Horses in Jamaica
Although Jamaica was still mentioned as a breeding ground in the 19th century, horses have become much rarer in modern times due to modernised transport, with around 4,000 head recorded in 2017.
[3][4] The Monarchy of Spain lost some interest in Jamaica as it became clear that the island held no gold; nevertheless, it remains valuable as a base for preparing expeditions and conquests, and for its abundance of horses.
[3][4] The various unsuccessful expeditions sent by Francisco de Garay to Central America during the 1520s always included lancers mounted on horses born in Jamaica.
[3][6] The capitulations signed by Joanna the Mad in favor of Francisco Pizarro's invasion of Peru in 1529 mention the dispatch of 25 mares and the same number of stallions from the island.
[3][6] Three months after the creation of the Veracruz colony (now Mexico), Hernán Cortés received a seal brown Jamaican stallion named "El Romo" ("The Roman") from a ship sailing from Cuba and led by one of his friends.
[7] A week later, another, less friendly ship was captured by Cortés' troops, who appropriated its cargo of a dozen Jamaican horses, including the black stallion he would ride all the way to Honduras, Morcillo (or "El Morzillo" according to other sources).
[3] In any case, large herds of semi-wild horses (cimarrones) never developed in Jamaica, unlike on the neighbouring islands of Hispaniola and Puerto Rico.
[3][6] During the English conquest of Jamaica in 1670, mention is made of the presence of horses and donkeys in the savannahs, which the new conquerors report having hunted down "like vermin".
[3] According to Deb Bennett, the English despised the horses bred by the Spanish, and later imported their own breeds to the island: Yorkshire Carrossiers for pulling carriages, Hobbies for saddling and Thoroughbreds a little later.
[6] But a new war broke out between England and Spain, and it was against this backdrop that Admiral Edward Vernon embarked Jamaican volunteer cavalrymen and their horses in January 1741.
[10] It was common for wealthy whites to visit each other, the men riding while the women rode in carriages pulled by four horses, themselves driven by postilions in luxurious clothes.
[11] The local use of the horse as a draft animal probably came as a surprise to the newly arrived African slaves, as this use was unknown in sub-Saharan Africa at the time.
[17] One of these, which author Philip D. Morgan considers representative of Anglo-American slave thinking at the time, comes from a certain Hector McNeil, in 1788: A negro has more idea of the good of liberty, sir, than your horse.
[25] Professor Louis Grant of the University of the West Indies (Mona campus) established a quarantine on the movements of horses, donkeys and mules in the region.
[25] In the 1960s and 1970s, a general impoverishment of the Jamaican people, coupled with capital flight, led to a decline in Thoroughbred racehorse breeding.
[26] In 1959, a portion of Caymanas, a former sugar plantation west of Kingston, was purchased to become the country's main racecourse, a status it retains to this day.
Polo player Thomas Francis Dale described it as "a racehorse in miniature", with a distinguished head and expressive intelligence.
[32] Colonel Charles Hamilton Smith describes these local horses as lighter and smaller than English Thoroughbreds, but noble, elegant and fast.
[24] For Cabrera, this rather small horse is the result of cross-breeding between the surviving Spanish stock and the animals brought over by the English.
