Two museums at war over head of Old Baldy

PHILADELPHIA -- In his years as the trusted war horse of Gen. George Meade, Old Baldy fought for the Union in bloody battles from Antietam to Gettysburg. More than a century later, he's in the middle of a court battle waged by a pair of small Philadelphia-based Civil War museums, both of which claim that the head of the hero horse is theirs.

Sure is an ugly mug on this horse, although that may be due to the limitations of the taxidermy of the time rather than his original appearance:

Even in his original state, he was no looker:

I think it's fair to describe him as a "plug" - REALLY ugly head, ewe neck, overlong back, too light through the barrel. Overall he's just too rangy and leggy - looks more like a harness horse than a saddle horse. But to be absolutely fair his legs look clean and his hindquarters are o.k. though somewhat flat. And his history shows that he was DURABLE at any rate.

Just for comparison's sake, here's a much better looking saddle horse:

:-D

Now I'm not a horse guy could tell a good one from a bad one if my life depended on it. :-)
BUT
Legend has it that Old Baldy was wounded 14 times but returned to battle time and again. The horse was said to have taken a bullet to the lung at Gettysburg, and was shot in the neck and left for dead at Antietam -- only to turn up grazing in a field a few days later.
Maybe not goodlooking but damn tough.

As I said, he was a durable character. Just too mean to die, probably (a lot of those big-headed horses with Roman noses are very stubborn). (He did not recover sufficiently from his wound at Gettysburg to return to the war, and was sent home to light duty.)

While whether a horse is "good looking" (or more properly has correct conformation) sounds like mere window dressing, as a matter of fact a horse's shape can directly affect his performance. Whenever you buy a horse you're rolling the dice, so to speak, and a horse that is put together well is less likely to have physical problems than a horse that has faults. I would have expected Old Baldy to have a lot of problems with a sore back - although Meade doesn't look as if he rode very heavy.

Of course, there are always exceptions. Seabiscuit and even more so Exterminator are examples of horses that won races even though they were both REALLY ugly - especially for Thoroughbreds. And there is a Trakehner mare in our barn who is so pigeontoed that the tips of her front hooves point directly at each other - but it doesn't seem to affect her in any way (she does however have a canter like an out-of-balance Maytag, but I don't think it's due to her feet.)

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