Iberia up through the Moorish Invasion

The Celtiberians, as with most all Celtic peoples, stood for Freedom, with Individual and Gender Equality. Unfortunately, nobody else seemed to see things that way, creating continual territorial tyranny and bondage all around them. In order to preserve their own dignity, it became, from the very earliest times, necessary for the Celtiberians to be ferocious in defense. As the saying goes, they didn't start it, but they finished it.

With an innate knack for horses, they had realized the agility, intelligence, stamina, and faithfulness of their native stock. Knowing their horses' natural tendency to stand their ground or to advance in challenge in the face of danger, and taught by their horses' own evasive and onrushing actions, they devised an extremely raucous, lance-and-sword armed, horseback combat that usually scared off any would-be invaders. This was enhanced by their horses' natural ease of sweeping an adversary beneath them, using their forefeet to tear flesh and to crush bones, rolling them along without slowing their own stride.

These lightning-like, close combat maneuvers were not taught. Instead, the horses taught the warriors that these things will be done at need by the horses of their own accord if they are given full initiative. It is also essential to realize that lightning maneuvers must take place with the horse moving at high speed. A cat turning over in the air, a diver figure diving off the high board, and a horse changing directions in the air, all require quickness of movement, but also the natural laws of angular momentum which hurls the person or thing about in very predictable ways that are impossible when standing still or moving slowly.

By the time of the Roman invasion of the Iberian Peninsula, the Iberian cavalry art was also older than any that is known in the rest of the ancient world. The Iberian horsemen (and women), using horses guided with a bridle, fought the Roman infantry by lancing (throwing spears) from a distance, or charging in V shaped formation to break the Roman Square, defending themselves with swords and a little, round shield. The Iberians had the finest iron swords known in the Iron Age and were known as riders of frenzied horses. Their horses were called the EQUI-FRENATI by the Romans.

The Spanish horses made terrible adversaries for the Romans during these 200 years of war. This was especially enhanced by the quickness and skill of their riders, by the incessant guerrilla warfare, and by the Iberian superiority in single combat, using such swords as the Romans said "would slice through your shield, your armor, and your bones.".

“Do you mean you would follow a woman into battle?”asked the Roman Centurion as he swept his sword in whistling arc at his adversary.

“Oh, yes,” said the Celt, easily deflecting the Roman blade with his small, bull-hide shield. “And it's yourself that seems to be needin' his mother for protection right now.”

Though it must be remembered that horse people in every part of the world, in every age and time, throughout the past and throughout the present, will all cry out together that they “know good horse flesh when they see it,” it must still have been, that the Romans were learning a great deal about horsed warfare, and even more so concerning their notions of breeding, schooling, and otherwise using of horses.

This superiority of the Iberian Cavalry was so evident, through so many campaigns, that the Roman training finally adopted the Iberian system of combat. It took the name of Celtiberian tactics. So it was that, with victory in Iberia finally theirs, the Romans took Spanish horses to improve the running horses of North Africa because of their speed, manageability, and nerve. These qualities also made them preferred for running the circus (horse races) in Rome itself.

Virgil says in his poetic form of the Georgicas, which translates almost literally (into Spanish), that "in the country, good colts of the breed are known by their advancing with the head high and rump flexible; are always the first in moving forward; enter a river without being frightened; cross over a bridge with which they are not familiar; have no fear of the noise; carries the fine head well straight above (or on) the neck; bulge a little in the belly; (etc.)." (Portugal Dept. of Agriculture ....The Spanish Horse )

Varron says in his Book II, chap. 18 of Re Rustica: "The horse must be of median stature, neither large nor small; ... belly bulged; ... beautiful that all parts of the body would be proportional. From the colt can be divined how the horse will be; if it would have a head that is not large, members well constructed, ... strong mane, thick and dense, dark, waving, and of fine hair, inclined to the right side of the neck; ... strong arms, rounded ribs,... tail dense and thrust in (intruded, squeezed in), ... hooves hard, ... Being thus, it will be of good conditions when it is big." (Portugal Dept. of Agriculture. ....The Spanish Horse)

