Museum of Agriculture and Hungarian Horse Breeding

The morning of our first complete day in Budapest was noted by a trip to the beautiful grounds of the Hungary Museum of Agriculture. As part of this visit we received a tour of their Hungarian equestrian history exhibit. Amongst other information we were given, was the military importance and necessity of horse culture in the development of the Hungarian people. For example, the Magyars, the personal identity of the Hungarians were a people originating from the many mongol-like horse warriors of the Asian steppes.

Surprisingly however, the methods of horse warfare, including the unique skill of horseback bowmanship developed totally separately from the infamous mongols. Because of their superior use of the horse, the Hungarians thrived as a peoples with a noted cornerstone of their military continuing to be an effective force behind their light cavalry 'Hussars'. Unfortunately for the Hungarian people, the methods of war changed and horse warfare became obselete. The outdated use of the horse ended up leading to greater accomplishments for Hungarian horse breeding, including the growth of Hungarian agriculture, the creation of new carriages such as the 'Coach' (named after the Hungarian town in which it was created) and world class horse racing like Kincsem who holds the record for most victories while remaining undefeated.