"Musicians on Grey Horses" Topic

Does anyone know when the practice of mounting musicians on grey horses started?

For no particular reason, I seem to recall that the practice became common as "regular" armies began to form in the mid-17th Century. BTW, the thought was that lighter colored horses were weaker and less durable, which ought to tell you where the Scots Greys stood in the supply chain.

I have heard that this dated back to medieval times when cavalry trumpeters were considered non-combatants, but have no firm reference on this

Plus there in Austrian and Saxon service as I recall the trumpeters were mounted on dark coloured horses – and for the Prussian hussars each regiment had a "traditional" colour for the trumpeter's horse

I do not know when the practice started, but I do know that the musicians and in the cavalry, the horses they rode were frequently often paid for by the colonel of the regiment as a point of pride and vanity. In my own collection I always observe this, and have the musicians mounted on white or light grey horses.

Kipling in his "The Route of the White Hussars" from his
"Plain tales from the Hills" notes that the regimental drum horse has no other function than to stand around and look good. It's a hilarious tale and once you read it I am sure you will become hooked on making them the most handsome of all.

Of course that's easy when you do Imagi-Nations. In the personal guard hussar unit of the Princess Trixie of Saxe Burlap und Schleswig-Beerstein (nicknamed "The Hell's Belles) the regimental musicians, trumpeter, guidon, and "HJanitschar-one man band" figure are on white horses and the last is on a white unicorn.

Otto

It is a little known fact, and totally irrelevant to this thread – that the name "The Scots Greys" has nothing to do with the greys on which they were later mounted. The origin of the name is the colour of the coats they wore when first raised by Dalyell…

Chokidar: correct. But the color itself indicates where they stood in the supply chain.

I thought they ran their own stables

@ Chokidar; They probably also rode a lot of grey horses; the "garrons" of Scotland being largely in that colour. The Garrons were stocky, shaggy, sturdy horses ideal for their original role as dragoons!

Actually, regimental tradition and contemp documentation as I recall, has the regiment's first supply of grey horses coming from those handed over from the Dutch Gardes du Corps when the latter left England in 1693-94. As might be expected, they seem to have been very fine animals, as the regiment is recorded by observers in the late 1690s and early 1700s as mounted more like Horse than Dragoons. If the Dutch story is true, the regiment would still have to have supplemented its gift horses with other purchases, as the GdC was only a single large squadron strong. But wherever they came from, the regiment was extremely well mounted from the 1690s onwards.

So: do you put your TYW musicians on greys or not?