Whipping Up Support for the Rare Florida Cracker Horse

The Florida Cracker Horse is a small agile Spanish Horse with a natural herding instinct that was considered essential for working the Spanish cattle breed by the same name. Both the Cracker Horse and the Cracker Cattle trace their ancestry back to the various Spanish stock that was brought to Florida in the 1500's during the Spanish explorations, starting with Ponce de Leon. Breeds such as North African Barb, Andalusian, Spanish Sorraia, Spanish Jennet and other Iberian breeds have contributed to the Cracker Horse gene pool as the Spaniards left their horses behind on their return voyages to make room for the treasures that they wanted to transport from the New World. So, in the territory that eventually became Florida, Cracker Horses evolved over a long period of time by natural selection as the horses roamed freely, adapting to the extremes of the area for their survival.

This breed also played an important role in the life of the Seminole Indians. In the 1700's, the Seminoles rounded up some of these wild Florida horses and soon they were making trouble in Florida, Georgia, and southern Alabama. Andrew Jackson attacked them in 1817 and took over Florida in 1819. In 1821 Florida became a Territory and then a state in 1845. In the third Seminole Indian war in 1855, most of the Indians were forced out of Florida and resettled in Oklahoma, but their horses were left to run wild and they multiplied into many thousands. These wild Cracker horses ran free in Florida as late as the 1940’s in the Kissimmee River Valley.

Florida Cracker Horses have been known by many names: Chickasaw Pony, Seminole Pony, Marsh Tackie or Tacky, Prairie Pony, Florida Horse, Florida Cow Pony, Grass Gut, Woods pony, and others. But the official breed name pays tribute to the people who used them and depended on them -- the Florida cattlemen who were nicknamed "Crackers" because of the sound made by the long whip they cracked in the air to herd their Spanish cattle of the same name.

In the 1930's, the relief programs during the Great Depression encouraged the movement of cattle from the drought-ridden Dust Bowl into the lush grasslands of Florida. Unfortunately, the Midwestern cattle brought a parasite called screwworm into the state where it thrived in the humidity, and this meant that cattle-raising had to follow new practices. Before the screwworm arrived, cattlemen used Cracker Horses to herd their free roaming cattle, but the screwworm's arrival created a need for fencing, dipping vats and the need to rope cattle to hold them for treatment. As a result, ranchers preferred the larger, stronger Quarter Horse, and the little now-obsolete Florida Cracker Horse started to disappear from lack of demand in the very industry they were previously thriving in.

The breed's survival over the last 60 years has come from the work of a handful of families who continued to breed Cracker Horses for their own use and it was their perseverance and distinct family bloodlines that kept the Cracker Horses from dying out. These names include the Ayers, Harvey, Bronson, Matchett, Partin and Whaley lines.

Through efforts of the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (FDACS), the Florida Cracker Horse Association (FCHA) was formed in 1989. The FCHA is supported by volunteers to preserve this distinct and unique Colonial Spanish breed of horse and the job of searching for the remnant herds of Cracker Horses began. A breed registry was established and horses were registered based on their history and phenotype. At that time, 31 Cracker Horses were registered and blood typed to be used for the foundation stock. Strict adherence to the breed standard has resulted in a very consistent horse.

John Law Ayers maintained a herd of pure Cracker Horse stock and fortunately did not cross them with other breeds so in 1984 the Ayers family donated a small herd of his Cracker Horses to the FDACS. It was from these horses that herds were established in Tallahassee at the Agricultural Complex and near Brooksville on the Withlacoochee State Forest. The Ayers family and others such as the Bronson’s, Boal's, Partin's, and Sasser's continue to maintain small herds of Cracker Horses.

The FDACS has maintained the purity of the Ayers line and as part of the FDACS breed management, horses have been transferred between the herds to avoid inbreeding and stallions of the Ayers line have been added from other herds to widen the gene pool. Since 1990, the Florida Cracker Cattle Association Annual Gatherin' and Sale has been held annually on the first Friday and Saturday of November at the Withlacoochee State Forest. The FDACS coordinates and hosts this event which includes the sale of surplus Cracker Horses from private and state herds.