The Vandals overpowered the Romans and occupied Spain (409), setting up the, what turned out to be a short term, kingdom they called Vandalusia. Within 20 years, they were driven into North Africa by the Visigoths, taking with them huge numbers of Spanish horses. In North Africa the Vandals became the largest navel fleet in the Mediterranean. Under the leadership of Geiseric they captured the Western Roman province of Africa with its capital of Carthage in 440. As to the Moorish people who had lived in Northern Africa during that time, confined within the Vandal Domain, one of the effects left behind would surely have been the name of the Vandal realm, later corrupted into El Andalusia.

In Spain, the Visigoths, themselves, did not make the Roman civilization disappear. Horse breeding also continued as before because the Visigoth codes and the Roman laws both were in effect for the protection of agriculture, as well as the breeding of livestock and horses. In those times the Spanish horses were the world's best.

It seems useful here to clear up a substantial misunderstanding about the Moorish invasion. Spain, in the year 711, was already shredded and torn by the Visigoths' own internal struggles. The cry “¡Es Revolución!” was making its world debut and was in full sway. The Moors, in that same year, 711, crossed the straits, guided by some Arabian Chiefs and assisted by some of the Goths themselves. The passage of the Straits of Gibraltar was done with people from Morocco in a few boats, and taking very few horses - one hundred, to be exact.

It is plain to see that any legendary intervention of mounted Arabian troops was untrue - and the wave of riders purely a fable of the Christian chroniclers. Instead, the invaders were troops of foot soldiers, who right away overcame the first resistance. Preceded by light cavaliers, with mules for carrying their food and their few implements, they lanced like a whirlwind across Iberia on foot - to the conquest of Spain - with such speed that two years after they entered they were occupying all of the Peninsula (except Galatia.).

The light cavaliers, mounted Moroccan warriors, did not, however, use the horses they had brought with them from Morocco. At the moment of the Moorish invasion (711), Spain's cavalry horse supply was very much greater in number, and of better quality than that of the Moors. The Moors, sensibly, re-outfitted themselves with the horses of the defeated Visigoths right after the first battles. It needs also to be pointed out that the Arabian Nations never had their own cavalry, in spite of what has been frivolously written, nor, at the time of the conquest, would they have had time to raise enough horses for combat use - this conquest was over in two years.

In truth, the Arabian Nations never saw need of creating their own cavalry, evident from their previous practices, such as, many years before, when they marched over Algeria and Morocco, using an extraordinary advance of foot soldiers. The Arabian horse was, nonetheless, superb for hit and run tactics.

During the centuries following the Moorish invasion came incessant wars of reconquest, the taking back of lost territory. The Spanish Christians fought against the Spanish Moors using Spanish horses against Spanish horses.

The Christians eventually won. Yet, throughout all the conflict, and beyond, the Spanish horse was kept uncrossed, because he was considered, as he was in fact, during the ancient era, and all through the middle ages right up to the beginning of the 19th century, the best horse of war and of service for traveling; the deluxe class of all that existed.

[Barb horses could not have changed the Spanish horse into an Arabian. First, because the Barb horse was not Arabian. Second, because it was only very much later that the Barb horse was even somewhat Arabianized. That is to say, during the Turkish occupation of North Africa after the 16th century AD.

Modern instances of importations of Barb stallions have confirmed that these are not superior to the Spanish horses, the while that the Spanish have often taken their stallions to Morocco. It can be seen from the foregoing, that the depth of quality of the Spanish Mustangs, with their adaptability to the ambient American wilds, comes to them only from the Iberian basis, from animals well adapted to grazing, without necessity of outside infusion of Barb or Arab.]

Time Segment One - Ancient Emergence
Time Segment Two - Iberia up through the Moorish Invasion
Time Segment Three - During the Middle Ages
Time Segment Four - Coming to the New World
Time Segment Five - Indian Ponies
Time Segment Six - Anglo Settlement and Westward Expansion

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