Hot-blooded horse
In the French language, the expression cheval à sang chaud (hot-blooded horse) comes from a class conflict between the bourgeoisie and the aristocracy, from the end of the 18th century.
The Polish aristocrat and orientalist Wenceslas Severin Rzewuski established a classification of horses by blood temperature in his notes from a trip to the Arabian Najd, from 1817 to 1819.
[4] The expression "hot-blooded",[5] which corresponds to French sang chaud, German warmblut and Spanish caballo de sangre /caliente,[6] comes from a classification of horse breeds by blood temperature established by the Polish orientalist Wenceslas Séverin Rzewuski at the beginning of the 19th century.
In particular, Bernadette Lizet points out the construction of the notion of sang sous la masse, invoked to describe lively draft horses, and "ennoble" them in the eyes of their buyers and users.
[20] [dubious – discuss] The Namib horse was described as hot-blooded, before a genetic study demonstrated its proximity to the Arabian.
Wenceslas Severin Rzewuskiv considered the "Najdi Kocheilan" as the "superior because primordial" hot-blooded horse, a creation of God and Nature.
[22] In 1978, Colonel Denis Bogros described the Arabian breed as "the first blood horse",[23] a view shared by Laetitia Bataille.
[24] The idea that all hot-blooded breeds come from Central Asia has been discussed, but the extensive and early genetic admixture between equine populations makes it impossible to distinguish genetically between hot-blooded and cold-blooded breeds, as both branches originated in the same geographical region,[10] Central Asia, corresponding to the region of horse domestication.
[13] The Haras Nationaux Français (French national stud farms) called upon agronomy for the "improvement" of equine breeds.
[30] The American export market was a determining factor in the triumph of the notion of "blood under the mace", used to describe the draft horse.
[31] Wenceslas Séverin Rzewuski was a Polish orientalist aristocrat and polyglot who went on an expedition to the Bedouins of the Arabian Najd from 1817 to 1819.
According to him, the breed "all blood and fire", the hottest, is that of the "Bedouin Najdi Kocheilan of the deserts of Schamalieh and Hediazet", with a temperature of 80 degrees.
[33] He then ranks, at 70 degrees, the Kocheilan and the Thoroughbred, which he calls "English horse of the high breed", or BloodHorse, in his notes.
[7] He naturally placed the horses that he imported and raised himself in his stud farms at the top of the blood classification that he had established.
[36] In Germany, at the same time, it was customary to distinguish the Warmblûtig (Edel), or noble hot-blooded horse, from the Englische vollblut (English Thoroughbred).
[2][42] Bernadette Lizet notes the emphasis on "dryness of the skeleton and musculature - the head especially, thin and tiny", and the "sobriety of the hair system".
In the latter discipline, hot-bloods can be an advantage in obtaining responsiveness from the mount, but a warmblood horse is generally not the most suitable.
[13] The meat of the Thoroughbred, and more generally of the "blood" horse, is presented as a butcher's ideal, with a more pronounced red color.