So far, the Cracker Horse preservation effort is succeeding and their numbers are steadily increasing, albeit slowly with new breeding herds being started and more to begin as breeding stock becomes available. Today, the Florida Cracker Horse is being promoted as a valuable and vital part of Florida's heritage as a ranching and general agriculture state but it is still quite rare. Over 800 horses have been registered with an estimated worldwide population of 2,000 but there are less than 100 new registrations annually. .

A Florida Cracker Horse is a small gaited saddle horse that stands from 13.5 to 15.2 hands and weighs between 700 and 1000 pounds. The head is refined with a profile that is straight or slightly concave, and it has an intelligent in appearance. The eye colors are dark, with a white sclera, gray or blue, and have an alert expression. The neck is fairly narrow, without an excessive crest and is approximately the same length as the distance from the withers to the croup which gives the horse balance. The back is short and narrow with well sprung ribs. The under line is longer than the top line and the tail is set medium low. All colors can be found within the breed, but solid colors and grays are most common.

While the breed's phenotype is distinctive, many people insist that the best way to tell if a horse is a Cracker Horse is to ride one. Since the ancestry of the Florida Cracker is similar to other gaited breeds it should be no surprise that many individuals within the breed have the natural ability to gait. Of the several gaits found within the Florida Cracker Horse breed, the flatfoot walk, running walk, trot and ambling gaits are possible. However, not all Crackers are considered gaited although most of them will perform an even square gait that the old-time Crackers called the Coon Rack. This is a four-beat single-foot gait of slow to medium speed where the lateral phase is exactly as long as the diagonal phase in one stride. It is a very sure-footed gait.

Florida Cracker Horses are versatile horses that are willing workers whose actions show spirit, amazing stamina and endurance. They have been used for trail, pleasure, reining, team roping, team penning, pulling wagons and plows, and as working cow horses over the years. The Florida Cracker Horses enjoy widespread popularity because they can be trained for all equine disciplines but so far, the supply does not yet meet the demand.


About Crystal Eikanger

Crystal Eikanger is a freelance writer, web designer, video editor and voice talent working as Ei-Kan Productions on www.rentacoder.com as well as other freelance sites. www.HorseClicks.com is a popular website filled with classifieds of horses for sale, horse trailers, tack, and horse related properties.

The Colorado Ranger Is the Original Rocky Mountain High Horse

The Colorado Ranger Horse was named for its Colorado High Plains origin. Verbal references to those "range bred" horses eventually led to their being more commonly known as Rangerbreds or Rangerbred Horses. But despite its appearance, the Rangerbred is not a type of Appaloosa even though many Rangerbreds are double-registered with the Appaloosa Horse Clubs of both the United States and Canada. It has its own unique heritage.

Colorado Ranger Horses were bred for being cow savvy, and can anticipate the movements of cattle, and for their performance capabilities. They excel in ranch work with great stamina and do well in endurance competitions.

Colorado Ranger Horses are refined horses due to their Arabian/Barb ancestry and are compact animals, with powerful hindquarters. Like most popular breeds, Rangerbred sizes range from 14.2 to 16+ hands with the average height at 15.2 hands, and they have good dispositions.

Although the breed as we know it today is considered to have originated in America, its roots can be traced back to Constantinople, Turkey.

During 1878, General Ulysses S. Grant visited Sultan Abdul Hamid of Turkey as part of a world tour. The Sultan, in showing his regard for the General, gave him the gift of two desert stallions; a blue-gray Barb named Linden Tree and a gray Siglavy-Gidran Arab named Leopard. These horses are listed in the studbooks of both the Jockey Club and the Arabian Horse Club and their influence has touched almost every breed of horse in the United States.

These two horses went to Virginia at first, where they were used as foundation sires in a new breed of light-harness horse called the Americo Arab. But when the automobile was invented, along with other difficulties, the breeding project was discontinued in 1906 and his herd was disbanded.

