morgan, like the Throughbred, can claim one of the older verifiable lines of ancestry, which really is what we now say defines a "breed" by modern standards. It certainly has a better claim to that status than, say, the "American Warmblood," which I think is registry that says, "send us 50 bucks and you have a registered horse!" (LOL) Ah, but I rant. Montanabw^(talk) 16:38, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Breed characteristics

It may be because of dwindling brain cells, but my memory suggests that the Morgan breed is known for their unflappable spirit, a trait that (along with their light draft traits) makes them ideal for police horses used in crowd control. (Or maybe that's just what I think because my part-Morgan was spirited yet unflappable in the extreme.) If there are such characteristics recorded in citable materials it would be useful information to add to the article. One of my old books notes such characteristics as: great strength, unsurpassed endurance, indomitable spirit, patient, trustworthy, of eager movement in harness.... It also mentions that they were the cavalry mount of choice for many fine soldiers, which suggests to me that they probably didn't spook easily. P0M 06:27, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Justin Morgan and Figure

I was bold and created a new article, titled Figure (horse) and moved most of the Justin Morgan material into it, leaving a summary. Also noted that there is an article on Justin Morgan (the person) that wasn't linked in this article. So added some links. Also created a new category "Category:Morgan horses" should there be suitable articles to put there. Montanabw^(talk) 18:25, 17 August 2007 (UTC)