Justin Morgan is the only American horse
ever to sire a distinctive breed. A bay stallion foaled in about 1793, he
belonged to Justin Morgan (1747-1798), a Vermont schoolteacher. The horse
bearing Morgan's name was probably a blend of thoroughbred and Arabian,
fairly small at fourteen hands high and weighing eight hundred pounds.
Morgan, an aspiring musician, bought his colt in Massachusetts, naming him
Figure and training him so well that he won trotting races against much
larger thoroughbreds. Eventually with success, Figure came to be called
after his master. After his owner died, Justin Morgan was bought and sold
many times in the twenty-eight years of his life. One of those unusual
horses whose dominant traits persist despite centuries of inbreeding, his
individual characteristics remain essentially unchanged in the Morgan
breed of horses he sired. Morgans are still compact, virile horses noted
for their intelligence, docility and longevity and many of them are still
active when thirty years of age or more. Heavy-shouldered, with a short
neck but delicate head, they are noted for their airy carriage and
naturally pure gait and speed. Morgans were long the favorite breed for
American trotters until the Hambletonian strain replaced them.