Upon This Rock

Red Feather's last daughter is in the off site breeding program and currently is a resident of Maine. In a few more years she will be bred to an appropriate stallion and Red Feather's line will continue. This shot is of her last year.

Great New Book

Karen McCalpin, Executive Director of the Corolla Wild Horse Fund, has completed her book, "Saving the Horses of Kings". the book is now at the publishers. See the Corolla Wild Horse Fund in order to reserve your copy now. I have read the book in preprint format. The photos and text cannot be beat.

We have a few copies of our book, "And a Little Child Shall Lead Them: Learning From Wild Horses and Small Children," available for direct order. While there are a range of purchasing opportunities available, all copies ordered directly from us allow us to donate a portion of the proceeds to the United States Equine Rescue League's regional branch. To order your own copy simply contact us at msindianhorses@aol.com. They make great Father's Day gifts.

The Crossing

Wanchese, my Shackleford stallion, has been bred to Secotan, a Corolla mare owned by one of my students, Amanda. Wanchese's beauty has jumped out at everyone from the first day that we had him. It has taken a while for Secotan to reach full bloom, at least to my eye.

It struck me as odd that when she first saw them, Vickie Ives told me that she thought that Secotan and Baton Rouge, another of my Corolla mares, were two of the best Spanish horses that I had. Quite frankly, I could not see it. However, in the past two years Baton Rouge has muscled out and Secotan is clearly here rival in simple gracefulness and beauty. Vickie was right.

This will be our first Corolla/Shackleford cross. This summer I hope to breed, Persa, a Shackleford mare to Manteo, an elegant Corolla stallion. By doing so we will be restoring genetic diversity to the horses while still maintaining a pure strain of Banker horses.

I plan for the resulting foals from these two crosses to take a major role in the off site breeding program. We are offering for sale some first rate horses that are not Bankers in order to make room for more Corolla and Shackleford breeding stock. Some are finished trail horses, a few are 1/2 Corolla colts, and others are started horses that we will completely train before they are sold.

The Sons of the Sand

This week we have bred Tradewind, shown above, to Baton Rouge and Swimmer. All three were captured wild as adults in Corolla. Their off spring will be part of the Corolla off site breeding program. To date I have been contacted by two people who would like to receive one of the foals to participate in the program. I expect two beautiful foals to hit the ground next April.

On Point

The criticism of the concept of the registries working together to help save the endangered Spanish Colonial Horse comes in several different directions. Intellectually, the weakest argument is to argue against concepts that are not on the table. Regardless of what one might read on any of the mustang message boards cooperation would not require that all concept of strains be abolished and that all of the horses would be bred into an amalgam of one type. It would not require that any registry be abolished. The registries can and should confederate together for the promotion of the horses. Trivial issues such as what is a stain and what is a breed can be settled after more important issues, such as how many angels can dance on the head of of needle, are settled.

Past personality problems between various parties in the registries are also no reason to refuse to try to work together. This cry of "they done us wrong" helps preserve not one horse.

Lastly, predictions that it can never be are also off point. We can decide if it will ever be.

Let whiners whine. Let dividers divide. Now is the time for leaders to lead.