HORSENS, a market town of Denmark, at the head of Horsens Fjord, on the east side of Jutland, 32 m. by rail S.W. of Aarhus, in the amt (county) of that name. Pop. (1901) 22,243. It is the junction of branch railways to Bryrup and to Törring inland, and to Juelsminde on the coast. The exports are chiefly bacon and butter; the imports, iron, yarn, coal and timber. The town is ancient; there is a disused convent church with tombs of the 17th century, and the Vor-Frelsers-Kirke has a carved pulpit of the same period. Horsens is the birthplace of the navigator Vitus Bering or Behring (1680), the Arctic explorer. To the north lies the picturesque lake district between Skanderborg and Silkeborg (see [Aarhus]).
HORSE-POWER. The device, frequently seen in farmyards, by which the power of a horse is utilized to drive threshing or other machinery, is sometimes described as a “horse-power,” but this term usually denotes the unit in which the performance of steam and other engines is expressed, and which is defined as the rate at which work is done when 33,000 ℔ are raised one foot in one minute. This value was adopted by James Watt as the result of experiments with strong dray-horses, but, as he was aware, it is in excess of what can be done by an average horse over a full day’s work. It is equal to 746 watts. On the metric system it is reckoned as 4500 kilogram-metres a minute, and the French cheval-vapeur is thus equal to 32,549 foot-pounds a minute, or 0.9863 of an English horse-power, or 736 watts. The “nominal horse-power” by which engines are sometimes rated is an arbitrary and obsolescent term of indefinite significance. An ordinary formula for obtaining it is 1⁄15.6D2 3√S for high-pressure engines, and 1⁄47D2 3√S for condensing engines, where D is the diameter of the piston in inches and S the length of the stroke in feet, though varying numbers are used for the divisor. The “indicated horse-power” of a reciprocating engine is given by ASPN/33,000, where A is the area of the piston in square inches, S the length of the stroke in feet, P the mean pressure on the piston in ℔ per sq. in., and N the number of effective strokes per minute, namely, one for each revolution of the crank shaft if the engine is single-acting, but twice as many if it is double-acting. The mean pressure P is ascertained from the diagram or “card” given by an indicator (see [Steam-Engine]). In turbine engines this method is inapplicable. A statement of indicated horse-power supplies a measure of the force acting in the cylinder of an engine, but the power available for doing external work off the crank-shaft is less than this by the amount absorbed in driving the engine itself. The useful residue, known as the “actual,” “effective” or “brake” horse-power, can be directly measured by a dynamometer (q.v.); it amounts to about 80% of the indicated horse-power for good condensing engines and about 85% for non-condensing engines, or perhaps a little more when the engines are of the largest sizes. When turbines, as often happens in land practice, are directly coupled to electrical generators, their horse-power can be deduced from the electrical output. When they are used for the propulsion of ships recourse is had to “torsion meters” which measure the amount of twist undergone by the propeller shafts while transmitting power. Two points are selected on the surface of the shaft at different positions along it, and the relative displacement which occurs between them round the shaft when power is being transmitted is determined either by electrical means, as in the Denny-Johnson torsion-meter, or optically, as in the Hopkinson-Thring and Bevis-Gibson instruments. The twist or surface-shear being proportional to the torque, the horse-power can be calculated if the modulus of rigidity of the steel employed is known or if the amount of twist corresponding to a given power has previously been ascertained by direct experiment on the shaft before it has been put in place.
HORSE-RACING. Probably the earliest instance of the use of horses in racing recorded in literature occurs in Il. xxiii. 212-650, where the various incidents of the chariot-race at the funeral games held in honour of Patroclus are detailed with much vividness. According to the ancient authorities the four-horse chariot-race was introduced into the Olympic games as early as the 23rd Olympiad; to this the race with mounted horses was added in the 33rd; while other variations (such as two-horse chariot-races, mule races, loose-horse races, special races for under-aged horses) were admitted at a still later period. Of the training and management of the Olympic race-horse we are left in ignorance; but it is known that the equestrian candidates were required to enter their names and send their horses to Elis at least thirty days before the celebration of the games commenced, and that the charioteers and riders, whether owners or proxies, went through a prescribed course of exercise during the intervening month. At all the other national games of Greece (Pythian, Isthmian, Nemean), as well as at many of the local festivals (the Athenian Olympia and Panathenaea), similar contests had a prominent place. Some indication of the extent to which the passion for horse-racing was indulged in at Athens, for example, about the time of Aristophanes may be obtained from the scene with which The Clouds opens; while it is a significant fact that the Boeotians termed one of the months of their year, corresponding to the Athenian Hecatombaeon, Hippodromius (“Horse-race month”; see Plutarch, Cam. 15). For the chariot-races and horse-races of the Greeks and Romans, see [Circus] and [Games].
