Croatoan Will Be Going To Press

He was captured because he was sickly and kept leaving the sand and getting into the paved highway at Corolla. That was abut five years ago. He was an older stallion then. Even so, he quickly settled down and was under saddle. For quite a while he was the main horse that I rode. To this day he remains the most comfortable of all horses that I have ever ridden.

Eventually he became a starting horse for novices, even though he was a mature, formerly wild stallion. He has been on hundreds of trail rides with children and mares and has never been a problem. He is the father of Mokete, the first Corolla born of the off site breeding program. I bred him to several non Corolla mares and in every case he created calm, sweet natured athletes.

There are so few Spanish mustangs left that very few people have ever seen one. People are much more familiar with the appearance of Clydesdales, and they associate this head shapes with those giants. His features came from a different history than the draft horses. It is one of the types of Iberian profiles of the horses brought here in the 1500's by the Spanish. Most people are taken by his mane. I love the shape of his head best.

There are two schools of thought regarding his head shape,--those who find it beautiful, powerful and reeking with noble history and those who are wrong.

Two days ago three beautiful Colonial Spanish fillies arrived from Texas. One of them, Feather, is 34% Choctaw and Dr. Phil Sponenberg advised that she would be a good line to bring in for the Corolla off site breeding program. In the fall I plan to breed her to Croatoan. If the resulting foal shows good Corolla phenotype it will become part of the program and bred back to a Corolla. If it does not carry that phenotype it will still be a beautiful registered American Indian Horse(O type) and a registered Horse of the Americas.

Croatoan is the subject of a children's book written by Kay Kerr that will be going to print in the near future. He will join Red Feather, who is about to have the second book about his life published, as literary symbols for their nearly extinct wild family members at Corolla.

Every bit of publicity about these horses is important. There is only one wild herd in America that is truly safe from being destroyed--those on Assateague Island. They are safe because many years ago Margarite Henry wrote, "Misty of Chincoteague" and a beautifully filmed movie followed.

I don't know where I would ever find another horse to play the part of  Croatoan in the movie.