So, Leopard and Linden Tree spent a season in Nebraska and sired a few foals, some spotted or colored, from the native mares of the General Colby Ranch. A.C. Whipple, of Kit Carson County in Colorado, obtained a herd of broodmares from the Colby Ranch who were all sired by either Linden Tree or Leopard. In addition, a black-eared white stallion named Tony was used as the herd stallion, because he was double bred to Leopard and was part of the family's extensive line-breeding program using Tony and his sons.

In the early 20th Century, Mike Ruby, of the Lazy J Bar Ranch, bought one of Tony's sons, a stallion named Patches and Max, son of Waldron Leopard. He used these stallions as the foundation sires of the new breed, in which unusual coloring was seen more and more frequently in his herd of more than 300 mares.

So, in essence, the Colorado Ranger was developed by Mike Ruby, who kept meticulous records on every foal that he bred. These records included foaling dates, coat patterns and complete pedigrees and are still in existence today with all horses still being recorded by hand in these ledgers, as well as by more modern methods in the Colorado Ranger breed registry.

After two leopard-patterned stallions were displayed at the Denver Stock Show, they created such a sensation that Mike Ruby was urged by the faculty of what is now Colorado State University to name this new breed of horse. And so the Colorado Ranger Horse was officially named in 1934 to reflect that they originated in Colorado and were bred and raised under range conditions.

And with the naming of the breed came the breed registry. The Colorado Ranger Horse Association (CRHA) is an older registry than the Appaloosa Horse Club (ApHC). In fact, it is the oldest of the western horse breed registries still in existence in the United States. It was founded in 1935 by Mike Ruby, who was its first president until his death in 1942. Its corporate charter was granted in 1938. Ironically, its home office is currently in Pennsylvania.

In the beginning, registration was limited only to the first 50 CRHA members, so a lot of true Rangerbreds were not allowed to be registered with CRHA. However, those horses with the appropriate color patterns were gladly accepted by the Appaloosa Horse Club which was another breed registry that was founded several months later. In 1964, the CRHA lifted the fifty member limit and registration was opened to all horses meeting the pedigree requirements, regardless of the owner's membership status. This enabled the CRHA to register many of the Appaloosas that had Rangerbred heritage that were "lost" to the organization for so many years.

About 90% of all registered Rangerbreds are also registered with the Appaloosa Horse Club, but not all Appaloosas are eligible for registration with the CRHA, unless they have the required pedigree that shows a direct descent from one of the two foundation stallions, Max #2 and/or Patches #1 in an unbroken line. Patches #1 was purchased from the Whipple Ranch and traces to both Leopard and Linden Tree. Max #2 came from the Governor Oliver Shoup ranch at Colorado Springs and is descended from Waldron Leopard.

While many Colorado ranger horses display the same color patterns as the appaloosa, the CRHA is a bloodline registry, not a color registry. In fact, color and markings are not considered in eligibility for registration, only ancestry is. The breed's founder wisely decided that a horse's ability has nothing to do with color of his coat.  

As with the Appaloosa Horse Club (ApHC), the CRHA recognizes the same approved outcrosses as the ApHC. The following breeds are considered as acceptable outcrosses for the Rangerbred and may be used in a CRHA Breeding Program: The American Jockey Club (TB), The American Quarter Horse Association (AQHA)., ApHC of USA, Canada & Foreign, The Arabian Horse Club (AHC), ARA-APP, and the International Colored Appaloosa Association (ICAA) (with certain reservations). The outcrossed mare must be registered with one of the above registries. Paints & pintos are not among these approved outcrosses.

Research indicates that one out of every eight Appaloosas is of Rangerbred heritage and also eligible for CRHA registration.


About Crystal Eikanger

Crystal Eikanger is a freelance writer, web designer, video editor and voice talent working as Ei-Kan Productions on www.rentacoder.com as well as other freelance sites. www.HorseClicks.com is a popular website filled with classifieds of horses for sale, horse trailers, tack, and horse related properties.