Riderless horse
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The riderless horse or caparisoned horse (in reference to its ornamental coverings, which have a detailed protocol all to themselves) is the single riderless horse with boots reversed in the stirrups that follows the caisson carrying the casket in a funeral procession.
The custom is believed to date back to the time of Genghis Khan, when a horse was sacrificed to serve the fallen warrior in the next world. The caparisoned horse later came to symbolize a warrior who would ride no more. Others suggest that this tradition hailed from over a thousand years before Genghis Khan, when the Afghan people represented the Buddha as a riderless horse.[1]
In the United States, the caparisoned horse is part of the military honors given to an Army or Marine Corps officer who was a colonel or above; this includes the President, by virtue of having been the nation's military commander in chief and the Secretary of Defense, having overseen the armed forces. Abraham Lincoln, who was killed in 1865, was the first U.S. president to be honored with a caparisoned horse at his funeral. Traditionally, simple black riding boots are reversed in the stirrups to represent a fallen leader looking back on his troops for the last time.
[edit] Black Jack
The most famous riderless horse was "Black Jack," a half-Morgan named for General of the Armies John "Black Jack" Pershing. Black Jack took part in the state funerals of Presidents John F. Kennedy (1963), Herbert Hoover, (1964), and Lyndon Johnson (1973), and General of the Army Douglas MacArthur (1964).
Black Jack, foaled January 19, 1947, and coming to Ft. Myer from Fort Reno, Oklahoma, on November 22nd, 1952. Black Jack was the last of the Quartermaster-issue horses branded with the Armies U.S. brand (on the left shoulder} and his Army serial number 2V56 (on the left side of his neck).
Black Jack ended his dedicated, dignified military career on February 6, 1976, and was buried on the parade ground of Fort Myer's Summerall Field.
[edit] Sergeant York
"Sergeant York" was formerly known as "Allaboard Jules", a racing standardbred gelding. He was renamed when he was accepted into the military in 1997. He served as the riderless horse in President Ronald Reagan's funeral procession, walking behind the caisson bearing Reagan's flag-draped casket.
He was foaled in 1991, sired by Royce and out of the mare Amtrak Collins sired by Computer. He is a descendant of the great standardbred racing stallions Albatross, Tar Heel and Adios.
