Hoofbeats Through History’s Post

Transcript

Hey, it's my grandma. We're doing a special segment here on MRI Tech TV, which you can find at mitechnews.com. We're with Mary Chris Foxworthy, and so she has come up with a book and a whole program that that she calls Hark. Follow my hoof beats. Let's talk about how this all came to be. Well, it all came to be because I first wrote a series of four children's books and they were all written in the first person by horses to try and get kids engaged with learning about world history. But I didn't have a way to market the books. I couldn't figure out how can I market these, What can I do? Suddenly had this amazing opportunity just fall in my lap last year. And I don't know if you've ever heard of Breyer model horses, but this is a Breyer model horse. And this is our horse. So Briar contacted us and said we'd like to make a model of your horse. And if you own horses, that's like winning the lottery. Every horse owner in the world would love to have their horse made into a Briar model. You've probably seen them Tractor Supply in different places. So once Briar did that, it was like, Oh my gosh, here's an opportunity for me to market the books because then they invited us to go to Briefest. Briefest is in Lexington, KY, Kentucky, and they have about 30,000 people attend Briar Fest. So I thought, ah, what I'll do is write an introductory book, a prequel book. So I wrote a book about the horse and his name is Hark and it's called Hark Follow My Hoof Beats. So this book was all about the evolution of the horse and all about how he came about because he's a Morgan horse. So he took the book down to Kentucky with us along with Hark, 30,000 people we had on the guest book at our stalls. We had 17 pages filled in the gifts book. Every state in the United States, China, Australia, Italy, they come from all over the world. People bought the books, they were all excited about them. We got lots of good reviews on Amazon, so that's how we got the ball rolling. That's such a cool story. I absolutely love that. So the first set of four books were all children's books. When you came up with this idea, was that also a children's book, or who was the audience you had in mind for that? Well, the audience that I had in mind was ideally children, because I was working for the Equine Heritage Institute in Florida as a research writer, and I'd written about 20 books for them. And I would go down there two or three times a year and brainstorm with the owner, Gloria Austin. And try and figure out, well, what should we write next? Well, one morning we had both watched the same TV show the night before. And it was one of those men on the street interviews. And they asked somebody who won the Civil War. And the person said England. And we kind of laughed about it. But then we thought, that's a bit disconcerting. And so did you know that only 15% of American 8th graders are proficient in in history and geography? So Glory and I got talking and said, well, what can we do? About that, and I said, what if I wrote children's books? But what if we wrote them in the first person? What if the horse is telling the story so that we engage kids and kids get a lot more interested because we're telling the books in the in the first person. So that's when the first book is called. Uh, no man to Romans. So it goes from the EEOC and epic until the fall of Rome. The second book is called Dark to Light and that's about the Middle Ages. And that book is written by our horse Tyson. He's also Morgan. The third book is about the Renaissance and the age of discovery. And that book is we have our Spanish horse. So we let him write that book because that's kind of kind of what he should talk about is the age of discovery. And the 4th and final book is called Muddy Roads to Men on the Moon. And that book is about modern times in industrial revolution and again. One of our horses wrote the book. So that's kind of how it all came about. And you know, when you think about it, you know, we've had horses for 6000 years, they've been domesticated for 6000 years and we've only had cars for a little over 100 years. So before, before we had the car, the horses were everything, trade, commerce, food, everything, you know. And then we talk in the book and heart follow my Hoof Beats, which is the prequel to these other four books. We talk about the evolution and how horses all came to be the way they look today. Because many years ago, course it didn't look like they, you know, thousands of years ago there were signs of a dog and they had toes, they didn't have hoofs. So we talk in the book all about the evolution and how the different breeze came about. For instance, the the ****** horses, they had small agile horses because of their battle tactics. The ******* would ride on the horses sitting backwards and shooting their bows and arrows. So they had to have a very small agile horse to do that. In the Middle Ages people always Have you been to the Renaissance Festival? You ever been to the Renaissance Festival and see the guys? Houston on the giant horses. Well, horses weren't that big back then. Horses were only about 1514 to 15 hands. I mean, that's pretty small. That's a pretty small horse. So if you go to a museum and look at armor, you'll see that the armor for the men and the armor for the horses is equally small, not as big as what you see, you know, when you go to places like the Renaissance Festival. So in the book we talk about the the Middle Ages and the horses and what horses were like then and how they developed and how the sizes changed. Then when we get on into the the heart, follow my hope. Each book and we're talking more about different breeds get into, oh, the the horses during the Renaissance, what kind of horses did they have then in military, military battles and so on had changed. So they needed a different kind of horse. They needed a larger and faster horse. But again, there weren't any breeds. These were just types of horses. And it wasn't until after the Renaissance that breed started getting developed. And even in America, when the explorers brought the first horses to America, they were very small horses and they even made. Laws like in Pennsylvania and so on, because horses would just graze wildly out anywhere and they would breed by themselves. And so all these horses were way too small for America for the work that needed to be done. So they had laws saying that you couldn't let your stallion if he was under 14 hands graze on the public property for fear that, you know, this horse was going to breed in those small horse. So a lot of things