Presidents and Horses

**President Taft mounted long enough for a photograph.**

**President Taft in a carriage.**

We are all familiar with the names of the various Presidents of the United States. Some people might even recall the names of a few dogs associated with presidents, but do you know the names of horses associated with presidents? In this section I am listing a few of the better known historical presidential horses and their masters. In addition to those horses ridden astride, up to the early 20th century presidents would have had a coach and also traveled in ones borrowed during presidential visits outside of Washington. On September 3, 1902 a borrowed, open carriage containing President Theodore Roosevelt was hit by a trolley car in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Roosevelt was ejected and thrown to the ground but survived. One of his bodyguards was killed in the accident.

Motorcars soon replaced the presidential coach and coach horses as the White House was modernized. This occurred during the term of William Howard Taft, the 27th president of the United States. However, this is not solely a story of modernization. The problem was that Taft was a huge man and goes down in history as the only president to have been stuck in the White House bathtub. I am uncertain if history records exactly how he got out of that fix. It was a real problem finding a horse large enough to support Taft’s tremendous bulk. History also tells us that Taft was thrown by one of the horses that he attempted to ride shortly before it was decided to replace horses at the White House. It is quite possible that this was a deciding factor in the decision to replace the White House horses and coach. Taft had such a reputation of having problems with horses and vice versa that when he was Governor-General of the Philippines and the press reported that he had gone for a 25-mile horseback ride, Elihu Root, a good friend and then Secretary of War sent him a cable, "How is the horse?”

Although they they are interesting, and would have been quite elegant animals, I will not discuss White House coach horses. It seems that those horses that were ridden astride are best remembered by history and will be my focus.

Yours truly,
The Accidental Horseman.
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