Great Britain
There is no direct historical evidence to show that the ancient Britons addicted themselves to any form of this amusement; but there are indications that among some at least of the Germanic tribes, from a very early period, horse-racing was an accompaniment of their religious cultus. There can be no doubt that the Romans encouraged the pursuit in Britain, if they did not introduce it; traces of race-courses belonging to the period of their occupation have been frequently discovered. The influence of the Christian Church was everywhere at first strongly against the practice. The opinion of Augustine and other fathers of the church with regard to attendance at the spectacles, whether of theatre or of circus, is well known; those who performed in them were rigidly excluded from church fellowship, and sometimes even those who merely frequented them. Thus the first council of Arles, in its fourth canon, declared that those members of the church who drove chariots at the public games should, so long as they continued in that employment, be denied communion. (Compare the rule in the Ap. Const. viii. 32; ap. Bingham. Ant. Chr. Church, xvi. 4, 10.) In many cases, however, the weight of ecclesiastical authority proved insufficient to cope with the force of old custom, or with the fascination of a sport the unchristian character of which was not very easily demonstrable; and ultimately in Germany and elsewhere the old local races appear to have been admitted to a recognized place among the ceremonies peculiar to certain Christian festivals.
The first distinct indication which contemporary history affords of horse-racing as a sport occurs in the Description of the City of London of William Fitzstephen (c. 1174). He says that in a certain “plane field without one of the gates (quidam planus campus re et nomine—Smithfield, quasi Smoothfield) every Friday, unless it be one of the more solemn festivals, is a noted show of well-bred (nobilium) horses exposed for sale. The earls, barons and knights who are resident in the city, as well as a multitude of citizens, flock thither either to look on or buy.” After describing the different varieties of horses brought into the market, especially the more valuable chargers (dextrarios preciosos), he says: “When a race is to be run by such horses as these, and perhaps by others which, in like manner, according to their breed are strong for carriage and vigorous for the course, the people raise a shout and order the common horses to be withdrawn to another part of the field. The jockeys, who are boys expert in the management of horses, which they regulate by means of curb bridles, sometimes by threes and sometimes by twos, as the match is made, prepare themselves for the contest. Their chief aim is to prevent a competitor from getting before them. The horses too, after their manner, are eager for the race: their limbs tremble, and impatient of delay they cannot stand still; upon the signal being given they stretch out their limbs, hurry on the course, and are borne along with unremitting speed. The riders, inspired with the love of praise and the hope of victory, clap spurs to their flying horses, lashing them with whips, and inciting them by their shouts” (see Stow’s Translation).
In the reign of Richard I. knights rode at Whitsuntide on steeds and palfreys over a three-mile course for “forty pounds of ready gold,” according to the old romance of Sir Bevys of Hampton. The feats of the tilt-yard, however, seem to have surpassed horse-racing in popular estimation at the period of the crusades. That the sport was to some extent indulged in by King John is quite possible, as running horses are frequently mentioned in the register of royal expenditure; and we know that Edward III. had a number of running horses, but it is probable they were chiefly used for field sports.
An evidence of the growing favour in which horse-racing was held as a popular amusement is furnished by the fact that public races were established at Chester in 1512. Randle Holme of that city tells us that towards the latter part of Henry VIII.’s reign, on Shrove Tuesday, the company of saddlers of Chester presented to “the drapers a wooden ball embellished with flowers, and placed upon the point of a lance. This ceremony was performed in the presence of the mayor at the cross of the Roody or Roodee, an open place near the city; but this year (1540) the ball was changed into a silver bell, valued at three shillings and sixpence or more, to be given to him who shall run best and furthest on horseback before them on the same day, Shrove Tuesday; these bells were denominated St George’s bells.” In the reign of Elizabeth there is evidence from the poems of Bishop Hall (1597) that racing was in vogue, though apparently not patronized by the queen, or it would no doubt have formed part of the pastimes at Kenilworth; indeed, it seems then to have gone much out of fashion.