Inscription: They carried the men who made Texas
Presented to the People of Texas by Ralph Rogers Ogden and Ethel Ogden
Alec Phimister Proctor, Sculptor MCMXLVIII
(Southwest Panel) These horses bore Spanish explorers across two continents. They brought to the Plains Indians the age of horse culture. Texas cowboys rode them to extend the ranching occupation clear to the plains of Alberta. Spanish horse, Texas Cow Pony, and Mustang were all one in those times when, as sayings went, a man was no better than his horse, and a man on foot was no man at all. Like the Longhorn, the Mustang had been virtually bred out of existence. But the Mustang horses will always symbolize Western Frontiers, long trails of Longhorn Herds, seas of Pristine Grass, and men riding free in a free land.
(Northwest Panel) "Immense herds of Wild Horses," Stephen F. Austin marked across vacant spaces on his map of Texas, 1829. The horse of history was not native to the western hemisphere. "Mestenas"-whence Mustangs- were the escaped descendents of horses brought to America by the Spaniards. "Next to God we owed our victory to the horses," wrote the chronicler of the conquest of Mexico. Before the 18th century was far advanced, bands of Mustangs were ranging over Texas and the Northern Plains, wilder than deer, and as free as the eagles. Under saddle, they showed rawhide hardihood. They had cow sense as well as horse sense.
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