The off site breeding program is not designed to replace the idea of having a herd of Corollas living wild and free. Instead,it serves two other purposes. The first is easily understood, The Corollas dangle on the brink of extinction. Something as banal as sleeping sickness could erase the wild herd. Something as insidious as greed could take away the remaining land upon which they run.
The second reason is more theoretical. I believe that there is only one herd of wild horses in America that is safe from being swept away by bureaucrats or monied interests. That herd lives on Assateague Island. The Chincoteagues are fixed firmly in the imagination of horse lovers and even those who are merely favorably disposed to horses as living beings. The movie "Misty", the annual swim, and equally important, the large number of families that over the years have owned a Chincoteague ensure their survival. Those owners, and all in their circle of acquaintances, serve as an auxiliary support system for those horses.
They are here to stay.
The Corollas do not have such a support system. The Corolla Wild Horse Fund does a remarkable job of tirelessly working to save these horses. Their job would be much easier if Corollas were familiar to horse people across the nation. That is why it is so important for us to get the domesticated Corollas out in front of people in order to let them see what these horses can do. They are the easiest to train of any strain of horse that I have ever worked. They are lightly gaited and ride with tremendous smoothness. There endurance is beyond the imagination of most owners of modern breeds. They are super healthy and very affordable to maintain. They have every advantage of a small pony and have the carrying capacity of much larger horses.
On a different level, they provide tremendous stock for half breeding. The foals that we produced by breeding Corolla stallions to outside mares have grown up to maintain the gentle Corolla disposition and other positive traits of the strain.
Unfortunately, we are past the point of being able to maintain the strain merely by breeding the few domestic Corollas to each other. The result would be genetic collapse at an accelerated rate.
That is why it is so important to breed the horses of Corolla with those of Shackleford. The Shacklefords are the same strain of Colonial Spanish horse as the Corollas but have been isolated from them on an island about 175 miles to the south for hundreds of years. The resulting foals are not half breeds, as happens when one crosses a Corolla with an Arabian. They remain pure.
Wanchese, shown above, is my Shackleford stallion. I am carefully breeding him with my Corolla mares to bring in genetic diversity while remaining true to the strain. I have a Shackleford mare that I breed to Corolla stallions.
Those crosses will continue to bring a substantial degree of diversity to the off site breeding program, but this summer we are looking to bring more such diversity to the program. I hope to obtain two more Shackleford mares for the program by the end of the summer.
If we are able to do so we will then have the core of a "re-Foundation" herd. The unfortunate reality is that the destruction of the horse market has greatly hampered the growth of the off site breeding program. This will not always be the case. And it is very important that we preserve this genetic wealth, work hard to publicize it, remain patient and optimistic and keep on showing what these horses can do.
Most importantly, like all those involved in mustang preservation, we must not give up.
As long as we have the flicker of one candle we have the means to start a fire.
Similarly, if we even have one last ghost of an ember, and one dried up piece of broken wood, we can keep a fire going. It will be a hard rode along the way of turning a candle into a flame, and the flame will start to burn down every once in a while, but, unless the ashes are floating in water, there is always a way to blow on the ember.
ReplyDelete