George Washington’s horse Nelson was already in retirement by the time Washington was president, according to Alabama Public Radio. But Nelson had earned his retirement as a warhorse — he was the horse Washington rode as he accepted the British resignation in Yorktown, Virginia, at the end of the Revolutionary War. After that day in 1781, Washington never rode Nelson again.
An avid horseman, Washington rode both for work (whether on the battlefield or surveying crops) and pleasure, according to George Washington’s Mount Vernon. He also loved fox hunting, a sport that is traditionally done on horseback with hounds. In fact, it was Washington’s passion for fox hunting that made him interested in breeding dogs, according to historian Heather Voight. He developed a new breed of American foxhound — crossing a large hound given to him by the Marquis de Lafayette with one of his own Virginia hounds — and wrote that his goal was to create “a superior dog, one that had speed, scent, and brains” (via Heather Voight).
