Can't See the Forest For The Trees

We recently fenced in a twenty acre mixed forest woodlot. In about two weeks the buds and leaves from the lower level browse will be appearing and the horses will be given access to a forest buffet. There are no wild cherry trees in the woods.

High fiber, low sugar, diverse forage is natural in many wild horse environments. My first BLM mare came from and area of sense pinion pines. She would not consider alfalfa or clover but she would erase pine needles with zeal. The Corollas stay in great shape from what is basically a mixed browse diet in the winter.

I am really looking forward to seeing the result of this reversion to a diverse forage based diet. I will keep you posted.

Health Alert: Help Curb Equine TTFM

TTFM (Too Tall For me) is a genetically related disorder that often results from breeding mares over 13.3 hands to stallions of equal size or larger. Horses suffering from TTFM have a higher ground to saddle distance than do those those of proper height.

Sadly, the condition is irreversible and worsens with age. In fact, the older I get the more difficult it is to mount a horse with TTFM. Even worse, for a mature rider a fall from a TTFM horse often results in bad bruises, broken bones, and the use of non-Presbyterian language.


There currently is no cure for TTFM. The only hope lies in prevention and education. Research to find a cure is vital. Until that cure is found we are lucky to be able to rely on Shacklefords and Corollas. Though the gene may exist in these horses it is quite rare.

Sounds of Silence

No rush yesterday morning. I had no early court and no plans to shower or shave. I had already had a hunk of cheese for breakfast. I had time to walk, look and think.

I love the green of early spring as much as I detest the mid winter muck and mud. Yesterday was the greenest day of this just born spring. I walked all around my pastures--observed, relaxed and thought.

At first a disconnected string of thoughts--How long had it been since I wore my false teeth? I used to wear them for jury trials but now I do not even remember where they are. What a strange entourage accompanied me. War Admiral, Sea Biscuit, and Spicer, my Colonial Spanish goats walked step for step with me, eyes constantly checking out every movement around me--staying close by, looking oddly protective of me, like a Secret Service detail for Dr. Doolittle. My rooster followed for the entire perimeter of the main pastures--a one mile route--quite a journey on five inch legs.

No other humans, no sounds. Only history--like a vortex where somehow is and was happen at the same time. I looked over the the spot where Lido, my little brother, died. We walked over to where Granddaddy Horace built his goat pen 70 years ago. I saw the Little House where Momma was born and the stable where she kept her pony--the same stable that my pony, Tanka, was in when he coliced badly when I was four years old. To my left hand was the road where the first phone lines ran in from town. In 1927 those phone lines brought the news that Hilda Barlow had been murdered and that people were assembling to lynch Shirley Winnigan. The phone lines ran by the little tenant house that I remembered Glosten Winnigen, Shirley's younger brother, living in when I was a child. Glosten died year before last.

Beside Glosten's house was the field path where Granddaddy Horace's granddaddy thought he saw a long line of mourners following a casket back toward what is now my tack shed. He went home, to the site where my father lives, nervously relayed what he thought he had just seen, sat down, had a stroke and died.

At the other end of the path is Stallings Creek Road, where in 1831 the news would have come in that Nat Turner had lead America's bloodiest slave insurrection in neighboring Southampton County. Stallings Creek was likely the rode used by Benedict Arnold when he lead British troops into Smithfield. Even worse, it is only about six mile from where Banastre Tarleton, the murderous Red Coat cavalryman landed when he lead stroops into the soutside of the James.

 Stallings Creek runs beside Mill Swamp, about three miles from Pons, where my first white ancestors settled in the 1630's, about six miles from my horse lot.

My pastures sit about 1/2 a mile from the remnant of an old wagon path that the farmers used to get to the James River at Burwell's Bay. The path likely followed the Indian trail that went near the Powhatan village of Mokete. John Smith visited the village in 1608. That village is on the farm that Daddy's family owned. It sits four miles from the back of pasture number 4.

John Smith may have called it Virginia, but the people that had lived and farmed this land for decades before the English came knew that they were in Mokete, a village of the small tribe of the Warrosquoyacke, which was part of the empire of Wahunsonacok, the first Powhatan, the father of Pocahontas and the ruler of all of Tsennacommacah. Among the people of Tsennacommacah were the Pamunky, Mattaponi, and the Chickahominy, from whence came my earliest American born ancestors.

Across some of my pasture Norm has recently completed a trench to hold the water line from the Little House to the tack shed. As the goats stepped across the trench, I looked down to see a small spear point of a type made from 1000 B.C. to about 500 A.D. in this part of Virginia. The spear point shares the soil with the ashes of Momma and Lido.

And that is what my goats, my chicken, and I walked through yesterday.

Will the Circle Be Unbroken, Bye and Bye Lord, Bye and Bye?

Three In One Year

Talking is not always teaching, and proving always requires demonstration. How can one best demonstrate the value of natural horse care, natural hoof care, while at the same time demonstrating the extraordinary abilities of the nearly extinct wild Spanish mustangs of Corolla?

Tradewind was captured because he was utterly crippled with founder. Pete Ramey style natural hoof care made him sound. Living as horses are intended to, with out the triple curses of sugar, stables, and shoes, have kept him healthy. He is a touch less than thirteen hands and I am a touch over 220 pounds.

It would make a strong statement if he could carry me so many hours on the trail that he became the Horse of the Americas Registry's Pleasure Trail Horse of the Year.

Ta Sunka and Holland will be getting more rest time. As for Tradewind, every step you take, every move you make, I'll be riding you.

He will demonstrate the truth that Pete Ramey, Joe Camp, and Karen MaCalpin already know.

When it comes to Corollas, we do not speculate, we demonstrate.

Bankers, Tackies, and Crackers

No,that is not a description of Chamber of Commerce boards all across the south, it is a list of the three primary strains of Colonial Spanish Horses that were developed in the southeast by European Americans.I am often asked how the three are related.

DNA is a precise science. Understanding history is an art. In my entire wardrobe there is not one lab coat. I am not a scientist. My unscientific impression is as follows.

The Bankers are, of course, the strain of Spanish mustang that was bred and used on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. They are small, sturdy, gaited,(though their gaitedness is not as obvious as, say, a Paso Fino), super calm and tractable, with levels of endurance that dwarf that of modern breeds. They seem to have very few non-Spanish bloodlines, perhaps among the fewest of all Colonial Spanish strains.

The Marsh Tackies are wonderful horses that are likely to be very closely related to the Bankers. They share the Banker's temperament and are so calm that they are used to jump shoot deer in the marshes while carrying shotgun bearing riders. My hunch is that from perhaps as early as the 18th century they carry the lines of the now extinct English Hobby. The Tackies are endangered but thanks to a group of dedicated breeders and the American Livestock Breed Conservancy there is reason to be optimistic about the breed's long term survival.

The Florida Cracker Horse was once the horse of working cattlemen all across Florida. This strain of Colonial Spanish horse has been selectively bred for many generations. They are more pronounced in their gaitedness and have a more refined look than do the Bankers. They are sturdy and border on being elegant. From my very limited exposure to the strain it appears that they are not as calm natured as are the Bankers.

All of these great lines of historic horses are endangered, but it is the Bankers that are most at risk. Without passage of legislation pending in Congress there is no hope of maintaining a wild Corolla herd.