Missouri Saddle Horse Breeders' Association. 507 



easily seen. Many great horses were produced during this time 

 and some of the great horses which lived at the beginning of this 

 period of depression managed to survive. Breeding operations 

 were curtailed to some extent and the horse business in general 

 did not flourish as it had in earlier days. 



Following upon the heels of the financial depression came 

 the invasion of America by the automobile. This unquestion- 

 ably served as an opiate in the horse market and the lack of 

 demand in turn led to a decreased production. As the auto- 

 mobile has come to be a part of our business life and our pleas- 

 ure, conditions have become adjusted to each other and saddle 

 horse breeders and dealers have found an excellent business 

 growing up about them during the past four or five years. 



The history of present-day Missouri horses and Missouri 

 horsemen covers a part of the lives of many of the State's fore- 

 most men. Great progress has been made in breeding opera- 

 tions and market demands are better understood now than ever 

 before. 



THE FOUNDATION OF THE PRESENT SADDLE HORSE 

 INDUSTRY OF MISSOURI. 



(Rufus Jackson in bulletin, "The Missouri Saddle Horse," issued by Missouri State Board 



of Agriculture October. 1913.) 



The saddle horse industry of Missouri is an inheritance from 

 an ancestry that in the early days came from Kentucky, Ten- 

 nessee and Virginia. Saddle horses were then a necessity, as 

 they furnished the only means of travel through the densely 

 wooded valleys and the high rolling prairies of the early Mis- 

 souri. Missouri owes much to the saddle horse. Not alone for 

 the great reputation his production has made for the State in the 

 present age, but the State's early settlement was made possible 

 by the saddle-horse as a means of locomotion. 



This article is to deal with the history of the early-day Mis- 

 souri saddle horse. It will not be complete. The lack of rec- 

 ords make it an impossibility to compile such information in a 

 manner that could be called complete. The matter set forth 

 herein is largely gleaned from personal information. It is sub- 

 mitted for whatever good it might do. Perhaps it will attract 

 sufficient interest so that those who are personally informed may 

 be interested in furnishing data that will make a future article 

 of great historical value. 



