Lost Genetics Among The Bankers Of the Outer Banks of North Carolina

In the Corolla off-site breeding program we do not seek to introduce any new genetics to the Banker horse. Instead by carefully bringing back a few lines of closely related Colonial Spanish horses we hope to restore lost genetics to that string of horse. Tom Norush once told me that Dale Burruss told him that the flashier colored banker horses were rounded up and sent to the mainland because solid colored horses were preferred by the few hardy souls lived on the Outer Banks in the 19th and early 20th century. As a result pintos have been removed from the genetic pool with only three small exceptions of which I am aware. Two Corolla stallions with a bit of white above then the have been spotted during the past decade. I understand that the last gray Corolla disappeared in the early 1980s.

The horse shown below lives on an island close to Shackelford. Her parents were pure Shackelford horses. She represents a remnant of a color that existed among those horses during an earlier time.

I am not aware of any photographs of loudly colored Corollas or Shackelford's that are pure in origin. I will continue to use Shackelford and Corolla bloodlines for the overwhelming majority of the breeding stock in the off-site breeding program. In two months a filly that we produced last spring will be moving to Gates County North Carolina in order to become part of a new off-site breeding program. Her mother is 34% Choctaw and 100% colonial Spanish course. Her father is Croatoan, a pure Corolla.

Her mother is very light-colored with flashings of what I would call roan. She will be just she will be part of restoring some of the lost color to the bankers.

We also so have a beautiful black colt who is the grandson of Croatoan and is available for placement in the off-site reading program. If you would like to own such a colt and if you would like to be part of the effort to prevent the extinction of these historic horses  please contact us soon.