Going Home to a Place He's Never Been Before

Well, not exactly. This is Adam a young Corolla gelding. Vickie Ives adopted him as a young stallion and took him back to the famed Karma Farms in Texas. Unfortunately he could not be used as a stallion. She took him back and picked up Sea King, another young stallion. Adam was gelded but not adopted. I am not aware of him receiving any meaningful training during the time he awaited adoption.

This picture says so much about the Corollas. That is no photo shop work. That cowboy really is way over 6 foot tall. Adam carries him with ease and grace the first full day that he was back in Texas. That is power. That is athleticism. He moves out on a smooth Spanish gait. That is comfort. He has completed a ride on the trail just a few hours after his first real training in about two years. That is brains. He will do everything that is asked of him. That is heart.

Unfortunately that is all that the Corollas have to bring to the table--power,athleticism,comfort, brains and heart. If those traits do not appeal to you you will need to seek out another breed.

I hear that some of those other breeds are going quite cheaply now.

Happy Birthday Abigail

Years ago I met a little girl who loved animals and wanted a horse. She knew nothing about horses, but more importantly she knew that she knew nothing about horses. She wanted to work to learn.

One other peculiar tidbit about her, not only could she run at incredible speeds, to this day she remains the only person that I have ever seen run up a wooden fence without touching it with her hands. She can also run and jump up on top of a round bale of hay and comfortably unload feed two bags at a time.

To top it all off, she came from a wonderful, supportive family that instilled in her a firm religious faith , a strong moral fiber, a confidence in her abilities and a solid work ethic.

The athleticism, willingness to work, and desire to learn produced one of the best riders that I will ever know, all by the age of 17. Last summer Red Feather launched into a prolonged bucking episode of the kind that I had never seen him do. I had never seen a long spree because Red Feather always deposited riders during the first series of bucks.

Not this time. He bucked until he gave up and Abby remained in the saddle. Horses can look dazed, and he did. Horses can look confused, and he did. Horses cannot look embarrassed, but he did!

He had no reason to be embarrassed. Just as there is no shame in being bucked off of Red Feather, there is no shame in not being able to buck off Abby.

Her parents should be very proud. They have raised the most impressive family that I have ever encountered. And today their middle daughter turns 18.

She and her sister Emily have become like a part of my family and the lives of my entire family are the better for it.

Happy Birthday little girl.

The Need to Network

In the previous post we discussed the importance of breeding horses from the Shackleford herd to those of the Corolla herd. In 2011 we have to tap a resource that has not been exploited to date. There are a handful of Corollas and Shacklefords that have been adopted out over the years. While I fear that there are few intact stallions remaining in this population there certainly are adult mares that could contribute to the offsite breeding program. We need to locate these horse owners and advise them of the opportunity to help the horses by producing a foal.

Keeping track of those foals will be possible because of a farsighted decision of the Horse of the Americas Registry. After a thorough inspection of the wild herds and a review of the history, genetic studies, conformation and skeletal finds these historic horses were recognized as authentically Spanish Colonial and allowed for their registration in the HOA.

The staff of the Corolla Wild Horse Fund and the volunteers of the Fund for the Shackleford Horses are already over worked and I cannot expect them to take on this additional project. For that reason, we will be working on a year long effort to track down the horses that have been adopted out and let their owners know that there are stallions available to breed their mares at no cost and, most importantly we will be letting them know why the effort to produce off spring is so important.

Pictured above is Mokete, the first foal produced in the Corolla offsite breeding program.

Preservation, Restoration, and Genetic Collapse

Every one of my riders will instantly recognize this picture as one of Porter in the wild. The catch is that it is not Porter at all, though so similar in appearance as to be essentially indistinguishable. That is the result both of a few hundred years of isolation and the effects of having so few horses in the gene pool. The Corollas have among the fewest alleles on their DNA chain that have ever been found in an equine population. Once lost these genes can never be restored.

We are lucky to have the more genetically diverse, but equally authentically Spanish, herd of Shacklefords at the southern end of the Outer Banks to breed back into the Corollas in the off site breeding program. This will allow us both to preserve the strain and maintain its purity. The mares on Corolla are already demonstrating a shockingly low annual birth rate. Even my Corolla mares are showing difficulty carrying a foal from a Corolla stallion to term. Swimmer was bred to Tradewind last spring but she will not be having a foal this spring. I will breed her to a Shackleford stallion and I expect a beautiful foal from the paring.

This spring I will have a a foal born of two Corollas and two foals that have one Corolla and one Shackleford parent. In the future I hope that we continue to produce offspring from the Shackleford/Corolla pairs.

Legislation currently pending in Congress will allow some Shackleford mares to be released in the wild Corolla herd. This is a vital step towards insuring that the horses of Corolla remain wild and free for centuries to come.

Jim Hicks

Today at 1:00 pm friends and family will gather at the home of Ed Yousey to memorialize one of the founders of the Foothills Indian Horse Club, Jim Hicks. The FHIC is South Carolina based but nationally known. The work that Jim Hicks helped begin in that region will carry on after him.

Our deepest condolences go out to Jamie and family with the hope that though even in such sadness you will take pride. He helped begin something very important and in his efforts to inspire and draw others to care about these horses he created his own living memorial.