Historical Research: Horses

Almost fifty years after the publication of Mansfield Park, Queen Victoria’s physician prescribed her fresh air and exercise by means of horseback riding. This began a long and intimate relationship between the queen and her groom (who was later promoted to be her personal attendant). Gina Dorre, the author of Victorian Fiction and the Cult of the Horse, attributes part of the scandal that arose in court to the “provocative collusion of gender and class issues that the horse [engendered] in the nineteenth century” (Dorre 3).

Both before and after the creation of the railroad, the horse was important to English society. It was the main power behind transportation, whether by horseback or by some kind of horse drawn carriage. It, as well as the dog, was considered among the most noble of animals. Representing nobility and aristocratic values, the horse ennobled humanity by its servitude to an even more noble creature, man. The kind of horse was tailored to the kind of work it was required to do. As a noble beast, the horse and his relationship to man came to illustrate the model relationship between man and compliant servant. By opening acknowledging masterly superiority, the horse set an example among animals for men to follow.

Practically it was very expensive to keep a horse. Stabling, feeding, and maintaining horses was reserved for people with capital, which explains its early associations with aristocracy and landed wealth. Horse racing was very popular in the nineteenth century, more for the gambling aspect than for love of the animal. Women could ride horses, but horses were always initially associated with the masculine. On one hand, horses were seen (as in the Queen Victoria story) as ideal for exercise and fresh air. On the other hand, it took women from their culturally assigned place in the home and away from the idea of the passive, meek, non-physical angel in the home. Exemplary horse qualities were also involved in discourses of female desirability throughout the nineteenth century, including posture, gait, breeding, class standing, and disposition. From these traits, monetary market value was determined in the respective marketplaces, for the horse, in the literal marketplace and for the woman, in the marriage market.