On the notes to Out of the Cut, Carthy comments:

"The Dead Horse Ceremony was one of the death and resurrection type, this time performed at sea and often accompanied by the Old Horse Shanty. However, I often wondered if there existed a song for the ceremony which was not a converted shanty, and looking through Gale Huntington's book Songs the Whalemen Sang, which is a collection from the log-books of various old sailors, I came across the two-verse fragment of Old Horse. It smelled to me of ceremonial song in spite of its length. Verses 1 and 5 sung here are from Old Horse. I added three verses from the song Poor Old Horse plus one standard 'Rise Again' verse and there we are."