that we don't think about, you know, and the how history was so affected by horses is what we wanted to address in these books and let children. Start enjoying about learning history through the eyes of a horse. It's been it's been fun watching the kids. They're powerful themes are woven throughout your heart. Follow my hoof beats. Simple thing is that, you know, the domestication of the horse is what changed the course of human history. You know, when you think about all the battles. I've recently been reading a series of books about the Napoleonic era. And when you read about the battles and how I always say in the books or the horse says in the book, but the guy with the better horse wins. And that's very much the truth. You know, the better horses, what was always winning the battles or the the place that had, you know, more horses, For instance, when you think of America in the 1920s. You think you're all driving around in cars. That's not true. In in the 1920's the horse population in America reached its peak at 25,000,000 horses. So, you know, you look at some of the older pictures. I have a picture of Marshall fields in the book and all lined up early in the morning in Chicago getting ready to make deliveries. There has to be about 100 horse wagons all lined up ready to make deliveries in the morning. They didn't have the Amazon guy, you know, and you probably didn't get it the you probably didn't get it two hours later in the afternoon, but the world. Revolved around horses and I think, you know, when kids read the books and they see it through the eyes of the horse and the books are full of pictures, absolutely full of pictures. And when they see history through the eyes of a horse, it starts to bring it to life. It starts to make it more interesting for the kids because you know, they see it a different way because it's the horse telling the story. You know, oftentimes when we go out and do our presentations with a horse and with the books it it's, it's just watching the smiles. I told my husband one time we've been showing horses. Or 45 years. I've never had more fun as we've had doing this with the books and to and taking our horse different places. Because to watch people smile, I don't have to worry about the judge looking at me and saying, oh, you're not first place today. This way. You know, we're always first place because everybody's always happy. So you know, when you watch how they're understanding history then. And the questions have really been a lot of fun too, the different questions that we get. Not to interrupt, but one of the things I read in the history book recently, I remember I saw it on The History Channel was in the 19th century, towards the end of the 19th century in London. There were 200,000 working horses in London. Yeah, you just don't think about that, you know. No, you don't. And that's that's where, you know, ASPCA got started too, because, you know, right now horses are used for pleasure and horses are fun. Back then, people didn't look at horses the way we look at them now. They were, they were beasts of burden. And the people were so concerned in London and that's where the SPCA was originally started was because of London. And also World War One, I don't know if a lot of people know this, but most of Europe did not have any horses when World War One broke out. And then the few horses. They did have were obliterated rather quickly. So they asked us here in America to send horses over because remember they didn't have tanks and all the things that, you know, we think about now. So we sent millions of horses to Europe during World War One and they even settled in their veterinary manuals. They said that the horse coming from America was by far better than anything they had in Europe. So when I often see people buying their importing horses from Europe and thinking and paying big money for them, I was thinking you're just buying our own horses. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, millions of horses, but people don't. You have a lot of hardware behind you, a lot of trophies, awards, lots of lots of great looking things. Is you mentioned showing horses earlier, is there a connection or can you talk about the backdrop you have there? Well, we have Morgan horses and the book Hark Follow my hoof beats. The last part of the book talks about Morgan's. So all those things behind us are from the Morgan Grand National. Those are World Championships and national championships and we are very blessed that we have had some wonderful. Courses throughout the years. Do you know anything about Morgan horses? I was just going to ask because I feel like I don't know. And if I don't know, maybe someone else out here in listener land doesn't know either. So please tell us. So Morgan horses or the official horse of the American Bicentennial, It is the only horse that has been descended from one horse. Every single Morgan horse can be traced back to a horse that was owned by a man named Justin Morgan and he received a horse and payment of a debt in 1789. And he was a music teacher, so he named the horse figure. But back then they didn't really name horses. He said that was Justin Morgan's horse. So that's why the horse became known as the Morgan horse. But that was so amazing about this horse that this man had was that it could do everything he could. He could pull logs out of the lumber cams. He could drive it down to church in the morning. He could use it to, you know, ride everywhere he had to go. He even there's even stories that he raced thoroughbreds that were imported from England. And the Morgan horse beat the horses and the races. There was a book written by Marguerite Henry Anna Disney movie many years ago called Justin Morgan had a horse. And it, it's an amazing story because all of us who own Morgan horses can trace our horse back to that one horse. And, and the traits and the characteristics of that horse here we are 200 years later are still the same. I mean, the, the, the horses have all of those capabilities that they had, you know, 200 years ago. Pretty cool story. Thanks for sharing. Thanks for sharing. And so I'm curious, what do you aim for readers to take away from the profound message and hark, follow my hoof beats? Well, the biggest thing that we want them to take away is that, you know, a love of history. So our goal is to get this in many hands as we possibly can. We want them to understand that how much domestication of the horse changed human history. And how does one reach out and contact? You get the book, any of those things through the website www. hoofbeatsthroughhistory.com.