From Cavalry Horses to Endangered Species

Just outside Front Royal spreads a vast tract of pasture and forest with an extraordinary double life. Today it is the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, a thirty two hundred acre field station where scientists from the National Zoo work to save endangered species, breed rare animals like clouded leopards and scimitar horned oryx, and turn cutting edge research into action. But long before it was a haven for vanishing wildlife, it was a home for horses.

In nineteen eleven, the United States Army bought this land and began building the Front Royal Remount Depot here, one of the country's principal stations for breeding and training the horses and mules the cavalry and artillery still depended on. The Army chose this spot for its nearness to Virginia's horse country and its rail connections. In nineteen twelve the depot received its first breeding stallions, including thoroughbreds donated by the wealthy sportsman August Belmont, among them a celebrated racehorse named Henry of Navarre.

For decades this land raised warhorses. When the Army's need for cavalry mounts faded after the Second World War, the property passed to research, and in nineteen seventy four the Smithsonian took it over. The old stallion barns, the training track, and even the horse cemetery still stand among the animal enclosures, and the Appalachian Trail threads right through the property.