THANKSGIVING dinner, families reunited throughout America and Black Friday sales... it’s North America’s landmark holiday next week, but how did it all begin?

Tradition tells us that the first Thanksgiving gathering was a harvest feast celebrated together by 53 Pilgrim settlers and some 90 Wampanoag Indians, the local Native American tribe, in the autumn of 1621.

This ‘rejoicing’ tradition continued by the settlers, always on a Thursday, a day believed to have been selected to separate the festivities from the Sabbath by these Puritan colonists.

In 1789, America’s first President, George Washington declared the first official Thanksgiving Day on Thursday, November 26th. By 1942, the fourth Thursday in November was carved in stone - or rather, presidential proclamation - as its date by President Roosevelt.

While no horses were brought over by the original Pilgrims - chickens, goats and sheep were said to be the four-legged cargo aboard the Mayflower - horsepower later helped build America.

The first horses brought to the American main continent by Hernán Cortes arrived in Mexico in 1519. By 1538, shipments of Iberian horses landed in Florida and today, the North American horse population stands at 7.25 million. With that number of equines, the horse world has put its own stamp on Thanksgiving.

Did you know?

  • * White Horse Beach, a short drive from where the original Puritan settlers landed in Plymouth, was known as the ‘Irish Riviera’ from the 1940s through 1960s. Why so? The large influx of Irish-American holidaymakers from Dorchester and more parts of South Boston.
  • * Mayflower 2, by Moidore, is the dam of Kiltealy Spring. Bred by Jay Bowe in Kiltealy, who also stood this sport horse stallion’s sire Sky Boy, Kiltealy Spring proved one of the most successful Irish eventing sires. Amongst his well-known performers were Fernhill Clover Mist, competed at the Hong Kong Olympics by Patricia Ryan; Piggy March’s 2009 European individual silver medal winner Some Day Soon and the prolific eventing pony Noble Springbok. Described by Laura Collett as “one in a million,” the Peter Byrne-bred wonder pony won her a slew of medals at the European pony championships.
  • * The American racehorse Thanksgiving lived up to his name, having survived being struck by lightning in his stable in 1937. The following year, with Eddie Arcaro aboard, he won the Travers Stakes at Saratoga, beating a top-class field. Mary Hirsch, his trainer, made history by becoming the first woman to train the winner of this race.
  • * More three-year-old hopefuls will line out next Thursday in the €125,000 Thanksgiving Classic at Fair Grounds racecourse in New Orleans. Thanksgiving is similar to the festive racing season here over Christmas, with race meetings taking place across America, from Aqueduct to Churchill Downs.
  • * “Alexa, play ‘Over The River’”... No, Garryrichard Stud’s national hunt sire hasn’t had a song written in his honour. This tune is a 19th-century American nursery rhyme and folk song favourite. Lyrics include: “Over the river and through the woods, Trot fast, my dapple gray! Spring over the ground, like a hunting hound, for this is Thanksgiving Day.”
  • * Another dashing tune, ‘Jingle Bells’ was originally written as a Thanksgiving song before being adopted as a Christmas classic.
  • * No Thanksgiving dinner is complete without the traditional pumpkin pie dessert. And the name has even found its way into the FEI records, which include the eventing pony Pumpkin Pie.
  • * Pumpkin de Rêve (Inshallah de Muze), like the half-brothers Hermes de Rêve and Pacino, is another bred at Haras de Rêve in Belgium.
  • * ‘Pumpkin’ is the nickname for Charlotte Dujardin’s ‘small round orange horse’, Gio (Apache), her Tokyo Olympic bronze medallist horse.
  • * Not a dressage test movement, the annual Turkey Trot is a Thanksgiving morning tradition. Older than the Boston Marathon, it began in upstate New York in 1896 when an eight-kilometre race was organised by the Buffalo YMCA. Six runners went to post, with four making it over the finish line. One pulled up after two miles, while another retired after his “late breakfast refused to keep in its proper place”.
  • * Sounds like that unfortunate runner needed a dose of Pepto-Bismol. He’s A Peptospoonful is an apt name found amongst the pedigrees of the entries in Select Sales LLC online auction on Thanksgiving Day.
  • * If buying a cutting horse or the traditional post-dinner (American) football game is not your cup of tea, there’s always a good movie to watch instead. ‘Walk.Trot.Rodeo’ is based on the true story of Amberley Snyder’s determination to compete in rodeos again after a catastrophic car accident. Or there’s ‘The Thanksgiving Treasure’, the stateside equivalent of our ‘Love Actually’ and ‘The Sound of Music’ Christmastime TV schedule must-haves. Set in Nebraska in the 1940s, this family classic is billed as a heartwarming story about a young girl determined to unite her father at odds with his neighbour. And yes, there is a horse in the cast.
  • * Thanksgiving Day is followed by… Black Friday. One suggestion about the origins of this retail frenzy dates back to the late 1980s, when American retailers saw a profit and their balance sheets moved from being in the red to black after the Thanksgiving shopping season.
  • * It may have started in America, but Black Friday has spread here too. Between Black Friday and Cyber Monday - when many online shoppers buy Christmas gifts - is peak retail therapy time and… there’s always www.theirishfield.ie/store for a range of The Irish Field gifts, available in black. Henry Ford would approve.
  • * Those FEI records just keep on giving. A 10-year-old Irish Sport Horse named Black Friday 3 competes in Finland with Susanna Granroth. Bred in the Banner County by Sharon Halvey, who competed in SJI classes with “two very good horses Universal D99 and Another Thought. He [Black Friday 3] is all black and his mammy is by Ard Black Cat,” said Sharon, who selected Sheila White’s Heartbreaker son Simba to cover Right Place Right Time with in 2012. “One funny story is I went to Simba, as he always brings white markings to his offspring. Not on this occasion!”
  • * Another timely dip into the archives produces the ‘Giving Thanks’ feature about Kevin Babington and his family five years ago. Always providing a helping hand to the Irish in America, Kevin is someone who’s a perfect example of positivity and Thanksgiving gratitude.

    • By the numbers

    1,000 - dollars starting bid in Select Sales Thanksgiving online auction.

    31 - minutes (and 12 seconds, very precise). Henry A. Allison’s winning time in Buffalo’s inaugural Turkey Trot race.

    29.9 - million Thanksgiving passengers will travel through U.S. airports between November 17th-27th.

    22.99 - $$$ (plus shipping) for a dozen hand-crafted Thanksgiving horse treats, containing flax seed.

    Five - racehorses worldwide currently registered as Thanksgiving.

    Three - dollars will be donated from every pack of Thanksgiving Coffee Company coffee sold as part of a fundraiser for the American Wild Horse Campaign, dedicated to preserving America’s herds of wild horses.

    One - million Americans will line out (some even togged out in turkey costumes) in 1,000 Turkey Trot races held across the States.